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Alameda Residents

By beakatude
on Apr 13, 2017
in family, kumquat, life, peanut

On 3/13/17, we became residents of Alameda. We picked up the keys and Peanut had his first day of daycare.

On 3/14/17, the moving company came and took all our belongings to the new house. We had dinner at Angel Fish Sushi and then stopped at our new Safeway for some milk and other essential items.

My mom came to help watch the kids while we did lots of trips back and forth across the bay to pick up the remaining items. We’ve also had to make a few trips to Target and Home Depot. Best of all, she helped out with getting Peanut ready for school and doing the drop-off/pick-up during the first couple weeks.

KK has adjusted to her new suburban life and loves it. She comes home afterschool and looks forward to playing outside.

Her commute to the city everyday with Dada started out a little rough but they’ve figured out the TransBay Bus and Ferry schedules over the past couple weeks. When they’re stuck in traffic on the bus, KK plays some reading games on her iPad. Thankfully the bus has WiFi.

Most days, they take the Ferry across the bay since it’s more comfortable and a short 25-minute trip versus 45. They also allow you to eat and drink on the ferry and has a bathroom.

It’s funny that KK is literally the only kid on the boat everyday.

One of the benefits of this new house is having a greenbelt away from the street and a playground structure right out front. This is the welcome mat that we got from the bank when we closed escrow. Haha.

While KK is outside playing, we’ve trained Peanut to sit in the doorway while Mama is doing housework.

KK also made a friend. His name is Gavin and lives next door. He’s turning 5 in May and they may end up in the same Kindergarten class together in the fall! Here they are playing with the water hose and catching earthworms in the puddles that formed after the rain.

These two play together everyday. Gavin often rings out doorbell asking if KK can come out and play. It’s pretty hard getting them to come back in for dinner lately. His mom is really nice and has given some insight on the families that live around us. We also help each other watch the kids while they’re outside.

So far, we’ve enjoyed the Mexican restaurant that is walking distance from the house. They made a pretty good house margarita and their free chips/salsa are tasty. So far, the carnitas and enchiladas are pretty good!

My commute takes longer than it used to but it’s nice to know that I am on the same side of the bay as at least one of my kids now. I leave the house between 7:00-7:15 with Peanut, drop him off, and get to work by 8:00. Jes leaves around 8:00 to catch the 8:30 ferry and KK gets dropped off around 9:15 everyday. I get to Peanut’s school after work around 5:15 to pick him up while KK and Jes get on the 5:35pm ferry and get home by 6:15pm.

Peanut probably had the toughest transition to the new house and schedule. He still cries at drop off but it only takes 2-3 minutes for him to settle down. His teachers tell us that he enjoys school and only need Boo-Boo for nap time. His naps have also lengthened to about 2 hours everyday. Unfortunately, he’s totally pooped by the end of the day and barely lasts through an early dinner. Bedtime has been closer to 6:30 or 7:00 now. On our first night in the house, he woke up and cried at least 3 times. Now he sleeps through through the night and can go almost 12 hours!

The past month has been rough and filled with lots of changes but in the end it’s worth it. These two kids have more space to play, their own rooms, and a whole new world to explore. Best of all, they have 13 years of good free public education ahead of them.

Too many changes

By beakatude
on Mar 10, 2017
in *sniff*, babies, kumquat, life, peanut

Today was definitely a day of changes. First, we finalized our loan and title for the new house. We gave them our down payment and signed a big stack of papers. The purchase will be recorded with the county on Monday morning.

Second, it was Mirian’s last day with us. In the morning, KK gave Mirian a big hug and Mirian said to her “tell your Mama to take a picture of your new house and send it to me, ok?”

Andrea and Peanut had their last day together and Mirian got this really cute photo of them together at the playground.

Third, I had my own goodbye today at work. My long-time PT partner, dear friend, and fellow trouble-maker had her last day as a full-time employee. She accepted a part-time position at Kaiser Oakland and will be returning to work only on Tuesdays. Although I know she will be back once per week, it will be sad to look over at her desk on the other days and see no one (or someone else!) sitting there. At least I know we’ll still see each other outside of work.

After work, we did our usual meet-up in the garage and we had to say our final goodbye to Mirian. We’ve been blessed to have such a consistent person in our life for both kids. She has taken such good care of them, taught them Spanish, and gave them such fun experiences around the neighborhood. We wish her the best of luck in finding a new family soon.

With so many changes happening at once, it’s hard to really process it all in the moment. We’ll see if I have a meltdown in a couple weeks when it all sinks in. We get the keys on Monday and the movers come to take our stuff across the Bay on Tuesday. This move is really happening!!!

