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.
Despite having spent virtually no time around horses her whole life, and K-Pop's careful avoidance over the past seven years of all things related to that dreaded franchise My Little Pony, K-bao has now determined that her favorite animal is in fact the horse. In fact, she made horses the subject of a recent first-grade research paper. During her research period, she educated her family on facts such as the differences between pygmy horses and shire breeds. This weekend the K-folks finally decided to give her a little hands-on data to supplement her book knowledge.
K-bao had her first real riding experience at Five Brooks, a stable north of the city in a little town called Olema. She got to ride her very own horse, a feisty gal by the name of "Mac."
Here a ranch guide named Jordan leads her out on Mac to the trail.
Coincidentally, sister C-bao, who wasn't quite old enough for an independent ride, got a chaperoned ride on Mac's twin sister, Tornado.
Mac was a bit of a stubborn one, and after some misbehavior, the guides decided they had to tighten the reins a bit, so to speak. Entirely apropos symbolism, thought K-Pop approvingly from behind. (Notice the blue rope being held by Jordan in the below video)
A couple of times the group broke into a steady trot, which K-bao had to admit afterwards was a little jarring. But overall, K-bao handled the 45-minute trail ride like an old pro, even digging her heels in a few times to urge Mac on. "Go, Mac, go!"
After a frolicking Day 3 at Safari Park, K-bao reacquainted herself with San Diego's famed Sea World on Day 4. It's been a while since her last visit, and this time she had a sister to show around.
The first order of business of course was to get properly oriented.
"I see an ice-cream stand about six minutes away, how about you?"
At Dolphin Theater, K-bao convinces a trainer to let her feed a dolphin (happily, sister C-bao got to participate too, tossing what turned out to be the last piece of fish).
It's hard to imagine that K-bao still remembered Shamu from her last visit. Either way, she got to see him up close and personal this time.
Indeed, while the family parked themselves safely outside the Splash Zone during Shamu's show, K-bao requested permission to run down to get closer to Shamu. Of course, the real motivation was to get thoroughly soaked. Mission accomplished.
Sea World actually has a few relatively solid roller coasters. K-bao is a pro at this point with roller coasters, but even this old hand had a few scary moments during her ride on The Manta.
Here she is getting ready for one of the other main rides, Journey to Atlantis.
"I like big splashes and I cannot lie"
The classic cheap iPhone retake
After a full day, K-bao returned to an old favorite, The Old Spaghetti Factory in the Gaslamp.
Predictably, dinner was heavy, greasy, and delicious.
K-bao took her second trip down to San Diego a few weeks ago.
As readers might recall, her first trip to the city of Saint Didacus, back in 2011, was fairly action-packed. Life was quite different back then. She was only two, and sister C-bao, for one, had not even arrived on the scene.
This time around, Day 1 consisted of a fairly leisurely day of travel, as chronicled here on sister C-bao's blog. On Day 2, her good friends the Liu's arrived, and K-bao settled down to business. The first stop was Legoland.
Waiting for the adults to get themselves ready ("Come ON Mum!")
"Just to be clear, I still won't build those Lego sets you got me"
Legoland turned out to be surprisingly large, and while rides were mostly geared towards a slightly younger demographic, K-bao had plenty to do and see.
Here she tries her hand at the wheel. Given how autonomous driving is developing, this may be one of the few times K-bao actually gets to drive her own vehicle. (And with the way she feels compelled to flick her hair recklessly while she drives, this is almost certainly a good thing).
As we passed one of the tricky ladder vendors, K-bao observed the set up for all of ten seconds before declaring confidently to K-Pop and K-Mum that she could do it if she could only be allowed a turn. After recognizing they would never hear the end of it (and not minding the forthcoming lesson in humility), the K-folks agreed to give her chance. Naturally, she was fleeced out of five bucks.
Luckily in the below vehicle the drivers had no discretion, particularly since K-bao spent most of the time doing various Supergirl poses.
"I'm an excellent driver, trust me"
Some of the lego constructions were truly remarkable. If K-Pop were responsible for building the Darth Vader figure below, for example, it would probably take several months of dedicated work and still come out looking like a lump of coal.
"Sister C-bao: 'Why are those people so little?'"
The force is strong with this one
Near the end of the day, the kids were handed 51 cents each to do the ol' Penny Press machine. Friend NL and K-bao, too sophisticated for flat pennies, thought they would outsmart the world by pooling their capital and buying something fun and cool and perhaps very sweet instead. Dismayed they were when they confidently inquired the gift store clerk as to the range of treats available to them and were pointed instead to the postcard rack. Not even a Tootsie Roll was within budget after taking into account Uncle Sam's share ("Wait, Mom, it's only $1.06! That's only four cents more! Come on!").
Near the end of the Warriors' historic, all-time-great regular season, K-Pop took K-bao took Oracle Arena to see a game in person.
While yet to develop a true deep-seated passion yet for playing basketball, K-bao has become quite an avid fan of the game, especially the Warriors. She knows to be nervous when Andre Iguodala steps to the charity stripe, even though he is excellent from downtown. She throws up her arms and exclaims "Come ON!" when she sees silly fouls being committed or bad passes thrown.
The Warriors were hosting the Celtics, and the game was a tight one. K-bao was nervous throughout. So nervous, in fact, she had to step out and get some major sweets to last her through the fourth quarter.
Unfortunately, the Dubs couldn't quite hold it together, and ended up losing to the Celtics for the second time this season, and also marking their first home loss in their NBA-record-home-win-streak of 54 games.
Despite all that, K-bao found plenty to cheer and be silly about, as evidenced above. Curry was his otherworldly self, hitting 3's from all distances and angles, and the energy in the stadium was superb. Not that our little one needed any.
Unbeknownst to us, K-bao managed to commit our past, present and future income - along with the aggregate resources of many subsequent generations - to the offering basket.
While her assessment of family resources needs, um, a little work, we liked the "loving spirit" in which she made her offering.
Here is K-bao scaling the climbing structure at a local park last weekend. If there's one thing our girl has, it's "a fire burning in my bones" (in the words of one of her favorite musicians, Rachel Platten, in her hit Fight Song) to seek out thrills and challenges.
