MOON FESTIVAL

Now is the time for the Moon Festival in China. In China everyone celebrates by giving each other "Moon Cakes" which is basically a pastry made with a big hunk of red bean (Azuki) paste in the middle. The pumpkin cookie is our version of the "Moon Cake" plus Mimi likes the cookie much better than the real Moon Cake itself.

Come this Saturday we will go with Elsie, Emma and Rhonda up to Issaquah for the Moon Festival Celebration. Not sure what to expect as this will be our first time but I am sure we will have a blast. We always have a blast wherever we Putney's go.

WHAT'S OLD IS NEW AGAIN

Mimi loves watching my old Kimba cartoons. While grocery shopping today I found these dvd's and had to buy them too as today really is our "family day" when we received the most precious gift of our lives. Next Wednesday will be our 14th wedding anniversary and that is when we usually celebrate our "family day" cause even though Mimi came to us on the 29th, we were still in China on our anniversary.

A COUPLE OF COOL LOOKING CHICKS

Last Sunday was spent as a girls day out with lunch and a movie. We all went to South Center Mall and had lunch at Panda Express. As usual Mimi not only ate her usual Ivar's clam chowder but ate my Panda lunch too.

We did have a bit of an incident where these two girls are so darn cute. Halliwelll brought $20.00 with her for spending money. She first purchased her movie ticket and since we missed the first showing we decided to eat lunch. She then saw the stuffed Panda and decided that she wanted the Panda along with her lunch. That left her with $1.50 to spend on candy (plus the PE people gave her a cookie free of charge). We then proceeded up to the candy counter at the movie after eating a delicious lunch. I knew that Halliwell did not have enough money for candy and told her so when she asked me. The girl did not believe me so I said to both Mimi and Halliwell that they both could go over to talk with the guy at the registar. They did and I think that the two's of them must have put their magical spell on him. He said that another customer left a candy coupon at the counter and the girls could get some Twizzlers for ......... you guessed it $1.50.

MIMI AND SARA

Mimi and Sara definitely made up for lost time. They really worked up a sweat that night. Althhough we had just ate dinner a couple of hours prior to this picture, Mimi is eating again. This time it is Sara's favorite - egg salad sandwich. Me thinks that Mimi has hollow legs.

Sara has finally started school. She was part of that whole Kent District fiasco. Basically all the teachers wanted was a smaller class size with a cap on it. Mimi's school has between 20-22 students per class. Some of the Kent schools have approximately 39 students in their class and there is not enough desks to go around.

The good part of this whole ordeal is that Sara was able to spend her time off school (while the teachers were on strike) with her big sis Tasha before she headed off to Cornish University in downtown Seattle and also spend a lot of quality mother/daughter time with her mom Daphne.

BRAIN FREEZE

After the fair and before going over to Sara's house for our SGI meeting, we stopped at Red Robin's near Sara's for dinner. I figured that if we were to have dinner before the meeting and would be paying about the same amount of money as if we ate at the fair, I would rather have a nice sit down dinner with alcohol and be waited on. If you are wondering why we always to go RR's, it's because there is nothing else around unless we go into Bellevue or downtown Seattle. Blake has got Mimi drinking the Groovy Smoothie. "Mom, I wanna brain freeze" the girl says. My favorite is the Mango Margarita along with the Macho Nacho's.

PUYALLUP STATE FAIR

It's a HUGE event up here in the northwest. Twice a year the fair is a big deal. Moreso in the Fall. The school kids get a free admission ticket and if you buy your tickets at Safeway or Fred Meyers plus a couple of other places, you can get a discount. Just about like anywhere else that there is a fair, one has to purchase ride tickets separately. You can easily plop down a bundle of $$$$ at these places. Mostly it was Mimi and dad who went on the rides, I prefered to go into the barn where they had goodies to buy. Mimi loved the fact that she is now tall enough to go on some of the "big kid" rides such as the swings. Still not tall enough for the roller coasters though. Sticking out her tongue is a habit that she learned from one of her cousins. Is it Joe or is it Mari??? Hmmm, I'll never tell.

Also what most people don't know is that Puyallup fairgrounds at one time was a "holding" area for all people of Japanese ancestry to stay until it was time to send them to various interment camps.