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The SF Bucket List

By beakatude
on Feb 21, 2017
in life

I’ve been in a little denial about our move out of SF. It’s not that I don’t look forward to our new home but we’ve had a really fun time here in the city and there are so many things I will miss. It’s this view that I will miss the most. I drove on this bridge 5 days a week and walked under it almost every weekend.

We started out as a couple with disposable income and a dog that got walked every morning and afternoon. We went out for a fancy meal every Wednesday night and took Koa to Fort Funston most weekends. Now we have two kids, no dog, and rarely leave the house after 7pm but still manage to live an urban life filled with bus rides, busy streets, a crowded Safeway, and taking a stroller instead of a car around town. I’m glad that KK had the chance to be a city kid for a while and had the opportunity to ride public transportation to school everyday, see construction trucks on a regular basis, and really learn the rules of the road as a pedestrian.

Here’s a list of my favorite things to do. Some are things I will want to continue to do even when we live in Alameda and some are just nostalgic and will remind me of the last 10 years here.

Ferry Plaza Marketplace and Saturday Farmers Market
Running on The Embarcardero
Hog Island Oyster Company
Taking the kids to the different playgrounds in the neighborhood
Walking home from lunch or dinner along the water and enjoying the view
Washington Bakery/Chinatown
Spark SF and SoMa StrEAT Food Parks
Taking the train or bus around town
SF Zoo
California Academy of Sciences
Fort Funston
Fleet Week/Blue Angels
Fireworks on July 4th and NYE
Baseball games and other events at AT&T Park
Various street fairs and festivals around the neighborhood
Being able to go shopping without a car
Light-up Night to kick off the holiday season

Here is a list of things that we should do before we move:

Take KK on a real SF Trolley ride
Eat at Public House (we did this last week)
Eat at Ozone Thai
Eat at La Briciola (2/23/17)
Eat at Fringale
Eat at Little Skillet
Eat at Nama Sushi (3/1/17)
Eat at SparkSF (2/24/17)
Have KK ride her scooter along The Embarcadero

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And the countdown begins…

By beakatude
on Feb 09, 2017
in life, projects

The search is over! We bid on a townhouse in Alameda and our offer was accepted!! We signed the papers this morning before work and I was a ball of nerves all day. This is Jes reading the text message from our realtor.

KK was super happy to hear that we got “the house with the playground” and we all toasted our “victory”. Even Peanut joined in on the celebration.

So, we’ll be getting our loan finalized this week and we’ll have 30 days until we will get our keys. It’s exciting but also a bittersweet move for me. I love where we live and how easy it is to do stuff without having to pile everyone into the car. But the kids will be getting bigger and we have truly used up every square inch of our home already. I’ll write more about my SF Bucket List in another post. Instead, here are some pictures of the house.

Here’s the front (the one with the teal door). The two windows on the second floor have access to a balcony and they will be the kids’ rooms.

This is the entryway. To the right of the stairs (not pictures) is the washer/dryer room and half-bathroom. To the left is the front room (probably going to be our dining room) and kitchen.

Here’s the kitchen. It’s clean, simple, and could use some new appliances but totally functional. We are thinking of renovating the whole kitchen in the near future and hope to include a gas range if we can find the right guys to help us run gas into the house. We are also happy that this house has a hood that vents smoke out of the house. It’ll be nice to have a home that doesn’t get all smokey every time Jes decides to pan-sear meat.

Here is the view through the kitchen to the front room and to the front of the house.

This is the front room. It’s staged as a small livingroom but we will probably just put the dining table in here. There’s a view of the green belt in front where the kids can run around (away from the street).

Here’s the infamous playground that KK is so excited about. She’s stoked to have a play structure just steps from her front door.

Here is the back of the house – it’s a good-sized family room and dining area (that we may just use for something else).

I love how much light comes through despite having shared walls with neighbors on both sides.

There’s a patio in the back that also connects to the two-car garage. It’s small but just enough for some grilling and outdoor eating and play.

Upstairs has three bedrooms and two full bathrooms. This is one of the kids’ rooms. Actually KK has already claimed this as hers (“the one on the left)”. We’ll see if she sticks to this decision based on a 5-minute Open House we attended last weekend.

