Look who's 7! It's amazing to us that he has gotten so big so fast! We had a special birthday dinner for him tonight with his favorite, egg flower soup, and dumplings. We didn't go very big on presents for him this year, but he really enjoyed all the little things he got. And of course, the cardboard boxes they came in were even more fun! One of Kai's favorite expressions is "I gotta idea!" Here he is building a space ship after everything was opened...
Kai and Shen both LOVE Santa Claus! And I've got to admit that Tina and I are really enjoying getting to experience things like this a second time. We took them to the mall and stood in line for our turn to visit with him. I was really impressed with the jolly old man this year, he was truly in good form. I watched him take his time with each of his little visitors, and he was actively engaged in talking with each one of them and giving them as much time as they wanted. It may have meant the line moved a little slower, but it was very fun to watch. I would guess that being Santa in a busy mall the Saturday before Christmas could be pretty grueling, but this gentleman seemed to truly be enjoying himself and spreading the holiday cheer.
Today was Shen's 6th Birthday! We had a great little family celebration at home. Cam and Ben had work and school this evening but we're hoping they will join us in a joint Shen/Kai birthday celebration in a couple weeks. His big present was a new "Big" bike (16" wheels) which means he can now keep up with Kai out on the road. In this photo he is sporting a new night shirt hand-made by Gramma O -- check out the custom length sleeves, Gramma jammies are the best, no rolled up sleeves! And that hand gesture he's flashing, that's not a gang-sign, that's the Chinese hand sign for six (liu)! Cool thing about hand counting in Chinese, you can count to 10 on one hand, very handy for kids with one hand!
For the last year he's always seemed confused when asked how old is. He almost always answered "4", but today he seemed to be quite happy with being 6, and there was a lot of reinforcement. At bedtime Kai said that now that Shen was 6 they are twins. I told him, "Yes, for the next couple weeks they are twins." Then Kai said they'll be twins again next year when Shen turns 7.
Whatcom County Museum opened their new Light Catcher Building today. We took the boys to the free open house to see the new space. They have nature, art and history exhibits, as well as what they are calling "F.I.G." the Family Interactive Gallery, which replaces the old Children's Museum. The art exhibits were really well done, it felt like being in Seattle or Vancouver, I think it's an amazing facility for a town Bellingham's size. The FIG was good, but less than I had hoped for, it's not clear that they have a plan for rotating exhibits in this space. The boys liked it though, and it would be fun to take them back sometime when it's not so crowded. I'm amazed you can't see it in the photos I managed to take, but people were really packed in.
Wow, this is kind of late, but I just got the video up on Youtube last night. It's a little long, but there's some good video of Shen really getting into the goo. Kai is much more cautious, but he certainly participated more this year than ever before. I like watching the two of them just playing with the mush together towards the end.
Here's a couple pictures of Kai and Shen in their costumes. One is a firefighter and the other is Buzz Lightyear. I'll let you figure out which is which!
The house was very quiet when I got home from work tonight. Tina had classical music playing and Kai and Shen were both using a different laptop to play on Starfall.com. It's a great website for young children learning to read.
When we told the boys yesterday we'd be going to get pumpkins today Kai quickly protested that we couldn't because they have Chinese language school. We were pleased to hear that this has become a priority for him, but assured him we could get to the pumpkin farm early enough to do both. The farm we have always enjoyed going to in the past isn't open on Sundays, they have also started charging 3 bucks a head just to get in, so I wasn't too disappointed in having to choose a different farm. We originally thought we'd go to one we found down in Skagit county, but Google Maps said it was almost an hour drive. We wouldn't make it to Chinese school if we did that, so we settled on a farm we like for berry picking in the summer. I wasn't really happy with this plan as they don't have a lot of activities there, but the boys really wanted to get pumkins so off we went.
It turned out to be a beautiful outing! There was a brisk wind blowing down from the north, but it was sunny and clear. The boys are big enough to pull each other around in the wagons this year, which they thoroughly enjoyed. The farm had a tractor-pulled train ride which was free (something you have to pay extra for at the $3 place), and they were letting people cut dahlias for free as it's supposed to freeze tonight out there. They also have a great little playground where the boys enjoyed digging in the sand for quite a while, and the pumpkin prices were pretty much the same as at the grocery store. All in all it was a great time, and we made it back in time for Chinese school!
I think I've got more pictures of the boys at this park than at any other. It's just so pretty down there with the water and all the boats, and the view of Mt. Baker. It's got great paved paths for the boys to ride their bikes on, a nice little climbing structure, and while it's a fairly small park, it feels big and open. And it's never crowded, especially on a week day during the school year.
