Holiday Greeting from the Tarns

Wish you and your family a 

Merry Christmas

  &

 Happy New Year!

We had a lot going on this year.  New member of the family Lucy born in February, Fei's retirement in June, many vacations, and everyone's birthday celebrations.  It was an eventful and fun year! We will like to share with you and keep you updated to what was going on in the Tarns.







Theresa and Talia's Birthdays

Theresa's birthday is in January and Talia's birthday is in February, we had 2 wonderful birthday parties.  We celebrated them in Jason's house with family members and friends.  Theresa and Jason did a wonderful job in decorating and organizing the party with delicious food and exciting games.  Talia turned 2 years old this February.  Even at age of two or less, she was fully aware what was going on.  She was socializing among her friends including kids in her age range and adults.  She participated in activities and of course enjoyed the birthday candle blowing and cake eating.  Seeing her enjoying both parties, it made all the efforts of putting up such parties worthwhile. 

Fei and Tony's Brazil Vacation in Feburary

Fei and Tony joined a Brazil Trip to visit Iguazu Falls, Rio Carnival 2013 , and cruise on Iberostar river cruise ship in Negro River (the largest branch of Amazon River).   Several 1st time experiences on this trip made it a memorable and unique vacation. 

Please see the following blog for more info:

http://tarnbraziltrip2013.blogspot.com/

Lucy Was Born on Feburary 24

Jeff and Jennifer had an addition to their family.  Lucy was so sweet for waiting till Feb 24 which is Jeff's birthday to come out to this world.  It was a double celebration for Jeff and Jennifer's family.  Tony was able to be in Oakland spending time with Benjy and was thrilled to have the opportunity to meet Lucy right after she was born. Jeff and Jennifer had done a lot of preparation to forewarning Benjy about his new baby sister.   Benjy acted well as the bigger brother and shown a lot of love to her.  Lucy got home on Feb 27 and did very well of getting used to her new home immediately.  Now there is a happy Tarns family of 4 in Oakland, CA.

Jeff's had his birthday celebration on the same day as Lucy was born.  Since Jennifer and Lucy were still in hospital, Jeff had to rush back to have the celebration with Benjy.  As usual, a birthday cake made this little boy very happy.

Fei's Girls Only Trip to New York in March

Fei had their "Girls Only" trip to New York in March this year.  This is a tradition they have been kept for many years and they spend a lot of time chatting, shopping, and dinning.  In addition they even went to see the popular Broadway show "The Book of Mormon" during this trip.  They also had an opportunity to see the live taping of "The Anderson Live Show" in the NBC studio. Again, Fei had a wonderful time with her good friends.

Please see the following blog for more info:

http://tarnnyc2013.blogspot.com/

Fei and Tony's Big Sky Ski Trip in March

Our ski friends decided to go to Big Sky, Montana for our annual ski trip this year.  This was the 1st time we visited Montana and learned a lot about Montana.  Big Sky has nice ski slops with less crowds.  It is an ideal ski resort destination.  We stayed in a ski-in and ski-out condo which was very nice.  The only issue was that it is located on the mountain and the attitude did cause some problems with several of our ski buddies.  However, we still had a wonderful time.

After the ski days, we spent some more time in Bozeman and were able to travel to northern part of Yellowstone NP.  We even had an opportunity to visit and witness an ice falls in a nearby state park.

Yeh's Beach House Weekend in Galveston in May

Betty and Mike invited several SMDC friends to their beach house in Galveston to spend the weekend of May 4 to May 6. They have a beautiful beach house with gorgeous views of beach and the Gulf of Mexico.  They had a 3 story big beach house to host 16 joyful and good friends.  We had wonderful time on the beach walking, bicycling, and photographing; we also had great time indoor enjoying the delicious food everyone prepared, playing games, dancing, mahjonging, and chatting.  It was a memorable weekend for everyone.

Fei Retired on June 1

After Tony retired in 2011 and stayed home for 2 years, Fei finally decided to join him and retired this year.  With her cumulated vacation dates, she was able to stay at home starting in April and started to enjoy the "no stress" life.  It did take some time to adjust, however, she was doing fine.  The best part of the retirement for her at this point is that she doesn't need to use alarm clock anymore.  We did have a party with good friends to celebrate her retirement.

Fei Visited Oakland in June

In June, Fei was able to make out to Oakland and spend sometime with Benjy and Lucy.  This was the 1st time she met Lucy and she had a lot of fun with both Benjy and Lucy. Since she went there by herself and she had to play the camera man role using her iPhone. Surprisely, she did a good job in capturing some of the wonderful moments of Benjy and Lucy.

