Day 360 - Pumpkin Patch

Thought of the day: Boulder has a vibrant restaurant scene. There are many good restaurants in town drawing crowds all day long, all week long.  However, it’s also very competitive and we have seen many restaurants unfold, including ones that we really liked. For example, Orchid Pavilion used to be my favorite Chinese restaurant in town but it had been out of business for a while now. Its closure left a hole in Boulder food scene as there were really no other Chinese restaurants with the perfect combination of good location, nice ambiance and tasty food. Downtown’s Juanita’s used to serve affordable Mexican food with one of the best margaritas in town. It was closed to make space for an upscale restaurant. And today, I found out by surprise that Suki Thai Noodle House was also closed. Suki Thai made healthy noodle bowls and was a great place to grab a quick lunch with kids. There are many other closures that we know of and it is always sad to say goodbye to some of our favorite ones. Luckily, the vast majority of the restaurants we visit are still thriving and we hope it will remain the case for a while to come.

Photo of the day:

I visited Cottonwood Pumpkin Patch with three girls today. Kids had fun picking pumpkins, navigating the mazes and petting the farm animals. I love going to a pumpkin farm in this season as it's filled with vibrant colors, quaint equipments and happy kids - all of which make it a fun place to linger and photograph for a couple of hours. It's a visual feast that, hopefully, will never go out of business and one that I will enjoy year after year.

Day 357 - All Done!

Thought of the day: I spent the evening talking with a new friend on a tatami over some divine Japanese food. It was a lovely evening. On the wall facing me hung a large framed photograph of white cherry blossoms. The Japanese waitress was unbelievably friendly and she was dressed in an oversized beige silk blouse with orange floral prints on it. The ambience of this place made me feel very comfortable and I was momentarily transported to Japan - a country that had held my fascination for quite a while now even though I hadn't had a chance to visit yet.


Photo of the day:

"All done!"  Lila loved Dushanbe Teahouse's coconut rice pudding.  We were there for lunch to say goodbye to our house guests - they would be sorely missed.

Day 356 - Magician

Thought of the day: I finally got around to organize the books I was reading this afternoon. It made such an impressive pile that I decided not to get any more books until I finished up the current pile. I was frequently irritated by the fact that Jasmine read multiple books at the same time and scattered them all around the house. Now I know where she got her habit from. Time and again, when I observe puzzling behaviors of my kids, I can often find the clue by merely looking in the mirror.

Photo of the day:

A magician playing fascinating tricks in a local restaurant. It's easier to uncover the secrets behind his tricks in books than watching his moves carefully as he is really good.

Day 353 - Red Light

Thought of the day: It had been cold and raining today. It even snowed a little bit at some point. Of course, with such a warm ground temperature, the snow melted as soon as it reached the ground. We mostly stayed inside the house, played games and enjoyed the last few days of company of our house guests. It was a relaxing day and the kids loved having so many adults around to play with.

Photo of the day: 

Dinner at Carelli's.  The restaurant always has a nice ambiance. With its warm interior lighting and large fire places, it feels especially cozy and welcoming in a cold day like today.

Day 331 - Restaurant

Thought of the day: Sadly, we haven’t camped for a single time this summer. With the weather getting colder, the chance of going camping this season is getting slimmer as the light is getting softer every day. Camping trips in the summer are like ski vacations in the winter - missing them is like missing some of the essence of summer. Sure, we have done a lot of other interesting activities, but I wish we had given a higher priority to camping.

Photo of the day:

One thing we have done a lot during the summer is eating out.  There are a lot of good restaurants in Boulder to choose from, including this Mexican restaurant where we spent the evening at.  It had a great ambiance and good food.

Day 326 - Brunch

Thought of the day: Today is the mid-autumn festival in China. That's an important festival when the families are supposed to sit together at a round table in a quiet courtyard under the brightest moon of the year and appreciate the delicacy of moon cakes. With my immediate family scattered across the globe, I can't recall the last time when we spent the festival together. Indeed, other than my parents, I don't think any of us even celebrates the festival any more. This is one of the lost traditions that I do miss. It makes me sad to realize that some of the special things that I grew up with will probably never be experienced by my children or at least not be experienced in the same way. Of course, they will grow up with their own set of experiences that I would not even have dreamed of as a child. They will be shaped by their own environment and memories just like I was shaped by mine.

