Chinese National Day

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.

Visiting the Apple Farm

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...

Happy Adoption Day Kai!

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!


And showing some of his best kung fu moves!


And of course, here's his Gotcha Video...

Kai's Kindergarten Update

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!

First Day of Kindergarten

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: