Cooking Lesson - Tacos

Kai seems to becoming more aware that we, his parents, are not going to live forever. Earlier this week he asked, "Who's going to take me places when you two are gone?"

That led to a conversation about learning how to drive. I am pretty sure that Kai can learn the mechanics of operating a car and learning how to drive, but there's a lot more to getting behind the wheel than just the knowing how to steer and stop. I explained to him that the toughest challenges in driving were anticipating what other people might do, and to be able to remain calm under a myriad of unfortunate circumstances.

Kai misinterpreted what I was talking about.

"I'll just pull over until they shut up."

It took me a second or two to realize that he was talking about the hypothetical kids he would have in the future.

Ha, interesting to know that he expects to get married and have a family of his own some day.

But I explained to him that the challenges of driving go well beyond annoying passengers. Until he can show that he can keep calm under stress, I don't think I want him behind the wheel.

And so driving lessons look to be a ways off for Kai, but there are other things we are doing to prepare him to be independent.

On this day, it was time for another cooking lesson. Today he would learn to make another of his favorite dishes, tacos.

He turned on the stove and heated up the skillet. Then it was time to brown the ground beef. My wife taught him how to crumble the meat while it is browning.

When the beef was browned, my wife showed Kai how to drain the fat. This meat was pretty lean so didn't have too much oil come out.

After that, it was time to put in the package of taco seasoning.

He then poured in water and stirred and cooked until the mixture thickened.

My wife showed Kai how she likes to dice onions.

And then it was his turn to finish cutting them.

He set everything on the table.

And finally got to enjoy the fruits of his labor.

Tacos are fairly simple to make so good as an introductory meal for someone learning to cook. Not sure I'm ready to have Kai cooking on his own while we're not there, but we're working toward that.

And the nice thing is that Kai seemed to enjoy it, too.

Cooking Lesson - Curry Rice

For at least a few years now, I've been trying to push Kai to be more independent and to have him learn life skills.

He's been doing his own laundry for over a year now, and also regularly takes out the garbage and recycling.

For a few years now, I have him make Mom's coffee on weekends when he wakes up before she does. And sometimes I have him help me make breakfast on the weekend. For instance, yesterday morning I made crepes and had Kai cut up fruit and spread Nutella and the fruit on top.

He doesn't complain much anymore about helping out and usually does a good job.

I've been asking my wife to have Kai help out once in a while when she is preparing dinner, but she hadn't done that too often. However she will be leaving for Japan in a few weeks and wanted to teach me and Kai how to make curry rice, so last night she had him do most of the preparation.

The first step is to wash the rice. My wife is showing Kai how she likes to do that - by squeezing handfuls of rice and then rinsing them out.

Next, we have to put in the correct amount of water - 6 cups in this case. Our Japanese rice cooker has several different measurement guides depending on the type of rice you want to make, so you have to recognize the right one.

Then you have to hit the "Start" button. This seems obvious, but my wife likes to remind me how I hit the wrong button TWICE before and we didn't have rice ready for dinner. (I believe I had wrongly hit the "Stop" button as I'm usually the one to clean up and I must have pressed that button out of habit).

Next it was time to prepare the other materials. First, my wife showed Kai how to wash and peel potatoes.

And then to cut them up.

Same for carrots.

My wife is not the most patient at teaching Kai how to do things so she was getting a little irritated when it took longer for him to do things than it usually takes her to do it herself. She's usually not watching when I have him help me with breakfast or yardwork or other things so I wonder if she didn't realize that his "helping" actually means a lot more work for me.

The last thing to cut was onions. We were nervous that Kai was going to slice his fingertips as he kept ignoring my wife's instructions on how to hold the onion so you're not exposing the fingertips.

But he got through all the slicing and dicing without any blood shed.

Next it was time to prepare the Dutch Oven. First my wife showed Kai how much oil to put in the pot.

They put the onions in and began to cook those first. In the meantime, my wife instructed Kai to season the chunks of beef with salt and pepper.

Then they added the meat to the pot.

My wife had Kai stir the pot a little to make sure all sides of the meat were browned.

Then she had him add the carrots and potatoes.

