Signs of Spring!

Our plum tree has 1 blossom (hopefully, there will be more in the future)

The hibiscus are blooming!

Pretty geraniums

Don't know what these are, but they're nicely flowered as well

Grape vines!

Garlic shoots

Scallions!

Our orange tree had 3 blossoms last year... Look at it now!

Happy 3 Months! Celebrating with some Mirror Dancing

Happy 3 months to Sierra!

Sorry that this video is sideways and jerky (hard to do with one hand on a squirmy bouncing Sierra and the other with the camera)... but have a peek at one of Sierra's most favorite pastimes: playing in front of the mirror! She loves to interact with the baby in the mirror... and here you can see the smiles that are so elusive to catch on camera (she's not a fan of the camera as it is always flashing in her face!)

Tour of California - Stage 8 (aka Stalking Levi and Lance!)

Chasing Levi and Lance all over North County!
February 22, 2009

My brother came down to visit for the weekend and meet little Sierra. Since his visit coincided withe the ending of the Tour, we decided to check it out

We caught them at 3 locations:
-Official start at 0 Km
-In the middle, near the Wild Animal Park (we ran down the street and got there JUST in time)
-Finish in Escondido

The Finish was too crazy and we didn't get too many good shots cuz they're blazing by too fast at the end! But here of some pictures we got. I've tagged Levi and Lance where I knew it was definitely them. I may have gotten some Floyd Landis, but not sure yet.

Location: Rancho Bernardo --> Escondido

Since facebook pictures have such low resolution, I've appended the original photos of the ones with Levi and Lance below for your viewing pleasure.

At 0 KM

Levi is in the middle in the yellow jersey and navy arm warmers

Lance's butt! (He's #2)

In the middle, the Breakaway... Frnk Schleck (winner of the stage) should be here.

Team Astana at the front of the peloton

(Levi in yellow, Lance is the only one with a yellow helmet)

Finish - Levi's teammates congratulating him on winning the Tour

Levi's butt

We went home afterwards and watched the race that we DVR'd.

Fun day!

Sierra is"singing"?

She's been fairly vocal since 2 months or earlier. We've had "conversations"... but this is new as of last night/this morning:



She's been a loudmouth all morning!

Mission Bay Sunset

Palm Springs Half Marathon and 5K

Dave and his friends had so much fun at the Carlsbad Half that they decided to run the Palm Springs Half this weekend!

We drove into Palm Springs Saturday morning. Check out the snow-capped mountains along the way. There were tons of rain the week before, we were worried that it would rain this weekend. Thankfully, the storms held off 'til Monday.



Apparently, it was the day of Tour de Palm Springs - a big cycling race ranging from 5-100 miles. Cyclists EVERYWHERE. We walked through the small Expo at the finish line. Fun shopping! Lots of fantastic deals! We gotta find some more bike races to shop for our gear. Much much much cheaper than REI...

Playing with Sierra that night in the hotel.

I decided at the last minute to run the 5K and test how well the stroller works. Technically, you can run with a baby in the stroller at 6 months, when the neck is stable. However, since we bought the infant car seat adaptor, that should work well enough. It actually worked very nicely (as long as the roads are smooth).







My pictures from race day:

Dave in his trash bag staying warm (it was in the 40s!).

Pretty mountains

While waiting for the 5K to start, I caught the Half Marathoners blaze past us!

Dave

Mike

Check out the backdrop of the race...

No pictures of me on the way since it's hard to take a picture of myself while jogging. I kept John's cousin company during the 5K, so the pace was very leisurely. To test the jogger, I ran the last mile pretty fast and passed a bunch of people. That was FUN! :) BOB jogger is very awesome. So smooth! Sierra was zonked out the entire race!

Dave coming in!

Finishing! (Time was pretty good. Around 1:45 again... very consistent)

A minute later comes Mike!

Another minute, there's John!

Becky finishing with an awesome time of ~1:53. Wow, I wish I can run like that.

Baby's first race. What a good girl.

Free advertising for Lexiva (drug that Becky sells)

(Dave and I forgot to bring our Jerseys! Oops! We'll take this picture again, properly, with everyone later on....)

Links to Sierra pictures

Since it takes Blogger FOREVER to upload pictures, here are some quick links:

Pictures from age 0 to almost 2 months:
Dave's facebook album, Sierra Liu
Mel's facebook album, Sierra Volume 1

Snapfish albums (this will require signing into Snapfish - don't worry, it's free):
December 2008
January 2009
February 2009

Please be patient as it takes me a while to update things...