Zoe Much Love

My Grandma Zoe Suzuki Passed away yesterday at age 90.  Although she is in a better place reunited with her daughter Jane she will be greatly missed.  She had such beautiful emerald eyes. Although my eyes aren't as pretty as her's, I feel pretty lucky that she passed her green eyes on to me.

We weren't able to go to Farm House in Wyoming this last summer, so we made a special trip to see my Grandparents out in Michigan for Thanksgiving and to celebrate her 90th Birthday.  I love this picture of Isa and Grandma Zoe.  I see pure joy when I look at this picture, and yet feel so heartbroken right now knowing that Isa won't be able to know for herself what a strong and thoughtful Great Grandma she had.  I love that fact that this little farm girl from Alta Wyoming became a nurse and traveled to Japan post WWII where she meet Dr. Mac Suzuki.  They were working on the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission (ABCC) to study the late effects of radiation on the survivors.  They fell in love and upon returning to U.S. got married in California after getting denied in Nevada because they were an inter-racial marriage.  My Grandma was full of adventure, a hard-worker, and lived her life to the fullest.

Here's Grandpa and Isa posting up in Mac's chair watching CNN.  They look pretty cozy them two.  Although she is only 1/8th Japanese she looks it more than I do.  I hope her 1/8th is filled with Grandpa's unconditional kindness and wicked smartness. I remember walking through the canyon and G-Mac started naming all the plants by their common name and scientific name. And then one night while looking up at all the stars he starts spitting out the names of all the constellations.  Then I was blown away when he gave his 20 grandchildren each $1,000 of the $20,000 that the U.S. Government gave to him as an apology for putting him in a concentration camp (internment camp) during WWII.  I never heard him complain about the government or how his family had to sell their land and family business.  All I heard was how as a 3rd year Medical at Berkley student he got a lot of experience doing surgeries in the camps.  And talk about a looker, Grandma didn't have chance when she laid here emerald eyes on him.

We love you Grandma and you will be missed. I always loved how you signed your cards XOXO.  So in your memory XOXO

ISA 5 months loving life

My name is Isa and I turned 5 months the day they took this picture (Feb 23)

I went this Sunday Morning on a walk with my Daddy through the Redwoods on the Sand Trails in Henry Cowells

It was a little cold (42 degrees) as you can tell by my red nose, but I love being outside.  I didn't cry, just laughed a lot at my cousins running on the trail.

Later on that day it warmed up (65 degrees) so after church we hung out in the backyard.

This grass is pretty interesting.  I like grabbing and pulling it out and putting it in my mouth.  Then again I like grabbing anything and putting it in my mouth

At five months now I can arch up like a pro and have being roll over for the past month.  My daddy does a lot of tummy time with me.  He thinks it will help my surfing.

I've been smiling since I was 2 weeks and each week since I've been doing it more and more. Unfortunately, it looks like I got the McLeod double chin when I do.

I can sit up pretty good by myself, but stay close to me cause I usually fall over after 15 seconds

My Daddy was making me laugh so hard right here my belly started to shake.

I love life.  It rocks.

Isa Baby

Just a few nights ago my nephew McKay, my niece Naomi and I were playing catch the diaper. Baby Isa was having so much fun watching us throw diapers to each other. She was laughing so hard that just watching her laugh makes us all wanted to laugh too. She is so adorable. She loves the kids so much. Every time they come around she smiles so much, and she even tries to talk to the kids. It's so cute!

Watch the this little video of baby Isa laughing of our game!

Humpback whales are my favorite animal next to Ligers

Silvia and I saw this Photo in our Local newspaper and so yesterday we went out to the Santa Cruz pier to see if they were still around.
Sure enough as we stood at the end of the pier we could see them 200 to 300 yards away jumping out of the water.  It was like they were having a big splash contest.  I believe they are chasing fish and as the fish swim straight up and jump out of the water so do the whales.

Right below the pier were about 30 seals floating and resting there heads on each others bellies.  Then one came swimming up and jumped out of the water in to the middle of them like someone at a concert stage diving into the crowd.

We feel so blessed

It is crazy how much you can love your kid.  It kind of freaks me out.  I'm not use to getting worried about things, but now when she is sleeping I'm like, "Dude she's kind of quiet.  Is she still breathing."  Then I poker her in the stomach to get a grunt.  

On day ten we discovered that she had an inguinal hernia, and on day 12 we found ourselves at Stanford's Children Hospital getting surgery.  Talk about being scared.  Even though it was considered an minor surgery, there isn't really a minor surgery when its your 12-day-old-child.

I am so thankful for the amazing people at Stanford.  We met everyone of the surgical team and the anesthesiologist's team (12 in all).  They shook our hands and looked us in our eyes and said. "We are going to take good care of Isa." They helped us to feel like we were important to them and that we mattered to them. That helped take the edge off knowing that Isa was in caring competent hands.  Needless to say all went well.

Seeing Isa like this brought tears to Silvia

My mom was a great support to us staying with us the entire day and then staying the night with Silvia and Isa.  She just makes you feel like everything will be okay when she is around.

 Now she is five weeks old and we can't stop staring at her. 

 She is hypnotizing with her smiles and here little dimple.

 She looks like a little doll in this picture.

Happy Halloween!

Pumpkin Patch! with the family.

This was a cute little place with pony rides and corn mazes, but Isa was not totally down with it

Mamae esta uma gatinha!  That's right... that is a little Portuguese! I have been trying to speak only Portuguese to Isa so I repeat a lot of the same things over and over again.  But... I am getting better. 

That is a good looking pumpkin.

There was a farm theme going on at this Halloween Party. Isa was a sweet pea, Max was Corn and Malia was a cow.

I love Halloween.  It's the one day out of the year I get to have a full head of hair.

I love how we made so many friends from our prenatal class.  Isa has more friends then she knows what to do with.  It's fun to watch all the babies grow up together.

Count Boobula differently won the costume contest.

3 More Days of Loving Help

We felt so blessed to have Silvia's Mom and Sister stay 3 days longer.

They were suppose to fly out Wednesday Night, but Mexico City's Airport (their layover) was having black outs and closed, postponing their flight till Saturday night.   

We are going to miss all that good Brazilian home cooking, and being able to leave Isa with them in the morning to catch up on missed sleep.  Thank you for all your help. Love you guys.

On their last day we took baby Isa out for the first time.

We walked downtown Santa Cruz and stopping at Betty's for a bite to eat. 

Jaqueline really feel in love with this hamburger joint.  I think we eat there at least once a week while they were here.

Here are some cute pics from the week of Isa.