Summer Vacation

Just got back from a weeklong vacation in San Diego with the extended family -- my sisters, parents, and all of the girls' cousins. Photos to follow sometime this week, but for now, here are the highlights:

• We went to the San Diego Zoo, and the girls' favorite animal to view was a California Raccoon. You heard me, a friggin' RACCOON. If you've followed this site, you will recognize the irony of this situation.
• Katherine threw up on the plane ride home. Like any good parent, I deftly caught the vomit in my hands, conveniently forgetting about the handy barf bags tucked into the seat pocket in front of me.
• We flew back home early this morning. The girls passed out this evening around 5:30 pm. Vacations are exhausting!

Old MacDonald, Ghetto-Style

Katherine has gone urban on us. Having sung "Old MacDonald" for the last few months, she has changed the refrain over the last few days.

Old Version: "E-I-E-I-O!"

New Version: "E-I-E-I - HO!"

Unclear why she made that change, but she says the "HO!" with a bit too much enthusiasm for my comfort!

Can a career as the next Salt 'N Pepa be far behind?

Relaxing Summer Weekends

In honor of the first official summer weekend, we took the girls to their first swimming lesson at the local park.

Here are the girls in their new swimsuits:

Ready to learn to swim.

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No photos at the pool. Too many safety issues / crying / screaming around the pool. Maybe next week.

This weekend we also had a moon rise early in the evening, giving the girls a chance to "talk" to the moon. It's something they've been doing for the past few weeks. Whenever they see the moon, they'll cry out, "Hi, Moon!" I'm not even sure where they learned what the moon is.

Here is the moon from our living room, plus the girls sharing a laughing moment on the reclining chair:

The moon over the Lim House.
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Katherine & Caroline enjoying a laughing moment together.
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Happy Father's Day

Since it would extremely egocentric to write about myself on Father's Day, today I'll take a moment to digress from telling you about the life and times of Katherine and Caroline, and take this opportunity to say "Happy Father's Day" to their grandfather ("Yeh-Yeh" in Chinese), and my Father, Harry Lim.

Happy Father's Day to Grandpa!

(Click on photo for larger view)

Anyone who would like to see some photos of Yeh-Yeh before he was "Yeh-Yeh" (in fact before he was a Father!), and was a jet-setting man about town, we collected some photos for his birthday celebration earlier this year. I've posted a few on our family website.

So to see Yeh-Yeh when he looked like this:

Click HERE.
(When prompted, userid = "guest", password = "montebello".)

Random Twin Comic Strip

Today's post comes courtesy of Josh, the blogger at The Comics Curmudgeon. If you have not bookmarked this blog site, I highly recommend it. It is always good for a chuckle.

I thought of what I might write to add to the comic strip and comments below, but I really have nothing to add. I just thought it was funny.

ComicToday’s Hi and Lois takes on the tough issue of twin-on-twin violence. I have to say that I’m actually a little creeped out by the way Ditto is slowly and deliberately rolling up the sleeve on his punchin’ arm, while Dot stands a few feet away, cringing in terror, but not fleeing. Fortunately, mom is on the case, making sure that Ditto merely humiliates and degrades his sister verbally.

Baaaaaad Monkey!

Since the girls have been old enough to climb into normal sized chairs, we have been pretty consistent in enforcing the "sit down" rule. That is: No standing, jumping, or otherwise playing on chairs.

We enforce this rule with two phrases: "Sit down, please", and "Sit down . . . on your butt!"

The second phrase is often used because the girls like to squat in their chairs pretending to sit, but will then use the opportunity to spring in the air like a jumping jack. (Of course in their minds, Mommy or Daddy will always be there to catch them before they crash to the ground!)

So tonight before bed we were reading their favorite books before bedtime, and for the thousandth time, we read their Curious George book, which has this photo on the last page:

Upon seeing this photo, my girls, for the first time, cried out: "Monkey! Sit down . . . on your butt!"

At least I know they've been listening to me all this time.

No Raccoons, Part II

Katherine's fear of raccoons is growing, and we haven't even seen one in over two weeks.

Tonight, I left the shade to one window in the girls' room open, and the window slightly open due to the fact that it is a very warm night.

Katherine absolutely refused to lay down in her bed until I shut the window and lowered the shades. All she kept repeating was, "No raccoots. No raccoots."

I'm wondering if I should buy a stuffed animal raccoon, or if that would just be flinging fuel on the fire.