Wei Family Christmas

John's side of the family got to spend Christmas day together with all four generations. We had lots of yummy food, had fun sharing stories and opening presents. Cassie enjoyed being able to play with her great-grandfather!

Merry Christmas!

We wish everyone a safe and very Merry Christmas! Cassie absolutely loved Christmas this year, really being aware of presents and toys for the first time. Her "killer" gifts included a new playscape, a jump-o-lene, a push car, a tricycle, and a fun water table!

Cassie School Video

It's no secret that we absolutely love Google Daycare where Cassie spends 3 days a week while Carrie works part time. Cassie's teacher, Lauren, put together this video of Cassie's first school year there and shows the developmental progression from January to August (7-14 months). You also get to see a lot of the school environment in the video.

DIY Hair

We have dropped John's haircuts from the monthly budget as we try to balance the books with the new house. That doesn't mean John can't have some find in the process though...

Happy Thanksgiving!

We spent Thanksgiving this year with the Polhemus clan up in Auburn. Cassie really enjoyed playing with her four older cousins, but didn't enjoy the racket and chaos in the house as much during her daytime naps. John and Carrie enjoyed delicious food and mercifully light traffic.

Cool Girls

Not much to say here. Just two cool girls showing off their shades.

Happy Halloween!

Though this was not technically her first Halloween, this was really the first one where Cassie had any idea of what was going on. We took her around our new cul de sac to go trick-or-treating in her ladybug costume. She didn't really understand why we knocking on our neighbors doors at first, but then really got into the idea of people giving her fun crinkly things to hold. She much preferred trying to hold all of her candy in her two little hands, instead of carrying it in her pumpkin pail.

Fall and Apple Orchards

On one of their early trips together, John introduced Carrie to the Fall tradition in the midwest of going to an apple orchard to drink hot cider and eat delicious donuts. Though not entirely obvious, California apparently has apple orchards as well! We took Cassie to her first apple orchard this year up near Sacramento. They had cider and donuts, as well a petting farm, trail through the orchard, pony rides, and a little pumpkin patch you can see here where Cassie is playing.

Sippy Cups are for Babies

As you would expect, Cassie continues to learn at an exponential pace. As she approaches the magical 18 month mark, she is also starting to exhibit toddler opinions. One of the things that Cassie has developed a fondness for is drinking out of "real" cups, due in large part to that being encouraged at school. At meal time in her high chair, we will often let her drink out of a non-sippy cup despite the mess it sometimes makes. Cassie is pictured during a sick day here, drinking soup out her cup, with the chicken and noodles separated in her bowl.

Lenker Wedding

John got to be a groomsman in another wedding this fall when his friend Scott got married to Raquel. The wedding and reception were hosted at Cornerstone Gardens in Sonoma, a very artsy and photogenic location. The wedding party enjoyed themselves tremendously on the wine tour, the photo shoot, the awkward ice breaker game at the rehearsal dinner, and of course on the day itself.

Rice Krispy Xbox

For John's birthday this year, Carrie invited a few of our friends over for a smaller dinner and requested everybody bring a food that reminded them of John. Most everyone brought a pork product, some brought pork products wrapped in pork products. Ryan brought over custom made rice krispy treats shaped like Xbox controllers. The joysticks are made out of Hershey kisses, and the buttons are made out of M&Ms. They're even the right color!

Chloe and Cassie

There are several kids at Cassie's daycare, but she spends far away the most time with Chloe. They both started at similar times and have been there since the very beginning. Now that they're both running around and talking, they've become great friends and are always having new adventures that the teachers share with us each day. Here you can see them both peeking into the "teacher's area" one day at school.

Hockey Team Party

We're way behind on the blog, but we'll backtrack and fill in what's been happening with post-dated entries. The new house, pool, and Tiki bar have been a big hit with all of our friends. We had several parties over the summer including a fun 100+F day in the pool with the softball team, and a big party at night with the whole hockey team. You can see some of our friends that came over for the hockey team party. That was probably the most stocked the bar has ever been, with margaritas, beer, wine, and most every mixed drink imaginable. Good times!

Averill Wedding

Our friends Ryan and Sam got married in September and John had the honor as standing as one of Ryan's groomsmen. Their wedding and reception was held at the Clift Hotel in San Francisco, and was a swanky black-tie affair. The wedding was elegant, the reception was a lot of fun, the venue was beautiful, and the after parties went all night long!

2009 Daddy-Daughter Trip

Cassie's school had summer vacation last week, so it was the perfect opportunity for John and Cassie to take their Daddy-Daughter "trip" this year. Cassie is still a little young for us to feel comfortable traveling overnight with one of us on our own, so our "trip" didn't leave the greater Bay Area, but we had three days of fun adventures. We spent the first day at the San Jose Children's Discovery Museum where Cassie got to play in a cool loft and discover interesting toddler exhibits. The second day was spent at the Palo Alto Junior Museum and Zoo where Cassie got to see lots of cool animals like leopard sharks, a peacock, a red tailed hawk and some bobcats! The highlight of the trip was an adventure to the Monterey Bay Aquarium where Cassie was fascinated by the big fishes in the kelp forest, the big school of circling sardines, and the awesomely fun water bouncey in the toddler zone. So much fun!

That's a big gun!

Last month, John organized a trip to Las Vegas for his friend Ryan's bachelor party. The highlight of the weekend was an excursion to a special gun range off the strip where you can shoot just about any gun you can dream of. This is one of the few places in the world where anybody can walk of the street and rent a fully automatic machine gun! John got to shoot the M249 belt-fed light machine gun (pictured here), the M4 assault rifle, and a 0.308 Police sniper rifle. Good times!

Shoes, Shoes, Shoes!

To put it simply, Cassie LOVES shoes, our little girl has a shoe obsession (it may have a little to do with shoes typically meaning she gets to outside)

Her eye's light up whenever she hears the word and responds with"Sh, Sh, Sh" as she tries to sound out one over her favorite word. She's always trying to put on our shoes, loves her "Squeaky Shoes" that Nai Nai got her, and loves to stomp around in her two sizes too big "clown shoes"as we call them. She frequently disappears into our closet and we wait in suspense to see what pair of shoes she is going to bring out with her (she has yet to discover the Manolo Blahniks -- then we are REALLY in trouble!)

Cassie's first drawing

Cassie is learning a lot lately. I'd guess that she recognizes around 100 words at this point, and is able to say a few words as well, knowing what they mean. Some of the things she understands and responds to:

• Let's go to Cassie's room
• Let's change Cassie's diaper
• Can you lie down?
• Do you want to go in the pool?
• Are you all done?
• Do you want more?
• Do you want to eat?
• Where's the fire? (In reference to the fireplace in Goodnight Moon book)
• Where's the kitty cats/red balloon/dog/fan/butterfly/dragonfly?

She now says "daddy", "dogdog" and "hi" correctly. She also "roars" when she sees tigers or lions in her book or on TV. She tries to say "cheese" and makes attempts at other animal noises like "moo", "baa" or "purr." Carrie helped Cassie discover crayons the other day and Cassie drew her very first picture!

New Home Challenges

So we're pretty much settled into the new house at this point. The basics are done, Cassie's room was painted pink again, we unpacked everything including the garage, we've setup all our essentials like the bedrooms, office, dining room and living room. John fixed all the major maintenance items on his own including: installing three new sprinkler heads, three all new drip lines, a broken main irrigation line, broken drain line in tiki bar sink, replaced screws in kitchen and garage cabinets, replaced shower head, tightened loose sink, fixed broken drain mechanism, replaced missing drain filter, replaced two overhead lamp fixtures, re-wired broken 3-way light switch, changed all electrical outlets in kitchen, replaced half a dozen burnt out bulbs, programmed four garage door openers including installation of external keypad, built shelves for shed and cleaned up 8 months of neglected landscaping. The picture on the left shows the tools required and the rocks dug up to fix just one sprinkler head. We've started on the next stage of items that probably require a third party. We had a backed up sewage line that was covered by the home warranty. At the top of our priority list right now are adding a second HVAC zone, fixing a broken pool/spa heater, and installing a pool fence. Needless to say, we've been very, very, very busy.

Cornstarch and Water

Cassie gets to do all sorts of fun things at school: Sing-a- longs, books, playing outside in the yard, exploring the water faucet, giggling with her friends, climbing the loft, sharing meals with her friends around the table, dance parties....

As part of the babies sensory development (and just pure fun) they give them cornstarch and water on trays to play with and explore. Cool texture, interesting to mix around, safe to eat, and especially fun to dunk your face in and smear all over your body!

Moving Day!!

The truck is here and we're finally moving! Fingers crossed that all
goes according to plan...

Cassie takes a sick day

Cassie has caught a small case of pink eye the week we are moving, so
John gets to spend today at home with her. We're having fun reading
books this morning!

Weekend in Tahoe

We just got back from a wonderful weekend up at Lake Tahoe. Carrie's friend from college, Kristy, got married up at Incline Village on Friday and we got the opportunity to go up and help celebrate. The wedding was beautiful, and the reception was a blast, as they typically are. Carrie's godparents graciously offered to let us stay at their house, which was basically just indulgent on our part. :) Here's Cassie and John enjoying the gorgeous weather from their pier early on Saturday morning.

Cassie Playing Piano

Nana and Pops got Cassie a little piano for her birthday, one of her many favorite new toys. She's been enjoying the process of discovering music this past week.

Happy Birthday, Cassie!

Today is Cassie's first birthday! It's crazy how fast this past year has blown by. She's walking and running totally independently, knows a dozen words, is able to say "dada" and "dogdog", eats almost all of her meals on her own now (with a huge mess) and even knows a smattering of sign language! We had a fun birthday party on Saturday with some friends and family, and Cassie has been having a ball the past couple of days with all her new toys.

We Are in Contract!!

We looked at hundreds of houses on-line, visited some 40-50 houses in person, wrote four offers, and spent a week negotiating the last one but... We are finally in contract with an accepted offer on an amazing home in Los Gatos! We have 14 days to get all our inspections and financials in order, and 35 days to close escrow, but pending no disasters, we will soon be the poorest new residents of Los Gatos! Here's a teaser pic from the new house to share...

Cassie is Walking!

Cassie has officially taken her first steps on her own. In the past week, she went from taking a step/lunge to being able to take 10-15 steps without assistance!

We Have Closed Escrow

We have officially closed escrow on our house in Campbell, and the money is in the bank! We're close to finishing the next step of the process as well, fingers crossed...

Cassie Playing with Water

One of the great things about Google Daycare is the pictures and video that the teachers send home. Cassie's teacher, Lauren, sent this video home this week with her playing with some water and paint.

Grandparents Come Visit

While Carrie's parents get to see Cassie close to once a month, John's parents don't get to visit as often since they live in Michigan. They were able to come by for a couple days after a conference up in Seattle and see Cassie for the first time since Christmas. Cassie really enjoyed herself and all the special treatment, like getting to play with Yeh Yeh's laptop.

Solid Foods

Cassie has almost completely graduated from baby foods at this point, just having a small amount of baby food fruit in the morning with her cereal. She has chopped up pieces of real food at most of her meals, like in this picture where she's making a complete mess out of some delicious strawberries.

Barbeque at Jodi and Jason's

A bunch of Carrie's friends from high school got together last weekend at Jodi and Jason's house. We had a delayed Cinqo de Mayo party for the adults, and the kids all got to run around and play with the (surprisingly) large number of kids toys that Jodi has at their house. Cassie is playing with her new friend, Leah (20 months) in this picture.

Cassie Getting Ready to Walk

Cassie has been crawling for some time now, is able to stand for several seconds on her own, and can actually take a step or two by herself. But, far and away, her favorite way to get around is walking while somebody holds her hands. She could walk around the house all day long if we let her. Here, she gets to cruise around with Nai Nai during a visit last week.

Grace and Russ' Wedding

Our friends, Grace and Russ, tied the knot a few weeks ago at the Hotel Los Gatos. Was a really fun time and a nice chance to get out to celebrate with good friends. Their photographers have a really cool style to their shooting, this picture is one that they grabbed of Carrie during the reception.

Kelsey's Birthday Party

Our cousin/niece, Kelsey, celebrated her 7th birthday last weekend with a big birthday bash at a park in San Francisco. We joined in on the festivities and had a fun afternoon enjoying the nice weather and sunshine.

In other news, the house selling is going well. We've been on the market for a little over three weeks now, and are generating a ton of interest. We've gotten around 15 groups of people at each open house, and there's probably half a dozen showings during the week where realtors bring in interested clients. We've had three offers, and have countered two of them. Fingers crossed. :)

So Big!

Cassie is growing quickly and learning lots of new tricks. One of her latest is "So Big!" where she raises her hands over her head to demonstrate how big she is.