There’s so much to love about this home:

The price: It’s much less than the other houses we’ve looked at and bid on over the past 9 months. It’ll mean we can live in a bigger home for almost the same price we’re paying now for our condo in the city.
The location: It’s on Bay Farm Island, which gives Jes and KK access to the ferry and transbay bus that can take them straight to work/school. We’ll also be walking distance (0.7 miles) to a Safeway and Jimmy and Eleen are a 5-minute drive or 23-minute walk away (1.2 miles). The distance to work for me will be about the same.
The school district: The main reason we were looking to move was to provide a good education to our kids without going through a lottery system or paying for private school. The ratings for the public schools are 10-10-9 for elementary, middle, and high school respectively.
Space: 3 bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms, a patio, and two-car garage are plenty for us to grow into.

This market has been ridiculous and I’m so relieved that the hunt is over. We have spent so many weekends dragging our kids from house to house on the weekends (and in the rain) and bidding on houses we knew were way overpriced. The last house we bid on had 15 offers and we were only #8 in line!! Right before we found this house, we were on the brink of either overpaying for another tiny house (like 1.2 million for a 2 bedroom bungalow) or just giving up and spending $26,000/year to send KK to private school in the city for another year. This was our last-ditch effort and I’m so happy it turned out the way it did.

Alameda, here we come!!!

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Year in Review 2016

By beakatude
on Jan 01, 2017
in family, friends, holidays, life

Happy 2007!! We had a fun 2016 and this is a recap of the past 12 months.

January

Super Bowl 50 took over SF even though it was held 50 miles away.
Jesse traveled to Grenoble, France for work.
I went back to work after a 7-month maternity leave.
Unfortunately, it was also a month that started a string of illnesses in our house.
Chinese New Year was spent at Yank Sing with the Bangs and Sokol-Juns again.
January was also a sad month for us because we had to say goodbye to Jason, Jia, and twins. They were moving to Southern California.

February

February continued with each of us taking turns getting sick. I missed a lot of work.
We also took KK out for a special outing to see Frozen on Ice and then ice cream at Fenton’s.
On Valentine’s Day, I had to prepare my first batch of classroom valentines. We opted for pencils and DumDums.

March

March was a fun month. We were all well again and it snowed enough to take the kids to Tahoe for the first time.
We also spent many weekends at the SF zoo, Oakland zoo, or aquarium.

April

Of course, April was all about KK’s birthday. She turned 4 this year and had multiple celebrations.
We took a flight down to Cerritos to have a celebration with Jes’ family at the beginning of the month.
Jes traveled to Grenoble, France again for a week. My mom came up to help again. Thanks, Mom.
Then the night before her birthday, we took her out to a Giants game. She had such a good time.
On the day of her birthday, her teachers made a crown for her and we brought cupcakes to the class at the end o the day. We continued that celebration across the street with Happy Hour oysters for the birthday girl.
Later that weekend, my family flew up and we threw a big party with her buddies in our Clubroom. It was an Octonauts party!

May

In May, I had my own Mother’s Day celebration with Ranee and Ishya. We spent the morning/lunchtime boozin’, brunchin’, and getting our nails done. Good times.
Teresa had her second baby, Hudson, and I was fortunate enough to meet him on his first day of life.
Jesse traveled to Paris, France for a week and I was on my own. My mom was in Thailand this month for my cousin’s wedding.
Huy was also in town this month and we met up for Dim Sum.
May was also the start (and end) of cherry season and we took the kids out to Brentwood to pick their own fruit.
This was also the month that we started the house hunt in Alameda. We bid on a house for the first time.

June

In early June, we flew down to Cerritos to celebrate Toni and Thomas’ first birthday.
Father’s Day was celebrated at Hillstone.
We had some warm days and went over to Ranee and Jamie’s house to swim in their pool.
The Beach Volleyball Tournament also came to SF so we got to watch all the action up close.

July

July was Peanut’s month. We celebrated his 1st birthday in Cerritos. Unfortunately, he wanted nothing to do with his birthday cake – three different times!!
It was also KK’s last month as an Alligator and had to say goodbye to her teachers Denise and Sharla.
We had some more warm days and had Rowan and Isla come over for a day at our pool.
This was also the month that the whole Pokemon Go craze began. We too got sucked in and spent lots of time walking the streets of SF looking for Pikachu.

August

August was a big transition month. KK had to start not only a new class but a whole new school. Luckily she had a couple friends from her old class also starting at the same time, which helped her feel more at ease.
Jesse traveled to Singapore and my mom came up to help for the week.
We also went to quite a few baseball games. I went solo one day with Stephanie and Chris (from work) and then we all went as a family another day and met up with Ranee and family.
This month was also a big transition for me as a mom. I stopped breastfeeding and pumping, threw away the parts, and gave away my pump. It was a bittersweet couple of days.

