Wide-Angle Lens

Borrowed friend's Canon 10-22mm lens to play with and here are the pics that I can post without near-term retribution:





AidanC @ 1 month (taken with Sigma 30mm):

All Quiet Again

Mother-in-law is the only one remaining with us. Sister-in-law left today and the others left on Thursday. This house feels a bit empty without people occupying the sofas -- either for sleep or for TV. I probably will be stressed out soon since this means I have to watch the children more.

RyanC was super attached to me this afternoon. Yep, that's right, he wanted me and not mommy or grandma! (The fruity bars finally worked!) It is not clear if that was caused by the sudden drop of his playmates (grandpa, uncle and aunt) in the past few days. For some reason he didn't want to play with grandma for much of the afternoon and instead wanted me to keep him company. He did eventually warm up to grandma gain in the late evening and went to bed without a fight though...

In the past few weeks RyanC has learned to call "ma ma" and "ba ba" clearly. He will call the right names when we look at the pictures taken. Heck, he will even call "gong" and "gu" for grandpa and uncle. He doesn't know how to call auntie and grandma yet. gotta work on that.

So... on Friday at lunch I mentioned that I was brought up in Taiwan and then SV immediately started the sentence "Oh! Do you know...." and was interrupted by TG "Come on! This is where you ask about someone you know from Taiwan and I will bet you lunch that he does not know of so-and-so since Taiwan is not a small country!"

So SV took the bet and continued "Emil, also goes by the stage name Wakim"... and at this time I blurted out "Emil Chou the singer?! I used to listen to his albums all the time! He is one of my favorite singers!" I was then thinking SV was just mentioning a famous person to see if I know of him -- kind of like how 10 years back people betted on whether I would know what Hootie and the Blowfish was...

However, SV then proceeded to tell how her high school girl friend is married to Emil and that they come to Fort Collins to visit her folks yearly! WHOA! I had read that Emil was married to an American but I did not know she's from Fort Collins! Anyways, TG lost the bet and I learned more about an idol. By the way, Emil made cameo appearances in Jacky Chan movies. For example, he was the ice-cream vendor in Rumble in the Bronx and Mr Nice Guy.

While I am commenting about famous people in real life, I should mention that da funny blogger CherkyB (who may not have as large of a following as Emil) was in town for house-hunting and we went out for lunch on Thursday with other co-workers. I learned that he was not kidding when he had previously told stories of himself looking at the ringing cell phone and then decides not to answer because it's The Mrs... but then he called the voicemail to check the message soon after that...

Relatives @ Home

Last weekend sister-in-law arrived for a 2-week stay to visit baby AidanC and RyanC. This weekend mother-in-law arrived to help take care of baby AidanC for a while. With the wife's family mostly here (brother & dad came earlier), we are only missing the youngest sister-in-law in this house! Supposedly she thought about coming but can't seem to find an economical way to also bring her two younger ones from east coast. :)

Needless to say, it's been pretty exciting to have so many people in the house. Fridge usually starts totally full from weekend grocery shopping and becomes empty around mid-week. Our partial-basement is now more spacious thanks to the team effort by everyone but me. I think I was busy doing something with work but I might have been just thinking that to avoid manual labor.

RyanC has been having a blast since everyone takes turns to play with him due to his incredible ability to wear us out. The only time the relatives seem to ignore him is when they are watching Taianese TV shows. RyanC would then entertain himself by sneaking upstairs to find colorful markers to draw on the walls, which took grandpa some time to clean up. It is a good thing that he is not tall enough to reach for the permanent markers.

AidanC has been growing pretty quickly and is more alert and sensitive about whether someone is holding him. AidanC's aunt seems to enjoy holding AidanC so she is usually the first one to pick him up if he fusses -- somehow she can hear AidanC so much better than me and wife. I have been able to get reasonable sleep most of the nights thanks to wife's late-night feedings. I meant she feeds AidanC so his crying won't wake me up. Here is a picture of AidanC doing daddy impersonation:

Beer Chicken

Today we finally tried grilling beer chicken for the first time. BobG had highly recommended it but I just never got around to trying it. It's a pretty simple recipe where one places rubs on the chicken and then sticks half-can of beer into the chicken's behind to stand it on the grill. Here is what the chicken looked like before we closed the lid on it:



Ryan had a lot of fun poking the cooked chicken with his fork but Aidan did not enjoy being compared with another 6 pounder.



The chicken was pretty tender and juicy as advertised! Unfortunately we couldn't finish the 6 lb chicken so we will probably get a 3-4 lb chicken next time.

Busy?

I have been slacking off on updating this blog. Some may think that I haven't updated because I am busy with the children but that is not entirely true -- it's deceiving just like my often "busy" status on IM @ work.

The truth is...

AidanC has been a dream baby as he sleeps/eats every 3-4 hours. RyanC has been having a great time with grandpa as they go to parks daily. Wife has been able to get everything done without needing me to help a whole lot. I occasionally help with diaper change or taking care of RyanC when grandpa is too tired to deal with him -- but that's really not "busy" work.

So I went back to work on Monday without taking time off... but then there was no crisis this week at work so I started focusing on the next project instead. I thought about blogging in the evenings but then I didn't have much to write about...

Since there has not been any pressing needs for me to accomplish anything, I started taking more pictures with my calibrated Sigma lens to practice photography.

AidanC sleeping as usual:


Here is RyanC in the morning ( you can tell it's morning from his hair), looking through my wallet for goodies already:



RyanC staring at uncle's LCD display:



RyanC learning about the daunting work involved with eating crabs: (wife took this one)


RyanC doing what grandpa taught him about squeezing nose: