The Mommy & Me Weekend

Continued from my previous post:

I had the three days (Fri afternoon to Sunday afternoon) all planned out and scheduled by the minute. We had a lot to do and different places to go for this 'memorable' weekend.

First we stopped off at my sister's home. It is one of Emily's favorite places to get.. treats! Yep.. candy. My sister always has bowls of all kinds of candy out for everyone to grab and eat. Plus I had to go check out her newly designed and landscaped backyard which she is immensely proud of. And it was on the way to our second planned stop.

Stop #1: At E-ee's (for you non-chinese folk that means Mother's only younger sister Auntie) backyard... Gorgeous!

Stop # 2 was to Barnes & Nobles. Emily loves reading and books but unfortunately there are none that satisfies her back home so we have to come all the way down to my sister's area to shop. She loves historical fiction right now and got two books about World War II.
 

Emily loves the grilled BBQ chicken Korean style...

Stop #3: Dinner at Olleh Sushi and Tofu House.

...while I enjoyed the BBQ rib stone pot

After dinner and on the way to the hotel, we passed by this unique street name... can you see what it says? (Sorry, it's hard to take a picture and drive at the same time)

Stop #4 was to the hotel to settle in and proceed with Session 1 & 2 and then called it a night since we have to get up early the next morning for the start of Session 3.

Next day after Session 3 & 4, we headed to lunch... Stop #5.

Another one of Emily's favorite places to eat.. can you guess where we went? The location of our hotel and what she ordered for lunch can give you a big hint!

Stop #6 was to the Baylands... which will be posted on the next blog post since it's way too long to include here.

Stop #7 was to a Bird Store that we never went to and found online. It's called Los Gatos Birdwatcher. (I am so thankful for the internet in finding new places to go!)

She was thrilled to see this store and spent quite awhile looking at everything! Eventually we got a Raptor t-shirt, stickers, cards and some premium seed.

Stop #8 was back to the hotel to finish up the series with Session 5. It took me longer than planned in getting back to the hotel so we were 45 minutes behind schedule. We didn't get the chance to go to dinner until after 7:30pm.

Stop #9 was to dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. This was the weekend of the Art Festival on University so the whole street was closed off for booths. I thought ...oh man... it's going to be super crowded and we'll wait forever to get a table but lo and behold... that wasn't the case. Everyone was eating and enjoying the food and art booths on the street that the restaurants were practically empty. We got into Cheesecake Factory on a Saturday night with a 5 minute wait!

Stop #10 was for dessert.. we went to a Yogurt shop so she got some of her favorite treats! NOTE: All the places we went to including the food parts were her favorites or places she picked or preferred. Remember it was HER weekend and not mine!

Stop #11 was back to the hotel to relax and sleep ... sleep in since we had a long 2 days of travel and serious discussion.

Sunday morning we slept in and looked forward to her Daddy and sister to come and check out our fancy hotel and to go to a family lunch at... yep.. the Cheesecake Factory... again! Hannah wanted to go so we went again for lunch and we even had an addition to the family... our niece (and the girls cousin) Marissa Lok-Yen to join us! (Apparently she went to our church's Sunday School instead of her own that Sunday).

Enjoying our second meal in less than 24hrs at Cheesecake Factory

Dessert at the street fair... flavored soft serve

While Emily and I were enjoying our weekend as just mother and daughter, Matthew had the chance to have  Daddy-Daughter time. This was the most worrisome part of my time away with Emily since my youngest is literally glued to my hip! It is very difficult for her to be away from me and for two nights it was super duper hard. AND she was away from her favorite playmate... her sister. So Matthew had to make her weekend very special also.

So can you guess where he took her?

This is one of her most favorite places to go and 'shop'. She got Lambie as her special gift!

And they ate at her favorite food court restaurant with the yummy chicken terayaki!

Next Up: The Baylands