MN Trip (cont.) ~ Day 1 (Dec 16)

I can't believe it's taken me over a month to get our MN trip photos posted.  And Charlie has been back at school since the beginning of the new year, and yet I haven't been able to get back to painting and fixing up the back patio either!  What on earth is going on??!

Well, I figured I better get our MN blog in before February rolls around.  Plus, I'm going to be busy making pineapple tarts tomorrow as Chinese New Year on Feb 1.  How quickly time flies!

Day 1 in MN and we are in a hotel in the heart of downtown Minneapolis.  Daddy's interview is just down the corner from here.  We had both boys bring their laptops too as Charlie is still doing Distance Learning and Graham has homework to finish up:

It's too late to grab breakfast so thankfully the little shop by the front desk is open. Looks like it's instant oatmeal for breakfast and dry cereal for the boys.  And yeah, no spoon so I'm stuck with a fork to eat my oatmeal this morning:

Here's a quick view from our window this morning.  No fresh snow this morning!

I'm sure it's pretty cold outside so we are doubling up on everything.  I'm glad I was able to find these fleece pants for the boys:

After a brief interruption of a bloody nose from Charlie, we are finally ready to head out!!

We are barely out of our hotel and there's Daddy's potential new office!!

And barely a few feet later and Graham and Charlie are busy making snow balls!!

All new clothing for these boys, other than a couple of their old beanies.  Hopefully these will last them at least a couple of years instead of just 1 trip:

Fancy stadium!

Charlie's cheeks are so rosy from the cold:

We took a walk to the Mill City Museum.  Somehow 1.2 miles took a lot longer than the suggested 6 minutes.  Perhaps under normal circumstance when there's no snow and trying to tell the boys to avoid the icy walkways.  We finally made it by 3:30pm and we only have 30 minutes before the museum closes.  Make that less than 20 minutes because it took us forever to take all our heavy coats off and hang them!  I obviously need to teach the boys on how to hang their coats: 

This is quite the place!

This is basically where General Mills began.  On the outside, only partial of the building is still standing as there was a huge explosion in May 1878 (four years after the original Washburn A. Mill opened).  The explosion was caused by a spark that was ignited by the airborne flour dust.  Who knew flour dust was that dangerous!

Here's a view from the flour mill.  That's the Mississippi river.  I never realized that the river came all the way up north here:

A view of some of the equipment inside the building:

You'd never know it but these are actually vacuums to suck up all that dangerous flour dust.  Looks like the company have learned their lesson!

Quick we-fie :-)

Can't believe this company has been in business for so long.  It's definitely a familiar brand:

Quick photo outside of the Old Arch Bridge.  It's getting cold!

You can see the destruction on the outside of the building.  There was actually another fire in 1928:

We are walking back towards the hotel.  We'll be meeting Daddy for dinner near there.  Looks like someone is sneaking around my back - throwing snowballs at me.  Sneaky Charlie!

This entire row is full of history - flour mill, wool mill, and looks like this Ceresota flour is still in production too since the last 1800s.  Wow!!

We walk by the Courthouse and look how cute these little guys are.  They are called Rock Men, by an artist named Tom Otterness:

This looks like it would be a fun climbing structure :-P

Across the street, there's this massive building - the MN City Hall:

See what I mean by massive??! Graham mentioned it looks like something from the Harry Potter movie:

Graham and Charlie are so tired from walking in their heavy boots that they are taking a break every few minutes:

One more break for a photo :-D

Another break into the Minneapolis Tribune.  This globe is on a scale of 1:7,000,000!!

Maybe I shouldn't have mentioned about these heaters by the bus stops.  Ha ha!

I'm thinking Graham's Spiderman beanie is a bit small for his head. Or perhaps Graham just has too much hair going on right now:

One more stop at another bus stop for some heat.  LOL!!!

Okay, we finally meet Daddy at the restaurant.  What a fancy place!  And look at those steaks..!!! 

Check out these massive slices of bacon.  WOAH!!!

We also ordered lobster crabcakes which Charlie and I totally enjoyed:

Looks like there will be lots of leftovers from tonight's meal:

These homemade chips were super yummy too:

Family we-fie:

Charlie is so proud of finally learning how to use a real steak knife with his fork:

As per usual, Graham gets sleepy after meal time at a restaurant:

Not until this massive dessert showed up at the table!!!

These two boys are too hilarious:

I don't remember the name of this bull now, but supposedly it has significance to this restaurant:

On the way home, there's a HUGE mural of a piano piece:

I'm just reading up on this feature wall now and looks like it's a 5-storey mural and supposedly one of the most difficult piece to play for a solo pianist.  It's from the third movement called "Scarbo" from a piano piece written by a French composer Maurice Ravel called "Gaspard de la Nuit". I just listened to part of it and yikes, no kidding!  I can't even keep up on just reading those notes while listening to the piece of music.

