Birthday gal

A few weeks ago K-bao celebrated her 8th birthday. Xiao Ah-yi and Jiu-Jiu joined her on the special day along with the rest of her family.

As usual, K-bao asked to go to her favorite Japanese restaurant, where she gobbled up numerous orders of unagi.

Afterwards, she enjoyed fruit and cake, while wearing a self-made birthday crown.

Uncle Calvin had also given her a Dubs shirt, which she sported proudly.

By the way, for the record, this evening was only the first of quite a few "birthday treats" that K-bao enjoyed over the course of the week. The celebration went on for a bit, which seemed perfectly fine for our little. 

Die Hard Fan

During the Warriors' postseason run, K-bao has been keeping close tabs on her favorite team. This last series with the Thunder, who were up 3-1 at one point but who finally conceded tonight in Game 7, was tremendously anxiety-inducing.

Not surprisingly, the "No TV during dinner" rule has been put on ice for most of the playoffs thus far.

Generally in the 4th quarter K-bao is a nervous wreck and occasionally has to run into the next room  and hide during Warriors' offensive possessions (from where she will call out, "Wait, did he make it? What's the score?"). She also has taken to various good-luck charms and idiosyncratic routines, such as yelling "Noooooo!" at the top of her lungs when a Warriors shot is launched in order for "the opposite" to happen. These little shenanigans are wearing thin with the K-folks, who prefer to watch the game in peace.

Her criticism for poor-performing players can be withering. During a difficult stretch for Bogut today, her comment was "Playing with Bogut is like playing with 4 players. I'm SOOOO mad at him right now." Tough critic.

Below, during the critical Game 6 on the Thunder home court, she describes how she feels.

Dubs Fan

To K-Pop's delight, K-bao has adopted K-Pop's favorite sport as her own.

Part of it has certainly been driven by the Golden State Warriors' postseason success this year, which coincidentally followed K-bao's first exposure to hoops through her kindergarten basketball camp. K-bao has enjoyed watching the games with K-Pop through the playoffs (including tonight when the Warriors tied up the series with the Cavs 2-2).

Not only has she become a major Steph Curry fan - asking the rhetorical question "Is Steph Curry the best shooter in the whole wide world?" at least 3x a game - she actually is starting to internalize all the rules (24 second shot clock; offensive fouls; three point plays, etc.), and really gets into the ebb and flow of the game. What started at the beginning of the season as "Do you want the white team to win or the blue team" has evolved over time into "Draymond Green is definitely going to make both free throws. He is a great free throw shooter...Wait, I can't believe he missed!"

K-bao also made it to the court herself last week for some offseason (for her) drills.




And here she is practicing her dribbling - with her off hand, as challenged by K-Pop.