NAIL POLISHING

A while back one of our neighbors asked if I was worry that Mimi is not a Princess kind of girl. I said "No, I just take what I can get and when you think of it, our Mimi is not the cutesy Disney kind of Princess even though she loves Disney movies and Disneyland. However she is the very feminine in other ways. She loves 'real' dressing up in dresses and Nordstrom at that too. She also loves getting her nail done at the salon.

Last Friday was early release day at school and so Mimi hosted a nail polishing party at the house. We/they also had some deep discussions too. I was downstairs when I heard Halli come down with Erin saying "let's ask Dottie" I was thinking to myself "oh lord, what now?" Halli says to me: "Dottie, is Mt. Rainier a volcano or not?" I answered her honestly "Yes it is but it is an inactive volcano" "See!" says Halliwell to Erin, "That's what my dad says and he knows because he is an engineer! Dottie, will you go tell those girls upstairs because they don't believe me." If only our world problems were this simple. *sigh*

BUTCH 'n' BUBBA

The other day while I was out in the front yard, Bubba and his "pet" Bryan was on the front porch. Bryan and I got to talking and thought that it would be a good idea to see if the dogs like each other and they do. Poor Bubba. Butch was chasing him all around the backyard.

BUTCH

DANCING BABY

Or should I say babies??? This morning found Mimi and myself dancing in the kitchen again.

BEDTIME STORIES

"C'mon dad'! Mimi cries. We seem to have a Shakspearean daughter. When
she brought the book home this past Monday from the school library, I
said "Mimi, why did you check this book out? It's the same book you
brought home last year." "But mom, this is my FAVORITE BOOK!"

COLLECTIONS

Mimi's "Disney" Samantha collects seashells by the seashore.....Mimi collects rocks, I used to collect knick knacks but have since stopped and started collecting wine instead. I like the latter much better. In case you are wondering why there is a picture of the hanging red knick knack, it is the most specialist collection of them all. It is the very first present I have recieved from Mimi in China almost a little over 4 years ago. Our family/wedding anniversary is coming up real soon.

OUR LITTLE TOMBOY

It's a given, our Mimi is definitely a tomboy bless her little heart. As many of you know already, it takes forever for Mimi's hair to grow out. It is now finally starting to grow and actually getting a bit thicker. It is down to her shoulders again after her fiasco where the hair met with the scissors about one year ago.

This morning I go to comb her hair and it is sticky. "What the heck happened here?" I ask the girl. "I dunno" she answers. Continuing on "Maybe it's sap from the trees???" the girl says.

Oh well que sera sera. That's our tree climber. Needless to say we did not have the time to wash her hair this morning so it is braided into a pony tail. That works for us cuz the weather is so nice now that she can have her hair tied back and wear her summer clothes still. You can wear you hair tied back in the winter too but when your hair is loose, it keeps your ears warm plus she likes it loose as opposed to tied back.

Next month will be a different story when it will start getting colder. I read in the news that it is already starting to snow in Colorado. Which brings to mind that on my next trip to Uwajimaya I am going to buy the body warmers that actually stick to any part of your body and keeps you warm for many hours. It will come in quite handy I think when we go to the Olympics next year.

BONNIE 'n' CLYDE

This full day school business has cut deeply into Mimi's social scene.
Although these two see each other at school, they don't have the time
to play with each other like they used too They made up for lost time
this weekend.
Sad to say Ollie has been missing since last Wednesday. I'm not giving
up hope yet. This afternoon dad made some fliers to put up around the
neighborhood. Mimi and Blake helped him out. We are now at Red Robin'
where Bonnie 'n' Clyde are enjoying a game of word search.

BLACK DIAMOND DAY

Not only did they receive a trophy but they made it in our local paper
too. All of the younger girls were put out in the front and all I
heard from the spectators was "oh, look how CUTE these little girls
are!"

El Corporal

Mimi: I wanna trade places with dad.
Mom: Why?
Mimi: Because I wanna sit by the window. Dad, I'll be your best guurlll.
Dad: You are my best girl already and you're my only girl.

POSSIBLE ROADKILL???

At least not tonight and I hope never.
I was on my way this evening to the gymnastics for a parent meeting
with Debbie and this is what I saw as I was making a left turn onto
the main highway. Although we live in the "country" a lot more new
he's are going up and the animals have nowhere to go sadly. However
even though I think that the deer are as cute as all get out, they
are just about the dumbest animals around. I had to get out of my car
to try and scare him back into the woods.

