DON'T MESS

A few gems from watching the Lakers-Wolves game with Cerise and my mom

Left: Kevin Love, Right: Nikola Pekovic

 
Cerise:  Kevin Love is soooo ugly!

Me:  He's not that ugly.

Cerise:  Okay, maybe he's just ugly sometimes.

Me:  Honey, I'm pretty sure you think Kevin Love and Nikola Pekovic are the same person.

Cerise:  Wait, the timberwolves have two huge bearded white guys??

"Let's face it. Luke Walton was lucky to make the pros." -Mom

"Really? You think odom and fisher will want to go to the heat? Not to the kings to help Jimmer?" -Mom (before fisher signed with the thunder)

"If you saw Matt Barnes on the street, you'd think he was a gang banger from Santa Ana." -Mom

Why we're stoked for 2012: Japan Trip

Cerise and her grandma on the bullet train from Tokyo to Yamagata in August 2010

We are going to Japan! Again! We told ourselves in the Summer of 2010 that our trip to Japan and Korea would be our last time doing serious traveling for a long time. It was our planned last hurrah before having kids.

Cerise's Obaachan (grandma) has been taking "Internet Classes" and they've been Skyping ever since class #7 when she learned how to connect to the Internet. Cerise and I would pay money to see what classes 1 through 6 were like.

But now we have more excuses to travel. We saved up and we want Cerise's grandma to be able to meet her great-grandson. Realistically it's not going to happen if we have two kids and we definitely don't want to make this trip while Cerise is pregnant.

Cerise's brother Samuel serving an LDS mission in the Japan Tokyo Mission. This is him teaching English class in Tokyo. He is a bad speller and he says his students correct his spelling on a weekly basis when he writes on the board. He then explains to them, "I went to high school in Georgia."

Also, Cerise's younger brother Samuel finishes his mission at the beginning of June. So we're using most of our vacation days to go to Japan for two weeks to visit grandma and pick up Samuel from his mission. This is going to be aaawesome.

calvin meeting obaachan from The Markhams on Vimeo.

Video above: Little man meeting great grandma for the first time on skype. (The best is how cerise's grandma doesn't realize that her skype is programmed to start up whenever she turns on her computer. It's magical to her that Cerise just has a knack for knowing exactly when she sits down at her computer. She will say things like, "Wow! I just got on my computer and then you appeared! How did you know I was here?")

Video below:  I love this video. I can't promise that it won't induce a seizure, but it definitely pumps you up for travel in Japan. You might need to pause it a few times. Nicely done though, Eric Testroete.

This is Japan! from Eric Testroete on Vimeo.

Putting the Ache in Must'ache

Yep, I grew a mustache for "Movember" like everyone else. My firm held a mustache contest for all the associates in California, Arizona, and Nevada... and I got second place! Second the best, baby. I lost to a friend who can grow a Tom Selleck-esque 'stache in four days so I felt pretty good about the whole thing.

I'm pretty sure I couldn't grow a serious mustache until my son was born. I think it might be a dad thing. I've also started eating grape nuts for breakfast and using sensodyne toothpaste. Just kidding... no, but seriously.

I still can't figure out why Cerise boycotted sending out Christmas cards this year. hahahaha

Unfortunately, Cerise was serious when she told me she wouldn't make out with me until I shaved it off because it was too scratchy. Dang man. Well, it was great while it lasted. At least I helped my son learn early that he's got a bright mustache future ahead of him.

The Revolutionary

The Used Car Salesman

The Detective

The Sheriff

Halloween 2011

This post is a little late seeing how Thanksgiving is this week. 

This Halloween was Calvin's first.  And sadly, Lynn was in Hawaii for work, so we had separate Halloween activities. 

 Looking back at the last couple years, our costumes have always been thrown together last minute by whatever we had around the house.

One year we were Lakers' fans.

Another year, I threw a glittery scarf around my head and tried to pull off being Arabian royalty. 

Same year,

Lynn+black clothes+white chalk+leaves pinned to his body=wind. 

I wish we had a picture of that halloween.

This year,  Calvin and I went to the ward trunk or treat.  I cheated as usual and put on a Japanese yukata (summer kimono) and calvin went as Domo.

 Domo is a japanese character quickly becoming popular in america.  He started off as a mascot to NHK a japanese tv station. Not unlike the peacock for NBC.  He became so popular he now has his own TV show; but is better known here as a teenage clothing fad.

Meanwhile, Lynn was celebrating Halloween with his co-workers in Hawaii.

Angry Birds!   Lynn is a gangsta bird?

One of the girls' mom is a seamstress!  She made those costumes so they didn't have the spend $60!Amazing. 

Anyway, maybe next year we'll have matching costumes and look super cute. 

I've always wanted to be chun-li (from street fighter) for halloween.

But since I'm not under the age of 10, guess I'll have to think of something else.

Happy Thanksgiving! We're excited everyone's coming down to Huntington Beach this year! It'll be a party.  I am thankful for my family. -Cerise

White Men Can't Jump

It's crazy to think that 6 months ago we were here.

And now he's a little human jumping himself to sleep.

The first thing I thought of when I saw him crashed out.

Family Date to Newport Beach

Our firm got Friday off so Cerise took the day off as well to hang out as a family. I asked her what she wanted to do and she said, "Well, first we could go to Baby H&M..." When you do accounting stuff all day you kinda daydream about doing something a little more epic with your time off like driving up the coast to camp at Big Sur for the night, but Baby H&M was my second thing that came to mind. Also, if you blur your eyes a little it kinda looks like he's wearing a joke mullett wig.

Can you guess where we are based on the weirdly distressed chairs?

Cafe Rio! You probably guessed it right if you're Mormon since Cafe Rio is an amazing cafeteria style Mexican restaurant chain that started in Utah. This location is in Costa Mesa and if you've never been there make sure you go try it out. The sweet pork will blow your freaking mind.

http://www.caferio.com/locations

Calvin loved watching the Seagulls. They were the first birds he'd ever seen.

Cerise loved looking at my un-looped Member's Only jacket strap and not telling me about it. Awesome.

Calvin loved watching the huge bubbles created by this really nice old guy. We didn't realize until after a few bubbles that he had a thing on the ground for money. We would have totally given him a dollar or two, but we didn't have any cash on us so we left before it got to "You guys better pay for all of these bubbles" time. 

"LEFT THEN RIGHT, YOU LITTLE PANSY"

Cerise was trying to get a picture of me having Calvin burst the bubble by kicking it before it hit the ground. The camera phone is delayed so you have snap it a second before you want it to take the photo. So instead, it looks like I'm one of those football dads who is trying to force his 16 week old kid to walk so he can learn how to run and hit even sooner. Wait, it doesn't look like the football dad? Just a cute dad and balding son picture?

He loves Cerise so much. A lot of times he will just start giggling when she comes into view. At this stage of his life, she is better than me at getting him to laugh. I guess babies' senses of humor aren't really developed by 16 weeks...

I can't believe this guy is 16 weeks old. He just came out of his food coma (temporary sleep after breastfeeding) and he's grabbing my arm hair and smiling as I type with one hand. Life is awesome.