Out with old In with the New

Year in Review - 2010

• Mason was born after giving us a little scare. I was on bedrest about 4-5 weeks before the due date, but he ended up arriving a less than a week from his due date. 
• Family from Japan visited to meet Mason
• Peter's brother got married. Yeah!
• Our friend Jocelyn got married. Yeah!
• One of our friends announced that they were expecting their first child. And it's a boy. 
• A few new additions to our circle of friends. Welcome Baby Mia, Lucas, and Baby Aly. (Hopefully I didn't miss any)
• I ran and finished my first half marathon. The training helped me lose all of Baby Mason's baby weight. Yippee! Now if only I can lose Maddie's last 10 lbs that I gained during his pregnancy. 
• Hubby ran his first two 10K race events in 2010. 
• We started buying/eating organic veggies and fruits. 
• The acquisition of Sun Microsystems (where I worked) by Oracle finally went through in Feb. 
• I officially became a stay at home mom on Dec 1st due to Oracle finally laying me off. 
• Peter's company formally announced they are moving their company to Houston. Booooooo
• Maddie started preschool which accelerated his learning and independence. Unfortunately we had to pull him out when I was laid off. 

What's in store for 2011?

• Received my first unemployment check. Whoo hooo
• Run a couple of half marathons (Peter's first half marathon)
• Continue working out and running
• Continue to buy/eat organic food and start introducing more and more organic items. 
• I will cut out all meats from my diet (chicken, beef, pork, etc) for the year. 

Starting out in 2011 there are already many unknowns (ie. job/career, relocate or not), but we know we will always end up where we need to be. With lots of diamoku (prayer) we'll always end up on top no matter what. =)
We're just grateful that we're all healthy, have two great kids, have a roof over our heads, and at least one of us is employed. 


Here's wishing everyone a prosperous and memorable 2011. 

Happy New Year!

Happy 2011. Hope everyone is getting off to a good start in the new year.

The Bubbas rang in the new year in Reno. We stayed at a the Grand Sierra Resort hotel because they had a bunch of things the kids could do. They have bowling, arcade, outdoor go-kart and bumper cars, and miniature golfing. On NYE day we took Maddie bowling for the first time. He was excited at first but lost interest pretty fast. Probably because he had to wait for his turn. We spent $5 at the arcade room, which was a bit disappointing. It was smaller than what we had imagined. Nothing like the one at Circus Circus.

At night we were planning on joining in on the countdown at our hotel/casino, but at the last minute decided to head to downtown Reno to join the rest of the drunk and crazy people. We figured since it was Mason's first New Year's Eve celebration we should do it right. Boy it was freezing outside. Luckily we brought up snow gear for the kids so they could be warm and bundled up. We on the other hand only had our jackets, scarf, and gloves. We parked on the other side of the river and walked over to the main strip 15 minutes before the countdown. We didn't get right in with the crowd, but close enough to be part of it. They lit the sky with fireworks shooting off from the rooftop of the main hotel/casinos and had a live band playing on the outdoor stage. Towards the end of the fireworks we worked our way back to the car and went back to the hotel to get some shut eye. The kids were knocked out as soon as drove off.


On New Year's day, to our surprise, we woke up to snow. It's so beautiful to watch snow flakes falling, but we also knew we had to get out of there soon before we got stuck.

.

Happy Holidays!

Hope everyone's holidays was joyous. We spent ours with our boys and ended up running around the city Christmas eve. Not the running around from one event to another kind. Instead at the last minute we decided to take the boys to get their photo taken with Santa. We got there 30 minutes before the mall closed and stood in line for about an hour. They were nice enough to continue taking pictures after all the stores had closed.






After a successful photo with Santa (no crying but had to do a little coaxing) we left and headed to Ghiradelli square to check out the decorated Christmas tree and lights. Unfortunately the hubby forgot to recharge it after coming back from our So.Cal trip and our camera ran out of batteries Luckily we had my point and shoot camera in the glove compartment. We took one last pit stop at City Hall before heading home and getting ready for Santa's visit.

 Christmas Day- It was raining all day, but we didn't let that spoil our fun. The boys opened their presents while we enjoyed our coffee. Mason mainly received new clothes and Maddie received a combination of clothes, toys, videos and video games. They are very spoiled, or blessed. However you want to look at it.Spent the rest of the day indoors relaxing and at night we took our annual trip to "Fantasy of Lights".Well it's our second year and most likely we'll make it an annual tradition for as long as the boys continue to enjoy it. I just wish they would change it up a little each year. 


