Mexico

Over the winter break, K-bao & family made a trip down to Mexico to attend the wedding of K-Mum's cousin Uncle Stephen. Sister C-bao was also invited to be a flower girl. K-bao was not happy to learn that she had aged out of the program. However, the trip was so relaxing and full of sugar that she quickly forgot about the disappointment.

K-bao had a lot of fun hanging out with her cousins J-Cuz (cousin Justin) and K-K. Here she take K-K on a lap around the pool, and then comes down the water slide with J-Cuz.

The key attraction was, of course, the unlimited dessert buffet. No further explanation needed.

One of the nice highlights of the trip included an in-house performance of The Lion King at the resort.

Lucky 13

Over Christmas and New Year K-bao got to spend some time with K-Mum's side of the family. Indeed, with K-Great-Grandmum in the house, along with all the cousins, there were 13 happy campers in all. It was a festive gathering which extended over many days.

There was plenty of lounging time...

...but also some intense activities. In the below "friendly" Bocce ball match, the judge (Uncle Calvin) had to resort to taking off his shoelaces to measure the distance between the balls in order to resolve a dispute between the teams. (One can also see contestant Aunt Christina - clearly not fully trusting in the process - on the ground closely inspecting the measuring activity.)

"Pull that string tighter! Tighter!"

A highlight for K-bao was of course spending time with her cousins, particularly J-Cuz, i.e. Cousin Justin. The two built Magna Tile castles, read Bible stories aloud and even tested their arm strength against each other (refereed once again by Uncle Calvin). K-bao and sister C-bao also had fun playing with Justin's younger sister, Cousin Kaitlyn, who is a few days older than C-bao.

"Don't let my expression (or my 2 hands) fool you, J - I'm only using 30% of my strength"

"Don't try this at home, kids"

As usual, K-Grandmum, saint that she is, spent most of her personal time cooking up great heaps of delicious food to feed the hungry crowds.

The Ceremony

It's finally here!

Aunt Catherine and Uncle Zech's magnificent wedding ceremony in Singapore is documented beautifully in the above highlight clip.

The bride was stunning, the groom handsome, and of course the little ones did their best to play their part.

The girls make their entrance at 3:19 in the video. Sister C-bao led off the procession, striding resolutely down the aisle without bothering to dispense too many petals, as if late for an appointment. K-bao, on the other hand, took her time, solemnly and gracefully.

In between them was a young lad, a relation of WZ Shu-Shu's, whose gleeful, clearly intentional pitches of the ring pillow was more than made up for by sheer adorableness. And of course, stately Cousin Elizabeth made up the rear, ushering her young cousins ahead.

The bridesmaids then made their appearance, with Matron of Honor Da Goo-Goo (Aunt Esther) finally preceding the bride.

All three young ladies were beautiful in their flowing white gowns. In all, a fantastic experience for young K-bao and her sister.

Below is the original invitation from Xiao Goo-Goo from many months ago:

Munchkin

K-bao also got to see her second cousin, Little C - a.k.a. "The Munchkin" - in Singapore. She had not seen the Munchkin (who is daughter of K-Pop's cuz Auntie Julie) in quite some time, as she resides on the other side of the world, but the two had the opportunity to sit next to each other at the reception dinner. After a few shy minutes, the girls warmed to each other quickly and ended up running around heckling guests and creating havoc on the dance floor the rest of the evening. Naturally, K-bao led the mischief.

A representative clip, with K-bao leading wind sprints across the dance floor.

Rong-Rong

One of the favorite parts of this trip for K-bao, besides all the attention she received as she walked down the aisle in her pretty Flower Girl dress, was of course the opportunity to hang out with Cousin Elizabeth, a.k.a. Rong-Rong.

Here she sits down to a 1:1 meal to have deep conversations with her intellectual cousin. Notice the thoughtful expressions, witty banter and sophisticated thinking clearly going on.



Here the cousins get up to introduce themselves before showing off their expert dance moves.

At the end of the trip, K-bao was highly reluctant to part with her cousin. On one of the last nights, knowing Rong-Rong was leaving the following morning at 4:30 a.m. for the airport, she tried to extract a promise from K-Pop that he would wake her up exactly at 4:00 a.m. to knock on the hotel door and say her last goodbyes.

When this demand was wisely refused, given the reception night bedtime of 11:00 p.m., she woke herself up anyway in the wee hours, in the dark, and tapped on K-bao's sleepy head in another effort to see her cousin one last time. "What time is it, Daddy? Can we go say goodbye now?" she whispered urgently.  Unfortunately, she was an hour late...and was ushered unhappily back into bed. "We'll Skype her soon!" promised K-Pop in a failing effort to console the little one.

Singapore!

K-bao's just returned from a whirlwind trip to Singapore where she was a flower girl for Aunt Catherine & WZ Shu-Shu's wedding.

It was a fantastic experience for the little one and, like her Taiwan visit in the summer of 2013, worth a few posts. She got to see pretty much the whole fam on K-Pop's side - including her fave, Cousin Elizabeth - and met a number of new friends as well.