Next was pouring in a full container of chicken broth.

While that was cooking (about 20 minutes), my wife taught Kai how to steam broccoli.

And then it was back to the pot to skim off the residue that came up to the top.

The rice was ready about then so my wife told Kai how she likes to stir up the cooked rice rather than letting it just sit.

The last step is to add the blocks of curry seasoning...

And to stir it all in.

As is often the case, when the food is ready I'm too excited to eat it and did not photograph the finished meal. But I can tell you that it turned out well and was very tasty.

I think one of the biggest worries of special needs parents is thinking of what will happen to their kids when they are gone. We still have a lot to worry about in that regard, but the more we can teach Kai life skills, the more reassured we will feel.

Knowing that Kai can make his beloved beef curry rice is one step toward that.

Visitor From Japan

A friend of my wife visited from Japan and stayed with us last weekend. This was Akyo's first time traveling outside of Japan.

She speaks very little English but had an app on her phone that translated Japanese to English and vice versa. We all were fascinated by the technology and it worked pretty well. It enabled Kai to speak with Akyo and he seemed to enjoy the tech-enabled conversation more than just a regular one. He talked with her a bit longer than the usual one or two sentences he normally says to others.

Though the translation wasn't always perfect.

The funniest time was when Akyo tried to tell Kai that she had seen many photographs of him. But as the word "Kai" translates to "seashells" in Japanese, what came out of the phone was "I have seen many photos of seashells." We all got a big laugh out of that.

My wife enjoyed taking her friend around downtown Chicago. They went to all of the popular Chicago sightseeing spots including Millennium Park, Buckingham Fountain, to the top of the John Hancock Center (now under a different name), as well as the Chicago Architectural Boat Tour.

Kai and I joined them to go see Blue Man Group. The three of us had seen the show a few years ago in Orlando, and we looked forward to seeing it again. It was the perfect show for foreign tourists who don't speak much English as no words are spoken and there is a lot of physical comedy.

After the show, we introduced Akyo to Chicago deep dish pizza at Giordano's.

On Akyo's last night with us, we were all invited to Kai's aunt's place for Rosh Hashanah dinner. Although Kai doesn't particularly converse with anyone, he enjoys seeing all of his grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins.

We don't get to see everyone altogether like this very often, and it was a fun evening.

Before she left, Akyo told my wife how well behaved Kai was. She works with special needs kids back in Japan so she has experience with challenging kids and Kai seemed very calm compared to other kids. At least he was on this weekend. :)

When we have company, I often wish Kai would make more of an effort to interact with them. It often seems like he just like to spend the whole time on his phone or iPad just engrossed in his own interests. And so it surprised me when a few days after Akyo left, Kai told me "I miss Akyo-san. I hope she comes back to see us."

So he does notice people! :)

Well, hopefully she will come back to see us, and they can chat some more.

The End of Our Road Trip

It took two days to drive home from Colorado Springs, spending one night in Kansas City.

For our last vacation dinner, I had made reservations at the famous Kansas City barbecue restaurant, Jack Stack Barbecue. I ordered the Jack's Best combo platter for everyone. It consisted of their Crown Prime Beef Rib, baby back ribs, and beef burnt ends.

My wife liked the prime beef rib the best, Kai liked the baby back ribs and I thought the burnt ends were really tasty. Kai didn't much like the "burnt" (or charred) flavor and said he preferred the St. Louis barbecue we had way back nearly a month ago on the first night of our trip. My wife and I preferred the Kansas City barbecue over St. Louis, but we all agreed that the brisket we had in Austin Texas was still tops for barbecue.

The two-day drive home through Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, and finally, our home state of Illinois, was flat and boring, especially coming after all of the scenic places we had been to in the past couple weeks.

It's always a mix of emotions coming home from a vacation. It's nice to get back to the comforts of home and to sleep in your own bed, but it's also a bit sad to think that the vacation has ended.

In the swimming pool of our last hotel in KC, after my wife had left the pool to go shower, Kai told me "Dad I really enjoyed the vacation. It was nice to get away from everything that had been stressing me out at home."

