Chinese 牛(New) Year in LA

After spending the past few weeks back in California, we made our return back to Singapore.  I think all of us would have liked to kick it there a bit longer, but it's time to get back to work so I hope to have more time next trip to enjoy all that the States has to offer.  It's been over two years since I made my last trip to Los Angeles, and I was surprised to find out how much enjoyable it was this time around.  I think a big reason for that is that the little ones are older and more "mobile" so we took it to the road as opposed to chilling at home. 
The weather in Southern California couldn't be any better, where it was warm and sunny almost every day.  Of course, I could still cruise up to Mount Baldy in less than an hour from LA to introduce snow to Sage and Jonas for the first time...


Although they were having fun making snow angels this time around, I'm gonna get them all geared up to learn to snowboard the next time we hit the snow!

Because I just completed a road trip out to Tucson, Arizona (approximately eight hours one way) to visit some relatives, I decided not to make another big drive up to the Bay Area (another five to six hours).  That really bummed me out cuz I always look forward to see old friends living up in San Francisco and eating some great food.  All my college buddies know how much I still crave Zachary's Pizza and Gordo's Taqueria in Berkeley, and the urge just seems to become greater and greater with each passing year.  If you've ever been to these two places, then you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. 
And since I didn't make it up to NorCal, two of my CAL alumni, Derek and Pete, flew down for the day so we could watch the UCLA-CAL basketball game in Pauley Pavilion. 

Even though it was great to be back in a college sporting event, it turned out to be a buzzkill when the Bruins just thrashed the Golden Bears from the get-go.

Regardless, it's always nice to catch up with old friends and to see (and know) they're doing well.

During our stay in LA, my brother Danny Wu, who's a firefighter with the Los Angeles Fire Department, invited us to this firestation to show us what it's all about.  The kids really enjoyed some of the activities from taking a spin in a real deal fire truck with the sirens running to spraying water from a firehose.  Unfortunately, I pulled a "rookie move" and didn't have any juice left in my camera so I got no pictures from that excursion.  Did you know that firefighters work only about ten days a month?  Not bad, huh?
On one of Danny's off days, we took the kids to go fishing for the first time at Irvine Lake.  My brother really enjoys fishing so it was great to see him show the little ones how to catch fish...

I'm sure Sage and Jonas really enjoyed the experience of seeing fish...

We reeled in five trout that day, and it would've been six of em if I hadn't let Sage take over the reeling duties on the last one.  No biggie...it was a lot of fun seeing this little girl try and wrangle in a small fish struggling and succeeding to free itself.

Well, that's about all I gotta say about this trip.  Hope you drank a lot of Calsberg beer over the holidays and hope this New Year for ya kicks ass...and that's No Bull!