Note that YouTube now support HD videos. If you have a VERY fast internet connection, you can view new videos that we post in glorious 720p high definition. It's much clearer than normal, but does take significantly more bandwidth. Look for the "HD" button in the lower right hand side of videos for the option to switch. Also, occasionally YouTube will give an error that the video is unavailable. Just refresh and try again, this is usually a server-side problem.

John's Hockey Team Wins Championship

John's hockey team finished up its first ever season on ice with a championship last night. We beat our league rivals in back-to-back wins to take the best of 3 series. John finished the season with 6 goals and 3 assists, putting him in the #5 spot of 23 players for total points. Our final record was 15-6-4.

Fun Vegas Trip

Our trip to Las Vegas was a ton of fun. April Fool's jokes aside, John actually did do really well at the Blackjack tables. We had amazing food, including our anniversary dinner at 2 Michelin star-rated Alex Restaurant. Carrie got to enjoy the world-class spas, we spent time relaxing at the pool, and we got to catch the really fun Blue Man Group show. This picture is the view from our room at the Wynn Hotel, obviously breaktaking. Not only did we have amazing views of the strip, you can also see the famous Wynn waterfall in the middle of the picture.

Shopping at Manolo Blahnik

One of the highlights of going to Las Vegas is that Carrie can go shopping at some of the amazing designer stores there. We took Carrie shopping at Christian Louboutin and Jimmy Choo, but she returned to her favorite shoe store, Manolo Blahnik.

This trip was to celebrate our four year anniversary. Traditionally, the gift for the fourth year is "fruit and flowers." Carrie got John a cool avocado plant because he LOVES avocados. John got Carrie a floral print dress from Ted Baker and a new pair of shoes from Manolo Blahnik. You can see her wearing the dress in this picture along with the shoes she ended up loving the most.

Happy April Fool's Day!

OK, so Carrie didn't actually hit a huge jackpot at slots (yet). We're just having some fun. But we are actually in Vegas. And we are actually having a ton of fun. Happy April Fool's Day everyone!

Carrie Hits it Big!!!!

We've only been in Vegas for a few hours and the unbelievable has already happened! On a lark, Carrie dropped a quarter into a Wheel of Fortune slot machine on our way out to the pool and hit a $15,000 jackpot!!!!! This has never happened before, and is especially ironic because Carrie doesn't gamble at all. Because the jackpot is over $1,200, we had to fill out a bunch of tax paperwork. But needless to say, our trip is more than paid for and we're going nuts! We're now hanging out at the pool so that Carrie can pick out all her spa services, and we're deciding on what clubs to go hit up tonight. Unfortunately, the new club at Wynn, XS, isn't open on Wednesdays. But I'm sure we'll find plenty of other fun elsewhere.

Las Vegas Bound

To celebrate our 4-year anniversary, we are heading off to Las Vegas tomorrow for 3 days and 2 nights. Carrie's parents have graciously come to babysit Cassie for us so that we can get some time away. Should be a very exciting time. We have plans to see a show or two, eat some awesome food, and relax. Cheers!

Our House is on the Market!

After some six months of debating it, we've decided to sell our house. We love this house and weren't planning to move this early when we bought it, but have decided to try and make the best of a bad economy. We spent all last week moving all our extra clutter and furniture into storage to stage the house, the inspectors have come and gone, the gardeners have tuned the landscaping up into pristine condition. Fingers crossed, this is where the rubber meets the road!

MLS listing link if you know of anybody who's looking for an amazing house at a steal of price. We've studied the comps in the neighborhood in pretty fine detail, and we are priced relatively low, especially considering how mint our house is in comparison.

Vacation to Healdsburg

Carrie got John a getaway to wine country for Valentine's Day. We had a chance to in mid-March to use that getaway, and planned our trip around an amazing dinner at the Dry Creek Kitchen, one of our favorite all-time restaurants. This was the first time we've ever been away from the baby overnight, while Carrie's parents watched her. But it's only about a 90 minute drive, and is good practice for our next trip to Vegas.

We stayed at the Hotel Healdsburg, where the restaurant is housed, and got to enjoy the amazing tasting menu at the restaurant. Some of the menu highlights included an amazing warm spinach salad with truffle vinaigrette and a yummy diver scallop paired with crisp braised pork belly. We both agreed it was one of the best meals we've ever had. That paired with a quiet night to ourselves and some relaxed wine tasting made for a wonderful getaway!

