Day 10, Giant Pumpkins, Self-Standing kids, and Hongkies

I bet you're all dying to know how our backyard is coming along, right? [If not, you don't have to tell me, just skip to the next paragraph]. Well, it's coming together......... s l o w l y. To be fair to the crew, they only work Monday-Wednesday since they do maintenance the other days, and add a few hours here and there on Thursday and Friday as they can. So it's not a FULL 10 days. BUT WE'RE IN WEEK 3 ALREADY GUYS!!!! Anyways, the patio and lawn border are DONE. The irrigation system is almost done, they connected it to the main today, but not all the sprinkler heads are in yet. I think the backflow and regulators are in. Here's the latest photo showing the patio, and some irrigation ditches. Next is finish the irrigation work, rototill, level, add lawn, vibrate the patio pavers, build the step and gate. I think they'll be working next week too :(



What's more interesting, is our fun weekend. Saturday, we went to the Half Moon Bay Giant Pumpkin festival. Actually it was kinda disappointing, there were a few giant pumkins, but literally only a few. The rest of the festival was art and wine, which was not exactly what we (and the kiddos) were hoping for. But, Shelby got her face painted, and we saw amazing pumpkin carvings.


















Seany-Boy (as Shelby usually refers to him) is becoming a standing-boy. He just figured out how to stand up by himself about 1 week ago, and now every time you turn your back for a second, he is standing. He loves it because now he can watch his sister playing more easily. Then of course, Shelby likes to tickle Seany-Boy and then he falls down (usually right side up, but there's an occassional face-plant which I personally find somewhat amusing). No major injuries yet.




Sunday, we had a potluck with some of our neighbors. Eva made a yummy cold sesame flavored noodle dish and some "geung-chung" (garlic and ginger) marinated mushrooms, which I loved. Now you're thinking, what? Jon loving a mushroom dish? I've become quite fond of Chinese mushrooms. I still can't stand the others though.

This whole time, you've been asking yourself, "What's a Hongkie?" I've heard the term before, was told it has no negative conotation, so I looked it up on Google and found this: http://yclan.org/wiki/index.php?title=Hongkie It says "A native of Hong Kong. Also spelt as Honky, Honkie or Honkey. Not to be confused with white trash". The website is primarily authored by Cantonese, so it must be OK? Anyway, I bring this up for a very important reason. Paw-Paw and Bulgoma (Eva's mom and Aunt) arrived here on Sunday! We had a great time with them at Uncle Manny (Shelby abbreviation for Emmanuel) and Aunt Julie's house. As usual, we had a ton of excellent food. And we celebrated many Happy Birthdays at once. We look forward to spending the next several weeks with Paw-Paw and Bulgoma, while Gung-Gung (Eva's dad) arrives this coming Saturday. We'll be sure to tell you about the crazy times....