FCC Chinese New Year

On February 10th, NaiNai, YeYe, Kaeli and MaMa drove down to Portland in the "Olvo car" (Volvo) and went to the Oregon Convention Center for the Families with Children from China - Portland/SW Washington Chapter Chinese New Year celebration. Kaeli's "Kunming Sister" Madison was there in her beautiful yellow outfit, and the two girls spent most of the time right in front of the stage watching the performances. Madison's pre-school class sang several Chinese songs on the stage and were wonderful and adorable!

This is a wonderful picture of Madison with her MaMa and BaBa!

Asian New Year at the "Coma" Dome

Kaeli's Evergreen Chinese Academy class danced at the "Coma Dome" on Saturday, February 9th, at the Asian New Year celebration. This first picture is on Friday night at the rehearsal, when their teacher danced with them on the stage while the stagehands were setting up electrical equipment.

The second picture is the girls waiting for their turn on the big day. Kaeli is the one peering into the dressing room watching the older girls getting dressed for their dance.










The girls could NOT stand still, they were so excited!

Chinese New Year at L & L Learning Center

MaMa, NaiNai and YeYe visited Kaeli's school on February 7th to help celebrate Chinese New Year. Kaeli wore a special Chinese dress, and other friends wore red for good luck. Everyone learned about the holiday and the Chinese traditions, and ate pot stickers as their snack, using chopsticks!

(I think Kaeli's friend Nicolo has a very wonderful smile for Kaeli!)

Kaeli's Valentine Mailbox from school

Kaeli, YeYe and NaiNai

Kaeli, YeYe and NaiNai at the Portland train station. MaMa and Kaeli took the train home to Coma and had a marvelous time on the trip. And we got to ride on three buses to get to our house from the train station! Kaeli is a wonderful traveler and was very easy going for the whole trip.

Kaeli and Laurie at IKEA

Kaeli in the Ball Pit at IKEA

Kaeli and her Favorite JioJio

Kaeli was absolutely thrilled to have JioJio home for Christmas and New Year's! She spent the week in Portland with JioJio, NaiNai and YeYe between Christmas and New Year while MaMa had to go back to Coma to work.

Kaeli kept JioJio entertained - climbing on him, loving him, making him smile and laugh. She rode her Big Wheel around and around the house singing and laughing.

Doug looks like he's in pain, but he's secretly enjoying being with his niece again! No one else can make him laugh like she does! And you can see that she adores him!

Kaeli's First Prime Rib!

Kaeli and MaMa cooked the Prime Rib for our New Year's Day dinner. Kaeli was especially helpful rubbing the seasonings into the meat before we put it in the oven. It came out absolutely perfect and mouth-watering delicious!

Kaeli's Christmas Tree

This is the Christmas tree that Kaeli painted at pre-school. She also did her hair by herself this day.

Kaeli's Christmas Stocking on Christmas Eve

Our family tradition is to open our stockings on Christmas eve, and our presents from Santa Christmas morning.

Riding the Santa Train at Point Defiance Park

December 13th - Gotcha Day!

NaiNai and YeYe sent Kaeli a Gotcha Day present - an armoire for Baby Kaeli's clothes!

A Lego Plane Designed and Built by Kaeli

YeYe, Kaeli and Baby Kaeli Sharing a Chuckle

Proper Seating

Kaeli is getting quite adept at seating arrangements when traveling. Here she has Baby Turtle, Sog, Baby Kaeli and herself all settled in for a ride. Yes, that's a smiley face sticker on her forehead.

Mountain Views

We went for a ride with our friend, Tom, who took us to a lovely park at the top of a very very tall hill! He and Kaeli loved taking in the views of the world and clouds below us. Kaeli also tried to convince us that we should gather every pine cone in the park, but settled for filling Tom's cap. We had a wonderful time!

Thanksgiving 2008

Since MaMa had to work, NaiNai and YeYe came up and spent the week with us in Coma. MaMa only had Thanksgiving Day off, and we went to Shenanigan's on the water front for brunch. We decided that we will go back to Stanley & Seafort's next year!

This is three of the happy diners in the booth at the restaurant.

Halloween Party at "Old Carmella's School"

Tonight (10/26/07) we went to a Halloween party at Kaeli's Montessori school that she attended last year. She got to see a lot of her old friends. This picture is her with Maddie, a good good friend, and Loren, who is a new Arcadia student. Maddie and Kaeli were shy with each other for about 5 minutes, and then back to good friends. We hope to set up a play date for the two of them soon!