Here she is en route:

Clowning around with sister C-bao at a stopover in HK (see video below)

K-Mum packed a suitcase worth of books and coloring pencils for the flight

"Weak sauce! I'm never tired!"

"I can do it, really I can! Hang on a sec...just wait one moment..."

Splash Wars

K-bao visited Aunt Carol, Uncle Will and Co. (J-Cuz, K-Cuz) recently in Redding, CA.

While Redding has its many charms, mild weather is not one of them, and K-bao battled 105 degree heat all weekend. Like a hot hippo, she sought out cool water in which to simmer down, and ended up spending 80% of her weekend in the pool.

Here she makes a grand entrance, courtesy of a live launch pad (a.k.a. Uncle Will):

"Cowabunga!"

In the water, K-bao amused herself by diving for rings, playing aquatic football, paddling around with her floaties, and splashing her cousin Justin (thereby setting off several rounds of Chan-Hu wars - which, for the record, the Hu's claim victory in). 

Wall Squat

If there's one person K-bao has met who might be just as competitive as she is, that would be J-Cuz, also known as Cousin Justin. Recently J-Cuz visited briefly and soon the two were comparing notes on all manner of things such as who could do the prettiest cartwheel.

Before long, the two were in a match to see who could squat against the wall the longest (in fairness, an activity K-Pop instigated - perhaps with ulterior motives to utilize someone's energy units faster). First, Justin set the initial record at close to 3 minutes. Then, K-bao bested him by putting 5 minutes on the clock. Justin then upped the ante to 7 minutes (!!). Finally the two went head-to-head, as captured below.

Let the record show that J-Cuz outlasted his little cousin in their first direct wall squat competition. K-bao is gearing up for the rematch already.

J-Cuz

A few weeks back K-bao got to hang out with Cousin Justin, who she gets to see only once or twice a year. The two of them spent some time taking in the Bay Area fresh air at a local park.

Naturally the conversation devolved into the "Let me show you what I can do" and "I bet you can't do this" variety.

K-bao was on her home turf - the monkey bars at the playground she frequents weekly - and thus had a natural leg up, both metaphorically and literally (as she loves to hook her legs over the bars and hang upside down).

Nonetheless, with his competitive juices flowing, Cousin Justin gamely tried all the tricky moves her little cuz threw her way.

Of course, when it came time to head home, little K-bao wouldn't let her cousin go...something she has a history of doing.

To Our Nieces

K-bao and C-bao's talented Aunt and Uncle (Shu-Shu and Xiao Goo-Goo) penned, sang and recorded a brief piece of music for their 4 nieces, including K-bao, one recent afternoon in Taipei. The song contains a number of worthy messages for our little one.

Music: To 四個乖小孩

Lyrics:

寶貝妳要做個乖小孩

Watch the tone when you are asking why

做個討神喜悅乖女孩

Our love will always be with you

永不分開

寶貝乖乖跌倒不用怕

It hurts a bit but you will grow a lot

別因妳可愛就不用聽話

Learn to love and trust in God

Your life will be

Right where it should be

記得永遠守護妳的心

Skype Prayer

Cousin Elizabeth, aka Rong-Rong Jieh-Jieh aka Rong-bao, Skypes with K-bao and was sad to hear that K-bao was not feeling well.

At the end of the Skype session pious little Rong-bao prays earnestly for the Lord to be with and heal her cousin. Little sister Ling-bao looks on.

Cousin Elizabeth

In a surprise turn of events last week in Taiwan, K-bao got to see her Aunt Esther (Da Goo-Goo), Uncle Ying-On and most importantly her Cousin Elizabeth (aka Rong-bao).

The two cousins, who hadn't seen each other for over three years other than through the occasional Skype / iPhone Facetime, immediately bonded. They compared notes on recent accomplishments, took over Xiao Goo-Goo's iPad to play games, got into mischief together and exchanged plenty of hugs.

Here is how they've grown over the years:

When it was finally time for K-bao to say goodbye to Taiwan, she refused to leave her cousin Rong-bao's side. Her first instinct was, predictably, defiance: "I am NOT leaving Taiwan! I am staying here in Taiwan with Rong-Rong forever!" Her second instinct was avoidance: she grabbed her cousin to find a place to hide out until those pesky parents left without her.

Taiwan!

K-bao is back from her first ever trip to Taiwan to see the birthplace of her parents. There she ingratiated herself further with K-Grandpops and K-Grandmum, completely took over Xiao Goo-Goo's (Aunt Catherine) schedule - not to mention iPad - without permission, and cavorted shamelessly with Shu-Shu (Uncle James). In the last few days, in a pleasant surprise, she also managed to see Da Goo-Goo and family, including Cousin Elizabeth, as will be detailed separately. All in all a great trip, and worth several posts.

Here she is at SFO about to board and enjoying a moment with EVA Air's cardboard cutout air stewardess.

The entire trip was filled with hugs and more hugs. Here are a few with the K-grandfolks, as well as K-Great-Grandmum (on the paternal-maternal side), whom she met for the first time, and who by the grace of our Lord is still well at age 98.

More to come!