Back to the Bay Area with Pepe, with Polly with us for the first time!

Just some pictures that capture some memories of our 2-week holiday in California in the first two weeks of June this year. We certainly helped fatten up quite a few squirrels at the Grinnell reserve in the UCBerkeley campus this time, with squirrel feeding being one of Pepe's highlights this trip. We were so blessed to live a few minutes walk from the Downtown Berkeley BART as well as campus. We put up at Shaoyun and Estelle's place at Spruce Street, where, memorably, there was this warning sign on the front of the building that would probably alarm typical Singaporeans and which we impressed on to young minds by referring to the apartment as "the house with the poisonous paint".

I was able to go walk, eat and shop in Berkeley with the two girls while Loy was teaching his summer classes. This is one of the first shots I took of Polly--at Telegraph. Pepe was sound asleep in our trusty MacLaren. This trip we discovered just what a "gai gai girl" (trans. "going-out girl", or girl who loves to go out, e.g. shopping) Polly is. She took a keen interest in observing the strange and wonderful world around her, and missed little.

I love this picture of Polly with the fragrant eucalytus trees in the background (Grinnell reserve). That mark on her right cheek is dried mucus, which we had no lack of and became fast friends with during this trip. It started with Polly running a fever the morning of the flight from Singapore. Pepe then showed signs of flu, and two days into the trip, it was clear that both girls had cough, cold and fever that wouldn't go away till the Monterey trip over the weekend that marked the halfway point of our holiday. Needless to say, they were more fussy than usual, but it did help that we were on holiday and I wasn't going to let this dampen our spirits. Many, many thanks to those who prayed for the girls during this time and regularly checked on how they were doing--especially to Grandma Saundra. The girls didn't have insurance (parental oversight!) and we didn't want to worry grandparents back home. Praise the Lord they started to mend with Triaminic (recommended by Papi Leroy) and other over-the-counter medication, after we had tried a few.


I finally checked out the Health Museum for kids, and we had a good time playing with the play food (one of Pepe's primary privations when she's on holiday with us--her toys and "friends" at home!), looking at a skeleton up close, and learning some basic science (yes) along the way.

I was impressed by the oven which had crackling sounds and little fire lights, and Pepe was also awed by the first Mr. Skeleton she's ever seen so close.