Home of Steve, Christine, Katherine, Ally, Rosebud, and Rex
Sharon and Jamey visited over the 4th of July holidays. One of the highlights of their visit is making pies from scratch. Jamey and Sharon patiently walk Allison and Katherine through the process. Allison’s favorite saying: “No, I do it!”.
Pau Pau, Allison, and Christine went strawberry picking. Dad and Katherine stayed at home as Katherine had a bad experience with spiders last time. Allison and Christine brought home seven pounds of fresh strawberries.
Rosebud is growing up. Every morning we comment that she has grown over night. She has also perfected the “please play with me as I’m so cute technique”. One of the key projects for this week was a Pueblo Indian diorama. The first attempt used Wheaties and honey. Unfortunately, by morning the houses had collapsed. Though disappointed Katherine decided that using clay and wooden sticks would make it stronger.
Katherine played in her second to last basketball game of the season at OWS versus the Jewish Day School. Katherine is tall and plays good defensive; however, the OWS team isn’t quite yet competitive with the other girls teams in the league. Christine and I have been coaching her to stand between the opposing player and the basketball hoop and to keep her hands up. She’s learning and having a good time. It’s also great exercise as the girls have to run up and down the court.
We’re hoping that basketball becomes Katherine’s “team” sport, similar to how Allison has chosen soccer as hers.
Finally, Tori and Katherine had a playdate at the American Girl store. They sampled snacks and shopped for new American Girl gear.
On Sunday we celebrated Mother’s Day as a family. We started out the morning with breakfast in bed. Dad and the girls produced a smilie face breakfast plate for Christine. At 10A, we met Agnes at Din Tai Fung in Lincoln Square for Dim Sum. Afterwards the girls played arcade games to earn tickets.
In the afternoon, we attended a Seattle Storm pre-season game. On the way to the game, we passed a runner doing pull-ups using a bus stop overhang. We discussed whether or not any family members could do that. Allison exclaimed: “I could pull up my pants!” that many times. We all chuckled.
On the way to the game, Allison said, “Look, Raffi on the sign”. Christine and I said, “huh?”. Allison exclaimed again: “Over there, Raffi on the sign”. Finally, we connected the dots. Allison was talking about graffiti. The family had a good laugh.
Our season tickets seasons are new this year. We moved to center court, three rows back. The people around us are nice and we can see both sides of the court. The girls also love the “bottomless” popcorn though we’ve limited it to one bucket per half.
The girls and I celebrated Grandma Chang’s birthday. Allison helped Pau Pau blow out her candles.
Happy Fourth of July
I found a bunch of pictures from Allison’s birthday party – from the G10. So…here they are!
The weekend has been very busy so far. Sharon and Jamey arrived late Friday night, and yesterday we spent much of the day playing games, doing puzzles and resting. The kids actually took naps, because for the first time ever, we stayed up late for fireworks!
Steve and the girls went to the local QFC to buy legal fireworks a few days ago with our neighbors. From smoke bombs to desert roses and sparklers, the kids went oooh and ahhh. Then the big fireworks came up – nothing to rival the illegal fireworks in the neighborhood – but still impressive. Katherine has her list of favorite fireworks, which she shrieked at all night. Poor Allison made it through the sparklers and then kept trying to run in the house “I want to go Inside…” Finally, even after I held her, she went off with her Aunt to safely watch them inside. From outside we could see Allison peering through the playroom window outside, where she was much happier.
Today was the first day of blueberry picking at Remlinger Farms. We picked for about an hour in the blazing sun before Katherine called it quits. The rest of us straggled in. We picked and bought three flat of juicy blueberries. The girls worked on the pie – Katherine quietly with Uncle Jamey, and Allison making a bit of a ruckus with Aunt Sharon. Finally, the filling made it into the shell, with the pie now cooling for dessert.
Other interesting events:
– Katherine can now do Cats Cradle. She practiced and practiced with Sharon until she got it down.
– Katherine then “taught” her uncle how to do it. ๐
– Allison went all the home from Carnation with a mini-inchworm on her leg. She refused to smoosh it – calling it “hurting Mother Nature.”
– Bisco got his long walk last night to Novelty Hill Road. The kids went too, with a pit stop at the choo-choo train park for some gymnastics bar work.
