#TimeFlies

January 1, 2021! How time flies. K-bao's growth from a spunky little kid to a rambunctious tween is one of the most tangible markers of how quickly Father Time is marching on. The first picture on top was taken sometime in 2019 near Land's End beach. The bottom was taken back in early 2010 in Hawaii (on K-Pop's BUM break). 

Taiwan 2019 (Part I)

This summer K-bao and C-bao made their 4th trip to Taiwan (and 5th to Asia), following up on their Formosa adventures in 2013, 2016 and 2017.

By this time the girls were old hands, and were well stocked with headphones, tablets, books, snacks, stuffies, slime and other distractions. K-Pop traveled alone with the girls, as K-Mum had to work for another week+ before joining the family.

After a relatively uneventful flight (including Chinese + Math homework in addition to the inevitable Pixar movie or two), the girls arrived in Taipei and joyfully said hello to various family members.

Of course, they wasted no time in commandeering Aunt Catherine (Xiao Goo Goo)'s phone and immediately taking a hundred Snap pics with various filters.

One person K-bao met on this trip is Mildred, who helps the K-grandfolks with daily life. Mildred happens to be an expert at braiding hair, and the girls enjoyed wonderful new braids every day this trip.

Much more to come!

Sleepover

K-bao's good friend SG was over for a sleepover a couple of weeks back. K-bao doesn't get to do many sleepovers (or to put it differently, this was her very first one), so understandably she was a little excited.

The evening involved pizza, movies, and many shenanigans before bedtime. The following day involved soccer at the park (the girls challenged K-Pop 3-on-1, but luckily did not prevail), singing, Pictionary and the like. Some action pictures and videos below.

Les Miserables: Confrontation

Over the last couple of months, K-Pop has slowly told the story of Victor Hugo's classic Les Miserables to K-bao and C-bao. It took about 15 dinners and breakfasts, but the kids followed the story closely and stayed engaged throughout.

In fact, they got so engrossed that when they heard the first song from the musical -- the classic vocal duel between Jean Valjean and Javert in "Fantine's Death: Confrontation" -- they asked to listen to it over and over again.

This morning after breakfast they decided to enact the parts themselves.

Taiwan 2017

This summer K-bao made her third summer trip to Taipei to visit K-Grandpop, K-Grandmum and her other beloved relatives.

Indeed, as it was both her grandparents' 70th birthday and Father's Day in Taiwan, the entire extended family made it out from various cities around the world for a full reunion.

K-bao and her sister C-bao don't get a lot of time with their cousins and aunts and uncles on K-Pop's side, so it is always a blast for them to hang out.

Whether it be burying themselves in card games (Uno, The Big 2 which they both learned to play on this trip and absolutely love), huddling together over a table to watch the Netflix show Horseland, or just plain goofing around, whenever the cousins or Shu-Shu or Xiao Goo-Goo (and Uncle Zech) were around, it was a quick goodbye to K-Pop and K-Mum and the girls would be off.

Needless to say, K-bao also enjoyed plenty of great Taiwanese food -- beef noodle soup, red bean paste buns, black sesame desserts, ice soy bean milk and tea eggs. 

 K-bao had many other adventures in Asia this past August -- more posts to come!

Goooooal

K-bao has wrapped up another soccer season with the Roar. The season was generally quite successful, as measured by both K-bao's personal growth and the team's success.

Indeed, after some ups and downs over prior years, K-bao has grown in her own love for the sport, and genuinely looked forward to the weekly practices as well as the Saturday games.

Some of this was undoubtedly the social aspect; a number of her best friends are on the same squad. But the K-folks also noticed that she also started to enjoy the game more after devouring a series called The Kicks, written by US Olympic gold medalist Alex Morgan. The series includes six books that chronicle a number of middle school girls' soccer adventures, including some uplifting messages about self-empowerment and team spirit.

While K-Pop and K-Mum's primary agenda for K-bao's soccer is for her to have an activity to work out her overabundance of energy -- learning a few lessons about working in a team, winning and losing and dealing with adversity are some nice side benefits too.

K-Pop managed to capture a couple of the goals she scored over the course of the season:

Honolulu Reprise

K-bao just completed a spring break trip to Hawaii. It was her second trip there, the last being when she had just turned two, in 2011.

We stayed at the same place (Hilton Hawaiian Resort) and took a picture with a similar pose. (Looking at the below, it is clear that K-Pop clearly will not be able to do this again in another six years). K-Pop didn't notice this until putting the two pictures side by side but the baby has now being replaced by a purse.