Pregnancy news

Gabe and Tiffany just got news that the baby due April 2 is going to be a boy!
Gabe has been pretty out numbered by all the girls in the family. So now he will have a son with whom he says he is looking forward to racing cars. (I assume these will be toy cars).
Karen

Lindsay is engaged

On Friday Nov. 6, Dave proposed to Lindsay. He orchestrated an amazing surprise that had to be kept a secret starting Sept 19 when he asked Steve for permission to ask Lindsay. He had come to Sierra's wedding with the intention of doing this so it was pure coincidence that she caught the bridal bouquet! On Friday, Steve and I and Dave's parents all traveled to Chicago and surprised her when she and Dave arrived for dinner at Trump Towers (very, very classy restaurant in downtown Chicago) after the proposal (a very elaborate video montage of their courtship over the last 3 years that Dave had put together which led to his getting down on his knee and asking the question). He had secretly picked out and purchased the ring, and had to research which knee he was supposed to get down on. When they arrived at the restaurant the parents were standing with a champagne salute. After dinner, more surprises. There was a party waiting at their apartment with their friends. I could not have imagined a more elegant and well coordinated fait accompli.

Karen

Wedding tentatively October 2009 Minneapolis.

We are thrilled.

Grandpa and his girls

Karen declares guerrilla warfare on the pigeons

Will those pigeons ever dare crap on our cars again?... Keep posted for updates...

Long shot Ysemite 1993

Yosemite photo 1

Yosmite picture 3

Photos from Yosemite 1993

Photos from Yosemite 1993

My wicked dance skills

Baby Lindsay - Happy Birthday to you

Baby Kelly - Three Months

Auntie Barbara gave me a DVD with some of the cousins on it. Here is Kelly at 3 months with Lindsay.

A picture from this year's Obon in San Jose. Kristyn's friend Bruno took this picture.

Cranium Classics

Women Build

Kathy, Karen and Chelsey celebrated Mother's Day on Saturday by participating in National Women Build week. We put the railing on two back porches. Karen left early to catch her flight to Egypt. We are pictured with Kate and Christie Whitman (former NJ governor and Bush's EPA person) and another mother-daughter team. Whitman's are on each side of Karen.

Mother's Day - 2009

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!!

Raymond and Peter joined us for an early mother's day dinner at the Hobbit in Orange County tonight. Tomorrow I'm spending the day in class and taking Raymond's mom out for lunch at Ikea (she's insisting.) Hope all my aunties (and cousins) have a great day!

I will also be away on a weekend trip for 4th of july weekend (evening of july 3rd and return on 6th)

-kristyn

Hey all, 

Just sending out a note that I will be away for some time in June.  It's not confirmed yet, but I may be leaving on June 8th for vegas with esteban and his dad, then to Jersey for a wedding, then to TX.  So if all works out I will probably be gone from June 8th to the 24th or so.  Esteban's dad is leaving on the 15th so after that he can stay at the house and help out if needed or I could ask Yanira as well to help out. 

-Kristyn

Nothing special

Steve and I had planned on moving Grandpa in to live with us in June or July. Terri wants to try to keep him at home a little longer by increasing Yu Ai Kai senior day care up to 5 days per week. If he comes to live with us he would go to senior day care and about 3 times per year we would either send him to stay with one of his kids or ask someone if they can fly out here to stay with him for 1-2 weeks. I think he will eventually come to Minnesota, I guess it is just a question of when.

Steve's sister is in a coma and expected to die today.

We leave for Egypt in a week and a half, maybe. I'll post pictures if we make it.

A change to comment moderation

You can now post anonymous comments on the blog (or Name/URL comments) without signing in.

An unknown poem in one of Grandma's scrapbooks

Oh, it's easy to be a starter
But are you a sticker, too?
'Tis fun, sometimes, to begin a thing,
But harder to see it through.

And sometimes failure is best
To keep you from being too sure;
Success that is built on defeat, you know,
Will oftentimes longest endure.

'Tis the sticker who wins in the battle of Life,
While the quitter is lain on the shelf;
You are never defeated, remember this,
Until you lose faith in yourself

Cousins

I just uploaded a bunch of pictures from my camera today, and ran across this one. I'm sure you all have a copy of it.. i think I took it over the shoulder of 4-5 others.. but I thought I'd share it.

Hope you all have a nice Easter break!

Auntie Alice as Geisha girl

When we up in San Jose Auntie Alice told me that she had worked for RKO studios in the 50s doing film promotion as a Geisha Girl and that Jennifer might have some copies of them. Jennifer uploaded these pictures (there are more on facebook.) She said she might have some articles that say what movie was too. Thought you might like to see them.

