The time of a year!

We got bukaguns!

neighborhood lighting

My deer is cute.

2 year old check-up

Weight 30.5pounds (75%), Height 37.5inch(>95%)

Wandering in Ray's school

Ray's school has a lot of wonderful things. Tony was always amazed by it.

I am two years old now

I got a train track set, a big stuffed doggie and a box of harry&David Chicolate. And we all love my baskin&Robin icecream cake.

In Chinese, I can count 1 to 10 better than Ray

Getting out of trouble? You got me wrong

Tony and Ray played their acting games these days. Tony played dad role, mom role and doggie role etc. When Tony played doggie, he was serious at pretending a doggie.

Ray was very fuzzy this morning as he was woken up for school. Tony was having his breakfast but Tony was playing food a little bit. A piece of muffin fell down to the ground. Ray saw it and certainly took this chance to scold Tony hard. "No body should waste food. It is really bad, etc." Tony was a little terrified by this so he backed off a little bit. Ray didn't let him go and kept blaming him.
Tony got his own idea. He suddenly laid down the ground and said: "I want to be a doggie."

Dad wrote this story up and he thought Tony was trying to get out of trouble with playing cute. He was so wrong.

Mom just found out a few other occasions Tony said:"I am a doggie." after she scolded Tony for some reasons. Her curiosity made her ask Tony why. Finally Tony said:"Doggie bite." Stay away from me when I am not happy.

We want to go out

A nice Sunday morning

Dad raked fallen leaves and mom made a clear shot on us. She is still learning how to get DSLR focused to the right spot. Bright yellow slide is a little too close to dad's light color shirt, which has a low contrast and is distractive. But we will take this one. Keep good work going, mom.

Now and then

Time flies. Baby grows.

Ray was a slow diner at dinner time. And he really needs some push to finish his food. Last night, while finally Ray could claim that he was done with his food and started celebrating what he had achieved, mom and dad was co-celebrating with him though we all knew there was still a little bit left in his plate.
Tony made a comment in Chinese:"还有。"(which means "there is still some unfinished.")

Austin nature center

It is close to downtown but you will feel it is like suburb. It fits Austin, small but functional. And it is free!

My first real Halloween

With a bike, I got an edge on getting candies.

The beauty of fall

This is outside of UT library. Now Austin really cooled down. We are enjoying fall now. I had been nice in Ray's birthday party. I didn't cry or did anything unreasonable for Ray's gift as I knew that it was Ray's brithday party. Dad converted my bed a little bit. Now it is firmer and more comfortable, so I slept better now.

Dad's careless actions in one day

After we had a tour in UT campus, we went to Hula Hut for lunch. After lunch we saw two gigantic turtles, two monster catfish and a bunch of mellow at waterside. Then we went to Austin Nature Center. A old gentleman met us in the parking lot. I was interested in his two dogs. He chatted a little bit with me.

Then we need to go so he said something to dad and mom. It was fairly noisy as the parking lot was right under highway route one.

Dad thought he said something like: have a good day etc.

So dad replied:"You too."

While we left him, mom told dad:"What he said was: Tony is very cute."

When we returned our car, dad accidentally locked key in the trunk while he was putting stroller in. Their phones were locked in too. We had to borrowed a hiker's phone in the trail to contact for help. Dad's friend Mr. Daniel saved us. Then we had a lobster party at his house. Dad and Mr. Daniel had two bottles of wines, which was a little too much for dad. Accident like this was a pretty scary thing if you were with kids. Maybe wine could help him relax a little bit.

A fishman's waterloo

This weekend we had a hike in brush bend. There was water excess so we went to check this section of brush creek. There were lots of shells on the bank resulting from the rain flood last week. Tony picked up a stick somewhere on the ground and bubbled fishing. We had a lot of fun there. Dad took a lot of photos. Then, an accident happened. Tony felt down into water with his head and body but two legs out of water. He was struggling to get himself out but no success. It all happened in two seconds then dad saved him out of water by pulling his two legs. It was a cold day but fortunately mom had a backup set of clothes for Tony in our stroller. You can never get too much baby stuff prepared while on the way.

Pictures could say it all.

After fishing,

Before fishing,

Physical development update

Tony is 29.5 pounds now, while Ray is almost 45 pounds. Tony is pretty lean and athletic. It is definite not easy for Ray to get stuff out of Tony's hand. Tony moves like a running back. He even could have a few faked moves while Ray was chasing him for toys in his hands. Tony also can throw and catch football, while his catching distance is only 2 foot away with a perfect throw.

Way to go!

Olson Meadow

The power of a model

Tony started asking going potty himself at an age of 21 months, a much earlier age than Ray, thanks to Ray being a daily model.

Tony likes picking dress himself. He really likes Ray's dresses, like spiderman sleeping T-shirt, etc. If mom and dad picked something not his taste, Tony insisted on taking them off for some cool dresses he liked.