After a big meal, it's time to finally walk back to the hotel.  And Graham and Charlie couldn't wait to tell Daddy about the heated bus stops.  LOL!!!

A great first day so far! :-)

Backyard Quarantine

Bobby just got back from Las Vegas.  He had to attend a work conference from this past Monday to Friday.  He did test negative on a Rapid Test yesterday when he returned home, but just to be on the safe side, we're having him quarantine in the backyard.  That meant buying a couple of new tents since Graham and Charlie will be keeping Bobby outside too.

Graham never misses a beat when it comes to setting up anything!  The boys will be in this 3-sleeper:

And Bobby will be in this pop-up tent.  I say "pop-up" because that's literally what it does - when you unfold it, it automatically pops into this exact tent below!  And then, you just have to anchor it down with some of the rope provided:

Next time when we open it up, I'll have to take a video.  If this tent is anything like the little pop-up one that we use for the beach, it will going to be "interesting" to see how we will fold it back together.  Ha ha!

Yup Daddy... off you go into the tent!

I'm glad I set up those new outdoor lights by the very back/top patio.  It provides so much more lighting.  These tents look so cozy! And of course, we are social distancing too:

Bobby has his little window on each side of his little tent for some ventilation :-)

Checking in on the boys and looks like all good!  Charlie has his night life and reading light and book and blankie and his stuffed puppy.  Graham has his stuffed heavy Dragon. I sort of limited what they could bring into their tent because I really don't want to have extra laundry to do!  So of course, everyone has their own sleeping bag as those are easy to clean:

Looks like it will be down to the low 50s F these next few nights.  I'm guessing both boys will be back in the house tomorrow/Sunday night as they have school on Monday.  Does that mean I have to keep Bobby company outside?  Oh, Graham said I need to watch the house so I've been sleeping in our bed last night and again tonight :-P

Haven't quite figured out how many night Bobby will need to quarantine outside.  Hmmm, maybe at least until Sunday night and then re-test on Monday? We'll keep an eye out on symptoms too.  Sheesh, what a world we live in these days!!!

Getting ready for Chinese New Year

The tradition for every Chinese New Year is to have a nice clean home before the New Year.  I wonder who on earth started that because I do not like it!  It's such a chore but then again I suppose having to clean some of these hard to reach spots once a year probably isn't such a bad idea. LOL!!  

Charlie was busy out at the archery range today so Graham helped out some at home.  I probably should wash those pillow covers but vacuuming them for now will do:

We ended up going to Chinatown in downtown L.A. last week as well, as I wanted to buy a new outfit.  It's a good thing my Cantonese is still somewhat understandable and I was also still able to use my bargaining skill.  Graham and Charlie had a fun time listening and watching their mommy in action :-)

Since it's the Year of the Tiger - it will be Graham's year!  Can't believe he will be turning 12 years old this year.  We bought a couple of little Tiger trinkets for him:

Charlie will just have to wait a couple more years for the Year of the Dragon.  And actually, that's also my year. This is probably why we argue so much at times - he's a Water Dragon and I'm a Fire Dragon. Total opposites!

This year, I decided to buy some new Chinese New Year decor.  Some (faux) red blossoms for good luck:

And some Lucky Bamboo for even more luck!!!

I think most of the cleaning is done for now.  Just some organization around the house and hopefully we'll make some pineapple tarts too tomorrow.  Yuummmm, I love those and so do the boys!  Graham has already agreed to help me.  Hopefully he keeps his word because making these little tarts are pretty tedious!

Chinese New Year is on February 1st, which will be this Tuesday.  I'll also have to get my act together to get the dumplings ready for Tuesday night's dinner too.  I was originally planning on making our own dumpling skin but probably best now to just defrost the pre-made ones from the freezer.  Charlie loves to help me wrap those dumplings so I know I can count on him. It's been such a tiring week this past week as Bobby was away for a convention in Las Vegas.  The driving for drop-off and pick-off was really tiring.  Phew!! But looking forward to continuing some of my Chinese culture in this family :-)

Graham's collarbone update

Graham had another 2+ month follow-up for his collarbone this past Thursday.  And I can't believe it, it's still broken!  The doctor said that it's a stubborn bone.  Ha!