MIMI 'n' ELSIE

Two peas in a pod. Last Wednesday night Elsie came home with us after
practice. Elsie who normally eats like a bird packed away the Ebi
tempura that I cooked for them. She also found out that she liked to
eat the Ajitsuke nori too. It was something she has never had before.

TOTALLY AND COMPLETELY EXHAUSTED!!!

One would think that as a stay at home mom and the kid goes to school full day now, I would have more time on my hands. NOT!!! I am much more busier now than ever. It is now going on 2 weeks since Mimi started school full day.

My day now consists of getting up at our usual 6:30 am, then get dressed, get Mimi dressed, if I'm lucky she will have gone downstairs to practice her piano for about 10-15 minutes while I get breakfast and a box lunch ready. We eat then it is off to school by 9:00. School starts at 9:10. Walk home, sit on the front porch since the weather has been gorgeous and check my e-mails. Visit with friend, errands, grocery shopping, clean and purge the house for items to go to the thrift store, pick the girl up from school, lunch is usually on the run. Come home, have the girl run upstairs to get ready for gymnastic practice, fix a snack, go to the gym, come home for dinner, have the girl bathe, snack, brush teeth. Soon she will be losing her two front (top) teeth. They are getting loose now. She lost her two bottom teeth earlier this year.

Around 7:30 is when dad gets home. Then at 8:30 it is lights out time. Usually by 9:00 she is completely out and I am ready to pass out but there is Butch to contend with. By 10:00 we are all pretty much dead to the world. To think that there actually was a time in my life when I could stay up for 2 days straight being a party girl. I guess those days are gone.

ICHIRO'S #1 FAN

Congrats to Ichiro! He hit his 200th RBI the other day. Today at school was sports day bbq and so all of the kids were encouraged to wear their favorite team outfit be it soccer, hockey, football or baseball. We the parents were also invited to come. Sad part was, dad was not able to come. So many parents did participate though. The PTSA helped to serve the food and the Principal Ms. Harned (pictured with Mimi) helped to flip the burgers.

FACELIFT

Just a short article about Disney World in Floriday is getting ready to get a facelift. Hmmmm, should be very interesting. They are planning to update the Star Tours ride and put in a Ariel "Littel Mermaid" ride.

MARY, MARY, QUITE CONTRARY.........

My garden of flowers are slowly starting to take shape. All of my fall/winter flowers are starting to bloom. Can you believe it? There are actually fall and winter perrineals up here in the northwest. I thought that all the plants just die in the winter time up here. You know with all the cold weather we get. However yesterday and today is AMAZINGLY GORGEOUS outside so of course everyone is taking full advantage of it cause as you know the weather this coming week will start to get colder and more rain is to come like last week Saturday. By the end of this month it will be time to pack up our patio furniture and winterize everything doggone it!

This morning dad went over to grandpa and grandma's house. They are in the process of packing and getting ready to put their house on the market next month. Grandma's health has been failing for quite some time now and they are planning to move into a assisted lived building across from the hospital. Although they can still get around, grandma still has trouble with her back and has to now walk with a cane. Oh well, so much for my woes. Almost forgot to mention that Ollie and Stanley really like my plant (top left picture) because it is what is known to us as Catnip.

HAPPY 4th BIRTHDAY XANDER!

Here Ada is showing us all the proper technique for eating a birthday cupcake. You may notice that in the picture where the kids are trying to get the candy out of the Pinata, Mimi and Erin are missing. We did call out to them but I guess that anyone who is 4 or younger is beneath these two 6 year olds. They hung out in the living room till it was time to pick up the fallen candy and put in into their baggies. Xander's dad Sean says that they're no dummies. "Why not have the young ones to the work for them?" he says.

BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS

As soon as it was time to pick her up from the gym this morning, I stayed to help clean up. Then met up with Mimi and dad at Testy Chef for breakfast. Not pictured here is the pancake and bacon plus the apple juice. Although they had orange juice and doughnuts for the girls this morning, Mimi is not satisfied unless she has a real breakfast. I also knew that we would have a birthday party to go to as soon as we got home. Mimi loves, loves, LOVES, her bacon. She could probably eat a whole slab of it if I let her. That is why she only gets around 2-4 slices of it per week. While we were there another "regular" customer by the name of Butch (believe it or not) came in. He is quite a salty kind of a guy but the gals can hold their own. It was decided between us regulars that a "testy meter" was needed for the entrance and only the testy folks are allowed in.