It has been a while that Tony moved into Ray's bedroom. Their beds are at two sides of their cute room. So now dad's bedtime story can serve two at once with dad laying on the floor right between their beds. Tony often got out of his bed in the middle of nights and slept on floor. Mom and dad had to put three layers of wool-carpet, two layers of comforters and a bunch of pillows on their room floor just in case. This set up an ideal place for building a castle for fun. So now Tony and Ray's favorite prior-bedtime activity is building a castle with pillows and sheets. Nowadays what Tony blubbers mostly is 'daddy, build a castle'.

Ice hockey

Austin welcomes an ice hockey team this year in minor league, Texas Stars. Dad's company got some free tickets for preseason games. Then we made a trip to newly built Cedar Park Center to watch our stars battle San Antonio Rampage.

Nice center. Great view on ice court. What impressed us most was player fight a lot. Half of our memory on the game was two guys throwing punches to each other while the referees stood next to them watching. On court scene was so much more vivid than TV scene.

In dad's view, it could be a way to toughen up kids, but it might be too much. It is pretty rough even in grown-up standard.

All right, we had our Ice hockey experience. Wish they do well in this inaugural season.

More than holding his own

Tony eats stuff slow, but not when Ray was eating the same thing. If they are sharing the same bowl, Tony eats like he has been starving for years and his two hands always cover the food while his mouth is full. If they each are having their own bowl, Tony would quickly finish up his, then go after Ray's bowl.

Then we will hear Ray yell:"Hey, baby."

Life moves on

After a long drought, Austin finally got some rain, pretty serious rain. It is cooling down now, which makes us feel that fall is on the way. Ray starts counting how far Hollowen is. Tony finally hang monkey bar now after turning down dad's attempt for so many times.

Day Eight: 100 years love in Stanford

After we cleaned up Condo in the morning, we would meet dad's college buddy at noon right before our flight time. There was two hours window we visited famous Stanford University campus.

It is impressive. Pretty much raise the bar how grand a college campus could be. Dad loved this pictures. It is taken in front of a library. He just wish Ray and I love each other for 100 years.

Day Seven: If your time is tight, do what we did

We still had four places to go in our city pass. Only one and half days left and the last half has been planned by dad.

Here was what we did. 10:00AM-3:30PM. Exploratorium was the first as it opens first and it the furthest from where we stayed. We spent almost five hours there and didn't feel we had enough. This was the place we highly recommended to everyone interested in science and technology. Dad was tricked by Bernouli phenomena as he knew very little about aerodynamics. One word for Exploratorium: Cool. It is a good match to silicon valley.

3:30PM-4:00PM. Then we got into car. Ray and I felt into sleep right away. Dad drove us to Museum of Modern Arts (MOMA), as it is the one close earliest. I woke up when we got there and Ray kept sleeping. He was put into stroller. 4:30PM-5:40PM. Then we had our one hour super-quick tour of MOMA before it was closed. Ray woke up and we all had some fruits outside MOMA. 5:40PM-6:30PM We went back to our condo as mom needs to get deposit from manager before weekend.

6:30PM-8:00PM Then dad drove us to Fisherman's wharf as the aquarium of bay was there. We saw gorgious golden jellyfish which we never saw in other aquariums. And we were allowed to touch a little shark. Scary? This was not a large aquarium but it did has a few things that would wow you.

8:00PM-10:00PM taste SF world famous cable car. Even at 8:00PM, we still waited for 40 minutes and the chilly wind from the bay ocean drove many people nuts that they didn't exactly follow the line and show courtesy to children and women. With Ray and I who need to be taken care and protected, dad could say more than: "Hey, I have already taken cable car."

Then finally we took a stop at a Pizza store, who claimed the best pizza in SF to have our dinner. Before that, we picniced everywhere with our whole food supply.

It was definitely a crazy day, which reminded dad his college days that the exam would be the next day but he hadn't quite finish reading the fourth chapter of the required ten chapters study. This time he passed again.

Day Six: City pass started

California academy of science was the first stop of our city pass, which has a small aqurium, a small rain forrest, an Africa animal show, .... A special exhibition presented global warming issue. California seemed pretty concerned about environment. Look at the Hall in picture, the top sun shade retractable. The temperature sensor in the hall commanded shade to open or close. Pretty green and pretty cool.

One thing we gonna mention is government budgeting is also very important. Go green is good but it is gonna be cost effective. Otherwise dollar is getting less and less green.

Then we took bay cruise before we had our last stop at the Harbor. One hour bay cruise was rough. But we did succeed pushing mom to buy things we liked in the boat food stand.

Day Five

Day Four

Day Three

Day two: Fisherman's wharf

Our condo is on third floor with a large balcony. It is fun to see a dynamic city from this angle. It is a little chilly in the morning even Auntie told us it was the warmest day in the past two months. Look at what we were dressed. This is San Francisco.