We got another gorgeous sunny weekend, and I extended mine an extra day because I have to work next Saturday. I took Kai and Shen down to the park to play and ride bikes, and to give Tina a "break" (she did housework and baked while we were gone, but at least she didn't have any of us boys under foot for a bit.) I brought a kite with us, but there was no wind to speak of, just plenty of sunshine!
Shen was done riding bikes before Kai was, but since the park is so open I could keep an eye on Kai while I stayed with Shen at the play structure. He had the whole place to himself for a bit, but eventually a few other kids came along. After a bit I heard Shen say to a little boy who looked about the same age, "I'll play with you!" The boy looked at him for a minute then said, "Let's play Star Wars, I'll be Darth Vader!"
"Oh boy," I thought, "I know where this is going!" Star Wars (episodes IV, V, VI, the first 3 movies) is about the only media of this genre that Kai and Shen have experienced and they are very into it. And of course, the single biggest moment of all three films to them is when Darth Vader cuts off Luke's hand at the end of The Empire Strikes Back. Guess who always plays Luke?
I was really wondering how this little boy was going to react, when Shen promptly answered, "I'll be Luke, and Darth Vader cuts off Luke's hand." then started waving his handless arm in the boy's face. Cracked me up, the little guy was really not interested in limb differences though, he just wanted to get on with the game, and began wielding his invisible light sabre. Before long, Kai was back and the three of them proceeded to race around and argue about who was dead and who killed who.
We spent the afternoon at the Village Green in Fairhaven celebrating Moon Festival with the Mei Hua Chinese School and had a great time! The weather was absolutely fantastic, a little windy maybe, but hey after a week of heavy rain it was so great to have warm sunny weather! We've been working with the boys all week on two songs in Chinese that they were supposed to sing. When it was time for them to go up with all the other kids and sing they went right up there and belted it out! The program did get a little long, but we were outdoors so the kids were free to run around and get their ya-ya's out.
I've got a slideshow of my favorite pictures below, but here are a couple of my favorites that I have to caption...
Shen and Lana We met Lana in Xi'an when we were there to adopt Shen. Shen and Lana lived together on the same floor in the orphanage. Her family was still waiting to travel when we were there, so we took pictures of her for them and gave her presents that they sent with us. She is eight now and has grown eight inches in the two years she's been home. We haven't seen her family in a while, but she and Shen have a special connection and it's really fun seeing the two of them together.
The Conspirators I know it's obvious, but yes, the boy with the big stick is the leader, and they are up to no good.
Singing! The boys look like they almost know all the words!
Mmmm... Red Bean Paste! Kai didn't enjoy the mooncakes we had last night, but they gave all the kids little mooncakes that had a really great, soft red bean paste filling and he devoured it!
And the rest of the photos, click for slideshow...
We had a nice little Moon Festival dinner last night. We're getting better at making a couple traditional Chinese dishes, but are still a bit overwhelmed when it comes to putting a whole meal together. There is a lot more prep work than we're used to as neither Tina or I are big into cooking, quick and easy is our regular style. The other problem for us is the quantities we end up with if we prepare a lot of different dishes. So last night we settled on rice, egg flower soup (of course), asian style fresh green beans, and dumplings (pot stickers). We used frozen store-bought pot stickers too, we just didn't have a whole day to prepare these. But Tina has mastered cooking these now, so we're thinking that we are going to try setting a day aside to make up a ton of them ourselves then freezing them for future use.
For desert we had a few little mooncakes that we shared with hot tea. I was a bit surprised that Kai didn't really like them this year, last year he couldn't get enough. I have come to really enjoy them though and look forward to eating them on Moon Festival. I think it's probably a good thing for me that they are so expensive, as they are very, very rich!
I really love the way they look too, so I took a few minutes to get the picture above. The plate they are on came with a box of mooncakes we bought at a little grocery store in Beijing four years ago on the day we met Kai. I wanted a nice background for them so I used a shirt I got in Xi'an when we adopted Shen.
It was a beautiful clear evening so after dinner we went outside and got to enjoy looking at the big full moon! This evening we'll be celebrating with the Mei Hua Chinese School at the Village Green in Fairhaven, the boys are very excited about getting to dress up in their "China Clothes". Hopefully I'll get some good pictures of them.
Today China turns 60! China is a land of amazing contrasts. On one hand it is a country with a culture and history that dates back thousands and thousands of years, and yet its present government, the People's Republic of China is only 60 years old!
