#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). 

Beach Weekend

Back in February K-bao enjoyed a couple of days at the beach with sister C-bao. The weekend was sunny but not particularly warm, so as a precaution K-Pop insisted on the girls wearing their full winter coats.

Not exactly beach attire

K-bao led her sister in singing, dancing and digging ditches. Finding water under the sand was met with as much excitement as one might expect in a discovery of fine pearls.

The presence of the ocean brought to mind of course one of K-bao's favorites, Rachel Platten's Fight Song, and she quickly broke into the relevant lyrics: "Like a small boat, on the ocean...sending big waves, into motion..."

Here she demonstrates how to create a tower of sand, and promptly delegates the task to sister C-bao.

Overall, the first day was fun enough that the sisters made a return trip the next day to do pretty much exactly the same thing.

Half Moon Beach

On a whim while paying a visit to Lemos Farm the other day, K-bao stopped by the beach at Half Moon Bay. The weather was a tad cool and the traffic more than a tad unpleasant, so the K-folks didn't stay for long, but it was clearly more than enough time for K-bao to run amok and get her clothes full of sand and seawater.

Sister C-bao was not wearing appropriate footgear so K-Pop picked her up and held her as the family navigated down to the beach. Naturally, as soon as she saw that, K-bao decided that her footgear was similarly ill-suited for walking on hilly ground, and jumped into K-Pop's unsuspecting arms without any notice. K-Pop ended up carrying the girls like sacks of potatoes down to the water, as shown above.

As soon as the family was settled on the sand, K-bao busied herself with trying to get as close to the water as possible without being caught by the incoming tide. Of course, within 5 minutes the little one was soaked (albeit very happily so). And of course, the K-folks had warned her that they had brought no change of clothes.

"You only live once, Dad!"

Wet Sandals

2 years ago on K-bao's first visit to Hawaii, at age 2, she thought it would be awfully funny to steal K-Pop's slippers and throw them into the Pacific Ocean. Below is the clip, from 2011, of a dumbfounded K-Pop trying to talk sense into a gleeful and unrepentant 2-year-old K-bao. (Upon review, K-Pop's authority was undoubtedly undermined by the silly hat he was wearing.)



Over the weekend at Stinson beach, now two years later, those good memories came flooding back to her. Which resulted in the below shenanigans.

Has anyone seen as mischievous a face as what K-bao displays in the first 10 seconds of the below?

K-Beach

Here is K-bao enjoying a day at the beach. Playing with sand is second only to playing with water on her list of favorite activities, with the former consisting of getting as much of it where it doesn't belong as possible - on the blanket, in the sandwiches, in K-Pop's face, etc. (that's her right foot above kicking some sand up at the camera, in case you didn't notice).

Tahoe

A few pics from a recent short trip to Tahoe, where K-bao swam, hiked, and sat on her throne (in our Home Away rented cabin).

Waikiki

K-bao had a good time in Hawaii, and spent most of the vacation playing on the sandy beaches of Waikiki (where she amused herself by repeatedly throwing K-Pop's sandals into the ocean, all the while giggling uncontrollably).

Here you can see her flattening sand castles created by K-Mum, making a variety of faces at the camera, sharing her juicebox with Baby in a moment of generosity, posing reluctantly with the K-folks outside the hotel, and being entertained by K-Mum and Clifford the Big Red Dog on the flight back.

Incidentally, K-Mum's idea to bring along the car seat, which K-Pop had vigorously protested at first and then begrudingly assented to, ended up being pure genius. Somehow, once buckled in, the subconsciously acknowledged principle of not being able to move around in a car seat transferred beautifully and little K-bao miraculously did not squirm, wriggle or squawk to come down even once.

On the other hand, with the extra boost that enabled her little feet to touch the seat in front of her, did she give the passenger ahead a 6-hour gratuitous kick-massage through the airplane seat back? O yes.

Rest of album is here.

Down by the Bay

The K-family brought K-bao to Half Moon Bay over the weekend - her first trip to the beach. Big hit with the little one. With her royal feet unemcumbered by socks or shoes, K-bao spent much of the day running mischievously around, enjoying the grainy feeling against her bare soles and bringing fistfuls of sand to her parents for safe keeping.