Good Eats

Whenever we come up to Reno we have to eat at this place. All-you-can-eat sushi made to order. And since we were traveling with our Buffet Club President and VP... it was a must destination.

I did not realize this but this restaurant that serves all-you-can-eat-sushi has two locations. Sushi Pier 1 and Sushi Pier 2. Matthew and I and the rest of my family whenever we come in December go to Sushi Pier 1 and it's a dinky place. Super duper dinky and can barely accommodate my extended family of 15 when we come. I think we take up 1/2 of the restaurant when we all come.

O. and G. introduced us to Sushi Pier 2. This massive family-style restaurant can hold three Sushi Pier 1's... at least!

Seriously.. we have been going to the wrong location! This one is massively big!

Okay.. three adults ate the all-you-can-eat sushi: $22.95 per person. I do not eat anything raw so I would not get my monies worth. Instead I had beef terayaki and it was delicious!

The other three adults ate the following:

mussels appetizer

BBQ seared tuna (tastes like smoked tuna, very unique)

Wiseguy's (spicy tuna & avocado), Joey Ramone (spicy tuna, spicy crab, avocado)

hamachi, salmon skin handroll, Caterpillar roll, Dragon roll

seared tuna, tobiko, unagi, Goofy (unagi, avocado, & crab), maguro, sake

BBQ seared tuna, cooked scallop, upside down shrimp, Rainbow roll (hamachi, maguro, sake), salmon skin handroll, unagi,  upside down crab (the crab is just imitation crab deep fried)

They ended with a parfait dessert!

You think they ate enough food? Oh I forgot to ask our Buffet Club Officers how they ranked this place.

Good Urban Eats

Driving up through Sac we stopped off at a yummy place, Jack's Urban Eats. Large fresh made to order salads, fresh carved meats, and the garlic fries are to die for!!

Chinese Chicken salad.. and the chicken was warm, freshly carved from the bird!

A Create Your Own Tri-Tip salad

Jack's Classic Tri-Tip Sandwich

Mac N Cheese (for the girls)

Garlic Fries.. the best! Fresh Garlic and Crispy Fries ... the best combination!

As we were leaving the restaurant, we drove by the Commission on Teacher Credentialing. That's where I got my credential certificate and where I have to renew every ten years!

Free Hotel

In Reno, we stayed at the Grand Sierra Resort again but this time it was free. Apparently there was a deal where you stay 2 nights and get 2 nights free with no minimum stay. So we stayed two nights and both nights were free... no resort fee... no taxes... nada any money! What a deal!

Our two queen bed room had these two chairs in it. They were new to us since the last time we were here they didn't have these types of chairs.

Hannah thought they were quite cool. When put together, they make a cozy little bed. Perfect for her! I had to pull her legs down before she lost all circulation in them.

Apparently the lobby was remodeled with new carpet and new furniture too.

Real Snow This Time

On spring break, we headed to Reno with our Lee friends to play in the snow one last time before the season ended.

This is what it looked like when we arrived at Mt. Rose Ski Resort.

This is what it looked like in December. They had to make their own snow.

Hannah did not want to ski this time around and instead she made her own snow slide on the mountain pictured above.

Emily and Matthew skied and snowboarded respectively. Emily didn't even take any lessons this time around.

Hannah made snow angels in the fresh powder...

... and played in the snow with Hope. They even built a fancy snowman (with the help of Grace)

Faith took a snowboarding lesson for the first time and then hit the slopes with her Daddy.

She's a natural! Check her out with her daddy! No fear!

The four musketeers

Emily towing Faith along. The resort was NOT crowded at all!

Now you might be wondering.. where the heck am I and Grace?

Well.. here I am holding a snowboard with my husband.

Here is Grace posing with her husband.

And here we are pretty much stuck babysitting taking loving care of our youngest daughters while the fathers have Father-Daughter time on the slopes. I also read a book while Grace watched four episodes of Burn Notice on the iPad.

Oh.. here is a picture of how crowded the Lodge was. This is the 2nd level where we usually plant ourselves in for the day. And NO, this wasn't taken at 8am.. it was taken at 11am!!

At the end of the day, Grace felt so cooped up inside that she wanted to do some sledding so they brought out their buttsleds and slid up and down the same mountain Hannah made her slide on.

While everyone was sledding up a storm, I sat in the car and finished reading my book, Delirium by Lauren Oliver. The night before Grace and I had our Girl-Date time. We went and watched The Hunger Games, while the fathers took the kids to the hotel arcade and got them ready for bed!

Oh the sacrifices you make for your family!

Trees are GOOD!

The last day of spring break I took the girls and two friends to see Dr. Seuss' The Lorax. It was a very environmentally friendly film encouraging us to appreciate and nurture our trees which give us fresh air to breathe.

ALERT SPOILERS AHEAD if you have not watched the movie.

The movies starts off in a beautiful happy town. All the greenery we expect in a neighborhood (i.e. trees, bushes, flowers etc..) are inflatables which the towns people have to pump up every morning. Apparently there are no real plants that exist in this town... at least anymore. And instead of getting spring water delivered to your home, you can buy fresh air (in the same Alhambra water containers). The delivery man delivers it to your home, you drop it into your stand (as like if it was water) and turn on the fan to start blowing fresh air into your home. How ingenuous is that?

Of course there is one character, a young girl, who dreams of owning a real tree (that apparently only existed long long ago), and a boy who likes this girl and wants to get her a tree for her birthday. His grandma tells him he has to find the person who was responsible for destroying all the trees to get the full story of why the trees disappeared. I'll stop there and if you want to find out what happens you just have to see the movie.

The girls loved the movie and afterwards I took them to lunch. Rachel and Adrianne wanted In-N-Out burgers and my girls wanted spaghetti from Jollibee so as a good mom, I bought the spaghetti and brought it to In-N-Out. Now everyone is happy!

Visitors

We had the great pleasure of having the Yew family come for a visit. We enjoyed a nice dinner at the Elephant Bar and the next day, breakfast dim summing.

It was a rainy but beautiful time catching up with old friends.

SuperHeroes

Spirit Week continues and it's Super Hero Day. The kids got to dress up as their favorite or made-up superhero!

Can you guess what Emily was?

She was BirdGirl. She used her a towel as her cape. I clipped some of her decorative birdies on it and on her hair. Her daddy put a bunch of feathers throughout her hair and she wore a bird whistle around her neck. That's her super power. She can call and talk to all the birds.

Her good friend Adrianne was The Green Machine. She helps nature. A perfect pair!

Her friend Caryn, was Hello Kitty Girl! Yes, they were very creative!!

Double Vision

Twins.

People say that it's easier to have two at the same time and get it all over with at one time... the pregnancy and birth and all.

My former teacher-colleague had twins... a boy and a girl (her daughter is also named Hannah). A friend from Portland had twin girls (I never could tell them apart.) Matthew's cousin is currently pregnant with twins. Twin boys actually. They already have two sons... so that makes four boys for their growing family.

When my sister and I were growing up, my mom dressed us alike. That's what parents do to their kids especially those of the same gender. I guess that's the closest you can get to having twins. (Heather, I know that you'd appreciate this!)

My sister and I with homemade dresses made by our dear mother.

More handmade dresses and sweaters. I cannot believe how short they were. Of course my brother did not participate in the  twining. My mom even cut our hair the same.

So, of course, when I became a parent and had two girls, I did what any devoted mother would do...

You can even have triplets... (you got to love Gymboree clothes)

Grown-ups can even get into the picture.

The girlies with their Auntie Matthea

Here is Emily's BFFL, Rachel...

...and with her mother in homemade Easter dresses. (The girls are much bigger now. Angela looks exactly the same. She doesn't age.. really!)

This week was Spirit Week at KHA. It was Twin Day. Emily and her friend, Caryn were twins.

... And yes Emily does have glasses even though she never wears them. No braces...yet.

Here are some of her classmates:

The boys even got into the spirit!

I guess it's more fun pretending to be a twin than actually being one! So they say!