Last month we celebrated my mom’s birthday at a park in Irvine.  My brother-in-law made yakitori, roasted peppers and rice balls.  We brought lemon pie.  My mom is such a blessing to me, and the kids love their Zaza dearly! 

I needed a couple of more weeks of vacation, but alas, school has started.  No fancy Pinterest signs for us, just our trusty IKEA whiteboard. 

It is funny how n and k dressed alike.  I don’t think it was on purpose, but they don’t mind. 

k is half-way done with elementary school.  How can that be? 

We had Back to School Night the night before school started, which was a new thing.  k has not been sick one day this summer, but after we returned from Back to School Night, she had a fever!  Later at night she had a stomachache and her fever was worse.  I was having nightmares of her missing her first day.  Thankfully, some children’s Tylenol did the trick and she felt better this morning. 

Last month we went to the Grand Opening of Ugly Pie Co., yet another pizza assembly line joint.  The pizzas were good, but the regular prices seemed kind of steep in comparison to Pieology and Blaze.  They were a bargain when we went, $4? (can’t remember, it was too long ago!)  We took our pizzas to a Baker Ranch community event where they had a free concert, drinks, popcorn and slices of pie.  Yep, it was a classic Friday night for the Lim’s!

Last month k’s girl scout troop took a tour of the Yakult factory in Fountain Valley and n and I were able to tag along.  It was quite fascinating and informative.  We were able to see a lot of the factory in operation, which was exciting.  I love automated processes, so this tour was right up my alley!  I am always reluctant to buy Yakult because of the high sugar content, so I wrote on my feedback form that I would prefer a product that tastes more sour, with less sugar. 

Summer is almost over and I just finished blogging about the trip we took the first week for summer.  Oops.  Well, let me rewind to July 4th.

We ate dinner with my parents the day before July 4th.  My mom made these cool-looking red-white-and blue drinks.  Next year I want to make red-white-and blue ice cubes.  Let’s see if I remember!

On July 4th we went to the Irvine Police Department firework show at Irvine High School.  We were ill-prepared and should have brought the umbrella and more drinks/snacks.  Mazda was a sponsor, so D accepted a plaque on Mazda’s behalf.  n fell asleep during the firework show again! 

It is always a treat when our hotel offers free hot breakfast!  This was the best breakfast of our whole trip!

Mini waffles…how cute.

After breakfast we drove to Henderson, Nevada.

We were so fortunate to be in the air-conditioned car.

We then went straight to the air-conditioned lobby, to our air-conditioned room.

For dinner we went to Buddha Belly Deli, a Yelp find.

We had the Chicken Katsu Club and Char Siu Pork Roll, with furikake chips.  The portions were quite large and everything was delicious!  Beware that the coleslaw has nuts, though (not listed on the menu).

On our way home, we spent a night in Salt Lake City.  We arrived during lunchtime so we went to City Creek Center.  It is a nice shopping center with a retractable roof.  The air conditioning was appreciated, yet there was still an “outdoor” feel.

We split a couple of sandwiches at Bocata, which is located in the food court.  The freshly baked pita pocket bread was so good!  The kids were not too fond of the fillings, so they just had Chick-Fil-A.

There was a cool river running through the mall, with live fish!

After lunch we walked around Temple Square a little bit, but it was warm so we did not last long.

We checked into the Fairfield Inn Suites, which was our nicest place to stay during our entire trip.  Thank you Marriott Rewards!

Our n can still sleep anywhere!

For dinner, we ate at Oh Mai.  It was a cute Vietnamese-American place, and the food was really good, with large portions.  It was a bit warm and stuffy, though. 

I did not realize that Utah is the “Beehive” state. 

After dinner, we stopped by the hotel lobby and grabbed our free coffee and cookies.  I think this is also when we watched a few too many episodes of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. 

On Father’s Day, we packed up camp and hit the road by 7:30 a.m.  We had another 8+ hour drive ahead of us, plus we would lose an hour with the time difference.  For lunch we stopped at Firehouse Subs in Riverdale Utah.  I registered online for their e-club and received a BOGO coupon for Father’s Day!  The coupon required the purchase of a drink…a very LARGE drink, as big as D’s head.  To my dismay, D chose cherry vanilla Dr. Pepper, but he felt it was his prerogative since it was Father’s Day.

Idaho was a new state for all of us to add to our “states we’ve been to” list.

It was much greener than Nevada.  We took some time to get out of the car and explore the small town of Idaho Falls and the Snake River.

There was a small serene Japanese garden.

It looks overcast, but it was actually quite warm!

Dear readers, it has been a while.  k and n finished school on June 18.  On June 20-27, we took an epic, 2,400+ mile road trip that covered three national parks and six states.  Upon our return home we found that our computer had decided to call it quits.  I am happy to report that we ordered a cheap HP laptop from Amazon, and we’re now back in business!

Our first stop was Great Basin National Park in Baker, Nevada, aka “Nowhere”.  With an eight hour plus car ride ahead of us for the day we left at 5:20 a.m.  We borrowed a CX-9 from D’s work, which was pretty much a necessity, given that we both usually drive Mazda 3’s. 

For any road trip, snacks are key to this family.  I came up with the idea to re-purpose the kids’ rainbow loom boxes to make snack boxes for the road.  This put the kids in charge of their own snacks, eliminating much of the whining and constant turning around to dole out snacks throughout the trip.  I had seen a similar idea on Pinterest, but they put the snacks directly in the compartments without plastic bags.  Knowing this would end up as a big mess if someone accidentally spilled the contents of their box, I thought plastic bags were a better idea.  They also kept the snacks fresher.  The kids were good about self-control…some snacks even made it back home with us!  Of course, we did supplement with other food that would not fit or stay fresh, including fresh fruit, cheese, etc.

One big perk of renting the CX-9 was the built in video monitor/dvd player and two wireless headphones!  We had a rule that the kids were not allowed to watch any DVDs while we were in any of the national parks (we wanted them to be looking out the window!)  We also had a rule that they could not start out the day with any movies.  We wanted to make sure they were bored before they resorted to electronics.  I made each of them a little binder with some activities, but they were kind of difficult to do while riding in the car.

Meanwhile, D and I enjoyed the Sirius radio stations that we had access to.  Before the trip, I was in a mild panic because I could not find our ipod (which we pretty much only use on road trips).  However, the 80’s, 90’s, and 2k stations kept us entertained.  We were having flashbacks with hits from Eminem to “Here Comes the Hotstepper” to C+C Music Factory!

So, the kids’ last day of school was yesterday. The day before the last day of school, guess who forgot to pick up her daughter from school for minimum day? (My excuse is that my schedule was thrown off because n did not have speech therapy, which he has had all year, and which ended at the same time that school lets out). Thankfully, k told another mom she saw, the mom called me to confirm that I had indeed forgot, and she dropped k off at our house.

My second, even bigger failure occurred today when I committed this atrocity:
I had given him a decent haircut earlier in the afternoon, but then noticed some unevenness later on. I got the razor out again, forgetting that I had taken the shield off the trimmer! Oh my goodness, I cannot believe I did that! n is going to be wearing hats in public for a while. I guess it is a good thing he does not have to go to school looking like this. Hopefully we will all be able to look back at this and just laugh. At least hair grows back, right?? 🙂