Here's the beginning of my hummingbird painting.  Esteban had a great idea to go out and photograph hummingbirds and do paintings of them.  The painting is far from finished, but now that I'm feeling a little better, the school work is piling up and it's back to chaos as usual.  I will, however, remember to slow down and enjoy a bit slower paced life...for a bit at least.

It was good to see you all despite the circumstance.  Now we have Sierra's wedding to look forward to for our next big get-together and thankfully that's gonna be one of pure fun and awesomeness.

Grandma

I like this picture of Grandma, just figured I'd share it with the rest.

Hotel Reservations

Raymond and I just made reservations for thursday - sunday at the Radisson (In case anyone wanted to know.) My dad said that Uncle Steve made reservations there as well.

We may extend our stay, we are playing it by ear. I want to scan as many pictures in the photobooks as I can.

Little Plastic Castle

So things are a bit sad around here today.  Grandma passed this morning.  It feels like she's been teetering on the edge for the last couple years.  Her loss is saddening but she is finally at peace and for those of you who believe in heaven, she is eating all the apple pie she wants and all sorts of sweets and goodies she once enjoyed and skipping about.  Hmmm, can't exactly picture grandma skipping, ever.  The sad part is the effect it is having on grandpa.  I woke him at 6am this morn to break the news and take him to pay regards before she was taken to the mortuary.  His response was why hadn't anyone told him she was suffering?  Why hadn't anyone told him she was sick?  He hadn't even gotten to see her or talk to her.  Fortunately, by perhaps some divine intervention, Terri had taken him to see her just last night and he was able to hold her hand and tell her he loved her as she poked and pinched him and dug her nails in him in their strange playful banter, perhaps her way of saying, "I love you too".  In moments of clarity, Grandpa can recall that last meeting and recounts how she smiled when he walked into the room and talked with him.  In other moments, he is frustrated that no one told him where she was, that she had been kept a secret from him, that she was up on the hillside all this time and never contacted her.  He forgets her death moment to moment.  Talk of funerals circulates the house and Grandpa follows like a lost puppy asking who died, "Grandma, Mom, Kay, your wife" the answer differs depending on who he asks.  And each time the news hits him like a ton of bricks.  There is an Ani Difranco song that says something about "goldfish have no memories, I guess their lives are much like mine, and the little plastic castle is a surprise every time."  Makes me think of grandpa, not the song but just the line.  But his plastic castle is something not so plastic and not so fantastic, more shocking and horrible.  It's sad to watch him go on this sick repetitive merri-go-round.  

Sorry for the somber tone.  It will be nice to have more people here to spend time with grandpa, to get him out and about, maybe a little therapeutic distraction from the confusion of his mind.

Sending my love to you all.  See you soon, 

Kristyn

Grandpa with sisters, Lucy and Helen. They spent three days at the house while I was there. They came for a one year memorial for sister, Lola. Was nice visiting with them.

I was there for 5 days to help out Kristyn. She is real sick with colitis again.

I arrived home at 2 am from CA and we are flying to Virgin Islands tomorrow morning for our sailing trip with Dave, Pat, Karen and Steve.

Oscar animated short winner - La Maison en Petits Cubes

Directed by Japanese director : Kunio Kato. These will probably be taken off of youtube, I had a hard time finding them at first. I think it's a fantastic allegory on memory. Anyway, hope you like them as much as I did.

A triathlon!

Hey all.  Yep Karen said it.  I'm training through Team in Training for a triathlon.  My goal is to participate in the olympic triathlon which consists of .98 miles swimming, a 24 mile bike ride, and a 6 mile run.  I have not yet begun training with the team (our kickoff is this weekend), but I have been training on my own.  Since last week, I've been on 2 10 mile stationary bike rides, one 15 miler on the roads, I've run 3 miles 3 times, and swam almost 3/4 of a mile one day and a half another.  Granted I've a ways to go but I think I'm just about half-way there.

As part of the training with Team in Training, I am also raising money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.  TNT has been one of the largest, if not largest, contributors to the society, raising over $850 million since TNT's induction 20 years ago.  If anyone wants to contribute or just to check out my progress go to my TNT site: http://pages.teamintraining.org/sj/wildtri09/ktanaka

Thanks!

