We had initially planned to go to Maui in 2021, but it was canceled due to the pandemic.  I finally rebooked the same trip to October this year during our fall break.  Then the tragic fire happened in August in West Maui; we had considered making alternate travel locations, but in the end we decided to keep our plan and just moved our lodging from Lahaina to Kihei.  Two days before our flight out, I received an email from Hawaiian Airline stating that our flight was canceled.  I called the airline; their offers in place of the canceled flight were all not good at all (ie.changing dates or changing airport), thus I thought that we might have to cancel the whole trip.  Fortunately while I was on hold with the airline, I found a comparable itinerary with SWA and I booked it.  Our Maui trip was back on track!

     A few months ago, my coworker KLinh was re-selling their over purchased concert tickets for Ed Sheeran, and I convinced Stuart to go with me.  The concert was last Saturday.  This was one of the most popular concerts and was anticipating the highest number of audience, 80,000 people.  Because of that, we had to find an alternative way of transportation instead of driving, and we finalized on using VTA.  We left the boys relatively early in the afternoon to catch a direct rail to the Levi Stadium and the trip went smoothly.  This was the first time we visited this stadium; and it was beautiful as expected.  We found our section and our seats, and we were happy with the location.  Robyn, Julie and Ashlyn arrived to their seats next to us shortly after, and the concert began with Maise Peters and later Russ.  During the intermission in between the singers, I went out to meet up with a group of my current coworkers who happened to be at this concert, so we could take a group picture.  Finally Ed Sheeran began at 8pm, and he played non stop for over two and half hours.  I love many of his songs, and he did an amazing job singing and playing his guitar the entire time.  The stadium was beautiful and the sound was awesome too.  It was an incredible experience being there with all these people. I still enjoyed listening to the video clips I took later too.

     For the way back, we decided to take the offer from Kathy to get a catch with her sister who had VIP parking.  So we left our seats slightly before the end of the concert to make sure we could meet them at their car.  The ride home was nice chatting with Kathy, her two wonderful sisters and their daughters.  We finally got home at midnight.  The boys had a great night playing with Cole too.  It was a wonderful evening and I am glad that I bought the tickets.

    Dora visited us back in August.  It was mainly Dora and I hung out which was very nice for us to catch up.  We did go swimming a couple of times and, we also had several meals together with the family.  Connor was happy to have some food that he had been craving for.

    Twenty years ago we met at Starbucks which changed our lives.  Cheers with coffee for many more! 

    Six months ago Theresa and I had a hard time booking a good site for our camping trip this year, but we managed to book 3 separate sites at Henry Cowell Redwood campground and we just hoped that they would be reasonable spots.  Our family arrived Friday night first; we chose our primary spot and it turned out to be an awesome hangout area for our group.  We loved the shade created beautifully by the redwood trees and the weather was perfect, not too cold or hot.  The boys helped Stuart set up the tent, and I tried to put up a fire to get ready for dinner cooking.  Buddy was so excited on the first day and pulled quite a bit until we had enough and tied him around the central tree to free us up to do things.  Then Theresa and Martin arrived.  I made some pork skewers and Stuart cooked them up for us; we enjoyed this first meal very much.  The six of us plus Buddy sat around the fire enjoying drinks and snacks for a few hours, and had a lovely peaceful evening.

    The next morning we waited for Kathy/Kira and Robyn/Peyton to have breakfast together.  This year the Kaos could not join us.  Theresa brought out a game Tapple to play; they had a good time.  Afterward we decided to go for a hike down to the creek while Stuart and Buddy stayed and watched our site.  The trail was very pretty; the group walked quite fast, but Connor and I took our time to take pictures.  We finally met up with the group at the beautiful creek.  Kira represented us to put her feet into the water.  After the break there, we then had to take the strenuous uphill hike back to our campsite.  It was quite an exercise to complete this 3 mile hike.  Then we had almost built up an appetite for a burger lunch which was a big hit for everyone.

    In the afternoon, we played a tournament with the washer game.  Some of us had tight battles, and it came down to Peyton and the four of us.  At the end it was Logan vs Connor in the final.  It was a very close game and Logan got the win with his last 3-point center bucket.  Here is the last minute of the game.

   Next we played the Phase 10 game that Kathy brought; it was for up to 6 players but we all tried to learn the game, stayed and watched.  This game finally brought all the kids together, more talking among them finally.  Connor was also being a silly person, talking smack and getting us all laughed.  The game could take a long time to finish, so we kept playing until dinner time and wrapped up the game.  It was a lot of fun.

    Theresa and Martin had started making steaks, so we could have a steak and ramen dinner.  We were definitely stuffed for sure with all the food and drinks by then.  The kids then played with glowsticks and repeated their project from last year.  They had a beautiful artwork at the end again. The full day finally came to an end, then Kathy, Kira, Robyn and Peyton wrapped up and said goodbye to us.

    It had been a full busy day, so the rest of us hung out at the firepit to relax and finally retired for the night.  All of us had a great night sleep including Buddy.  He stayed on his cot in the tent and did not get up until the next morning.  We took our time the next morning and finally made breakfast and packed up.  It was another wonderful successful camping on the books.  Here are our photos.

    Here is our 10th grader and 8th grader starting first day of school on 8/10/23.