Hills of Hayward

I have been seriously falling behind on posting all of our photos.  Late last year, we wanted to make a trip to Taiwan to visit family before Arden arrived.   Both Christine and I think that traveling internationally with two young kids in 2009 would be unlikely, so we made an effort to get out one last time.

Christine’s mom helped out by taking care of Anders for a week.  This freed up our time to visit our good friends Andy and Tim who had both left for Asia from the SF Bay Area.  Andy was so accomodating in figuring out our hotel, itinerary, AND feed our ramen fetish with his top ramen picks from his own ramen otaku adventures.

Both Christine and I had a great time in stomach and soul.  I fell in love with the orderly nature of Japanese culture.  We both want to visit Japan again more thoroughly in the future.

Chuck and I have known each other since elementary school. Although he was a couple grades ahead of me, he tolerated my immaturity all through those years. This last year, much to the delight of his family and mine, Chuck got married.

I very much regret not being able to attend the wedding in Taiwan as Christine was deep into her pregnancy; however, Chuck was kind enough to accept my offer to hang out with Christine and I for a week this February.

We had a great time with Chuck and Danna running around all over the Bay Area eating and clicking. You see, Chuck is quite a shutterbug. If he ever bought himself a SLR, he has the talent to become a professional photographer.

Ever since Anders arrived, Christine and I have packed away our SLR and have been taking photos relatively infrequently. Hanging out with Chuck and Danna helped us re-connect a little with our love for taking photos if only with our Sony compact camera.

We think Chuck found a great match with Danna, or vice versa. Best wishes to you both, and please let us visit you soon with the kids in tow.

Below are some photos Christine and I took that week.

We went to visit my father in Laredo, Texas late last year.  In total, we drove around 2,386 miles and average 45 miles per gallon.  Here is the map of our southwest adventure.

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My father needed a car, and I volunteered the Prius to him.  I could not imagine him without a vehicle getting to the business school in the hot Texas sun.

This was our first trip without Anders, and we rushed through many large southwest cities.  I was also experimenting with a startup idea involving mobile camera phones, so all of these photos are shot on Christine’s Blackberry Curve.

Ok, not trying to flood you with new posts. We had multiple guests since Christmas and just feel motivated and have some time before the next guest comes tomorrow.

This was a video I made a year ago. Thanks Will, my good high school friend’s “now” “husband (FINALLY!), for taking so many nice photos when we visited them in Los Angeles for 2007 Christmas. I kept thinking that I’ve posted it but apparently not. I couldn’t find it on our blog. Though it’s not news anymore and Anders is much bigger now, it was a nice memory walking in the Huntington Botanical Park with Andy, Mandy and Will when Anders was only 3 months old.

We have known about the Japanese Garden in Hayward for quite a while, but have not made a trip out there until this last weekend.  This garden was quite the hot spot for photographers.  We ran into my friend Ricky Wong who was doing a photo shoot for a wedding party.