Reptilicus

Dane was invited to a birthday party where they had a Reptile Man! No, he wasn't a carnival freak, he was a reptile handler. I was actually quite impressed with the array of cool animals he brought for the show. I wasn't exactly sure how Dane would handle being so close to scary looking animals, but he did quite well, as long as he was on my lap.

The guy started things off with a tarantula (which brought one girl to tears) and a scorpion.

Then he brought out a few lizards, which were all progressively bigger.
The biggest lizard was a...something something monitor. It was big and scary looking and named Mr. Grumpy Pants. Dane got scared for that one.

There were also two tortoises. The first one was about the size of a bike helmet, which I thought was pretty big. I mean, it's bigger than the kind you just find outside. But then he brought out a huge one!

Audience members who weighed less than 30 pounds were allowed to ride the tortoise. But alas, Dane has just barely become 31 pounds. Oh well.
Then we saw a baby American Alligator! Apparently they're illegal in Utah but you can have one if you have a permit, like this guy.

Then, the snakes. I personally am rather scared of snakes, but Dane was excited.
If you look at the top right hand corner, you can see Dane's little hand reaching out to touch it.

So excited that after seeing the first snake, Dane and his friends decided to be snakes. (The show ran a little too long for the younger kids.)

I'm pretty sure that first snake was some type of anaconda.
Then there was a corn snake, and we learned that snakes are good for eating mice because even if the mouse has rabies, a snake can't get rabies, so it makes us all safer. Cool, huh. But snakes are still scary.

Then, the 14-foot python!

This was the scariest for me, but the kids were just in awe.

Maybe Dane was a little nervous, too. But he was brave and touched it!

I touched it too, which made me wish I hadn't. Snakes are so creepy and evil looking. Blech.


In non-reptilian news, Joel has been getting increasingly creative when making pancakes in the morning. One morning, he delighted Dane with letter pancakes that spelled his name!

Fun times with a fun daddy.

Also, in the past two weeks, THREE new cousins for Dane have been born:
Joel's brother just older than him, Allen, and his wife, Monique, welcomed their fourth baby on February 7: Emery Frost

Then Joel's brother just older than Allen, Paul, and his wife, Tracie, had their fourth baby: Dorothy Elaine Frost (Dotte)

And just yesterday, Joel's younger sister Laurie Jayne and her husband, Adam, had their first baby: Hyrum Bridger Stradling!

Congratulations, and hooray for all the babies!

My Two Valentines

We had a low key but happy Valentine's Day yesterday. I kicked things off by getting up early and making a special Valentine's breakfast. You know I must love Joel and Dane a lot if I'm willing to get up early for them. I made eggs benedict and pink waffles with strawberries and cream. Yummy.


Then I had to go to work. Boo. But it looks like Joel and Dane had fun while I was away. I found these pictures on my camera:


After work, Joel had made a delicious lunch, and then I took a nice long nap.
Finally, for dinner we made Lemon Butter Chicken Scallopine with Artichokes. I can't even describe the deliciousness of this dinner. It almost made me forget that we hadn't gone out to dinner. I don't use the white wine, mushrooms, or capers, and I use about half the butter, but it is still super buttery and delicious. Oh my goodness, it's delicious.
We also had a yummy salad and a fancy baguette from Harmon's, which Dane is modeling for you.



I'm pretty sure he's brandishing it as a sword.
I'm about to sound super uncultured, since I've never been to France, but I have been to the Paris hotel in Las Vegas, and it was there that I ate the most delicious bread and cheese platter that I have ever had. I think Harmon's bread is just as good. And look how beautiful it is!
Anyway, our holiday was centered around food.
Then we went and got Hawaiian Blizzards from Dairy Queen. Mmmmm.
So, happy Valentine's Day to all. I hope you all had a happy day with some tasty food!

Family Photos 2010

We had our family pictures taken by the same photographer as last year; once again, we were very happy with the results:




You can almost tell I'm Asian in this picture:


Dane kind of looks like a ventriloquist dummy in this one:

It's Never Too Late for Christmas

We drove to Oklahoma this year, and we were grateful the drive was fairly easy and uneventful. Luckily, we got there early enough to catch a couple of days with Rika and Brady, who ended up spending Christmas in Utah. Boo.
So Rika and I worked on the impossible Nutcracker duets together:

And Dane enjoyed a few pre-Christmas bike rides with Jiichan in the Dane-mobile.