Spring Time in California

Daylight savings time has already brought a stint of nice, sunny weather in California. This has given us the opportunity to start taking walks outside again, and Cassie has been able to play in the backyard on warmer afternoons. She certainly enjoys the change of pace, the new feeling of wind, and watching the birds chirp and fly around.

Marketing Demographics

We received this offer the other day. Talk about demographic targeting.

"Stand in the place where you live. . ."

Cassie has started trying to pull herself up to standing on anything and everything she can find (coffee tables, our legs, our pot rack...) She's getting more and more successful as you can see here. Now she just has to learn how to get herself down once she's up!

And a note to our friends that are new & expecting moms, enjoy the first 6-8 months when your baby is willing to lie happily on their back when you change their diaper because once they are as mobile & strong as Cassie, every diaper change will turn into a wrestling match : )

Stock options expire

John has now been at Intel for over 10 years, and today is the 10-year expiration date on the stock options from his hire date back in 1999. With Intel stock closing at $12.08 today, this large chunk of stock options is now worthless and expires at more than $21/share underwater. At their peak, these were worth over $100,000 on paper before they were fully vested, and should have been worth $500k-$1M today given the late 90's growth projections. Easy come, easy go.

Our little army crawler

This picture was too cute not to share with the world -- all dressed up for her cousin Harper's birthday party.

In the past week or so, Cassie has really perfected her army crawling. She can scale the floor better than any seasoned army cadet at this point. It appears her favorite part of crawling is the fact she can now crawl to mommy when she wants to be picked up! She seems constantly torn between being held and wanting to play and can't seem to make up her mind!

Another key milestone Cassie has hit is she is swaddle free at night when she sleeps. This is huge as for a while there didn't seem to be an end in sight. She's now a happy sleeper, arms free in her sleep sack and can move and roll over whenever she wants.

Cassie's First Valentine's Day

Cassie celebrated her first Valentine's day last weekend (and her 8 month birthday). Daddy got her a nice gift and the box and tissue paper they were wrapped in made for endless amount of entertainment throughout the whole day. Cassie surprised Daddy with a T-Shirt that reveals his secret identity ("the Stig") Shhh....

We were lucky enough to have a babysitter that night and were able to get some quality time over a fabulous dinner at Sent Sovi in Saratoga.

Who is that cute baby?!

Believe it or not our little Cassie Bear will be 8 months old in just a few days. We haven't posted in a while, nor have we filled you all in on the latest and greatest milestones Cassie has achieved and the little personality she is developing. The picture is Cassie at daycare where she's having fun and making friends, especially with the ridiculously goodlooking baby in the mirror!

- Cassie now has two teeth. Both of her two front bottom teeth came in last month!
- She now says Ma-Ma (her first word!), Da-Da, Na-Na, Ba-Ba and all sorts of other crazy combinations. Lately she likes to listen to herself exclaim "Aaa".
- She's not crawling yet, but this girl sure can get around. She uses a combination of rolling, lunging and army crawling to get where she wants to go. Her teachers find this very impressive.
- Cassie's favorite toys are anything that IS NOT A TOY. She wants to touch and hold everything and for some reason our remote controls, a piece of paper, or a bowl will hold her attention much longer than anything made by Fisher Price. And here's your first and final warning, don't you dare take away her toys -- she will not be happy with you!
- Cassie is eating all sorts of food these days. Her lunch today was a Chicken Mango Risotto meal, which despite it's gourmet name she's not finding so delicious, yet...

Cassie Starts Daycare

Cassie started daycare this week and will be away from home and family for the first time. As amazing and wonderful as Google daycare is, it is still a precarious new first step. We've been most concerned about her being able to sleep at daycare, because she had a hard time with a crying baby next to her when she visited last week. But on her first day at daycare, she was able to take her naps successfully, as evidenced by this picture that her teacher, Lauren, snapped for us. Finger crossed that it only gets better from here.

Happy New Year!

We're both back at work now. John's in his first week back full-time, and Carrie's in her eighth week back part-time (3 days a week). It sure was nice to not have to work for a while... On our minds currently while the economy is still in the crapper, is where we can upgrade our house. We'd like someplace where we can live for the next 20-30 years. We're looking for 4+ bedrooms, 2,000+ sq ft, less than 20 years old, and in a great school district. On the short list this week: Mission San Jose High School in Fremont and Evergreen High School in San Jose. Suggestions are welcome.