Firstly, we’ve hired an au pair. Her name is Fatima and she is from Mexico. It was kind of hard choosing someone based on a paper application and a short phone conversation. I guess Dan and I were trying hard to find someone that we would like and want to be friends with rather than just looking at her as an employee. But anyways, things are moving along in terms of the paperwork and hopefully she will arrive sometime in early to mid October.

We’ve made a number of small trips recently. I decided that if I am the least bit motivated to do something, then I had better just go with the moment. In two weeks, we’ve made trips to the Sacramento Zoo, the Folsom Lake, a splash park, and Monterey Bay Aquarium. I’ve been encouraged by the fact that both babies seem to be moving slowly towards one nap a day. They still mostly take two naps a day but it seems if they are busy and active, they could do alright with one nap a day.

The most ambitious was the two day trip to Monterey. My mom had never been there and I’ve always enjoyed going to aquariums so when we had three days off, I decided, quite spontaneously to just go. The trip down was uneventful. We stopped by and ate dinner at Chili’s with the babies being kind of difficult, not wanting to stay seated and wanting to grab everything. We had pricelined a motel and since it was only $30 a night, I wasn’t expecting much. I guess the fact that I had almost zero expectations made it okay because the motel was just about as run down as you can imagine. We had two rooms, one for me and Dan and Jadis while my mom, Sara and Isaac took the other room. My grand plan was to get both babies to bed in the same room so the adults could hang out in the other room and then later, when we wanted to go to bed, we could move one of the babies. Well, that was a serious FAIL. My mom was able to get Isaac to sleep after some effort but we ended up having to take JJ out in the van and drove around for 30 minutes before she finally fell asleep, about two and half hours past her bedtime. And once they were asleep, we were reluctant to move either one of them for fear that they would wake up. So we basically just called it a night and went to bed ourselves. The great thing (well, just about the only great thing about the motel other than it was cheap) was that it had Wi-Fi so we were able to use our iPads and that kept us entertained for a bit. The walls were pretty thin so whenever Isaac woke up and cried, I could easily hear him. But all in all, the babies slept alright considering all the changes. I wish I could have said the same for the adults. Dan couldn’t sleep because he was still coming off night shifts. I slept fitfully until about 4 AM when JJ woke up and I picked her up and brought her to bed with me. I woke up at 5 AM and couldn’t go back to sleep so I laid in bed until about 6:30 AM when JJ woke up. Dan slept in while the rest of us got ready and went to breakfast at Denny’s. We then picked up Dan, checked out of the motel and went to the aquarium.

The aquarium did have several new exhibits. The penguin exhibit was finally open to the public and the penguins were pretty cute. They also had a new seahorse exhibit. My mom seemed to really enjoy the aquarium, especially the splash pools where you could touch some of the sea creatures. JJ really enjoyed looking at the fish and turtles. There was one tank with a very colorful yellow and pink fish that was swimming very fast from side to side that she was enamored with and she spent some time trying to “catch” the fish. Isaac didn’t seem to be as interested in the animals. He was more interested in things he could touch, so he liked the big plastic seahorse that you could pose next to for photos and the various metal sculptures around the aquarium that he could feel. He ended up taking a short nap strapped to my back while JJ stayed up the entire time. We fed them at the aquarium right before leaving. The minute she was strapped into her car seat, she passed out.

On the way back home, we stopped by San Jose so we could visit cousin Elton. We arrived before he got home so we hung around the playground across from his condo. JJ is quite adventurous. She enjoyed the swings and the see-saw. She definitely doesn’t seem too scared of new environments and seems happy to just explore and try out new things. Isaac is more cautious and tends to just want to be held for a while until he is more comfortable. That is totally different than at home when Isaac is much more aggressive. Anyways, we hung out with Elton for a bit and chatted and fed the babies dinner. Then, we drove back home.

Sara left to go back to LA today. It’s very sad that she is gone. I feel so fortunate to have such a good relationship with my sister. I feel like every time she leaves, there’s a big void in my house. I wish we lived closer or even better, that she lived with me. But I suppose she has to go back to UCLA to finish her education and we will get to see her in two weeks.

Okay, this post is long enough. Good night!

Busy the last few days with meetings. Will be taking my mom to the dentist tomorrow for a root canal and also to have lunch with Belinda.

Henrik and Andrea and family will be moving to Rochester where Henrik will be starting a Ph.D. program in philosophy. I will miss them a lot but I think we will try to visit them in November.

And then, it was two episodes of True Blood.

However, despite everyone being sick, I still feel very lucky to have my family, my friends, my job, my house, and of course, my iPad. I could want for more but it wouldn’t make me any happier than what I have right now.

Everyone is sick, well, nearly everyone. I got a gastroenteritis last week and while the vomiting only lasted less than a day, the diarrhea was bountiful. Next to fall sick was Isaac, the puke-prone kid. Then Jadis, who as far as I can remember has never actually vomited before until last night, puked five times within several hours. Then it was my mom and then overnight, Sara decided she wanted to join the party. So far, Dan is the only one who hasn’t fall ill but that doesn’t mean he can’t join in the fun. Hopefully it won’t be too bad for anyone.