And that was our Christmas. =)

Full-time Stay at Home Mom

I have officially become a full-time stay at home mom (SAHM). Technically it started Dec 1st, but with the last week of day care and then another week of vacationing it really didn't start til the week of Dec 13th.  We had to pull both kids out of daycare and preschool, but it also means I get to spend more time with them for a little while.

This whole unemployment process is new to me and a bit overwhelming. The people on the phone aren't too friendly, but who can blame them. They probably hear the same story over and over again that they've become emotionally detached. I just hope I did everything correctly and it starts to kick in soon.

Now I'm just waiting for my severance check to arrive. Tick tock tick tock....

So.Cal Trip

My girlfriend and I have been planning this trip for about a year now.  I think her and I were more excited than our kids or husbands. It's great to have friends with kids around the same age as yours. Makes vacationing a bit more interesting, and watching the boys react to new experiences is so fun. This year we took the boys (age 3 and 4) and the babies (1 1/2 and 6 months) to Disneyland for two days, Legoland for a day and then San Diego Zoo for another day.

At Disneyland we did the 2-day hopper, which surprisingly wasn't enough days to get through all the rides. It doesn't help when you have kids that needs to be fed and changed every so often, but I think the boys were able to get on a good amount of rides for the 2 days. The boys got to enjoy driving cars at Autopia, riding the submarine, Toontown at Disneyland, and the train ride and bumper cars at California Adventures. We even took them on the Pirates of Caribbean and the Haunted House. The adults were able to enjoy a quick ride on Indiana Jones and Space Mountain. The first night we stayed to watch the holiday parade and the fireworks in Disneyland. The second night we stayed to watch World of Color at California Adventures. The cool thing was Baby Mason was able to ride many of the family rides, so all 8 of us could enjoy the rides together.

We didn't get the chance to check out the holiday decorations at The Grove nor eat at one of the top rated (according to Rameniac/Yelp) ramen places. I think next time we need to include one day for shopping and sight seeing.

Days 4-7 we stayed in Carlsbad, CA. (About 30 min north of San Diego)
Legoland was a huge success for the boys. Unfortunately Legoland has strict height requirements so Baby Zoee couldn't ride all the ones the boys were riding on and Mason couldn't ride on any. The boys loved driving the cars on their own, and surprisingly enough they were able to drive it themselves (steering, turning, passing).

The San Diego Zoo was a nice change of pace. We took our own time walking through parts of the zoo, and then we decided to take the bus tour. With the bus tour you got to see much of the zoo and the animals we wanted to see. We didn't feel like walking much more after 3 days of constantly being on your feet, so we felt the bus tour satisfied our needs. We did go back to see the pandas before leaving the park.

We took hundreds of pictures, so if you'd like to check them out please visit our picasa web album. 

Making baby food

I have succumb to making baby food instead of buying already made baby food in a jar. Now that I'm leaning more towards organic food and searching for non GMO products, I decided that I should start making my own baby food. Why didn't I do that with my first born you ask? Well, I really thought this whole organic thing was over hyped and a marketing ploy. I felt since I grew up with store bought baby food, ate non organic foods and was doing just fine, my kids would be fine too. But now that I've read too many articles, if I can do anything to keep them healthy and cancer free then choosing to go organic couldn't hurt.

A good friend of ours lent us their Beaba Baby Cook, and it's been great. I made my little guys his first homemade sweet potato baby food on Thanksgiving. This thing steams the food, and then it puree the food. I still give him store bought baby (organic) baby food, but it's mainly for when we travel. Plus I think he likes the homemade ones better.

Now I just need to go through the baby food recipe book to see what else I can make. =)

Baby's first Thanksgiving

The Bubba Family had a nice quiet drama free Thanksgiving dinner, just the four of us. The hubby smoked a small organic turkey, I made the butternut squash and sweet potatoes, stir fried some kale, made matsutake gohan (rice) for the first time, and enjoyed some wine and desserts afterwards. We didn't have to worry about planning some elaborate dinner, getting the house cleaned and set up, or face the major clean up that normally happens after a big turkey dinner. We didn't have to be somewhere by a certain time, we didn't have to get us and the kids ready. It really was a nice relaxing day for us. Very refreshing.