I've been reading a lot about the country's celebration online and have chosen a couple videos from YouTube that I thought were interesting or enjoyable:
"Today is your birthday" from the CCTV extravaganza Long Live the Motherland - 60 anniversary of the National Day Party
and with a little less reverence, but equally enthusiastic, Chinese truck drivers play "Happy Birthday" on their truck horns to celebrate the forthcoming 60th Anniversary of the People's Republic of China.
And some related media... The Founding of a Republic The film was made to coincide with the 60th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party founding of China. The film boasts more than 170 A-list movie stars from China and Hong Kong. Many of the top stars were invited to star as leads, supporting characters, or just cameo in the film, reportedly including some of the top Chinese stars like 'Jackie Chan' and Jet Li, who only have one shot or one line in the film, most of the famous actors took little or no pay for their work – rather, considering it an honor to have just a few brief lines in the film.
“Guojia” (country) sung by Jackie Chan: The state-controlled Chinese phone company, China Mobile, has changed all customer’s ring-back tones to this patriotic song for the October 1st holiday.
The weather this weekend has been perfect for late September. It's sunny out and warm, but the angle of the sun and a crispness in the air lets you know that it is indeed fall. It's nice living in a place where agriculture is a part of the economy and you can go and visit small farms just down the road. This little farm has golf carts they let you drive around the orchards in on your own, so we took the boys on Saturday for a little outing and some fresh air. I'm playing around with slideshows in Flikr, so click the play arrow to see some pictures of our day...
Technically "Adoption Day" is tomorrow, but it was 4 years ago today that we first met Kai! It is amazing to Tina and me how much he has grown in these four years. We celebrated with Chinese food for dinner, including his favorite, egg drop soup. We're going to have it again tomorrow with his big brothers too, which is appropriate as he practically lived on this stuff when we were in China 4 years ago. Of course we had chocolate cake for dessert.
We continued our family tradition of taking photographs in the clothes he wore when we met him. Kai loves doing this so much that this year he wanted to try the little traditional costume we had bought for him in Guangzhou.
I'm not sure which is more amazing, how big he is now, or how little he was at 33 months.
I love how he can still sit flat-footed like this, makes the queue look quite authentic!
Tonight at dinner I asked Kai how kindergarten was today. He was very positive about his day. Tina tried prompting him to tell me about something specific that she knew he got to do(he was a line leader). Kai talked over her though and started to tell us about his teacher taking the class for a walk in the woods. The school property is bordered by lovely woods, and we thought that was really neat that they were able to walk out in them. "It was dark," Kai said, "and the teacher had a flashlight. She had flashlights for everybody." "You all had flashlights?" I asked. That seemed a bit curious to Tina and me. "Yes," he said. "And we saw a deer." (now this is quite possible, we have deer all over and see them in our yard and in the streets around our home all the time) "There was a mommy deer and a baby. They were really nice deer and they didn't run away. And we got to ride the deer. There were lots and lots of deer. Everybody rode them and they took us back to the school." He told us all this very sincerely in a very believable tone. We told Kai that sounded like a lot of fun and Tina said she wanted to talk with Kai's teacher about it more tomorrow. "No!" Kai said, "Don't talk to my teacher."
Seems like an interesting program they're running up at this school, I can't wait to hear what they do tomorrow!
Friday was Kai's first day of Kindergarten. He was so excited, and Tina and I were both amazed at how ready he is for this. We had to fight the school district to get him a second year of developmental preschool last year, and it was SO worth it! While Kai is a year older than most of his classmates he fits right in size-wise and developmentally. It feels really good to see him feeling so confident about school.
The other thing we are really excited about for Kai this year, is that he will be attending the district's newest elementary school which is an approved International Baccalaureate Canditdate School. The element of this which we are most happy with is that the school's selection for their second world language offering is currently Mandarin! The school has a close relationship with our local Chinese Language School which Kai and Shen are both attending on Sundays this year. Sunday was their first day for this, and Kai found that one of his kindergarten classmates is in his Chinese school class as well!
Here are a few pictures of Kai on his first day of kindergarten...
Here are the flags that hang over the foyer of the school's front entrance:
We've been trying to enjoy little weekend outings as much as possible this summer. Today I took the boys to see a 1944 B-17 bomber that was visiting the local flight museum. Kai was a little intimidated about climbing up into the plane, but was very proud of himself after he did it.
On Saturday I walked to the park near our home with the boys. I snapped a couple pictures with my phone of them climbing on the rock and playing in the big tree...
This "tree" is actually a tight cluster of trees that have grown together but a space remains inside the ring that you can play in. You can see Shen in the bottom left corner to get an idea of how big the tree is.