SLEEPOVER

After practice last night and before going back to the gym for the sleepover, I had Mimi take a bath, then a short nap. This full day school business is starting to get to her. When she's tired, she gets really nutso. So after practice, she was a real looney tune. Therefore I had her lie down and she was out like a light. She slept for about a half hour before I woke her up to eat some dinner before going back to the gym. They had healthy snacks and pizza waiting for everyone when we got there however I know that as much as Mimi likes to eat, food takes a backseat if she has a chance to play with her friends.

At first she was a little apprehensive as this is her first sleepover if I don't count the couple of times she stayed at Blake's house overnight. We talked about it. I explained to her that Emma and Elsie would be there, also their mom Rhonda would be there and Jaelyn too. I also told her that there were movies planned and also a lot of games were in the making. By the time we got there and she saw Jaelyn, all of her fears were gone. Summit this year started having the older girls be sisters to the younger girls. Jaelyn has said that she wants to be Mimi's older sister. Mimi liked that idea however when we picked her up this morning she announced that she now has another older sister by the name of Makayla. I guess Summit has a way of doing the choosing of who is to be the younger girls sisters.

COLLECTIONS

I am so happy now that they have a new Uwajimaya closer to home. You know they say that you will really never miss something until it is gone. That is not far from the truth.

So before picking Mimi up from school, I stopped to pick up some items that she likes to eat at home. Naturally I had to buy some liquor too. I mainly use the Sake for cooking Sukiyaki which is a favorite dish for Mimi and dad.

When I got home I did not have enough time to put the groceries away. Therefore I just left it in the car until I came home with Mimi 10 minutes later.

Since my arms were full, I ask Mimi if she could help by bringing in the Sake bottle. Without skipping a beat, the girl asks me "mom, are you making a collection of these???" How much Sake does she think I drink? Hm???

A DATE WITH DAD.........A-L-O-N-E

One of the perks of full day school is that I was able to take the light rail into Seattle and have lunch with dad at McCormick's ALL BY MYSELF. There is also another restaurant in Los Angeles that is the same company but the name is McCormick and Schmick's. Only one day I made the mistake and called it McCormick and Schmuck's. OOPS. They do have really good food. However at our McCormick's they did not have the spicey Asian dish that I love soooo much. Oh well, none the less the food is still good and the Pinot Grigio was excellent.

As soon as lunch was over, it was a short walk back to the train station and had just enough time to head over to Uwajimaya before picking Mimi up from school. I no sooner picked her up from school and it was time to head home, have her change into her leos, grab a snack and head to the gym. While she practiced, I helped the other moms prepare for the sleepover. The theme was "Glow In The Dark".

STILL TRYING TO FIND THE NEW NORM

I asked Mimi the other day if she remembers anything about our life in California. Unfortunately she does not. She does not remember going to pre-school/daycare or the the fact that I was working then. She does however remember flying down to California to go to Disneyland. Thank goodness for that. True Disney fan (except for the princesses) she is.

Along with the other Barkleywood Gang, she has gotten used to the fact that school only consisted of going half day and the rest of her day was spent playing. If people think that kids don't have any stress, they need to think again because they do. Mimi is not the only one. According to the other moms in our neighborhood, their kids are having a hard time with the fact that school is all day now. The moms say that their kids are coming home real tired too. Hopefully this will change as the kids get older.

Although Mimi wakes up early still, she still likes to goof around and we sometimes barely make it to school. Thankfully she is starting to come around and is realizing that work comes before play. Yesterday she tells me "I hate homework!!! (meanning her piano lessons) It takes too much time which means it is cutting into her playtime. I tell her that is what recess is for. Also since she is now in full day school, she comes home tired most times believe it or not. Then she gets real whinney and irritable and it drives me nuts.

Tomorrow my plan is to get up just a little earlier than her, get myself ready, fix lunch and breakfast, get her ready, eat, then help her with the piano give or take around 8:15-8:30, then take her to school. Then as soon as school lets out, we have to jam it over to gymnastics for practice, come home for a couple of hours before going back to the gym for a sleepover with the team members and that is supposed to last until 8 the next morning. Then dad will pick her up and take her to breakfast while I stay to help clean up. We 'll have to see how that goes but that is the plan for now.

BUTCH AND OLLIE