They can be pretty tiring.
Finally, it was Christmas Eve.
Dane extracted the final treat from his advent calendar,

and got to open one special present:

Christmas pajamas!
But we hit a few snags trying to get the pajamas on:

We finally got them on, but Dane didn't want to pose for me. He did, however, yawn and show us he was ready for bed so Santa could come!

On Christmas morning, we have a tradition of playing instruments as loudly and annoyingly as possible to wake our parents. So, of course, the impossible Nutcracker duets are in order. This year, it was me and Mika, and we got video!

This is what Dane thought of it all:

Finally, it was time to see what Santa brought!
Unfortunately, our camera battery died. What terrible timing! So I have no documentation of the wonder of Santa presents and opening the Christmas bounty. Sad.
But Dane still had plenty of adventures in the POWER WHEELS LIGHTNING MCQUEEN HE GOT FROM SANTA!!!
He was so excited.
My dad even had extra presents so Dane could go on a little treasure hunt in his car every night after Christmas.


Dane is such a lucky boy.
One day, we had some unseasonably warm weather, so we rode our bikes around Lake Hefner. Kenji and my dad were unquestionably in the best shape, but the rest of us struggled a bit more. Nevertheless, we made it all ten miles, riding against the wind most of the time (and, lest you forget, Oklahoma is where the wind comes sweeping down the plains, so it was pretty strong wind).
Kenji, in good form:

Dane, ready in the Dane-mobile, which Daddy pulled:


About a mile into the ride, we came upon my favorite fake lighthouse:


I had been riding the tandem bike with my dad, but Mom was having a hard time, so we traded.
Mom spent much of the rest of the ride with her feet propped up, Mr. Burns style, while my dad did all the work. I regret I did not get a picture, but this will give you an idea:

We stopped about halfway through for a sushi lunch at a little park

And then finished the picturesque ride.
I didn't get any action shots of me, but I looked awesome.

And I didn't fly off my bike a single time.
Afterward, Dane enjoyed the wonder of a sunroof:

On New Year's Eve, we took a little trip to Pops, which is always fun. And this time, Mika discovered Leninade!

The bottle was full of funny phrases, like "Get hammered and sickled," and "A soda worth standing in line for." The soda itself wasn't that great, but the bottle was worth it.
Then, we had our traditional Japanese osechi.

It was Michael's first time, so we of course made him try everything. Here, he has just enjoyed the anchovy wrapped in kelp:

Joel had some, too.

We found some trainer chopsticks for Dane, so he picked up his own chicken. Quite deftly, I might add:

Overall, it is very delicious.
Also delicious are my dad's chocolate milkshakes, which Dane thoroughly enjoyed:

Then, we whisked Dane off to bed and ended 2010 watching Japanese Kohaku and playing Presidents.

(Presidents, or Scum, is a card game. But we add the silly hats to denote ranking. Totoro is president, and the lampshade hat my mom made is scum. Joel was scum in this picture, and Michael was president.)

At one point, Joel noticed that there were some old dried flowers hanging on the curtain rod. They are the flowers he sent me for my 20th birthday, back when we first started dating and he was living in Connecticut while I was home for the summer. Isn't it so romantic that I've kept them these seven-and-a-half years?
Except these roses were diseased; they started turning brown within 24 hours. I tried to salvage some and dried them, but then they just dried into these lacy skeletons of petals. Now, seven-and-a-half years later, they were super dusty and gross. So we said goodbye.

Well, there you have it. We had to head out on New Year's Day, and we were very sad to leave. Mom and Dad and Mika and Michael showed us a wonderful time, and we definitely miss them.
We got to stay at Allen and Monique's house in Albuquerque one night, and then we caught Rika and Brady in Springville as we pulled in. So all in all, we got to see a lot of family. We missed Kenta and Kendall and Thomas, but they were waiting patiently in New Hampshire for the arrival of baby Abigail Hiromi!

And I'm serious when I say they were waiting patiently, because she was due on December 29th and didn't want to be born until January 6th.

So that's it. Oh, except for the picture of Dane looking through binoculars the wrong way.


P.S. Did anyone notice that I cut my hair? I'd been planning on getting it trimmed, but my mom thought it was obscenely long and offered to pay for a hair cut. Then we found out the haircut would be free if I donated my hair to Locks of Love. So, twelve inches later, I have shoulder length hair. I actually kind of hate it, but oh well. My hair grows quickly.