Making the Most Of a Sunny Day

Unbelievably, the sun is shining today and the high temp is expected to reach 63F, which seems unusual for this late in October. I just recently spent two weeks in southern and northern California (my former home base), and boy was the weather nice! The air quality was a different story, but then maybe that's one good reason for living in the Northwest. With that, I am heading outside with the little one's for some lawn mowing, trike riding, pumpkin carving, vitamin D generating fun. Hopefully this weather will last a bit longer, but reality probably dictates that the chilly, grey days are not too far off.

Trying Out Blogging From Facebook

It's been ages since I've written anything to my Blogger blog--mostly due to page overload for accomplishing blogging, facebooking, myspacign, flickring, etc.--so I thought I might try a one-stop-shopping interface that allows me to do it all (or most of it) from facebook.

Anyway...maybe I'll blog more now. Or maybe not. We'll see.

A Lion Named Tiger

We enjoyed a beautiful sunny day in Seattle at the Woodland Park Zoo. The girls hadn't seen their uncles Corey and Bern in a while, and we were stoked to see them as well. We saw lots of cool animals, though the penguins--a favorite of Viv and Liv--were not around. We had to make up a story about them heading back to penguin island or something like that. We also spent some time in the gift shop--another favorite of the girls--and came out victorious with two new stuffed pals. Olivia chose a lion, who she promptly named Tiger. Vivienne picked a yellow chick that she named Ducky.

Dalai Lama Day

Rachelle and I are happy to be taking a well-deserved break from the day jobs to go over to Seattle and spend a couple of hours listening to the Dalai Lama speak about compassion and other peaceful stuff. I find it especially interesting that we were fortunate enough to get these free tickets and get to hear him impart his wisdom during a very volatile political time in his homeland; not to mention our connection to China as parents of Chinese twins. It should be a wonderful event, and thanks to the jet stream, the weather is going to be nice, too.

One Sock == "Dangerous!"

During our morning ritual of wrangling the kids into their school clothes, Olivia came up to me with a grin as wide as her face. She looked down at her feet and said, "Look daddy, I only have one sock!" I replied with a surprised, "Oh! You do, don't you?" The funny part came when she quickly responded with, "Yeah. That's dangerous!" I naturally broke into laughter, which made her laugh and also peaked the interest of Vivienne, who was lurking nearby. Vivienne then began describing how several other things in her room (e.g. her bear, bunnies, etc.) were also "dangerous!"

Having kids is great.

Adobe TV

OK. Maybe I am a bit biased since I DO work for Adobe, but we just launched a cool new product that I had a difficult time ignoring; the Adobe Media Player. Another cool thing is the price. It is the future of course, so naturally it's FREE! It is also painfully easy to use, and looks cool, too.

You can view all sorts of video content, including old Star Trek episodes. You know, the ones where Kirk gets his shirt torn while fighting some alien dudes, only later to romance some alien babe who has a soft glow about her. Wait...that is like, every episode. Anyway, it's cool.

So go and get it and enjoy browsing around for your favorite content. Here is the link: http://www.adobe.com/go/getmp

Reaffirming Our Commitment and a New Baby!

Today we reaffirmed our commitment to the Vivienne and Olivia by re-adopting them in Washington state. Our international adoption was final and they are officially American citizens, but we wanted to go the extra mile for them so they will have an easier time with life events that require official U.S. paperwork (e.g. getting passports, things that require U.S.-issued birth certificates, etc.). It was a fun family day for us that included a morning ferry ride (we almost missed it!) to Seattle to see an adoption Judge, and a nice lunch on the Bainbridge waterfront after the proceedings.


And at about the same time we were finalizing the re-adoption--within a few minutes actually--a new baby entered the family down in L.A. Please welcome Jaden Lee Robinson, born at 9:38 am, 7 pounds 3 ounces. Baby Jaden--the girl's label for him--was born to proud first-time parents Gregory and Debbie. Both are recovering and doing fine.

We've Got Ears, Say Cheers!

It's been a long time since the last entry, mostly due to being busy with the daily grind and also because I really didn't have much to report. So why am I writing now?

First of all, I have been thinking that I needed to write SOMETHING, since it has been so long, but mostly it's because we are having a great time at the house that the MOUSE built! Not the one that most of our fellow west coast types are used to, NO. We are at the MAGIC COMPOUND in Orlando, Florida! This place is HUGE!


The other reason relates to WHY we decided to make the long journey from Bainbridge Island to Florida. We are reuniting with the families we traveled to China with back in 2006. It has been great to see everyone, especially all the girls, who are all looking happy and healthy. Unfortunately we are missing one family, but I'm sure we will see them again on the next reunion!


The twins are having an AWESOME time here at Mickey's House, as they refer to it. However, we are a little scared of the Mouse and his friends in person, at least up close. The girls have been more than happy to meet up close with their beloved "Princess Movies", such as Jasmine and Snow White.


Well, we've hit the Magic Kingdom twice now, and Epcot once. Tomorrow it is off to the Wild Animal Park and maybe some swimming at the pool.



The weather here is wonderful, btw. Monday will find us at the Hollywood Studios and we plan to take a river boat ride from our hotel to Downtown Disney. Then, we are back on the plane and off to the Northwest.


We have used nearly all of our Mousketools, so, as Mickey would say, "We've Got Ears, Say Cheers!"