Chester is jumping!

Summer vacation - Day 3 & 4

Haley has been asking to swim since the last day of the trip.  She was so excited and couldn't wait to put on her swimsuit as soon as she woke up in the morning.  It was so relaxing to soak in the jacuzzi after swimming.

We visited the Griffith Park.  There is a small track to ride ponies, and we can choose a slow or medium bumpy ride.  Haley of course played safe and chose the slow ride.  She stayed cool the whole time she was on the pony.  We tried to put Chester on the carnival kind of pony ride which ponies only walked around in circle, but Chester screamed his lung out and tried to escape when we tried to put him on.

Yeah!  We were ready for a train ride.  We met many horses and a coyote through our journey.

 Choo Choo!

Fanfare Fountain in San Pedro.  We intended to play with the water and get all wet, but Haley and Chester think the musical fountain is too loud.  We ended up watching all the other kids got splashed 

by the water.

Thank you daddy for taking us on a road trip.  Although it's not a theme destination trip, we all had a fun relaxing journey.  We especially thank grandma and grandpa for coming along with us and taking care of us throughout the vacation.  Both Haley and Chester behaved very well on the road.  LOOK!  Haley is very responsible!  She took care of her own suitcase which Chester and herself packed their favorite toys to take along.

Summer Vacation - Day 2

The next day we visited the Pismo Beach, it has a very long shoreline with beautiful white sand.  We took a walk on the pier to watch the surfers and the birds.

 

 Chester chased Haley on the pier.  He refused to walk on it after he realized it's water underneath.

 

 Chester said hi to the big bird.

We then stopped at the Danish Town in Solvang for lunch and picked up some delicious pastries and cookies.

 

 Sharing their first big lalipop.

 The lalipops became one of their highlights for the day.

The first destination in Los Angeles is Santa Monica.  Haley and Chester had a blast playing in this indoor play structure.

 

 

Summer vacation - Day 1

We decided to take a road trip down south before school begins at the end of August.  It was a 4 days 3 nights trip with grandparents.  We stopped by Morro Bay in San Luis Obispo county for a night before continuing our journey to Los Angeles.  It was cloudy at Morro Bay, but we still enjoyed the sand and the view of the big Morro rock.  We also watched the sea otters comfortably swim in the water too. 

Chester freaked out and refused to stand on the sand at first, but soon he loves to play with it.

 

 Grandma & grandpa tried to fly the kites.  They are so sweet!

 Haley was very brave to walk out to the ocean to get water with daddy.

The next stop was the Avila Valley Barn.  We bought some lettuces to feed the farm animals.  Other than the common farm animals like cow, pig, goat, this barn had some special animals such as emu and llama.

 Enjoyed some fresh plums and apricots from the produce stall.

My greatest Olympians

Printing the Olympics rings 

 One of my greatest Olympians

 My other Olympian.

VBS - National Park

We learned the five true natures of God in this week's VBS: True peace, true riches, true power, true love and true hope.  God will give us these true natures if we choose to believe in Him.  There are 205 children from preschool to junior high in this week's VBS.  I volunteered in Haley's preschool class.  Our group name is Scampering Squirrels.

 Daily opening ceremony with songs and skit.

 Chester stayed in nursery during the 3.5 hours VBS everyday for 5 days.

 Enjoying his snack while watching the older kids played.  Thanks to grandma for tailoring the VBS t-shirt to fit Chester.

  Working on one of the class projects.

 Playground time.  Haley received many compliments from the reconstruction of her t-shirt.

 Snack time.

Chester loves sweets.

Enjoying their cupcakes at the volunteer appreciation lunch on Friday.

The children performed some of the songs they learned throughout the week on the Sunday finale.

Chester變左"牛王仔"

Chester finally stopped laying down on the floor during tantrums... but he picked up a new trick to express his frustration.  He will hit people by his hands.  I try to stop him before he swings his hands to hit.  I hold his hands tight and give him a firm no, so he will correlate it is not ok to hit.  It's been couple weeks now, he still hits whenever things are not in his favor.  It's very frustrating to hear Haley complains about Chester hitting her all day long and to teach him not to hit us.  The drill to hold his hands, and put him down on the floor whenever he hits is very exhausting.  Hopefully Chester will soon grow out from this bad habit.  He can communicate pretty well verbally on what he wants, but he needs to learn to use his words even when he's in a bad mood.  This is going to be a long learning process, Haley is still learning and so am I.