September

We started September in Mexico. We took a long weekend trip to Los Cabos and stayed at the Sheraton Resort. It was deserted and we had a fun time swimming in a different pool each day.
We celebrated Jes’ 41st birthday at Hillstone. It seems to be his go-to place for every celebration.
The weather was nice enough for a hike so we went to Muir Woods one morning. It was perfect for Peanut to try out his new walking legs.
I took the day off for my birthday and Jes took me to Chez Panisse for lunch. We then came home for pizza and ice cream with the kids. It was perfect.

October

October started out with one more birthday celebration for me. I invited all the girls from work to Spark SF for s’mores and food truck eats.
The kids got their first haircuts at Jes’ Supercuts across the street.
We also traveled to Cerritos to celebrate Alice’s 3rd birthday. We all went to Mickey’s Halloween Party that weekend.

November

November was when the weather started to get chillier.
Once again, we went to Light-up Night but our numbers dwindled down to two families. The Osbornes were brave enough to come out to the city and we watched the fireworks together.
For Thanksgiving, Jason and Jia drove up and we spent the long weekend together. Jes cooked turkey and all the usual fixings for the whole family. It was nice to have them around again.

December

Once again, December was a fun and exciting month.
We went to Hawaii at the beginning of the month and had a blast. The Tsaos were also there, which made it even more fun at the pool and beach.
We also gave house hunting one last try and didn’t get the house we wanted. It’ll be back to the drawing board in the new year but we still have some time before Kindergarten starts.
At the end of the month, we drove down to Cerritos and spent a week there with family.
Christmas Eve was at Disneyland and Christmas was at Jason and Jia’s house.
We also took the kids to Knott’s Berry Farm for the first time.
New Year’s Eve was spent at home in our pajamas watching TV.

It was a fun but sometimes stressful year with the house-hunting, Jesse traveling more, and two growing kids. Peanut finally learned how to sleep through the night and KK has really settled into her Pre-K classroom. As a family, we continue to travel together, eat together, and often struggle together. But in the end, we are still our little family of four and ready to take on 2017.

Christmas Break 2016

By beakatude
on Dec 30, 2016
in family, holidays, outta here, yum

Christmas Break has come and gone but we had such a nice time with the family. On Christmas morning, Jes went over to Jason and Jia’s to start the roast. They used a blowtorch to brown the outside (as recommended by Thomas Keller himself) and the twins had a front row seat to all the action.

Then the grandparents came over and the kids had fun playing with them.

Jes made his tasty standing rib roast complete with all the fixings. These are the Yorkshire pudding pop-overs. Yum.

We also managed to get a family photo with everyone looking at the camera!! Too bad Peanut smudged the lens and I didn’t bother to check until AFTER the photo was taken. Oh well.

The rest of the week was spent just hanging out with the family.

KK and Alice got lots of play time together. They can play for hours now with hardly any tears.

KK spent an afternoon with Jes’ parents while Peanut napped and had fun catching fish and baking cookies.

Peanut got a bunch of new outfits for Christmas including this handsome ensemble.

KK also went out to breakfast with my parents on her own while Mama and Peanut slept in.

One evening, we had dinner with my side of the family. I love these traditions. It always starts with a Thai feat and ends with a frenzy of presents for the kids.

One morning, I wasn’t feeling well and the house didn’t have electricity so the kids went out for a walk at the mall while I slept. It’s so nice to have family around to help.

We got to take KK to see Moana while Peanut went to a party with my mom and dad. Parts of the movie were funny and others were so scary they made her cry. Fortunately, she was able to stay in the theater the whole time. It’s an improvement from her first movie (Finding Dory) when she actually had to walk out of the theater and come back in with a lot of coaxing.

We also took KK and Peanut to Knott’s Berry Farm for the first time. Unfortunately, it was extra crowded that day and the lines were horribly long.

We did, however, got some photos with Snoopy – even Santa Snoopy!!

On our last day, we had a full day to spend with the family before driving through the night.

These funny kids loved the dry ice that comes out of the mixers at Creamistry.

Here’s our annual family photo. Can’t wait to add Brother’s new baby girl to the photo next time!!

As usual, we got a photo of the kids with the grandparents in front of my childhood home.

Before heading out, we had dinner with Jes’ family. We got a cute photo of the kids with their Uncle Jason. So sweet.

The drive back was pretty quick. We left at about 7:30pm and the kids passed out right away. The only scary part was thick fog that we encountered mid-way through the drive. The visibility was poor and we had to drive 40 mph for a good 8-mile stretch. Luckily, it didn’t last the whole way and we were home by 1:40am. Not too shabby.

Alameda Residents

Too many changes

The SF Bucket List

And the countdown begins…

Year in Review 2016

Christmas Break 2016

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