Wow, that was great to hear. Before the trip he had complained about the length of time we would be gone and how he wanted to come straight back from LA instead of the more extended road trip I had planned. That he acknowledged that he enjoyed it was huge for me.

He didn't enjoy every second of it - there were a few instances of anger, mostly related to the weather (heat in Utah, rain in Colorado), but that was to be expected and it was actually less severe and less often than I had feared might be the case.

Kai endured the bumpy 4x4 ride and enjoyed white water rafting. He took many photos at every place we went, not just of plushes in the stores but of actually scenery.

When I think back to the road trips of my youth, I know that I didn't enjoy all of it at the time, but grew to appreciate the experiences more as I grew older. I think Kai gained a lot from the experiences we had on this trip, and hopefully will have fond memories when he looks back on it all.

Across 12 states, driving over 5,000 miles, going from beaches at sea level to the tops of 14,000 foot mountains, from LA freeways to mountain backroads... it was the road trip of a lifetime.

I'm glad we did it.

Pike's Peak and Garden of the Gods

On our last full day in Colorado, we went to the top of its most famous mountain, Pike's Peak.

The drive up the winding mountain road is thrilling and very picturesque.

The area at the top is under construction as they are building a new visitor center, so we parked a few miles down and rode a shuttle to the top. The shuttle system worked well, as they always had a van ready to go. We didn't have to wait either way.

The view at the top is quite spectacular.

It is hard to pick which direction had the best view.

The donuts sold at the top are famous so we had to have some. They were tasty, and made tastier by the fact we were able to eat while enjoying the view.

The drive down was as challenging as the drive up. Definitely need to use low gear. There were a number of adventurous bicyclists on the road.

After we came down from the mountain, we went to Garden of the Gods, a free public park in Colorado Springs that has towering sandstone formations.

This one is called Balanced Rock.

From parts of the park, you can see Pike's Peak in the distance.

The rock formations were beautiful, but after seeing so many spectacular places in the past two weeks, this place didn't stand out.

It was also very crowded and not enough parking spaces.

Afterward, we skipped lunch and went for ice cream instead. We went to the historic part of town, Old Colorado City, to an ice cream shop that Kai found the night before. This place, The Ice Cream Lab, specializes in rolled ice cream.

The wait was long but that was because they make everything to order. Here's how they make the rolled ice cream.

First, they grind ingredients, strawberry in this case, and then add cream.

Then they spread everything into a thin layer on a cooled platform.

They add in syrups like strawberry and chocolate. Then they roll the thin ice cream.

The end product looks like this.

Kai said it was the best ice cream he's ever had.

And so we had a pretty good last day of vacation, on a vacation that was mostly good. But I think everyone is ready to go home as well.

All that's left now is the two-day drive home.

A Day of Adventure - White Water Rafting and Royal Gorge

This was to be our most adventurous day of our vacation. And it some ways, it turned out to be more adventurous than planned.

In the morning, we went white water rafting on the Arkansas River through Big Horn Sheep Canyon near Canon City, Colorado. We took the half-day trip through Echo Canyon River Expeditions, the largest rafting outfitters of the many in the area.

We gathered at the meeting point at 8:45 AM and got our equipment. Shortly after 9:30, we boarded the bus that would take us to the departure point.

While on the bus, the lead guide went over the safety instructions. Among the key points he made were to never stand in the river because the flow of the water is much too fast. He said that should we fall into the river, we should first try to swim toward our own raft, and alternatively to any other nearby raft. If someone has fallen in, you should yank them back onto the raft by grabbing the shoulder harness of their floatation device and not try to grab their hands or arms.

He also said that the flow of water was good for this time of year, around 1200 cfs (cubic feet per second).

At the launch point, all of the guides unloaded the seven rafts that would be traveling together. We found out that we would be riding with two pairs of others, so there would be seven on our raft plus our guide, Caroline.

Caroline checked all of our PFDs (personal floatation devices) to make sure we had them on securely and then went through instructions on how to paddle and the commands she would be giving. And then we were off.

