bonnie & jason

Alissa’s first real steps!

Alissa has been cruising the furniture for a while and walking while holding our hand for much longer than that. But to date, she has only taken one or two unassisted steps. But while in Vegas, she took her first real steps (while playing Wii). Here’s the video of this momentous occurrence:

Alissa walks! from Jason Wang on Vimeo.

Back from Vegas

We’re back from our holiday trip to Vegas to visit my family and there’s a lot to share!

First off, we ended up driving since plane tickets around the holidays were so expensive. The Pilot only ended up getting about 20 mpg so we probably spent one plane ticket’s worth on gas. Here are some shot of Alissa in her new car seat, ready for her longest drive ever:

PEACE OUT!

Mmm… elephant

Alissa was actually amazingly well behaved throughout the drive. She slept through most of it and only complained if the sun was in her eyes and towards the end of the trip when we were all itching to get out and stretch our legs. It probably would have been even easier except we ran into a lot of holiday traffic when we merged with the Socal holiday travelers on I-15. All in all, with four stops for breakfast, lunch, milk, dinner, it took us 13 hours. A long day, but overall, not a bad drive.

Once we got there, we were afraid Alissa wasn’t going to sleep since she had napped so much during the drive. Fortunately, that was not the case as can be seen here:

The next few days were spent walking around some new shopping areas, eating, playing Wii, opening presents… typical family time stuff.

Alissa loves her new bundle-me and hat

But it messes up her hair

Hanging out with great-grandma

The tree Anna had mailed to grandma!

Playing with grandpa

Massive bedhead

Christmas morning presents

For some reason, Alissa loves the wind in her face

Xmas display at the Bellagio

Alissa “playing” Wii

Mmm… hotpot

The drive home was easier than the drive in since there was much less traffic. However, it did have one dramatic section around Edwards AFB where we had to drive through a sandstorm! As we approached, it just looked like a dusty cloud, but once we got closer, we could clearly see a it was much much more.

Here’s a video of the ordeal:

Driving through sandstorm from Jason Wang on Vimeo.

All in all, a pretty good trip despite having the Pilot sand blasted. (It seems to be ok…) We probably won’t be doing this drive all that often since flights to Vegas are usually pretty cheap. But it’s good to know that Alissa is capable of tolerating such a long drive.

Alissa’s 1-year checkup

We visited Dr. Langston for Alissa’s one year checkup on Friday. The good news is she’s gained some ground on the height statistic, growing about 2″ to 27.5″. That puts her back in the double digits as far as percentile goes. However, although she stretched out by 2″, she only gained about a pound to 17 lb 4 oz. That puts her in the single digits percentile-wise. Not to worry though as Dr. Langston said as long as she continues to move up in both weight and height for the time being, there’s nothing to worry about. Looks like she’s inherited mommy’s high metabolism (and petite stature.)

Alissa’s first year

Alissa’s birthday is tomorrow so we put together a little video with some of our favorite pictures from the last year. (Thanks to Dennis for the soundtrack suggestions - first song is My Eyes by Travis, second song is Picture Book by The Kinks.) I know it sounds cliche, but it really is amazing how fast the last year has gone by. Even with my penchant for looking at old pictures, I’m still amazed at how much Alissa has grown and developed. Enjoy! (Also, here’s a link to the video Eric put together highlighting Alissa’s first couple days.)

Alissa photo montage year 1 from Jason Wang on Vimeo

Dancing fools from our wedding

I finally got around to looking at the raw video footage from our wedding. Honestly, most of it is pretty boring, but there were a few nuggets that I thought were worth sharing. Not surprisingly, they’re from the dancing part of our reception. Many thanks to Dennis, Ravi, Vin, Bill, Eddy, Uncle Henry, Jen, and Leslie for providing the entertaining footage.

dancing fools from our wedding from Jason Wang on Vimeo.

Alissa playing “soccer”

We took Alissa to Gymboree a couple months ago for a free session to see if it was something we’d be interested in doing regularly. It didn’t seem like “all that” but one thing we took away was baby “soccer.” Alissa seemed to like it so we’ve done it a few times here and there. Here’s some video of some of her David Beckham impersonations (the end has Alissa’s reaction to my singing Homer too.):

Alissa playing soccer from Jason Wang on Vimeo.

Alissa sleeping

We have thus far failed to get Alissa back into her crib for a whole night of sleep. When she started teething a number of months ago, we got into the habit of bringing her into bed with us when she would wake up around midnight or so. And of course, we’d be too lazy to put her back into the crib. Now, we pretty much run through the same routine every night with Alissa falling asleep after her last bottle around 8pm (see picture above) and ending up in bed with us around midnight or so. The good thing is she almost always sleeps until 6:30 or so when she gets hungry. Then after feeding, she goes back to sleep again until about 8:00 or so. All-in-all, she’s a good sleeper and eater. We just need to get her back into the crib.

Alissa meets Santa!

We took Alissa to meet Santa for the first time today. We actually didn’t think there was any way Alissa was going to be happy sitting on Santa’s lap, but she actually did quite well. At first, when we put her on his lap, she quizzically looked up at him and looked back at us, looked up at him and then back at us. Then, she just kinda sat there while they took a few pictures and voila! She didn’t even cry. $15 later, we walked away with this 5×7:

Alissa’s first birthday

We celebrated Alissa’s first birthday party today with her (large) family at Straw Hat Pizza in Pacifica. My friends who grew up in California said they used to go to Straw Hat all the time when they were kids. Apparently, the chain had declined over the years but today, it seems to be making a comeback as the owner has just opened another location in San Bruno. But I digress. We had a very good experience there with both the service and the food. At first, we had reserved the larger of the two party rooms but ended up basically taking over most of the restaurant by overflowing into the common dining area. Like I said, Bonnie has a large family. Speaking of which, thanks to everyone who came! I hope you had a good time and we look forward to seeing you again soon. Anyway, here are some pictures from the day with the whole album here:

And here she is, about to dig into all her loot:

Alissa’s second X-mas

This is technically Alissa’s second Christmas. Bonnie’s parents got her an early present of a new big girl car seat. It’s the new Recaro Como in cobalt.

Here she is helping me put it together.

It’s supposed to be good until 70 lbs so I figure she’ll be using this thing for the next 10 years or so.