i wish everyone a happy, healthy, and successful new year!

i finally got the lens i wanted for a while :)

念願のレンズをゲットしました！（やりました、まるさん、yukiさん＾＾）

anyways,i had to go try out my new lens, so we went to the park. he held on to it for about 5 to 10 seconds, was his first time!

で、早速公園に行ってトライ！　カイは初鉄棒に挑戦、５秒から１０秒くらいは 捕まっていられました。

as i knew, when i take a close-up pics, love the blurry background (but i couldn't take a good one today since it was a practice ;P). i will keep on trying next time! 　well, kai and i are going back to sfo tomorrow from tokyo so i won't be able to blog this weekend with jet lag and all. sorry!

やっぱり、ポートレートを撮った時の背景のボケがすごくいい！（今回は練習という事であんまり良いのが撮れなかったのですが...＾＾；）　もっといろいろ撮って試したいですね！ 明日の飛行機で成田からサンフランシスコに帰ります。時差ぼけなどで今週末はちょっとブログ出来ないかもしれません　＾＾；　一応お知らせまで、あとコメントバック遅れていてすいません。m(__)m

this is me when i was kai's age at the local festival in japan. i think we look alike...genes are crazy thing! ;)

カイの年頃の私の写真。やっぱりなんとなく似てる...遺伝子って恐ろしい物だな〜　笑

this is my mom when she was my age now.　yup, think we look alike!

ちなみにこれは母が私の年の時の写真（浮き輪の中にいるのも私）。やっぱりなんか似てる！笑

i bought this apple slicer from ikea a while back but i finally started using it the other day. it's so cool! i don't know why i didn't use it sooner! it definitely worth $2.99 price tag :)

このアップルスライサーはかなり前にイケアで買ったんだけど引き出しに入れっぱなし...先週リンゴを買ったので使いはじめてみました。さすが、名前のとおりリンゴは一瞬でスライス！もっと前から使えば良かった！2ドル９９セントの価値かなり有り＾＾

finally daniel's late b-day present arrived in the mailbox.

ダニエルの誕生日プレゼントがやっと郵便で来ました。

it wasn't a surprise 'cuz he found it first and he's been wanting a new wallet anyways. so i just go ahead and ordered Nooka AO. i love their watches and have been wanting one for few years now. i guess i'm just scared of getting used to a new way of looking at watch? but i like this one or this one.

nothing fancy, made out of durable, water resistant, silicone and has 3 pockets. i really like the nooka logo pattern on the flap, nice touch! :)

i just desperately needed a good cup of strong coffee this afternoon. after exercising with my friend in the morning, chasing kai around the house, and was getting worn out already by the afternoon! so i made a cup of coffee and sat in front of computer and caught up on things that had to be done :)

omg, it's hot today! it's like almost 94 F (34.4 C) out!!! seemed like it got hot all of a sudden today and totally reminding me of miserable hot summer that's around the corner. at least it cools down at night, i guess that's good and we don't have to run a/c all day...

i got this new wii game called ea active and it's so awesome! (so far anyways) i desperately need to lose weight and want to get in shape this summer, so i was excited to buy this game, not to mention it's getting awesome reviews. well, so far, i think this game is a lot better than wii fit because...

1. there's variety of exercises to choose from, not just like 20 moves on each sections
2. everyday is different combination of exercises (upper and lower body) so doesn't get repetitive and boring
3. i really sweat and "feel" that's working...yes, i wake up with sore muscles
4. it's designed to increase the intensity of exercises over time (like 30-day challenge) so you can really "work out" your body and hopefully get in shape!
5. i like how it constantly have "calorie burned" and "total time of exercise" on screen to see my progress

well, i 'll report how this work out in a month or so. i hope combination of doing this game and go on a walk almost everyday will do something to my body... i just have to be good and actually keep doing it rather than staring at the game ;) wish me luck!

quick update on the trader joe's dessert that i talked about last week. this apple blossoms were pretty good, not too sweet, and only $1.99 for two in the frozen section. i baked them for about 15 min. in the toaster oven and were delicious and i totally recommend them!

on the other hand, the other dessert i bought, 'canneles de bordeaux' was okay. it wasn't bad but i'll just say that it wasn't worth getting fat for ;)

kai is pretty much all better now =) came to find out that he had roseola (or in japanese 突発性発疹症) which is a mild illness that's usually harmless and very common in children under 2 years old. didn't end up going to the doctor 'cuz my mom helped me look it up and it's one of those things most babies gets it so i was pretty relieved (and it wasn't swine flu either!!!).

anyway, after taking daniel to work (he still can't drive yet!), kai and i went to our favorite grocery store...trader joe's! kai loves it 'cuz he usually points and say "ba ba" and works his charm to a cashier lady, and gets a balloon for the car ride home. ha ha ha.