Jeff and Jason's Family Met in Disneyland for Fun in Late June and Early July

With Jeff and Jennifer's attending Angie's wedding in LA and Jason and Theresa's vacation schedule in LA, they were able to meet in LA and took the kids to Disneyland.  It was a wonderful opportunity for them to meet and have fun at the same time.

Jason, Theresa and Talia were able to make out to San Diego first and visited Terry's family, San Diego Zoo and the LEGOLAND.  Talia was so happy to meet the other Yeh-Yeh (Terry) and Nai-Nai (Ann), enjoyed the San Diego beaches, Terry's house and their garden, of course the zoo and LEGOLAND.

Both Benjy and Talia are already familiar with Disney figures like Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse and all other Disney characters, they were able to enjoy the whole trip very much.  Lucy is still too young to comprehend, however, she participated all activities with either Jeff or Jennifer's holding her.  Some of the photos they took with the Disney figures really made Benjy and Talia's days.  Talia was so proud of the opportunities of meeting these familiar figures, and she did tell us "who is who" when she shown us these photos after she got back to Houston.

Fei and Tony's Nova Scotia Trip in July

This was the first trip we took since Fei's retirement.  We flew to Boston and drove to Canada for about 14 days.  The focus of this trip was to target the Acadia National Park in Maine, Fundy National Park in New Brunswick, and Cape Benton Highlands National Park in Nova Scotia.  The weather was great to allow us to do a lot of hiking, sightseeing and photographing.  The Northeast parts of US and Canada have a different look than the other parts of US and Canada, and it can be characterized as the beauty of "Sea meets Mountain".  After national parks, we had a chance of visiting Halifax and Peggy's Cove.  Peggy's Cove is the #1 attraction in Canada with most photos taken.

Please see the following blog for more info:

http://tarnnovascotia0713.blogspot.com/

Jeff and Family Visiting Houston in August

Jeff and Jennifer brought Benjy and Lucy to visit families in Houston.  It was Angie's wedding reception in Houston too.  With Lucy's 1st time visit to Houston, it drew a lot of attentions in preparing the trip for Jeff and Jennifer along with everybody in Houston.  However, everything went smoothly without any issue. 

Special effort was made by Jennifer and Theresa to have the kids meet and play.  Since Benjy and Talia already familiar with each other, they did have a lot of fun together.  Family gathering, museum visiting and playing together provided us a lot of joy by just watching them.  Of course, there were many Kodak moments.  It was a quality time for the whole family.

Yogi Bear Camping with Jason's, Pan's and Fong's Family in August

Stephanie and Theresa organized a camping weekend at Yogi Bear Campground nearby Houston for the Fongs, Pans and Tarns families.   It is about an hour drive from here and it has cabins for renting and a fun water park.  They also have fishing ponds for fishing, jungle gem for kids, art and craft center for different craft classes, hey rides and train rides.  For August weather in Houston, playing in the water park is the natural choice.  They have few slides, tubing, and pools.  We started with tubing and than gradually moved on to slides, from small slide to the giant slide.  One can slide down either using pads straight down or using tubing on circular slide.  It was a challenge, however, it was fun. Once you tried it, you want to do more.  

We have prepared nice dinners for 8 adults and 3 kids on both days.  Jason even built a camp fire for making S'mores with Hershey bar, marshmallow, and crackers.  The kids had the most of the fun with the camp fire and S'mores.

On the way back from Yogi Bear Camp, we decided to take a detour to visit the Blue Bell ice cream factory in Brenham.  We enjoined the factory tour to see the ice cream assembly line and surprised to learn that they use milk from approximately 60,000 cows each day, and the cream used during each day's production run is always less than 24 hours old. All production and packaging takes place within Blue Bell facilities, which are able to produce over 100 pints per minute.

After the tour, they did provide an opportunity to sample a serving of free ice cream.  Additional serving costs only $1, therefore some of us had more than one serving.

Fei and Tony's Trip to Croatia in Late September and Early October

Fei and Tony went to Croatia and Zurich at the end of September for a 11 days guided Croatia land tour and 3 days self paced sightseeing tour in Zurich.  This was the last trip we took in 2013. Croatia is a beautiful country with lots of things and places to see and visit.  Zurich is beautiful just like any other locations in Switzerland.  It is also expensive just like any other locations in Switzerland.

It is a highly recommended trip if you are interesting to see that part of the world.  

Please see the following blog for more info.

http://tarncroatiatrip.blogspot.com/