Mia's first swim lesson

Ray - This week has been fun and entertaining. Mia loves to eat, sleep and poop. She is shedding like a reptile due to her overbaked body too. Overall, its been fun caring for her. I get to put her to sleep every night at 3 am. It's good daddy and daughter time. She's so cute!

The Chosen ONE is finally here!

Here are more pics Amelia Catherine Xiao Mei Wong. Aka Noober.

Welcome Mia!

(Ray) Without any biasedness at all, I think my baby is the cutest baby ever. On Tuesday July 7th, at 225pm, Mia was born. She was 6 lbs and 10 oz, 19 inches long. She has a full head of hair and a smile that just knocks you over (thats because she farts everytime she smiles). Mia has a long body with long slender arms and legs. She could be a stud polo player and swimmer. Mia has my eyes and nose, but she has catherine's beauty (again I am biased). Here are some pics and videos that proves my theory.

Waiting...

Little Noober is due this Saturday, but we were really hoping she'd bless us with her presence today. It would have been my grandfather's (Skipper) 93rd birthday. I guess she still has a little time to make it.

My Skipper

With school done, I've been taking it easy and getting last minute things done. Sue leaves for DC this Saturday, so we've been trying to get a lot of sister time in. I sure will miss her this summer! :-( I've been trying to get some reading in, as well as some cleaning. Ray and I got one last mini-trip to Disneyland in (just to have dinner and see the fireworks). Earlier in the month we got to take a relaxing cruise of Newport Harbor. Two of the math teachers in Ray's department were retiring, so the department celebrated with a really nice champagne brunch. Noober loved her first boat ride and didn't get seasick at all! We were able to get some beautiful pictures of the hospital where she'll be born from the boat (the boat was called the Wild Goose and used to be owned by John Wayne).

Hoag Hospital

Starting on some baby laundry

Onboard the Wild Goose



Ray's summer morning practices have already started for water polo and swimming. It's already tiring him out - he gets home around noon and then naps for a good part of the day. I'm letting him enjoy it now while he can. :-)

We're looking forward to having a lot of family visiting in the next couple of weeks (luckily they're not staying at our place). Rachel, Dan, and the girls will be coming down around the 4th of July. My aunt and uncle will also be stopping by that weekend. Then about a week later, my other aunt and two cousins will be visiting. I'm hoping Noober's here to meet them all! At my last appointment, the doctor said I wasn't dilated at all. They'll go ahead and induce on Monday, July 6th if she hasn't shown up by then. We're keeping our fingers crossed though.

Here are a few more recent pictures.


The memorial to pitcher Nick Adenhart in front of Angel Stadium

Week 39 belly


Ballon from Ray's IHS swim banquet

Strawberries from our backyard - yumm!

Our New Toy

So....with the baby coming, we thought we'd invest in one of those Flip video recroders. It's small, easy to carry around, and can upload short little videos right onto your computer. With my sister being gone in DC all summer and Ray's dad in Canada for work, we thought it would be great to be able to share videos of Noober with them. Here's our first test video...Ray shares his thoughts on the baby. :-)

36 Days to Go!

I just saw on my little ticker that there's only 36 more days to go before little Noober arrives! How crazy! I'm using the long holiday weekend to start washing bedding and clothes and getting things cleaned up. Ray and I still have a lot of big things to buy - stroller/car seat, bassinett, diapers! With school ending soon, everything feels a little overwhelming, but I can't wait!
We just finished up with our baby classes at Hoag last weekend. I think they were pretty informative and convinced me that I will definitely be getting an epidural if everything goes well.
Last Saturday was also had our family and friends BaByQ shower! We had a blast getting to hang out with everyone and feel so grateful for all the love that was "showered" on Noober. :-) Thanks to my sister, my mom, and Ray's mom for all the hard work they put into making it so special!
We've pretty much got the nursery all ready to go and it looks amazing! My dad said is looks like something on the HG channel. I'm really happy with how it turned out and can't wait to show it off. Once we get everything else organized and moved back into place, we'll FINALLY be able to take some pics of our house (now that we've lived here for almost a year - it's hard to believe!).
Summer definitely feels like it's arriving - Ray's summer swim team (the Sharks) started last Monday. I'm sad to not be able to coach with him this year though. Open House is now over and we're really into the home stretch of the school-year with only 18 days of school left! We're definitely looking forward to a very different and memorable summer. And we can't wait for Rachel, Dan, and the girls to come visit!
I'll leave you with some pictures of the shower and the nursery. Oh, and I can't forget to say Go Wings and hooray for Kris Allen! Cheers!

Playing for Change

By the way...If you haven't checked out the Stand by Me music video I've added to the bottom of our blog, you need to! My dad actually saw it on BET one night when he was flipping channels. They've recently had a thing on it on KCET (PBS) and I think the cd/DVD is available now on Amazon. I loved it so much I bought the video on iTunes. Please check it out!