ok, back to the story...here are some of the things i love to get at trader joe's and i just thought i'll share from what i bought today. this soyaki teriyaki sauce is the best teriyaki sauce, it goes with anything! i used to buy soy vay teriyaki sauce when trader's carried them but now they stopped and trader joe's version is as tasty and cheaper ($2.99)! so why not, right? i did really buy 3 today 'cuz sometimes they are sold out and i need to be sure to have them in stock ;)

cont. reading for more of my favs.

love this, it's only $1.69 and i kinda eat them as healthy snack! not to mention, kai loves edamame (guess he is my son!) and eats them like there's no tomorrow!

this is another kai's favorite actually, it's easy and yummy. you can even cook it real quick with soyaki sauce and serve it over rice with some veggies for quick dinner! they have another kind of meatballs (they are bigger in size) but i think this mini meatballs taste better.

these are great with trader's organic tortilla chips for snack time!

i've actually never tried them before but they always look so good sitting in the dessert frozen section. so i finally gave in and bought them today. have any of you tried these before? do you guys like them? i'll update on what i think when i eat them sometime soon :)

obviously, i don't care for windows BUT i just can't get over how cute this girl is!!! i totally want her as my child! she looks so cute when she does her little "fish" face and her voice is super cute also. i bet kai is gonna be doing that on mac when he is 4.5 yrs old in photoshop, or who knows he might be programming computer. lol.

found some fun travel tages/labels on hp website today. you can download the pdf here.

i've been buying organic milk for kai since he turned 1 year old. when i read magazine or article about "organic food," they always mention that the best thing you can do organic is milk. cuz organic dairy cattle are not on a feed lot (and tend to be healthier), and produced without synthetic chemicals, hormones or antibiotics. i understand all that but organic milk is almost 50% more expensive than regular gallon of milk (the cheapest i can buy is $5.99 on sale around here). sometime my wallet wonders if it's really worth it? what do you guys think? do you guys buy organic milk?

sorry for the lack of post...we've been all sick the past few days, actually kai got it first, then went to me and finally daniel. we are still not perfect and trying to recover from this flu we got somehow.

this fun elephant humidifier i picked up about a week ago at target has been working great (more varieties you can find them here), didn't know we needed it this much! what a great timing, right?

i've been having fun with this free program called poladroid (maybe you have that already? if not, download it here). you pretty much drag + drop pictures and produces old school polaroid images. it's super awesome! so, i thought i'll do some collage of my b-day pics since i'm playing around with it.

*most of these pics are from vanessa's new camera, thanx!

i learned something new today at the grocery store. i didn't know that brussels sprouts grow on a stalk!!! did you guys know? or maybe is it just me? i somehow thought they grew on the ground like a cabbage cuz they look like a baby cabbage, right? i was so surprised that i had to stop and take a picture with my phone ;)

i've been into drinking nice hot green tea everyday. i guess my "japanese-ness" is coming out this winter ;) altho, i'm not drinking in very traditional cup and tea pot :P i actually don't have one besides this one... so i decided to have green tea for my snack time with kai and i had some green tea kit kat i got from japan. yummy!

just in case, if you are wondering what the green tea kit kat looks like... it's green! just have the green tea flavored chocolate and inside is the same old wafers.

we did go to ikea and it wasn't as bad as i thought it would be. yes, there were lots of people but i've seen worse. anyhoo, when we were walking back to the car, we noticed that there was fire bell going on in the parking garage and found out that some stupid person tried to drive the u-haul truck into the garage, ripped the sprinkler, and got it stuck! the ground was all wet from the sprinkler, 3 fire trucks, and lots of fire fighters around. i just had to take some pictures cuz that's a really stupid accident, i mean those max clearance bars are there for a reason?!?! hope this person bought the u-haul insurance to cover the damages!

meet chester, he is our neighbor, mike, michelle, and jordynne's puppie. i guess he is a chihuahua and dachshund mix. he is cute and very energetic and not to mention he is deedee's new boyfriend ^_^

we got some flowers in a red truck from our work today. it is so cute and pretty. thanks!

monica got us some stuff for the baby! it is all so cute and we love it ;) there's a animal print bumper (the other side is stripes), two crib sheets, dust ruffle, polka dot blanket + duvet cover set. thanks grammy!

Here's us at work on a Saturday having a little fun... this is about as fun as it gets there.

Hey every one, yes the rumors are true, I got a job at this place in California called GA Communications. We will be moving down to the bay area hopefully by Oct. 16th! So if you want to keep in touch just keep viewing this blog to see what's up with m+d.