Weekend in SoCal – Part 2

On Sunday, it was Father’s Day.  We spent the morning at church and Jes’ dad got to show off his prized granddaughter.  Kumquat was pretty good during service but had a minor poopy blowout in the middle of it and I forgot the changing pad that has her diapers in it!  So, I had to go downstairs to the nursery and put on Size 3 diapers on her little butt in the meantime (she wears Size 1).  Oh well, it was better than a stinky baby!

In the afternoon, we hung out at the Magical House with Brother and Joy until it was time for dinner. This was Brother’s attempt at soothing the baby.  He’s gonna need some practice.

My mom gave Kumquat a bath while we went to lunch and even trimmed her nails!

Later that afternoon we found them napping together.

Before dinner, we went back to Buena Park to video chat with Jason and Jia.  They got to wish Dad a Happy Father’s Day and saw Kumquat very briefly.

Dinner was at a Japanese restaurant and Kumquat got to sit next to me in the booth.

On Monday morning, I stopped at McDonald’s to introduce Kumquat to the McCafe crew.

They were in the usual corner and finally got to meet the little baby that my parents have been raving about for the past two months.

Afterward, I met up with Patty and Patti for some coffee and breakfast at Panera Bread.

The rest of the afternoon was spent hanging out at The Magical House.  I brought home Chik-fil-a for everyone and Kumquat got to smell my dad’s tasty chicken sammich.

Later that evening, we took Kumquat to Downtown Disney for the first time.  All four grandparents came along and we had a nice evening stroll with the baby.

By the time we got home, we were all so pooped.  The baby fell asleep and Jes and I finally got some time to veg out in front of our laptops.  My mom took this photo and I didn’t even notice.

On Tuesday, we drove back up to SF with less traffic and made it home within 8 hours including a one-hour stop for lunch and multiple pee breaks and diaper changes.  Not too bad.

Weekend in SoCal – Part 1

This past weekend was our first trip home with Kumquat.  The drive down started out smoothly with Dog in the front seat and Kumquat in the back with me.  Unfortunately we hit construction traffic in Buttonwillow and then super traffic starting in Burbank.  Our trip ended up taking 10.5 hours that day!  Ouch.  Thankfully, Kumquat was on her best behavior and was an eating and sleeping machine.

As soon as we got to Cerritos, we dropped of Kumquat and Koa and got some tasty Mexican food and margaritas at Don Jose.  That really hit the spot.

On Saturday, it was filled with family festivities.  For lunch, we had dim sum at Capital Seafood in Irvine.  Kumquat was the star of the show and got to wear her purple dress again.

While we waited for our tables, we went next door to 85 degrees bakery to try their famous iced salted coffee and it was pretty good!  There was a good turnout and we took up two huge tables in the middle of the restaurant.

For dinner, we had a Thai feast with the cousins at Thai Nakorn as we always do when we’re in town.

Marie and the gang got to meet Kumquat for the first time and so did Pish and his clan.

We all stuffed ourselves silly and even got to snack on Peking Duck-flavored Lays potato chips.

Later that evening, we stopped at Ti and Thilan’s house to visit our “third family”, The Tranandos.  They were having a party for Elise’s birthday and they invited us over to join them.  All the kids got to meet Kumquat and Makenzie still remembered her friend Jesse.  It was so cute when they all swarmed the baby.

I also forgot how fun it is the sing the second verse of the “Happy Birthday” song.

Food Trucks!

Off the Grid came to my backyard last night.  They set up camp across the bridge near the other park that Koa goes to and we had dinner there last night.  Of all the choices, I wanted to try Sam’s ChowderMobile.

We ordered a clam chowder and ate it while we waited for the rest of our food and it was DElicious!

I got a Maine lobster roll, which was tasty and LOADED with lobster.

Jes got a shrimp po’boy and it really good too.  He’s pretty picky about his po’boys and this one passed.  It also came with seasoned fries.  Mmmm…

Jes also worked hard to not drop any shrimp on Kumquat’s head since she was bundled up in the front carrier.

Here she is in the carrier.  Looks comfy.  She has a good life.

Kumquat Update

If you’ve been to Kumquat’s tumblr site this past week, you’ve probably noticed the lack of new photos.  Well, it’s because I’ve migrated the content to a new domain, went back to good ol’ WordPress to publish, and Brother is hosting yet another one of my blogs. The reason for the move was that I was quickly feeling Tumblr’s limitations with personalization and security.  It only allowed for tags and not categories and I wasn’t really sure where my photos were being stored.  Now with the new and improved site, the photos are sitting in Brother’s server and my posts aren’t automatically available to anyone who is on tumblr and happens to be searching the word “smile” or “hello”, which were two of my tags.

Anyway, from now on, for your daily fill of Kumquat cuteness, go to: littlejanie.org

Now, there has been one more question that has been coming up.  People have been asking me, “What are you really calling her?  Janie?  Kaylee?”  Well, the answer for now is neither.  At home, Jes and I have been calling her “Baby” and “Kumquat”.  I’ve been referring to her as Janie on her blog to keep her a little more “anonymous” and I also really like the name.  However, it seems that she has chosen her name on her own.  She seems to be responding better to “Kaylee” when my mom calls her on FaceTime.  She’s called out “Janie” several times and “Kaylee” seems to get her attention and she’ll also smile.  Oh well, should have known that Jes’ daughter would make things difficult. 😉  So I think her name will be “Kaylee” after all but for now you can pretty much call her anything since she’s still so little.  Or she’ll just learn (like the dog has) to respond to several different names.  Heh heh.

Lunch with Elaine

Today Elaine took Caltrain up from San Jose to visit me and Kumquat.  We had lunch nearby and she got to feed and play with Kumquat.  This was the first time meeting her.

We were lucky to have such beautiful weather so we ate outside.  It was fun catching up and Kumquat had a great time with her too.

Wedding Weekend in Santa Cruz

This past weekend we drove down to Santa Cruz for Teresa and Aaron’s wedding.

Since I was in the wedding party, we were there on Friday afternoon for the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner.  The weather was really nice and sunny so Kumquat was able to wear the little dresses that we had packed away.

Our hotel suite was really nice and new and they even had a little welcome pack of baby lotion and soap for Kumquat.

On Saturday morning, Jes dropped me off at Rancho Soquel, which would be the wedding site.  The girls got ready in a little cottage and had a good time hanging out and having our hair and make-up done.  I loved how our dresses, flowers, Teresa’s shoes, and everything else at the wedding had the same vibrant purple.

Teresa was glowing and beautiful and luckily I was able to fit into my dress in time for the wedding.

It was a warm afternoon during the ceremony and I was so glad that I had chosen a strapless dress.  Kumquat was a trooper too and we fed her from a bottle all afternoon so that I could enjoy some champagne and wine.

Here’s a family photo that Stephanie took for us.

The gang from work also attended and we had a fun time together.

Kumquat was not only at her first wedding but also had a photo taken in the photobooth.

On Sunday morning, I met up with the gang for breakfast and got to enjoy a little more sun and had a view of the beach.

Then before heading back to SF, we stopped at Teresa’s parents’ house up on a hill and they had a HUGE backyard complete with full outdoor kitchen, pool, garden, and bocce ball court.

Jes made his own pizza in their woodfire oven. Awesome.

We had a great time in Santa Cruz and had our first experience traveling with a baby.  Overall, it wasn’t too hard and Kumquat did great all weekend.