Published!

This picture of Kaeli and her friend Lee, warming up for their performance at the Tacoma Dome Asian New Year Festival, was printed in the Tacoma News Tribune, our local daily newspaper. She was quite pleased to be in print! The girls in the background are also from Kaeli's Chinese school, waiting for their turn to perform.

Kaeli & Clams

Kaeli loves steamed clams, and has become quite an expert on them. She knows how to eat them like a pro, and critiques them at the end of the meal. So far her favorites are served at Harbor Lights, where this picture was taken.

Fancy Nancy Party

One of Kaeli's favorite book series is "Fancy Nancy", about a little girl who loves everything fancy. Our library hosted a Fancy Nancy Tea Party recently and all the little girls attending got dressed up in their fanciest. Mama bought this dress for Kaeli at the Asian New Year Festival at the Tacoma Dome this January and NaiNai sewed a beautiful short sleeve top for it to make the strapped dress a little warmer. Everyone had a marvelous time, including Kaeli!

Our Newest Reader

Kaeli is learning to read in kindergarten and doing wonderfully! She loves to read each night at bedtime for a few pages and then hands it over for someone else to finish. She is also calling out letters for words on signs as we're driving and asking what they say. It's an absolute delight listening to her read to us!

BFF - Best Friends Forever!

Madison (left) and Kaeli sharing a hug during a visit at David & Amy's.

Chinese New Year Banquet

The Tacoma Families with Children from Asia held their Chinese New Year's banquet at North China Gardens tonight. There were about 70 of us there, including Kaeli and MaMa and Halli, Kaeli's Saturday babysitter. After eating, the kids started a lion dance. The girl in red with white tights and red shoes at the tail of the lion is our Kaeli!

Here Kaeli is leading her own Chinese conga line. She and her friends decided to do their own Lion dance through the restaurant and had 7 or 8 girls in their line, all giggling and smiling. My camera wasn't fast enough to catch her!

The group photo - sort of! It's hard getting 30 or so excited hyper happy girls and boys to stand still for photos by all the adoring parents! Kaeli is to the right, in her long red qi pao dress and "shine red shoes". NaiNai and YeYe bought the beautiful dress for her in New York City when they were visiting JioJio. She's worn it for the first time this week, and will probably not fit in it again - she's growing like bamboo!!!

Chinese New Year Parade at Kindergarten

Kaeli's kindergarten class held a Chinese New Year parade at their school this past Friday. Everyone dressed in red for good luck. Kaeli played a drum for the first part of the parade and then switched with a friend and played the triangle for the second part. Three kindergarten classes and one first grade class participated, marching around the school courtyard. Lots of parents were there to admire the parade!

Crazy Hair Day

Friday was "Crazy Hair Day" at Washington-Hoyt. This was Kaeli's "do". One friend spray-painted her hair yellow, and several others had multiple braids or pigtails. Kaeli was quite taken with our final creation. She even challenged YeYe to do his own hair in honor of "Crazy Hair Day". He submitted photos for her approval, but we're not going to post them here to avoid any legal action he may take! : )

Christmas 2008

Christmas 2008 certainly was a surprise! The Pacific Northwest was hit by major snow and ice and it disrupted everything! Kaeli and I were to have spent Christmas in Portland, but the roads were horrible and trains weren't running. We rustled up an IKEA tree and some ornaments from the basement, and let Santa know we were stuck in Tacoma. And he came through! We had a nice couple of days together.

We were finally able to take the train to Portland on New Year's Eve, and Santa paid a second visit to us there. We had a marvelous time with NaiNai and YeYe, finally having a delayed Christmas with them.

NaiNai, Kaeli and MaMa took the train back to Coma together. NaiNai was to spend a week with us, but ended up staying longer when the PNW was hit by heavy rain and flooding and again the trains stopped running. We were thrilled to have her extra days!!!

Kaeli outfitted in pink for fun in the snow....

Our backyard snowman, taller than Kaeli! We were both home for a day with both her school and MaMa's library closed because of the snow.

Kaeli adorned for a relaxing Saturday at home.

Sunday at Spooner Farms

Kaeli and MaMa spent Sunday at Spooner Farm in Orting, which has a large pumpkin patch and an even LARGER corn maze. This year's theme was The Chronicles of Narnia. We met quite a few friends there from the Tacoma Families with Children from Asia (TacFCA) group that we are members of.


An overhead photo of the corn maze, with the outline of Aslan and Prince Caspian drawn by the paths. The red area to the right of the maze is the "pumpkin patch" with the hay bale spiders. They also had barns with animals to see, activities, roasted corn and corn dogs and fudge, and other fun things to do.



After going through a "wardrobe" at the entrance to the maze, you enter a winter wonderland of corn.

One of the interesting places in the maze. Notice Kaeli is already "strolling leisurely" on her way to the next area to explore. We spent almost an hour in the maze and only found two of the six mailboxes. Kaeli was getting concerned and wanted "out", so MaMa took the group in hand (Olivia and her parents Bruce and Pam, and Lia and Maya and their mother, Nancy) after we found a bridge and got our bearings, and got us out of the maze pretty quickly. It was a wonderful, well-done maze, that measured 2.1 miles in total path length!

Narnia Corn Maze

Standing on a bridge, looking out at the "never-ending" corn maze, and seeing another lost soul on another bridge in the distance.

Inside the Beavers' house

The entrance to the Beavers' house

The Spooner Farm Corn Maze

(From left) Nancy, Kaeli, Lia, Olivia and Pam using the paper punch to prove we found one of the six mailboxes hidden in the maze.

The mighty lion Aslan

A centaur

Kaeli with new friends Lia and Maya

Kaeli and Olivia at Spooner Farms

Kaeli and Olivia got to share a ride in a wheelbarrow with Olivia's Halloween pumpkin.

Comparing unicorns.

More Spooner Farm Fun

Kaeli (left) and Olivia riding hay bale horses.

Showing off her "face-painting" unicorn on her arm (so it will be allowed at school under her uniform!)

A hay bale spider (one of at least 10) in the large area to pick out pumpkins.

Taking NaiNai to the Train

Kaeli called YeYe to tell him NaiNai was soon going to be on her way home to Portland. NaiNai had spent a week with us while Kaeli had two days off from school and three half-days. She and NaiNai read a LOT of books and took walks and worked in the garden together and played restaurant and "cooker".

NaiNai, Sog and Kaeli having a hug goodbye.

Kaeli's First Lost Tooth!

Kaeli lost her FIRST tooth this past weekend! She has another wiggly one next to the hole, but we're hoping that one will last a little longer this time.

Kaeli's VIP Day at School

All Kaeli's classmates are scheduled to be VIP on specific days. Here Kaeli is waiting in line in the playground, ready to go into class with her snack (grapes) and drink. Later, YeYe visited to do a science project and Kaeli read a book to the class.