Kristyn

New donation

Another cool donation. Thanks to Kristyn, a $100 donation is being made to : "Team in Training: The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society". She is training for a triathlon and will be trying to raise around $3,000. Keep us posted on the training and how you do!
The website is http://pages.teamintraining.org/sj/wildtri09/ktanaka

Big Bear Puppet show 1/17/09

photo by Nancy Kruse

It's a little long, well.. it's actually very long, but it's cute. I brought a bunch of my friends and their kids up to the cabin in Big Bear this weekend and had them do a puppet show. Maximilian (the announcer) is Raymond's nephew and the baby on the couch is his other nephew Alexi. The other two kids are Jonathan and Maya my friend Edwin's kids.

This one is a lot shorter. Raymond and Edwin thought they could do a better show.. it's debatable.

My dad came up with me on Thursday and we helped move the new tenant in and cleared off part of the driveway (I should have done a before and after picture, I think we moved about a ton of snow.) It's been very hot in big bear during the day, mid 60s, but we got so much snow this season, there was still about 3 1/2 feet on the driveway.

Grins2Go session

Grins2Go made me take down the picture that I posted a couple weeks ago. If you forgot which picture it was, it was the one we all purchased of the whole family with grandma and grandpa with the crazy photoshop job of my sister. I made screen shots of the pictures on the site at a low quality that anyone could have printed on their own home photo-printer. I don't consider that a "digital copy" considering it was a photo that we all purchased,  could have scanned on our own computer and shared, and was at a very low resolution. I should hope that isn't the copy you get for the 60 bux or whatever they charge for a digital copy. 

I don't appreciate the emails bullying my mother, and if you've found this blog post on google before booking your Grins2Go session, I please ask that you take this into consideration. Thanks.

January in New Jersey

We had nice big snowflakes today. Shows our back deck and front yard and the deer in the back. The deer just stopped and posed for me. I know the snow doesn't compare with Minnesota, Wisconsin and Boston, but you California people aren't used to this. It is warmer today, about freezing. Wes worked in the driveway on his boat forms, but got wet and cold.

Thanks to Chelsey, a $100 donation was made today to the One Acre Fund.
I checked out their website www.oneacrefund.org and it is so inspiring. Their mission is to solve the problem of chronic hunger in Africa through loans of seeds and fertilzer and technical assistance to farmers to increase crop yields and get their products to market.
Thank you, Chelsey

Karen and Steve

Favorite Kai Photo

What a beautiful cupie baby!

Grandpa Bowling

Tanaka Christmas

We took no photos on Christmas, but here are two of us doing puzzles afterwards. Sorry, I am slow and just figured out how to post. We did have a great Christmas with the girls and Viren. It had been over a year since either Chelsey or Kristyn had been home.

Kelly's Birthday

Kelly's Birthday Celebration at the Melting Pot in Brea. 

Kelly and I have been having weird car problems lately. The radiator on her car gave up on Friday and she was held hostage on Saturday while my dad worked on it. My car feels like it has a gallon of water sloshing around in the driver side door. I don't know what's wrong with it, but at least it works (I just spent about a grand on getting belts and a water pump! I'm scared at how much sloshing will cost me.) 

Anyway, We spent the day having tea at Tea and Teacups and then playing around at the mall for a few hours. We are kind of addicted to Sephora at the moment. Kelly got her birthday gift without me (which I will never let her forget.) They give you a gift for your birthday as part of the "beauty insider" program. I'm a beauty insider, can't you tell? j/k. You get points for samples and things. Samples are like cat-nip for beauty insiders. num num num. 

New Year's Peter and I went to a Cuban restaurant with dinner and dancing. We had been there several times before so we didn't think anything of it, but then when we got there and all of the entertainment was in Spanish... so me and Peter just danced and pretended like we knew what was being said and just clapped, shouted, and "sang" along with everyone else. Everyone really knew how to do all the dances too like waltzes, rumbas, and cha chas... which we also didn't know, so we just had fun trying to copy our neighbors or just had a good time, figured we didn't know anyone there anyways. It was a really good time.

Happy New Year!

The Turkey Vultures (Late turkey day pics)

I had to post these, they were just too funny.  I think sierra posted similar ones on facebook. 

Happy New Year all. I had a great new year's celebration with a bunch of capoeiristas and farmers, it was an interesting mix.  We counted down to the new year with a samba jam consisting of capoeira instruments, a banjo, an accordion, and a guitar!  The rest of the night was all capoeira and dancing.

New Years in Los Angeles

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Our friend Lauren had a New Year's Winterwonderland party at her loft in downtown LA. She is moving out by the end of the month, so she decided to have this huge party. We had a nice dinner in Little Tokyo, at the only place open! Hope you all had fun and safe holiday! Hopefully some of you have tomorrow off!

I need to write my list of New Years resolutions!