Photo of the day:

We had Sunday brunch with a friend at the Teahouse again - it's one of our favorite spots for brunch. I wonder how Jasmine and Lila will remember our many visits to the Teahouse many years from now.

Day 298 - Jasmine

Thought of the day: This is the last day of the summer break. Looking back, I think we have had a pretty good summer. We spent time with grandparents in June and August. We stayed in Boulder in July when the summer activities had reached its peak. I didn't sign Jasmine up for any academic activities. I hope that the trips we made and the camps she did has helped her develop her personality and increase her appreciation in people, animals and nature. To me, that's more important than developing academic skills which she will have the entire school year for. And, of course, she has had a lot of fun and she can't wait for the school to start again.

Photo of the day:

Jasmine happy at the Teahouse - she is enjoying the last day of summer break before returning to school tomorrow.

Day 289 - Fish Market

Thought of the day: My parents have a large, enclosed yard and the girls often spend hours there playing with each other.  They run around, play games and water the plants.  The backyard borders a creek but it's completely fenced in.  It's connected to the courtyard in the middle of the house which is also very safe.  In Boulder, our backyard abuts the open space with no fence in between.  That gives an open feeling to the yard but it can also be unnerving because of the real threats from mountain lions, black bears and coyotes that are not uncommon where we live. The girls can't play in our yard unsupervised but they can do it here. The peace of mind and extra freedom that a safe backyard can bring to a family like ours is immeasurable. I will surely miss that when I get back.

Photo of the day:

Palo Alto's Fish Market.  It seems to be a local favorite and lots of older people frequent this restaurant. We were there for dinner tonight.  Unfortunately it was not enough for Lila to run around in the yard all day long - she had some extra energy to burn off in the restaurant and raised a few eyebrows there.  Luckily, most people were very nice to her and smiled at her - perhaps she reminded them of their equally energetic grandkids.

Day 288 - Green Parking

Thought of the day: Since we are here with both kids for two entire weeks, we are really motivated to find other kids in the neighborhood for the girls to play with. So after I heard the sounds of some kids playing in the neighboring yard, I knocked on the door with Jasmine and introduced ourselves.  Lucky for us, a very friendly family lives next door and they didn't mind the intrusion at all.  Their two sweet girls have been playing with Jasmine ever since. We're lucky to have neighbors who are so open-minded and flexible.  Having neighborhood kids to play with definitely makes this place seem more friendly and homey for us.

Photo of the day:

A green and lush parking spot for a bike outside of Amber Indian Restaurant in Mountain View.  David and I had lunch there today.  The food is definitely more spicy and perhaps more authentic but we are missing the Tandoori Grill.  We are still developing our list of favorite local restaurants here and will probably feel more at home once we find a few within walking or biking distance.

Day 279 - Tajik Kabob

Thought of the day: I am watching a segment on PBS about prison inmates getting education behind the bars. As education can help people redirect impulsive energy and maximize rationality, it has the potential of changing even a lifelong criminal's habits and behaviors.  Of course, getting education in prison is nothing new, but most of the programs geer towards training the inmates for specific jobs.  This program is different - it selects a small subset of applicants and gives them a college level education which may entitle them to a bachelor's degree in a couple of years. Instead of teaching specific skills, it encourages creativity and critical thinking and gives them the opportunity to improve and apply themselves. The selected students are among the most curious and motivated - often more so than the ones outside of the bars. After graduating and getting out of prison, many of them turn out to be motivated workers and are making valuable contributions to the society and supporting their families.  Given the chance, hope can blossom in a place that seems so hopeless - it is indeed an interesting and thought provoking story for me.

Photo of the day:

Tasty Tajik Kabob in Dushanbee Teahouse where I took Haeji for lunch before her departure flight.

Day 277 - Performance Night

Thought of the day: It's summer tea time!  The Dushanbe Teahouse is hosting the annual Rocky Mountain Tea Festival for kids in an outdoor seating area. We spent this morning there with some friends.  Lila and other little kids had tea and cookies, did art projects, played dress-up games and, most importantly, got their pictures taken with teddy bears! In the meantime, the adults sat at a table not too far away from the kids and had their own tea.  Of course, there were a lot of comings and goings at the table to help the kids with their activities, but I enjoyed the brief moments when I could sit at the table, have a little conversation, and watch the light dancing in the cascading grapevine that's shading us from the sun.  Amidst the frenzy summer activities, these are the moments in life to be savored and remembered.