That "knot" around the cracked bone looks like it's definitely getting bigger - so I guess that's a good sign.  Here's a comparison from last month.  Latest x-ray on left side and x-ray from 1 month ago on right side:

Graham's first question to the doctor was, "Can I go surfing?"  Well, the answer was sort of yes at first but then when the doctor realized that he has to push himself off the board to ride the wave, he finally said no.  Well, all Graham heard was the first part obviously, but thankfully I was paying attention and heard the second part of the conversation too.  Maybe it was a mistake to buy Graham that surfboard this past Christmas!

Well, Graham can now participate in P.E. at school but limited to no-contact activities.  The first message I got from Graham once he got back to school after his appointment was, "I hate P.E!"  Hopefully he'll learn to like it again :-D

Charlie's Clarinet

Now that Charlie is back in school in-person/full-time, he is able to select a musical instrument. I suppose technically, he didn't have to.  He could have just stuck with the recorder or perhaps the general music class.  But since Graham picked the violin in 4th Grade, I suppose it's only fair that Charlie gets to pick an instrument too. 

At first, Charlie mentioned that maybe he would just play the violin.  And then, he mentioned the trumpet.  I wouldn't have minded the trumpet, although it would have been a rather loud instrument!  And then, after watching the video on all the instruments, he finally decided on the clarinet.  Wooo... I've never played the clarinet before, so this will be interesting!

Here is Charlie's first few attempts at the clarinet:

I gave the clarinet a few tries as well.  It's not so easy!  You really have to put quite an effort into getting the air through the clarinet.

And after a few more days... not too shabby!

Here's the video link: https://youtu.be/t-4ecRxaCr8

Hopefully this will sound a lot better next Christmas??!  The kids have not been blowing into their clarinets at school though due to the Covid protocols at this time.  So just practicing fingering.  In a way, that's not too bad because you should see all that yucky saliva during clarinet cleanup.  YIKES!!

And I'm still trying to convince the store in crediting us for a free mouthpiece.  So far, they have been quite cooperative in entertaining my request.  Here's the problem... the mouthpiece is not attaching to the barrel properly.  Fair enough it's a used instrument, but I shouldn't be sold something that doesn't fully function properly:

I went to the same named store here locally (this clarinet was shipped from Miami, FL!) and eventually just bought a new mouthpiece. I hope I don't have to make another trip to get the old one repaired. It would costs just about the same amount AND it would take 2 or more weeks to get the mouthpiece back!

The new mouthpiece to the left (which is also the original brand) is so much thicker than the one to the right.  I'm definitely learning quite about clarinets this past few weeks.  Ha ha!

Nothing less for these kids, I tell you.  Recently, Charlie has been working on the Rubik's cube a lot.  Supposedly the kids at school are competing during a small part of their PE session:

He did pay us for a fancy one:

Nothing we won't do for these kids... including cookies & cream boba takeaways!

It's no wonder we have a chunky Charlie with all this sugar intake.  Ha!

I just hope his teeth are surviving well through all this.  We did opt out of all the dental work on his cavities for his baby teeth the last time.  I'll have to figure out when his next cleaning is.  But in the meantime, here's to more music at home!  The boys have both stopped their private music lessons for now, so it's been rather quiet.  I do miss them playing the piano and violin.  Will need to try and get that going again, even if it's just for a few minutes every other few days.

More kefir

Looks like making kefir is an entire new learning process for me.  I've discovered that the kefir grains that were given to me by a friend in December were dehydrated ones.  It came in a crystal like form and had to be "rehydrated" with milk in multiple feeding sessions.  Unfortunately, those grains kept going through the sifter that I had attached to the jar.  Come to think of it, we probably drank most of the grains!  Thankfully it doesn't hurt us.  Ha ha... phew!  Eventually, I didn't think I had enough so I washed out the entire jar. But now that I've learned more about kefir grains, I could have actually kept feeding whatever little grains I had with milk and it could still have continued to multiply.  Lesson learned!  Anyway... I decide to order some new grains.  And these are already hydrated:

And oh, there's water kefir grains and milk kefir grains.  I've never used the water ones, but these milk ones look a bit like cottage cheese. I'm just glad they won't go through my sifter like the previous ones as they are definitely more chunky:

Bobby bought some humongous strawberries!

I actually had to throw away the first batch of fermented milk (still not sure why but it was suggested to do so).  But this new batch is delish!

We basically feed "Keefey" every day - normally later in the afternoon when Graham comes home from school  That's when he makes his kefir.  And then once fed, Keefey goes back into the kitchen cabinet for 24hrs.  It really does feel a bit strange but the milk - when especially blended with fruits, has such good flavor.  Almost like a thick smoothie.  And as little that Graham eats, this is a really good thing for him to be drinking it.  Graham may have to pack Keefey when he goes to college. LOL!! :-D