Ashley's Update

 In another month, Ashley will be two! I am so excited that she is becoming more and more interactive.  She loves playing with her sisters, she is always asking about Jie Jie, Gor Gor, Ambers, Baba when they are not around.  She is not happy to say good bye to me in the morning when Nora arrives, as long as she had a good 10 hour sleep.  She is sleeping through the night.  The routine now is that I put her to sleep and Scott sleeps with her until it's time to wake up.  This school year, Adam is very ambitious to wake up early so we are all earlier, I make their lunches and leave by 7:30AM.  Adam gets really anxious to get to school early and the sisters all follow his timeline.  He can be very pushy and gives everyone a rude awakening but he is getting better.   

We dont have soccer anymore but Adam is enjoying to play baseball.  He is so good at it and I really want him to try to be in a league.  He is still doing ballet and piano.  Amber is now in level 3b and the both are taking a role in the nutcracker.  Alice loves talking about her friends and is recently saying her heart out in her showers all Taylor Swift songs.  She is currently playing Fearless on the piano and it's a slow start.  

Alice asks all the right questions and she is so smart but she doesnt know it yet.  Adam is starting to play Zelda, Amber is always surprising me with all her best intentions.  She is one who remembers about her ballet shoes, ballet class, homework, and helping me all the time.  She blows kisses and gives me a distant hug when she leaves to the school.  These are the days I just want to remember forever.  As much as I dread dropping them off and picking them up from school - I love how we get a chance to talk in that 15 min ride in the morning.  

As we are planning to move to our new location in Glendora, we might try to change schools because it is too hard to pick them up.  We ll see though...

Ashley right now still is a great eater.  She loves to build, loves to play with cars and loves Doreamon ever since we bought that diaper in Japan.  She is loud, loves to scream and screams louder when she dislike something.  She sings, a lot.  She loves Tearing up my heart, let it go and trolls songs.  She loves watching TV with them and I love it when she says "Mum-mum" when we go to any restaurant.  

Love these two together.  Ashley adores her big brother.

This little chicka is the cutest.  I loves me kissing her and I love to call her mika maka.

Last of Summer 2023

 The rest of the summer flew by with a wedding (Tammy's), birthday party with water slide (Chelseas), summer school, Jolie's birthday party, soccer camp with Gautum, night at a tree house in Brea, Yakult factory, Bradbury night out, and our Japan and Hawaii trip.  The kids did their part with work and I worked and just made sure they are all staying active.  

Our Japan trip finally happened after months and months of planning.  I think we did everything right except me not adding Ashley to Zipair until the very last minute which ended up into a very costly ticket by Hawaiian airline.  We also arrived in Honolulu on the day when Maui was indulged in flames by the heavy wind.  Luckily we were not affected (except our kayak tour got cancelled).  

The highlight of Japan was the Mt Fuji climb with my brother and Adam.  We started the morning with checking out of our airbnb and going to the ANA air hangar tour - then renting a car to drive to Hakone and made it in time to the last bus to the Fujinomiya trail (5th Station) to begin the ascend at 5PM.  Made it to the hut at 10PM and slept until 1AM/2AM and slowly got everyone up to see the sunset glow at 4:15AM.  We reached the summit by 6AM and started the descend at 7AM to the Gotemba Trail and arrived at the Gotemba 5th New Station at 12:45PM.  By then - your mind and body just want to reach the end  and basically started to question things like "are you ever going to make it out of here?"

I picked the Fujinomiya trail because it was the shortest and easiest.  (yes and no).  We also picked the Gotemba trail because it was closest to our next destination and also it was the fastest. (yes and no).  Turned out that both of these were the most challenging according to another blogger/climber.  I would love to blog more in detail of our journey to Mt Fuji either on Youtube or on my pending travel blog.  Until then, I am trying to retain as many details as I can do I can share it.

So many memories from this summer, so many favorite memories.  As much as it was a lot of work, a lot of pressure, and can be exhausting, I always look back and I never regret it.