In the above photo, you can see me on the left wearing white. My wife is the third from the right. Kai was sitting in the back with the guide and is not visible in this photo. (All action photos were shot by Echo Canyon's shore photographers who are situated in a couple exciting spots).

Caroline explained that we would be going through three class 3 rapids and the rest would be classes 1 and 2. I chose this trip as it was intermediate level. Classes 4 and 5 rapids would be for more experienced rafters.

Kai had been a little nervous about going rafting, but I showed him videos from similar rafting trips and he seemed okay that it wouldn't be too scary.

As we got our initial taste of rapids, he seemed to enjoy it. The people sitting in the front of the raft got the most wet, but we in back also got splashed at times. The following is a photo from the on-board GoPro camera. Kai is in back. Hmmm, he's not paddling when the rest of us are. :)

When we successfully made it through our first class 3 rapids, it was very exciting. I think Kai enjoyed it, too. As we headed into the second class 3 rapids, you can see him smiling in the following picture.

And then, suddenly, in the same rapids, I was tossed from the raft.

The photographer was in the perfect spot to capture the sequence of events.

In the following photo, you can see that I was mostly submerged. Not sure if that is a hand or the paddle sticking up.

In the next shot, you can see that my wife moved to the right side of the raft to try to grab me.

But wait, do I see both her and Kai laughing in the above photo?

The raft was moving too fast though, and my wife couldn't grab me. In the following photo you see a man in red at the front of the raft move into position to prepare to grab me. You can also see that I was again mostly submerged.

The guide kept her cool but you can see how challenging it would be trying to safely navigate the raft through the rapids while also trying to get close to me.

When I fell in, I didn't panic and felt confident that I would be rescued. I trusted that my PFD would keep me afloat until I could be pulled back aboard. But as this went on, I realized that the speed of the rapids was making that very difficult. And I felt myself being pulled under water quite often. At one point I even lost the water shoes I was wearing. I still kept calm, but it sure wasn't a good feeling.

The worst part came when the raft went right on top of me. I was trapped under water! I tried to use my hands to push out from underneath the raft. I don't know if my own efforts made any difference but soon I was free.

Before long, I was swept downstream, somewhat far away from the raft.

In the onboard GoPro video that we bought, you can hear our guide calmly direct the rafters to paddle toward me.

After what seemed like a long time, but was really just over a minute, the raft pulled up to me and the man in red grabbed me by the shoulder harness just as instructed during the safety lesson on the bus. It turned out that he was a military police officer for the Air Force. So thankful to have him on the raft, as well as Caroline, our guide who had stayed calm and steered the raft safely to me.

Once pulled on board, I could not speak. I was exhausted. I could feel my heart racing. Caroline kept asking me if I was okay. I nodded my head but she kept asking. Finally she asked me to give her a thumbs up if I was okay, which I did.

It took a while, but I was able to breathe normally again and resumed my paddling. I enjoyed the rest of the journey.

Kai took extra precautions after that. Anytime we came to more severe rapids, he ducked down into the safety of the raft.

Afterward I asked Kai if he enjoyed it, and he said "yes, sort of." Well, I'll take that.

He later told me, "Dad, you were really brave." Thanks, Kai!

After we were back, we had lunch and then headed over to the Royal Gorge where they have the highest suspension bridge in the US. The following photo is taken from the bridge.

Kai and my wife are scared of heights and Kai was especially nervous about walking over the bridge. The bridge is really wide and doesn't sway at all, so my wife was fine crossing it but Kai wanted to hold our hands.

The following photo shows the depth of the gorge as seen from the bridge.

My plan was to do the zipline back from the other side. Kai was nervous but I had shown him videos of it and he said he was willing to try. But when we got there the people who had been waiting in line for a long time told us that the wait for us would likely be around three hours. So, we scrapped the plans for the zipline and took the gondola back over the gorge instead. Kai was very happy about that!

From there, we drove a little over an hour to Colorado Springs. We went into the historic Old Colorado City part of town and had dinner at a Greek restaurant. Of course, we had to have a saganaki appetizer.

It rained again as we were having dinner. Kai was concerned but didn't get as upset as he did before.

We're down to our last full day in Colorado before beginning the long drive home.