FIRST WEEK BACK AT THE GYM

This is Mimi's first week back at the gym since breaking her leg last year. Her first competition will be this coming Saturday at our own gym. We wish her the very best. Although she will not get a new warm up suit, she will be sporting her new leo. In fact all of the team members will be wearing their new leos.

PHOTO SHOOT

I just thought that I would take Mimi's picture so that someday when it comes time to explain to Mei Mei about how she came to us, she will be able to see what we had to go through.

PASSPORT PHOTO

Another small step accomplished toward going to China.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY EMILY

Emily turned 2 years old this month. The family had a small get
together and invited us to join in the celebration. Lisa says that it
is just recently Emily started speaking. Until now she was using sign
language. Lisa says that besides calling Nathan "NeNe", she calls Lisa
"mama", I get to be called "mom" and Mimi is MIMI!!! That just warmed
my heart. Almost the whole afternoon Emily stuck to Mimi like glue and
Mimi had a great time playing hide and seek with Emily.

DINNER WITH GRANDMA AND GRANDPA

When the fun at Safeco Field was over, we headed over to Grandma's house just in time to take them out to dinner at their favorite Chinese restaurant "Eng's" in Kent. We found out from grandpa that someone gave them a phone call last week and tried to scam them out of $350,000.00. Imagine that! You always hear about these things and never think that it could happen to you. The scammer did not get away with it though. Thank goodness.

LIFE'S NECESSITIES

Of course no trip to the baseball stadium is complete without hotdogs for dad, pizza for mom and Mimi and cotton candy and the.......finger.

TALKING WITH THE PLAYERS

Jason Vargas (left) and Brandon League were only a couple of the players that the fans got a chance to converse with. Then there was Dave Sims the official Mariners broadcaster who was the mediator. Next thing we knew Mimi had the mike in her hot little hands and was asking questions herself. "What is your favorite sport other than baseball?" the girl asked. The players answered basketball and football.

INTERVIEW

Both last year and this year Mimi got a chance to do an interview with the Mariners official sportscaster Angie Mentone. She was quite jazzed about it. However unlike last year, this year we have to go onto their website to upload the interview. So as of now we have not heard it. Will post as soon as we can.

WAITING IN LINE

......to get into the stadium. Of course Mimi had to take a picture of her favorite player of all times.......Ichiro Suzuki.

MARINERS FANFEST

Today was the big day for all of us Mariners fans. And what a day it was. The day started off with some light rain and thank goodness Safeco Field has a retractable roof but there was nothing we could do about the cold. It was freezing today. Maybe that is why not many fans came out this time as opposed to last year. On the other hand we did not have to wait very long in any of the lines. Most importantly the womens bathroom was not crowded at all. Woo Hoo!!!

WARM UP SUIT

As you saw in an earlier post, Summit Gymnastics is getting new warm up suits this year. However Debbie (bless her heart) says that if the girls can still fit in the old ones, they should wait at least until next year to purchase the new ones. I love how Debbie tries to keep costs down. Therefore we will wait till next year since Debbie checked Mimi out and the girl is still small enough to wear her old one. I guess there is an advantage to being petite. Plus the cost is $135.00 a pop. Rhonda says that Emma and Elsie are going to wear their old ones too. Cause for them it would be $270.00. And that is not to mention the competition fees that will be coming up in a week or two. Then there is the hotel money if we end up going to Portland, Oregon. All of these things really add up.
Also on the home front, our Emma who tried out for the national jump start team, made it onto the team again this year. About a week ago, Rhonda, Emma and Coach Kelly went down to Texas to where Bella Karoly has a ranch. That is where all of the testing was done. So if things play out the way we plan, next month Elsie will go with us to Portland, Oregon for the competition and Emma along with Rhonda will go back down to Texas for the jumpstart camp. Both are at the same time.

OUR LITTLE FASHIONISTA

One never knows with Mimi what she will come up with next. It is possible that her girlfriends are having some effect on her. I'll take what I can get though.

SCOOTER

Last summer when Shad moved to Maple Valley, he brought his electric scooter with him. He was a hit with the kids. So of course Blake had to get a bigger scooter for Christmas. And although I bought Mimi a Mimi size scooter at Christmas time, she did not get to open it till her birthday. Unfortunately she was not able to ride it till today. She had dad open it for her this past weekend but was to scared to try it. When the boys came over after school, the girl could not fly downstairs fast enough. Then with a few encouraging words from Shad's dad Patrick, Mimi went sailing down the street without a hitch. Pretty amazing from a girl who just this morning did not want to go to school because she was sick or so she says.

ON MY TOES

The other night at out China family get together, I was just joking with dad that if Mimi was ever put into boarding school like one the exchange students experienced, Mimi would definitely become a juvie on her first day. I don't think I am far from wrong.

Today there was an incident at school involving Mimi and 2 other girls. This time Mimi took it upon herself to take herself to the Dean's office. On the other hand the girl aced her math test.

Mimi's mei mei better come PDQ. I may not have anymore stamina left by the time she hits 8.

FIRST DAY BACK AT THE GYM

.........since breaking her ankle last year on Black Friday. The girl
is so happy to be with her teammates once again. Pictured below is
Mimi in the new team sweats. What I love about Coach Debbie is that
unlike other teams up here that buys their uniforms yearly, Coach
Debbie buys our uniforms about every two years or so. That helps to
keep the cost down low. Competitive leos and sweats are pricey
especially when the jewels get put on.

JOY LUCK CLUB IN REVERSE

When the play was over, we made a run through McDonald before going over to Sara's house. Our good friend May's brother passed away and we wanted to give her our support during this rough time for her and her family.

Then it was on to the Jancola family home for our monthly China family get together. Linda thought that since Chinese New Year is coming up soon, it would be a good idea to learn some Chinese cooking. She brought it up at our last get together and since all of us women thought it would be a great idea and we all love to eat we agreed.

While the guys were in the living room playing cards, the women folk were in the kitchen learning how to cook potstickers and chow mein. Linda (pictured with her friend) has a friend whose name escapes me at this moment and this lovely lady agreed to come and teach us Chinese cooking. This lovely lady also gave the kids a small talk on subjects as the Chinese calendar and such. She also made it fun for the kids by having a contest and giving out prizes. The doll you see pictured is what Mimi won for giving the correct answer to how many animals there are in the Chinese calendar.

Besides potstickers and chow mein, we all brought food to share with everyone. It was soooooo good and yummy!!! Angie is another mom who has 3 exchange students staying with her and her family. They range from high school to college. So while the guys were playing cards and the kids were playing dress up and putting on a fashion show, us moms and the older girls had a really great dialogue with the exchange students.

Simona's daughter Damaria (wearing the blue shirt) is such a darling. I just love her to pieces. Well anyway Damaria who I think is 16 (?) asked most of the questions. The topics ranged anywhere from make-up to boys and dating, to school, to what is like growing up in China as one of the girls grew up in a boarding school in China (she comes from a wealthy family) to a little bit of politics.

Of course when Damaria asked about the dating and such, Simona who is a sweetie herself kinda gave her daughter the "evil eye" to which Damaria answered "whu-ut?" "I'm just asking her the usual questions that we teenagers talk about mom" Then someone said that Damaria should facebook these girls to which Damaria looks at her mom with the evil eye and says "my mom won't let me have one!" We all bust out laughing. It was one of those you had to be there moments.

SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS

When we first moved up here, Keri and I had taken the kids to see the stage show of Doran and Diego. Mimi did not have much interest in it. Then came the Lion King. Another sleeper for Mimi. Yawn...... So imagine my surprise when she came flying home last week with the news that she gets a chance to audition for a part in this play which is put on by the Missoula Theater here in Seattle.

If you saw my earlier blog then you will know that Mimi along with her friends Rachel, Olivia and Erin were picked to play the bats in the Black Forest. All of the girls were......should I say......extremely excited about the whole experience? That would be the understatement of the year.

I must say that ALL of the kids in the play did a really good job of getting this play together in just 4 days. The kids ranged in grades 2-5 with the more heavier roles going to the older kids. I found out later that each class held a lottery and Mimi along with Rachel and Olivia were chosen from their class. The older kids in the play were also paired up with the younger kids and they were known as the "bat buddies". Mimi's bat buddy was Snow White.

While the bats did not reherse as much as the rest of the cast, it was still tiring for them but they were sooooo happy at the same time. Mimi had rehersals on Wednesday from 3:45 till 5:45, Thursday from 3:45-6:45. Then they had to be at school at 8 on Friday morning and be back at school that evening for the night time performance. They also gave a performance during assembly time. They also gave a Saturday afternoon performance as well.

Besides doing the play, she had her schoolwork to do which included math and spelling tests. She work hard this week as usual and did very well. We're so proud of our little bat.

MIMI'S 8th BIRTHDAY PARTY

Hard to believe my baby turned 8 this year. She's growing up way to fast for me. Sob, sob, sob.

This year my thinking was since I am trying to save money for China, we would do a birthday/sleeover on her birthday which happened to be on a Friday this year. The plan was for the kids to come over to the house with their parents for dinner (pizza) and stay till the next morning. It also gave the parents a chance to visit with each other as we rarely get a chance to see each other anymore.

Long story short it was one wild, funfilled night. One parent asked what my plans were. There was no plans. I was just winging it. Actually there were a couple of more kids at the party that are not in the picture. The kids all just had so much fun together and the parents had fun visiting with each other.