So I’m sitting at the Denver airport with my mom, on our way to Philly for Sara’s graduation. Since I don’t have a lot to do and I have lots of time (we have a 2 ½ hour layover), I figured, why not do my once a month blog entry?

I can’t believe how fast the twins are growing. I know every parent says that but it’s true. My sister made the comment the other day about how they look like little kids now and not like babies anymore. And I definitely see that they’ve “grown” into their faces. Both are crawling all over the place, Isaac especially crawls very fast. JJ can crawl fast if she wants to but she’s not usually in a rush to get anywhere while Isaac is always going from place to place. And they’ve started to interact with each other although not always in a good way. Isaac tends to follow JJ around and steal her toys. He grabs her hair and her clothes. At first JJ would just cry or give up the toy and get another one. But over the last few days, she’s started biting him. I counted six bite marks on Isaac’s arms the other day. Great, not a year old yet and already they’re fighting.

I’m planning their first birthday party. I know it’s definitely more for the adults than for the kids but it never occurred to me to NOT have one. Since it’s the first time I’ve ever planned a party for kids, I had to get some suggestions from other moms but it seems like it won’t be too hard.

Dan has been sick on and off for the last few weeks. It seems like he’ll come down with something mild, get better for a week, and then come down with something else. This time, it was ass-burning diarrhea. Poor baby. Whenever he gets sick, I always think about whether the Wegner’s is playing a part. He’s done so well since he was initially treated but I guess he could always flare up although I think the fact that he responded so well to therapy is a good sign. Well, I hope the month of on-again off-again illness is soon over for him.

In other news, Sara was accepted to the DrPh program at UCLA which she is quite happy about. I think it’s kind of fun to return to your undergraduate college, especially if you had a good time and some good memories. It would have been fun to return to Davis for a spell. Anyways, she is moving back to LA soon but will be spending most of her summer with us. Yeah! I always like having her around and maybe Kevin will come up too.

My cousin Alex (who is Candy’s husband) just moved to Berkeley from Hong Kong. He accepted a post-doc program there and will probably be there for two years. I was all prepared to take time off to help him get settled but he seems quite a capable young man and has managed very well, renting a room, opening up a bank account, doing grocery shopping, finding a church and going to work. He drove up last weekend and I had a nice time talking to him. I like him a lot and hope to be able to spend more time and get to know him better in the future. And of course, I am hoping to see Candy sometime soon although we have chatted a few times on Skype.

In pregnant news, Alicia and Bouakham are pregnant and I can’t wait for their babies to be born! It’s fun how all of your friends tend to get married and have kids around the same time as you.

I’m not sure if I ever wrote about it but Henrik and Andrea had their baby girl in February. Her name is Naomi Michelina Lemos and she is adorable. She’s growing fast too. It would have been cool to have the twins and her grow up together but alas, the Lemoses (is that the correct plural spelling) are likely moving to Rochester this year. Henrik was accepted into their PhD program in philosophy. Fancy that, a REAL PhD! Hopefully they will plan on returning to California at some point.

Which brings me kind of the idea of traveling with the twins. I had initially planned on bringing the twins on this trip but decided against it. We weren’t staying for very long and most of the trip will be spent helping Sara pack and that would be really hard to do with two one year olds crawling around, getting into everything. Plus, the idea of flying with them is a little intimidating. I realized now just how easily portable they were when they were younger. They were smaller, easily entertained, very few needs, and slept a lot. Now, the idea of having to keep them entertained, on my lap, for hours at a time is a little scary. But I also want to be able to travel and see people so I think one of these days, I’m just gonna bite the bullet and remind myself that it’s a rite of passage to having screaming kids on the plane.

Okay, this is about the longest posting I’ve done in a while. Gotta save some thoughts for later.

My mom has been home for a few days. She’ll be there for two weeks before returning back here. The tentative plan is that she’ll be returning back home permanently in the summer time which means it’s time for me to seriously look for some child care. I’ve been really dreading it but it’s a task that needs to be done. I really wish I could take care of them myself. I feel some guilt in having to hire someone to take care of them. I didn’t feel quite so guilty with my mom since she’s family. But the idea of having to hire someone else makes me really question, should I be working so much that I can’t take care of my own kids? I hope I get over it soon because I need to get started to look for a nanny or two.

I’ve embarked on a project to scan all of the photos I have laying around. It’s an effort to 1) archive all the physical photos into digital format and 2) reduce the amount of clutter we have in terms of photo albums and photo boxes. I also want to create one photo book for our wedding photos and one of the kids’ first year.

Okay, I think I’m gonna get ready for bed since I’m working tomorrow and if I get ready now, I might be asleep in a hour… night night.