Photo of the day:

Performance night for the soprano we are hosting.

Day 276 - Korean BBQ

Thought of the day: It was a warm day and a perfect day to spend in the Eldorado Springs swimming pool.  The pool was located at the base of Eldorado Canyon State Park and fed by a natural spring.  The artesian water in the pool was very cool and refreshing.  The pool was surrounded by an ancient pool house, a dingy snack bar, some wood benches, a first-aid station and completed with a dive board and a metal slide.  Everything - other than the refreshing water itself - looked historic and a bit outdated but that did bestow some old world charm on the pool.  After our nice pool experiences in Switzerland last month,  I certainly wish there were more shades, especially over the toddler's area. I was also missing espresso machines and better food choices there.  However, if you are prepared to bring your own food and drinks, it can be a good place for you to cool down and whisk away a couple of carefree hours in a hot summer day.

Photo of the day:

The Eldorado Springs pool cooled us down sufficiently for a Korean BBQ in the evening.  We are hosting a Korean Soprano  (second to the right) for a couple of days and we, together with a couple of our friends, took her out for some yummy food tonight.

Day 271 - Connection

Thought of the day: This afternoon, I watched a young woman conversing with an elderly woman in a cafe.  Judging from their appearances, they must be at least two generations apart. The young woman was describing her summer experiences and her plans in a lively and animated manner, while the older woman was listening intentively and occasionally injecting her comments in a soft voice. They were both fully absorbed in the conversation.  It was fascinating to watch as you don't see this taking place very often.  The Americans, for the most part, tend to socialize with people of similar ages.  Kids play with same age kids, young mothers socialize with young mothers, and the retirees tend to keep to each other.  It's not surprising that people at the similar stage of life would find the companionship of each other both convenient and comforting, as they do similar things and face similar challenges.  However, regardless of the age difference, we often have more in common than not.  In fact, precisely because we are at different stages of life, we have a lot to share with and learn from each other.  It's a pity that people don't socialize more across the age boundaries. We can easily become the prisoners of our age, profession, race, social status and an assortment of other things that made up our identity. Watching the exchanges between these two women in the cafe reminded me of what we have to lose when we willingly imprison ourselves in our daily lives instead of reaching out to people who are "not like us".

Photo of the day:

Zhou Mama carrying a patron's baby girl in her arms, while the three women in "Eat, Drink, Man, Woman" watched on.  There is a harmony and connection displayed in this photo that is easier to sense than to describe.

Day 219 - Musician

Thought of the day: Today Lila's preschool celebrated the end of the school year with a picnic in a park.  Yesterday Jasmine's class celebrated the last day of school with a pool party.  Yes, both girls are out of school, the summer is here, let the fun begin!

Photo of the day:

South Side Murphy's - we had dinner here tonight with friends - a good way to kick off the summer.

Day 213 - Lila

Thought of the day: Today was Lila's birthday.  We got lucky with the weather as it cleared up and it was green everywhere after all these rain.  We took a bus to downtown, met some friends there, and had lunch at the teahouse.  After some rest in the afternoon, we had cake and Lila opened her presents and they kept the girls busy for the rest of the day.  It was a nice, low-key celebration of Lila's special day.  The party will come next weekend and I am glad that we had today all to ourselves.

Photo of the day:

Lila outside of the Dushanbe Teahouse.

Day 207 - Dinner Table

Thought of the day: Jasmine made lunch today - a tasty rice noodle soup.  She was proud to make it and serve it to us.  She seemed to have grown up so much recently, which made me both proud and sad at the same time.  I was planning for Lila's 3rd birthday party this week, which reminded me of Jasmine's 3rd birthday party that we celebrated near a lake in the bay area.  It was a couple of years ago but I felt like it was just yesterday. Time unfolds in a strange way and it provokes emotional responses from us in unexpected ways.  Over the years, we will go through various stages of our kids' lives and we will keep missing the previous stages and keep looking forward to the new ones.  It's a continuous process with milestones that we both love and hate. It's the same thing for ourselves even though we often don't pay as much attention to it as it deserves.

Photo of the day:

Dinner table - we celebrated a friend's birthday in Laudisio's tonight.  Delicious food, good group of people, memorable evening.  Our lives are marked with milestones too and I am glad that we have the opportunity to celebrated one with her.

