Snow?! At OUR home?

We celebrated THREE Snow Days before Winter Break. Then we were snowed-in the entire first week of vacation. For 5+ days we did not leave our house by car.

Our flights to visit CA were canceled. We spent our first Christmas in the NorthWest. And we experienced snow, Snow, SNOW! And shoveling. That part sucked.

At the beginning there was just a tiny bit of snow. Enough for Frosty.

and the obligatory snow pictures.


But then the snow just kept coming and we could sled,



Sledding down the street (just 1 block away):



and make our whole snow family!



It's a White Christmas everyone!!

Our little Tae Kwon Do boy

It took him a while (and a few viewings of Kung Fu Panda) to warm up to the sport.

But after successfully breaking his first board, Cal was quite excited about his martial arts skills.



We signed him up for "Tough Tots" next month and hope he'll continue to enjoy this sport and part of his cultural heritage.

November 2008

What happened this November....


Wink turned 34. He's officially in his "mid-30's". Aack!


The kids danced, played and enjoyed each other.



Lissi helped knead the pumpkin roll dough on Thanksgiving morning.


Posing on Thanksgiving Day. His flexibility surpasses daddy by far.

Looking gorgeous for us all. Look out boys.



And loving life together as family.

October Updates

Like always, our lives continued to be busy. Wink continued to be in pain. And Cal continued loving school. Lissi? Well, she's just a happy girl that goes with the flow. Oh, and she learned to spell. Details shmetails.

Some of our fabulous October events included picking apples from a fruit stand (because we were deceived by the website into believing it was a pumpkin patch).
We tasted dozens of apples at our annual apple tasting festival. This year Lissi was old enough to "stab" her own apple pieces with a toothpick.
Cal's school had a Halloween carnival. A week before Halloween. Not sure about the timing.
Anyways, I was so proud that he actually walked across the school stage alone, waving to the crowd. My shy guy! Loved it!

The Halloween carnival was not junk-food filled as I had anticipated. I was quite disappointed. But the kids did partake in the no-handed doughnut hanging.... (or at least they tried).As at our homegroup pumpkin carving evening? Cal helped make Apple Cake.
The kids had a blast. A chilly blast. But a blast all the same.

At the end of the month Grandma and Auntie came to visit! That was so much fun! They even got to help the kids "trick or treat" at a college dorm and around a variety of neighborhoods.

September news

I've been so busy running around between work and school and kids that I've neglected my cookie blog!

Here are some of this month's events:

Cal started Kindergarten. His teacher's name is Lauren (they all go by their first names in the school). He has made a ton of friends (many are girls, the little ladies man!). He seems to be doing well. Cal loves school!
We celebrated Lissi's 3rd birthday with a jungle party:

We enjoyed ourselves at a picnic for church volunteers. After many, many hours of service, we get a bbq in return. The kids had a blast.

Wink started back to classes. He is doing one indepdendent study this semester. Sorry, I've got no pictures for you.

Finally, I started school off again with a bang. Not really. I'm trying this student-teacher thing again. It seems to be going well.

Maybe next month I'll be better about updates. Maybe not. We'll see.... ;)

The Park

In previous summers, we have spent a lot of time in the park down the street from us. They have a great playground and an outdoor pool (where we took swim lessons).

This year we decided to take swim lessons at a different pool (because it is indoors and I was tired on freezing on all the chilly days!). After swimming, we would play in the park, get free lunch, and play some more.

I fell in love with this park.

The trees reminded me how lovely the Northwest is. The ambiance was friendly. We even made some new friends with another adoptive family.

Here are some pictures from our summer fun in this park.

On one especially hot day, the kids took advantage of the park's wading pool.

The following 2 shots crack me up when you realize these are taken in sequence in sports-mode on the camera!

I've got it?Oops! Guess not.

The kids brought their bikes one day for some post-swimming exercise.

We returned to the park on Saturday evening to listen to an outdoor symphony performance!

I love how this one in particular came out.

He's strumming his air guitar here.
Or maybe since we're listening to the symphony, this is his air violin?

A brand-new indoor swimming pool is being built fairly close to our home. But still, we may return next year to this same pool and park. You just can't beat perfection.

Swimming, Swimming, In the Swimming Pool

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's....

fish??!!





Cal finally got into the spirit of putting his face in the water on his 4th to last lesson. Lissi never loved it (as seen in the video), but she was somewhat tolerant. She actually was graduated to the next level of lessons. Woo hoo!

Look who went camping?

We did!!
We returned last night from the Holt Family Campout. this was our 1st time camping with the kids and we are still recovering ;)

Although our kids don't really get it yet, this was an amazing opportunity for multi-ethnic families to gather and kids to be with others from similar family backgrounds. There were children there born in: Korea, China, Ecuador, India, USA, Thailand, and the Phillipines (and other countries that I can't remember). Kids ranged from typically developing to profound physical and/or mental disabilities. There were 80 families participating!

I was told that this is an especially important week for the teens and they will sometimes even write college application essays about this annual campout (this was the 20th anniversary).

The kids did GREAT and did not want to leave. Cal was totally independent on his new 2 wheel bike and would disappear for 20 minute stretches. He was very responsible and always checked back in with me or met me where he said he would be going. Wink had a hard time with his pain and insomnia, but he made it through.

We pre-registered for next year already. Anyone want to come along? ;)

Our 2 wheeling speed demon

2 days after getting his new 2-wheeler bike, Cal mastered riding. He is now a biking speed demon and has his eye on learning wheelies and other bike tricks!

Cal's birthday party

Happy Birthday to my big 5 year old. We had a Dinosaur party and a roaring good time was had by all. :)

Happy Birthday Cal

See Cal.

See Cal Grow.

Grow Cal! Grow!

See my big 5 year old boy now!

Happy 5th Birthday Cal!