Beat the Pros - Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship (2017)

The golf club in Abu Dhabi recently hosted the HSBC Championship again for the Men's European Tour.  I feel so upset and sad that we were not able to go back there to watch it!  I was so sure we would make it back, but I guess reality set in once we are now here in California.

Anyhow, I thought I had posted this before but seems like I didn't!  Last year during the Championship, Bobby was able to tee it up on a Par 3 with the Professionals - the pros in his group being Pablo Larrazabal of Spain, Paul Dunne of Ireland, and Kiradech Aphibarnrat of Thailand. It's the Par 3 - 15th hole and Graham, Charlie, and I were able to be there to support him.  Our good friend John was on the bag with him on the tee that morning.  Here the video and of course, it was also on live telecast on TV!  You may want to turn up the volume so you can hear the commentary.

Even my name was mentioned and I like how the announcer says "Well done Dad, you made contact!" As you can tell, the boys had lots of fun too and was able to walk up to the green with Bobby.  Great memories of Abu Dhabi!

Class photos 2017/18

The boys had their class photos taken last year.  I asked the boys how many shots were taken and they both said only one!  There are so many backgrounds you can pick from the company's website and since we are now back in the US, we figured the American flag would be a good backdrop. 

Here's Graham with his funny smile :-)

And Charlie - he has grown up so much!

Can't believe these two (monkeys) will be 8 and 6 years old this year.  I used to think that my mom was old when she was in her 40s and now I am in that age group.  YIKES!

Random photos

We headed out to Hermosa Beach one night and walked along the pier.  It was really strange because while we were walking towards the pier, the temperature was cool.  But by the time we get on the pier where the water is, the temperature is warmer??! A great night view of the inland from the pier:

I decided to take on the task of making strawberry jam when I ran out of the jam:

I may have cooked it for too long as it ended up being quite thick.  And cooked down to hardly anything! I did only start out with a quart of strawberries, so will definitely make more next time:

We found a new place for the boys to ride their bikes - at school!  But only on the weekend when the kids are out.  I don't have to worry about too many scrapes either since it's a dirt track.  Thumbs up from Charlie!

Lastly, Graham and Charlie cuddling up and enjoying movie time in their bedroom.  Too cute :-)

Rain!

It rained a couple of weeks ago - our first real rainfall since our move here!  Time to bust out my Wellies.  Yes, Hello Kitty ones. I bet the girls at the school were jealous. HAHA!

It was so windy as well:

I meet Bobby for lunch at Manhattan Beach and while waiting for him, I walk down the hill (half a block) towards the water and it starts to rain???!  And so I head back up the hill and the rain stops.  Too weird!
Lunch was so yummy.  We split a meatball sandwich although I probably could have eaten the whole thing!  It was so delish with unexpected banana peppers in the sandwich.  Who knew that would actually work together:

It was definitely nice to see rain again:

It made pick-up a little bit tricky but thankfully it reduced to a drizzle.  And although the boys were tempted to jump into the puddles, they listened to their mommy (for once!) and kept their shoes and socks dry.  I know, Mommy is no fun but it would have been too messy! Like Graham's shirt - he slipped and fell a few times while playing in the "Gaga pit" at school a few days before the rain:

I have washed this shirt like 3 times now and it is still dirty!  Boys, I tell you!  And if you are wondering what the "Gaga pit" looks like, here it is:

In this "Gaga" game, you hit the ball with your hand and try to get your opponents below the waist.  There has been lots of tears and drama in this pit but after a few months, I think Graham is starting to get the hang of it and playing by the rules as well - at least to my knowledge.  I dread getting that phone call from school!

"Ladybird park"

We went around the back of the apartment and found this nice green space.  I figured it was a good spot for the boys to practice their balance bike and ride their scooter as it has a gradual slope. The view here is definitely relaxing:

Did you figure out why we call it Ladybird Park yet?

Did you spot it yet?  Charlie had so much fun looking!

Yup! Ladybirds! Or... lady bugs???! I guess it should be bugs and not birds, right?

There were so many of them.  They ended up in our bag and also on our clothes. We had to do a ladybug check before leaving the park.  Although I probably should have brought a couple home since the heat and dryness promoted spider mites again and this time on our pumpkin plant! :-(  I only found out later that ladybugs actually do love to eat spider mites but by then, I had already given my pumpkin plant a rather aggressive trim. And we are down to one plant now:

Seems like the plant is still surviving... for now.  I did head back to the park the following day and picked up a couple of lady bugs but they disappeared pretty quickly.  Maybe that is a good sign - no mites to eat???
In the end, Charlie didn't actually practice on the balance bike.  We took the dirt path back to the apartment with spectacular views of the coastline.  Yes, we are getting pretty spoiled out here :-)

Happy 11th Wedding Anniversary!