SF trip day one: Cruise into Chinatown and Z&Y

It took us two hours to get our car in AVIS. Good business! First stop was Chinatown as it was dinner time when we got SF. Auntie brought us to Z&Y, an authentic Sichuan cousine discovered by her in hundreds of Chinese restaurants in Chinatown. Haha, it turned out to be our most frequently visited restaurant during our last visit of SF. It is located at Jackson and Grant intersection. Focusing on their food, not service, bathroom sanity or anything else, then you will be pretty satisfied.

Look at Ray, he was in a perfect mood.

Tony's head and Mom's nose, the winner is ...

Tony was cuddling with dad. Mom was still sleeping on the side. Suddenly, Tony pushed his legs hard while he was standing on dad's chest. Then Tony felt down to mom. Tony's head bumped on mom's nose.
Tony didn't feel a thing. Mom was completely in bad shape. She jumped up and ran into bath room with a scary long scream. We all got scared. Then mom's nose started bleeding bad.
Not long ago, dad's tongue lost to Ray's head and it took three weeks for his tongue to feel perfectly all right to have dinner.
And today it was mom's bad luck.
You just can't be more careful dealing with two energetic boys.

How we dealt with a bug

An efficient day

We had a great day yesterday. Austin Children's Museum had quite bit change. They added a lot of DIY projects for kids. Ray and I both made a few interesting things. Then we went to Coco's cafe in Guadalupe street, which was one of Mom's favorite restaurants in college. They had a lot of Taiwan appetizers and cool drinks. Ray ordered a beef noodle we all loved so much that Ray started being bullish. He even offered that he was gonna order for us all of us next time, as he was such a good buyer.

Then we went to UT library. I didn't keep perfect quiet in 6th floor PCL, so we had to cut our time short. Big brother Ray behaved well in library like a college boy. He is the man.

Cool down ourselves in San Antonia Sea world

102 F in San Antonio with full sun in addition to thousands of people on July 4th. Fortunately we survived.

Life's trail

News yesterday reported riots in Urumqi. So far 159 innocent people were killed and thousands were injured. It was a planned massacre.

That is the city I just visited a few months ago with Mom. Ray didn't go with us but went to Chengdu with Dad. Dad was a little concerned when we planned the trip as it was not a stable area by all means. But Mom had to go.

Dad is still scared with the fact that Mom and I were there a few month ago. Mom doesn't know what to say. It is on the way to her hometown, Kramayi.

Life is always accompanied with lucks. Good ones and bad ones. We can only hope in our life trails we have more good ones.

Dad still believes that you can prevent it from happening, or at least minimize the chance of happening. That is DO NOT GO THERE IF YOU KNOW IT IS NOT SAFE.

Things going on lately

Austin was hot last month. Radio said it was a record high in June. We almost went swimming every night. Now a day is so long that it is still bright at nine in the evening. We usually went to our community pool at eight and swam for an hour.

Ray almost made progress every day. He is pretty bullish when talking about swimming. Mom and dad gave him so much encouragement which made he feel he was next Phelps. I also can keep myself afloat in the water with the aid of a life jacket and a noodle. This is a big step-up for me.

I became a master of playing hide and seek with Ray and Dad now. Honestly, I am a great seeker. It is not an easy thing to fool me.

I am taking one nap now. Ray is going to be four so soon he won't need to take a nap in his school.

Ray and I are good buddies most of time. But we did fight occasionally. I hit Ray's head with my mini-golf club and made him cry.

We went to San Antonio sea world on July 4th. Lots of people and lots of heat. The most pleasant part was the escape to lost Lagoon water park. Ray lost his crocs shoes as some lifeguard took them away while we were taking the shower. When mom gave him a pair of Arron used saddle shoes next day, poor Ray was so glad. We all saw lightining in his eyes when he put them on. And he kept his shoes so well when we went swimming next day.

All these things are trivial little things. If they were not written down, they were hard to be remembered, just like many other things we forgot.

The loudest cheer

Mom started bringing Tony to library for story time. When every story finishes, Tony gives the loudest cheer in the whole time. The loud 'Yeah' always put him into center of attention of the whole room. It is hard to teach him what is the right volume to use, as dad cheers pretty loud when he watchs sports. How to tell a one and half year old watching sports is different from listening story? Maybe we just live with it.

One and half year old checkup

Weight: 27 pounds, 50~75%. A big stepup from 25%~50% last checkup.

Height: 36.5inch. Wait a minute, something must be wrong. It is way out of chart. We have to do it again. OK, 35.5inch. Back in chart. >95%.

We are all happy.

Tony started crying when he saw nurse were preparing for the shot. He must remember something during the last visit.

Reunion ranch: a Texas minimalism

When we just arrived there, we were asked to take a picture with this background setting. The whole ranch's design fit this setting well. Nothing fancy or yuppy. But you still can have fun.

Pink crape myrtle before storm

Lavender crape myrtle beore the storm

We just had a pretty bad storm. It's said that even a tornado landed in nearby area. We were watching weather live and so worried. It turned out a bunch of hail hitting our house and destroying our plant. Our crape myrtle just started blossoming but the storm completely ruined it. Well, the flower will come back.

Ryan's birthday party in Champion park

Champion park is getting more and more popular now.