Monterey
We met up with Brother, Joy, and the parents in Monterey for a long weekend. We drove down on Thursday afternoon and stayed in a house that we rented through airbnb that was complete with a big kitchen, lots of bedrooms, a playhouse in the back, and media room downstairs.
It was fun hanging out with the family and seeing Kumquat and Alu playing together.
The weather was also warm enough to go to the beach after dinner on Thursday.
Kumquat was initially scared of the waves again but warmed up much quicker than usual.
We also managed to get a family photo together without any scowls or squirming.
On Friday, we went to Monterey Bay Aquarium. Thanks for the passes, Jimmy!!
It was Kumquat’s first time and it was fun to see it through her eyes.
For dinner, Jes grilled some tasty steaks and Jia and Jason drove down to join us for the evening.
The next morning (Saturday), we packed up and before heading our separate ways, we stopped Dennis the Menace Park.
They had some really fun slides there.
What a fun weekend with family!! So glad we were able to make this happen. I miss having them around all the time.
On Sunday, we went to the Cal Academy for the members-only hour. I can’t believe our membership will expire this month. Seems like we just joined. Glad we got to go more than enough to make up the cost.
Afterward, we visited the Japanese Tea Garden for the first time. 
It’s just across the street and it’s a lot bigger inside than I expected.
They have an actual tea house inside where we had some tea and tako yaki.
As soon as she woke up, we packed up our stuff and headed back out for a train ride to the Bangs’ for a BBQ. We started planning this BBQ since beginning of May and only recently found a mutual free weekend.
It was fun catching up and to see all the kids together. At one point, all the kids were in the backyard and Jesse was the only adult. He had a moment of panic and yelled, “Hey, I think we probably need one more adult out here.” He did just fine for those 10 minutes. Click 
On 
After a 2-hour nap/break at home, we all headed back out. We went to Union Square and found lots of party-goers finishing up them Pride Weekend festivities. We opted for drinks and sweets at a cafe overlooking the street, which was so nice.
For dinner, we went to Kin Khao (literal translation in Thai: eat rice). It’s created by Pim, a famous food blogger that Jes has been following for years. She was actually working there and served a couple of our dishes. The menu consists of dishes that are her playful twist on traditional Thai dishes. Some of them are actually spicy enough for Jesse to appreciate too. The papaya salad was legit, fried chicken was good and came with sticky rice made the right way, and the massaman curry was made with short ribs. Overall, it was a fun dinner but I don’t know if I’ll be going back there. When I’m in the mood for Thai food, I want the real stuff and lots of it for a cheaper price. Most of the dishes were good but made me crave dinner at Thai Nakorn.
It’s the first day of summer and the longest day of the year! In the morning, we went to the SF Zoo and met up with Ranee, Jamie, and Sophie. It was so fun to see the girls interacting and it seemed like it didn’t take as long for them to warm up to each other. It was also nice to catch up with Ranee since I hadn’t seen her since the beginning of the month before she started her maternity leave.
We then walked home down The Embarcadero and it still wasn’t dark. What a nice way to kick off the summer!
For PoPo’s funeral services, we went down to Southern California for a long weekend. We drove down on Friday morning and went straight to the viewing at Rose Hills. It was a long drive (as usual) but we lucked out with a smooth ride and not too much trouble from the toddler. 
Here we are at the truck stop and the video below is our selfie video in the car. Jes was being a papa bird taking the pits out of the cherries for the baby bird.
On Saturday morning, we all got up early to get to the funeral service. The family had put together such a nice slideshow that ran at the beginning of the service.
We all share stories about PoPo with the congregation and soon it was time for the burial. 
The whole ceremony and service was really nice and we all had the closure that we needed.
Here they are “watching” a YouTube video together. So cute…
On Monday morning, we took our time getting up and Kumquat even had enough time to go play at the park nearby. 
We had a smooth drive up to SF with no traffic and we also stopped at Gilroy for some outlet shopping and dinner. So, we ended up getting home around 9pm instead of the estimated 5pm time. Oh well. At least it was a good weekend.
On our way to the Bay Area Discovery Museum, we were talking about how fun it would be to have a GoPro for outings like these. So, to satisfy the itch, we stopped at Sports Basement to check them out.
They had the model we were considering AND it was at a slight discount AND I got 15% off for being a therapist. Woot! Jes sat down in the store and put it together. We charged it on the drive to the museum and when we arrived it was ready to go!
We also captured video, of course.
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