Summer Time II

We went out to have water farless than I would have expected. For the few times that I went to the pool with Renee and Max, they shivered so much. Renee could barely swim towards me.
I took Renee again to the rock climbing but she seems to have lost interest. I was rather disappointed but thought I would give her a break. Renee has picked up piano lessons. After the usual initial struggle and being forced by the mom a couple of times, she starts getting a hang of it. That seems to be the trend for Renee on her learning patterns.
Max started going to day care. It has a pretty good program there, where there are mixed age kids forming a good family environment. There are also a lot of things to take apart and put together. Max is the more curious one in the family. I always enjoyed teaching little tricks to him. I showed him how to open a child-proof bottle that was not that well designed, and he learned it fairly quickly. Then he forgot about the trick the week after and got pretty frustrated.

Renee and Max play or fight depending on the hour and the day. On a good day, Renee will watch out to make sure Max not wandering around too far, and Max will answer his sister's call better than to ours. On a not-so-good day, that would be another story. They will push each other's button until both start crying.

Here is another good day. Renee has been hanging around other kids long enough that she start picking up tricks with objects around her. Max is always interested in watching and learn.

Here is another trick with the swing. Max can barely touch the ground, so I still have to push him. But in his mind, he is copying the sister and that is all that matters

They like to make funny faces from time to time. We are not sure if it is from Renee. Max seems to have picked it up after starting the day care. Whenever Lian or I go to pick him up, he would not run over but make funny faces right where he is.

I took Max with me walking outside. The main reason that he is interested in playing around this sign is also because Renee likes to.

At the daycare center, Max learned to get water himself and go to bathroom himself. He showed me both one day when I dropped him off the school. I think he is all set. Another good habit that Max has picked up is reading books. He likes to read more now. Max still does not speak English, let alone the California style that Renee has shown from time to time. But Max can certainly understand English now.

Renee has started her kindergarten and I am still learning the best way to drop her off. So far I have not seen anything different.

Summer Time

Looking back at the pictures that I have taken this month, it is indeed summer time. I have been quite busy with school and work, and I am quite glad that I also did all these activities with the kids. They are growing up fast and I want to capture every moment.

We continued a bit with our rock climbing activity and took Max with us. Max liked it too, but he took it more as a fun game. He would try to climb it, then quickly give up and just hang on the rope to play.

Renee is a serious climber. She would keep going. She got a bit frustrated and refused to go a couple of times. I wish I could figure out what she was thinking. Anyway, she did climb up all the way to the top this time, which made me very proud.

I also took the kids out to a camping trip with a family who we used to hang out with before we all had kids. Here is Renee and Max hanging out at the site after we put up the tent. I have not been camping for a while and forgot how much time you need to spend in getting the site ready. I am really glad I did not go by myself. The other family cooked the dinner and fed them while I was fumbling through the instructions.

We then went out on a two hour hike. It had pretty steep slope. Renee and Max were both good sports. They enjoyed the walk very much. On the way down, they let me hold their hands while they try to slide their way down through the dry leaves on the ground.

Here is a cool picture I took while hiking around the Lafayette reservoir. We didn't do nearly as much hiking as I would have liked. But they got to play around in the hills. They seemed to enjoy the new game that they invented, which is called "hit the tree with the pine cones".

Max got scared of his bike for a while. We think it is because the training wheel was not working properly one day and he didn't trust it anymore. I had to lure and force him to take a few rides. After that, he recovered and enjoyed his biking rides again.

We also took them to the discovery museum in Sausalito. That is where we took Renee several times. We got a Google offer so we took it.

Max follows Renee most of the time. You can actually climb to the upper deck. But Renee is normally not a kid who likes to push around. So after getting pushed down from kids who want to come down a couple times in a row, she decided that the upper deck was not worth the trouble.

They geared up properly for the construction work. They even worked out the whole workflow of dump the load, put back the truck, and load the gravels.

Renee does not always encourage Max to play with her. But when she does, Max is always eager to help out. Max also figured out that you can chain these things together through the holes on them.

This is the area that Renee used to love. She used to stay here for hours. Unfortunately, she has outgrown it. The assistant was nice enough to let her in to say one last goodbye.

Here is the only picture I have of them on the day where we took them to the company picnic.

Redwood hiking and preschool graduation

Upon examining the pictures, I realized that I didn't take much this month. On the other hand, I feel that I have been able to spend more time with the kids. Renee has graduated from the preschool. I missed the ceremony because of my own school. I do hope I don't miss any down the road.

We took the kids to the Muir Wood park. This is the first serious hike we have done with the kids. We walked for over an hour along the hill side. They complained a bit but mostly enjoyed the walk, especially this!

Max likes to follow his sister everywhere. And Renee does like to go everywhere!

This is the ceremony party that I have missed.

So here is a cool story. I was talking to Renee one day, and I decided to ask her "Renee, what would you wish you can do more with daddy?" And she immediately mentioned in-door rock climbing. She did it once at a birthday party. I didn't think that she enjoyed it but apparently she did.

So I searched on line and found this place to go for an hour. I have taken here there twice already and she indeed loves it! She can climb all the way to the top of that two walls behind her now.