The kids played Wii (Nathan's favorite), listened to music, Mimi's room was named "The Dance "Party Room".

The kids had so much fun that they did not want to go home the next day. Rhonda came by the next day with Emma to pick up Elsie and said they had errands to do but I was able to convince Rhonda to let the girls stay while she did the errands herself. Lisa, Art and Emily came back to watch the football game while the kids all played together. Then when Rhonda was all done, she came back to the house and we all had a really delicious dinner that Lisa had prepared for us. Lasagna........Mmmmmm good! That always goes good together with the Ceasar salad that I made and the garlic bread and of course the vino.

The next day (Sunday) was the day to just hang out in our pj's all day. By Monday, Mimi who is normally a happy, happy girl was a bit down in the dumps. I asked her why. She said she was feeeling down because it was all over till the end of the year. Meanning that Christmas was over and so was her birthday. Oh well, such is life.

NEW YEAR'S DAY

Our family tradition started when dad and I got married. Every New Year's Day dinner is Mimi's favorite Sukiyaki dinner. This year we invited Shad and his family over to share it with us. Corey asked if we could get it is a Japanese restaurant and I am assuming that we could. I always make our at home from scratch. I always get sushi when we go out to eat. None the less they really liked it a LOT. That made me really, really happy. A good time was had by all.

NEW YEAR'S EVE

This year started off with spending New Year's eve with Shad, Micah and Malaki. Their mom and dad had a chance to go out for the evening and so the kids came to spend the evening with us. We celebrated by eating cookies and sipping on Blueberry sparkling juice.
This year seems to be going by quite fast. I don't know if I'm coming or going sometimes. It seems that when Mimi was younger, I had more time to write on the blog. Somewhere along the line I lost the ball.
I tell you, when you break a bone and your kid breaks a bone, it really put a huge dent into my daily life and trying to get back on track is horrendous. Especially with the holidays and birthdays bombarding me from all sides. I am finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel though. Thank goodness.

KLUTZ

I think may be the biggest klutz around.
I thought I was through with broken bones. This afternoon I was in the
process of putting the wine bottle in the fridge, Stanley was under my
feet driving me crazy, and the heavy wine bottle slipped right through
my fingers and found it's way to my left foot. After yelling out quite
a few obscenities I threw the cat out. Argh!!!!!

LIFE'S QUESTIONS

Since Mimi was around 5 years of age was when she started to ask questions. At first it was simple ones like "Where in China, did I come from?" Now the questions are coming at me more frequently. I think that it is due to the fact that we are planning to take Mimi with us when it is our time to go. Her latest question a couple of weeks ago was "How come my mom didn't want me anymore?" I could have cried right then and there. Last week it was with tears in her eyes "Why did my mom give me up?". We were in the restaurant at lunchtime and there was a bunch of ladies at our nearby table watching us as to what was going on. I just smiled, hugged Mimi tightly and answered her in a soft voice to the best of my knowledge. This morning at breakfast she says that it is her goal to "find her birth mom". She says that she wants to see her hometown again. So tonight we had a small discussion about how she came to us and our upcoming trip to China. In conclusion, this has been on hell of a month for me. Phew!

SCHOOL AUDITION FOR SNOW WHITE

My head feels like it could explode any minute now but here I sit in
the school gym as the actors go through the super tedious job of
sorting out who is going to play what part.

Mimi normally has a super loud mouth. Everyday after school it " BYE
HALLI, BYE RACHEL, BYE OLIVIA, BYE ERIN!!!!!"

This afternoon the kids were suppsed to say in a manner as if they
were mad, their name and age. Mimi in her smallest, meekest voice says
" my is Naomi and I'm 8 years old"..........sigh.

EGO

Mimi does not seem to have a problem with her ego. She went around the house yesterday saying "I'm fab-u-lous!" Maybe she has got too much of it? I don't know......sigh

AND STILL GROWING

Dad is starting to get a bit nervous also as Mimi is starting to fill
out in all of the right places. Our baby is growing up.

A BLAST FROM THE PAST

I love love love this pic. Found this in the closet today.

VISIT WITH THE DOC

SOLID

Mimi weighs in at 53 lbs today She has gained a total of 34 lbs since
coming home from China a short 6 years ago. She's a solid little thing.

Sent from my iPhone

FREEZING TEMPERATURES

Today was a good day for skiing. We have had so much new snow up on
the mountains that Crystal Mountain had turn a whole bunch of people
away. They tried to soften the blow by giving people day passes.

It is so cold that Mimi and I only lasted one hour before we petered
out and came back to the car to eat a snack, drink our hot cocoa and
warm up with the car heater. Brrrrrrrr.

THAI ICE TEA WITH THE CAPTAIN

..................Morgan that is.