Grace and Hannah Field Trips

Grace and Hannah each had a field trip this fall so Craig and I played rock paper scissors. Craig went with Grace to Mammouth Cave on October 15 and I accompanied Hannah to the Lexington
Explorium for Native Americans Exhibit on November 13.

Rachael's Fifth Birthday

On July 10 Rachael turned five years old.


The girls were with Nana on Rachael's birthday. She made the day special by taking the girls on an ice cream marathon. They went to four different ice cream parlors and each took a turn picking a flavor and then sharing. When asked which place was the best they each picked the one in which they selected the flavor. That night we went out to a movie and let Rachael pick the restaurant for dinner. Of course we do have some rules. You have to sit down at the restaurant - not carry it out and they have to hand you a printed menu to order from.



Rachael's favorite gift was a bag full of paper towel rolls, toliet paper rolls and gift wrap rolls. I started collecting them in January and had a big gift bag full by her birthday. It is amazing what she can come up with to play with them.


On July 12th we extended the celebration. In the morning Craig took the girls to Lowe's kid's clinic and they each built a small dune buggy. In the afternoon we had a small party for Rachael at the Explorium.

Another favorite gift was given to her the weekend before her birthday when we visited Ohma and Hampa. It is a modern version of the Big Wheel I had as a kid. It is the Mercedes of Big Wheels. Hampa had to add wood to the pedals because her legs were not long enough which means she will have several years to enjoy the new bike.

Happy Birthday Grace and Gung Hei Fat Choy

Grace turned 9 on February 10. I am handling 9 just fine but when she hits double digits I may be a mess. Where did my baby go?!?

We combined celebrations this year - Chinese New Year and Grace's birthday. Chinese New Year started on February 7th this year and it is the year of the rat. My sister Nicki was born in the year of the rat. I won't tell you how old she will be in May but she isn't 12 or 24. The Explorium (Lexington Children's Museum) held a celebration on February 9 and 10 which included performances by a group from the Heilongjiang College of Performing Arts in Harbin China. On Grace's birthday we attended the performance which included songs, dances and even a little magic. Following the show we spent some time in the exhibits.

Magic by Liyan Wang

This is Weilin Sun dancing Lonesome Red Flower.

Dancing Colorful Dawn at the Sky Mountain.



Hannah did not want her picture taken this day so we were lucky to get her in this shot. Although I do not have any other pictures of her at the Explorium I think she had fun, but maybe not as much fun as Rachael had.

For dinner we were joined by Craig's parents. I made the birthday cake and although I am no cake decorator Grace really liked her cake so that is all that matters (just in case you can't tell this is a horse - not a cow.)

One of Grace's favorite gifts was a digital camera. I found a used one on E-Bay in good shape and it takes good pictures. It also has a video feature allowing the user to take up to 45 seconds of video at a time. The girls all love this feature and have used it to make many videos of themselves. They have acted out Dan and Nicki's wedding, done a session with Nana on how to cook green beans and several silly videos. Grace hasn't yet learned that she can't be in the video and be the camera person. You end up with a video that makes the viewer sea sick! The wedding of "Dan" and "Nicki" can not be shown as it never is still but the vows are great - "Do you claim this woman?"

My favorite video so far is attached to this blog (I hope).




For those that can't see the video it shows Grace filming and all of a sudden you hear several loud thuds as the video looks to be falling down. After the sound you have a very dark view of what I presume is the floor and you hear me in the background saying, "Was that the camera?!" and Grace says, "No." Not often you catch your kids on video! Even better than the eyes in the back of my head that I have almost convinced Grace I have. After a few hours Grace came and showed me the video and apologized. Guilt has it's place.

Grace had a small birthday party at the house on February 16. It was after her actual birthday to accommodate my brother's custody arrangement and it allowed us to go to the Explorium event on the 10th. On February 13th I came down with the flu. It was awful but the good news is no one else in the family ever got sick. After about 40 hours I was sure it was the true flu and was able to get a prescription for Tamiflu. That medicine was worth the $79.23 it cost to buy it! By Saturday morning I was able to throw together a party. It ended up being very low key but fun.