Can't believe we are celebrating our 11th year of being married.  11!!! Where did all that time go??!  Our anniversary was on a Saturday (Jan 6) and unfortunately for Bobby who had to work, we only had a bit of time that afternoon to celebrate.  We were suppose to watch the movie "Coco" but by the time we got to the movie theater, there were only 3 seats left in the very front row - two to the left and only one to the right.  We obviously didn't think it was still going to be so busy as the movie has already been out for a few weeks now.  Oh well.

So we decided to go to our favorite crepe restaurant for an early dinner & dessert.  Graham opted for a chocolate and strawberry crepe, drizzled with more chocolate.  YUM!!!

Charlie also had a chocolate crepe, with bananas on the side (sliced - as he told the waiter), with fresh whipped cream.  Don't know why Graham doesn't like whipped cream.  This freshly made one is SO GOOD!

Bobby and I share the beef bourguignon with 3 baskets of bread :-)  The beef was good but probably could have cooked for a few more hours.  The veggies are always so yummy in almost every restaurant that we go to. We are definitely getting spoiled on the freshness of the produce here!

And for dessert, crepe filled with cinnamon apples and topped with toasted almonds.  SUPER YUMMY!!!

Happy Anniversary, honey!  Who knew that our one meeting in Beijing, China would lead to our lives together in Maryland, New Jersey, Texas, Oklahoma, Abu Dhabi, and now California. And I have a feeling there will be a few more different States (or Countries???) before we finally really settle down.
I did actually remember to buy a card and had bought a "I love you" keychain from our trip to London months ago, like back in April last year.  I was definitely planning ahead. Haha!
Maybe we will be able to do something more next year! Love you! XOXOX

Random photos

I forgot to post the photo of Graham and Charlie with the "Penguin" at the Aquarium of the Pacific.  The boys look so happy here:

Graham bought a souvenir from the aquarium with his Christmas money.  These are like mini lego blocks.  Gosh, it was quite the challenge!  But we did it - our mini shark:

The boys are getting more adventurous.  We hike up a little cliff by Terranea resort and get a very nice view of the water/waves:

By the way, did you know that there are "male" and "female" flowers on the pumpkin plant?  It needs cross-pollination to produce the fruit.  Who knew!  And since we have no bees, we will need to help the "boy" flower do its job, so to speak.  This will definitely be one way to teach Graham and Charlie about the "birds and the bees". Ha!

It has been really warm these past couple of days and unfortunately, I spotted spider mites on the pumpkin plant today.  URGHHH!!!  I had to cut off a lot of the leaves so hopefully the plant will still survive. And hopefully the mites will not ruin the rest of the plant. It will be sad to have to start over and dump out the whole lot of soil too!  And just as I had spotted a "female" flower yesterday too! Fingers crossed!

While we are on the subject of plants, look at my ginger plant! It is coming along nicely. I planted another ginger root but no sprouts from that one (yet??!):

Maybe we can get the boys cooking with some ginger some day.  Charlie is wanting to cook now after seeing Graham cook his mushrooms.  So glad Charlie has the incentive to do so! And so glad he wants to cook broccolli :-)

And this year, we have decided to use Graham's calendar:

I normally would make our personalized photo calendar.  But how can you pass this up???  Too cute!

As long as Charlie doesn't start thinking of writing his 7s backwards just like Graham. Oh wait... too late!  I blame Bobby as he said he used to do the same thing when we was a kid. :-P

So much fog

We have had a lot of fog here lately.  It has been so thick that we would hear the fog horns from our apartment and even from school.  What is so bizzare for me is that, the weather would be so nice in the morning and then by about 2pm, the fog would start rolling in!  Or... there could just be fog all day! ALL DAY!!!

Here was one of Bobby's commute to work on morning:

The boys and I went to the Terranea resort not too far from the apartment and it was quite neat walking in the fog.  You can see and feel the water droplets:

We got down to the rocks and saw some kayakers just leaving on a tour:

It almost feels like the lochness monster could appear anytime! HA HA HA!!!  The fog definitely doesn't phase the boys.  It is business as usual - playing with the rocks and on the sand:

Another interesting phenomenon when the fog rolls in is actually seeing it from above.  This was the view from the top of the hill.  It's like being up in the clouds!

That layer of fog is so thick:

At the bottom of the hill, you can sort of see that fog out in the ocean.  And also the halo around the sun.  We remembered seeing that during our trip at Seychelles last summer.  Seems like a regular phoenomenon here!

I had Graham wear my sunglasses as the different tint really highlights the fog:

Graham is getting quite creative with his selfies! :-D

Happy New Year!!!

Hello to 2018!!!  Wow, a new start to another new year. Hopefully things will calm down at school after Graham's little incident.  He ended up punching a girl in the eye right before the holiday break. Long story short, some kids have been calling him names and I guess he finally snapped!  There was also an incident prior to that where I was watching him play by the trees with some other kids and I noticed a couple of them were not being nice. So I told him to fight back.  Well, he obviously got that part down now!
Anyhow, I have seen the girl's mom a couple of times now since school has been back in session and unfortunately, it has still been a bit awkward.  Oh well. Guess I just have to make some other new friends for 2018!  :-P

We didn't do much on New Year's eve.  I think we had spaghetti bolognese for dinner and the one thing I was actually really excited about was dessert. Chocolate fondue... YUM!!!

We recently bought a little fondue pot.  I think the boys were mostly just really excited about the marshmallows rather than the strawberries:

The boys were in bed by about 8pm and Bobby was probably in bed around 9pm.  Poor Bobby is not used to working the long hours after living in Abu Dhabi :-P  Okay, give him some credit - he has been having to work during the weekends too. Poor fella.

I did end up staying up until midnight but mostly because I was watching random things on TV and updating my blog :-)

On New Year's Day, we decide to head out to Venice Beach to have a look-see.  Well, we saw a lot for sure! The wordings on the T-shirts and undies were quite something!  Thankfully the boys didn't notice:

We "smelled" a lot too!  I didn't want to take a photo right in front of the "store" but there it is from the parking lot.  Recreational marijuana is now officially legal in California starting Jan 1, 2018.  I bet a lot of people are happy about this!  The boys (including Bobby) better now drive me to one of these stores! HAHA!

Venice Beach is also known as "Muscle Beach".  I forgot to actually take a photo of the area where there are a bunch of weight lifting machines.  Show me some muscles!  And Charlie is still "dabbing":

There is a whole section here with graffitti:

There is a bunch of people gathered in this area and we find out it's a skate park:

Bobby is not impressed.  Ha ha!

We proceed to the beach area.  And I spot a pretty rainbow color lifeguard house.  Can you see it!?? I wanted to take some photos there with the boys but...

We were distracted by a group of people running into the ocean for a swim??!

And then, it was already too late - the boys started digging.  No photo taking by the colorful lifeguard hut now!

We did convince the boys to move onto the rocks:

We spot sea anemones like a pro!  What I didn't know was how these anemones can actually survive out of the water.  Supposedly a mucus is produced to encase the anemone, which is why the ones out of the water are closed to stay moist. Who knew!

We also spot crabs!

Graham is enjoying the view on the other side of the rocks:

There are always a few closed calls on getting wet when we wander out to tidal pools and rocks!

Heading back inland and get to wave to the Sand Smoother/Cleaner.  I think that's what they are called??!

A look at one of the murals on the building.  Venice beach is "interesting" to say the least!

Of course, the boys spot the playground and we just HAVE to stop:

I was really impressed with Graham on the monkey bars!

Time for lunch! The boys are busy coloring.  The Rose Bowl parade is on TV and Graham and Charlie somehow feel patriotic:

We obviously don't have all the stars and stripes but definitely an "A" for effort!

After lunch, we finally hit some of the "muscle" of the "Muscle Beach":

Charlie is determined for sure!

We try to get up on the ropes.  Not easy at all! 

Charlie is still trying!

 Okay, we work on our push-ups instead :-)

Bobby and I thought we were done but nope, back on the beach!  What else would we do anyway on New Year's Day...?

Well, how about body surfing on the sand!  Graham is so not shy anymore when it comes to fun! Funny enough, this family started their tradition of coming to Venice Beach on New Year's Day. We might have to do the same now :-)

Whhheeeee...!!!

Time for a sand-angel!

I love how Charlie gave it eyes and a smiley face.  Too funny!!!

Okay, NOW... we can go home.  What a day!  Here's to a great 2018!!!