Day 199 - Jasmine

Thought of the day: This afternoon, when Jasmine and I were having lunch at Zhou Mama's, I saw Zhou Mama outside of her restaurant.  She was sitting on a bench along the side walk and taking a break.  And then I saw a cleanly dressed man walked over to her, gave her a kiss and handed her a beautiful bouquet.  I could sense a gentle, loving connection between these two and it turned out that he was her son and the bouquet was for Mother's Day, which would be tomorrow.  Zhou Mama has always been very warm and welcoming to guests in her restaurant.  She often offers me special treats like freshly made Chinese sausage, Goji berry rice cake, scallion cake, etc.  She is always alert and attentive and it's hard to believe that she is actually quite a bit older than my own mother.  I have a lot of respect for her and feel a certain affinity with her.  After watching the touching gesture by her son, I decided to get her a Mother's Day gift too.  Jasmine and I found it in a fair trade store on Pearl - a metal watering can hand-painted by a Bangladesh rickshaw driver with a beautiful sunflower on a green background.  It's now sitting in her restaurant serving as a vase for her son's bouquet - I couldn't be happier with the arrangement.

Photo of the day:

Jasmine got a new hat today.  It's a perfect hat for the spring!

Day 182 - Lila

Thought of the day: This morning I read a political column by Paul Krugman recently published on NY Times.  It's titled "Let's Not Be Civil" in which he wrote about the ideological differences between the two parties as manifested by their different proposals for deficit reduction.  He asserted that the differences were so stark that it's hopeless to try to reconcile the proposals through civil discussions and the only hope of reconciliation lied in the upcoming election in 2012.  He made an interesting observation that "...the two parties don’t just live in different moral universes, they also live in different intellectual universes".  How true!  In the past few years, I have found myself to be in agreement with almost everything one party represents and in disagreement (sometimes in disgust) with almost everything the other party represents.  That includes everything from the role of the government, universal health care, the distribution of wealth, gun control to environmental policies, abortion and gay rights.  I think this is not a healthy situation.  It can be partly attributed to the fact that the US Congress is getting increasingly polarized.  Moderates have been gradually replaced by those closer to their ideological homes and that's especially true for the republican party.  Perhaps I am also, alas, getting more narrow-minded.  It's easy to happen as, over time, you tend to gravitate towards like-minded friends, read books and articles by like-minded authors and watch programs narrated by like-minded reporters.  Perhaps I should try to expand my horizon and reach deeper into "the other side" with more sincerity and open-mindedness.  However, as long as my moral values and the facts don't change, I doubt I will change many of my opinions as a result.  But perhaps I will gain a better understanding of where the other opinions come from and why some genuine and intelligent people would embrace a world view that is so completely different from mine.

Photo of the day:

Lila standing outside of the Med (nick name for Mediterranean Restaurant) in downtown Boulder. This place has been voted  as the best restaurant for tapas year after year and it's easy to see why. Food unites people like nothing else. All the political differences dissipates in the air after a good glass of margarita!

Day 181 - Dessert

Thought of the day: Beautiful day for meeting people, having lunch in downtown and then taking a stroll on Pearl st.  I'm feeling lucky!

Photo of the day:

Dessert at Q's - it tasted as good as it looked.

Day 180 - Jayden

Thought of the day: It has been difficult to put Lila down for an afternoon nap lately.  On some days she didn't need a nap, but on the days when she really needed one she often refused to nap anyway and ended up with a dinner time meltdown.  Today I found a solution which may not be recommended by a pediatrician but it worked out well, at least for one day.  I took her on a bike ride around nap time and she fell into sleep on the way.  I parked the bike securely and made her more comfortable by lowering the bike seat.  She continued napping on the bike for another hour or so before waking up happy.  So this might just be the solution: take her on a bike ride and let her decide whether to fall into sleep or not.  That way I will get in some exercise and she will get some outdoor air, do a little sightseeing, and maybe even get in some sleep once in a while.  Difficult time calls for desperate measures and this is one that I am willing, or maybe even happy, to try.

Photo of the day:

Little boy Jayden in Zhou Mama's restaurant.  He was not tall enough for the table and his chin barely rose above it.  I don't know if he was amused by the sitting situation but it was really cute to watch. Lucky for his mom, he is still too little to let go of the precious daily nap.