BABY UPDATE

A while back I ordered a care package from Red Thread China and today we received 25 pictures of Mei-Lin's party. This was taked on April 20, 2011. Will post a couple of more pictures later.

Our baby is now 66 cm in height, 8 kg in weight, 42 cm for the head circumference, chest is 45 cm, foot is 11 cm.

Will calculate this later as I feeling a bit sleepy due to pain med. Needed to have a tooth extracted this morning.

STILLLLLLLL WAITING

We are still waiting for our TA's and it is nerve wracking. Called Norman yesterday and he tells me that he has the TA's but still needs the approval of our USA Consulate and they are on HOLIDAY! WHAT HOLIDAY?????? Lisa says that it may be a furlough. Hopefully we will get it by this Friday.......sigh.

SPRINGBROOK TROUT FARM

It's the fishing season for trout. Lucky for the trout we are not fishermen. The other day my friend put up a really pretty picture of her son Chase fishing for trout. I asked where this place was and she told me that it is in Renton at the Springbrook Trout Farm. I thought holy cow, we pass there everytime we come home from grandma's and never ever checked it out. This evening that is exactly what we did. It is like a little oasis in the middle of the city.

THREE LITTLE MONKEYS

Olivia, Mimi and Halli were singing "Three little monkeys sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G......." then we heard Olivia say "Ewwww, I don't wanna kiss Naomi!!!" Julia and I were LOA's off.

The sun was trying to come out. Whenever the sun is out even for just a bit, us Washingtonians try to take every advantage of it. We eventually worked our way down to the neighborhood park and we moms got a chance to visit while the kids played. The topic of discussion was the latest Tahoma School Bond Measurement that we were trying desperately to get passed and the sad part is........it did not pass. Julia asked if we would be able to put it on the ballot again in the future and Katrina who is on the PTSA board says that most likely it will not as our district payed over $60,000.00 to get it on the ballot this time. They both said that the Snoqualmie District had the same thing happen to them. For my out of state friends.......this means that Elsie and Emma's school (Lake Wilderness) will remain the same. They were to get a whole new school built for them. Shadow Lake, Rock Creek and Mimi's school, Glacier Park will not get the remodeling jobs done that they so badly need. I found out today that there are several classrooms at Mimi's school that doesn't have air conditioning or heat. The air conditioning is not so bad but we really do need the heat especially during our looooong winter months. There were a couple of snow days that were called because of no heat. Then there are the roof repairs. We also lost out on a new high school that was to be built as a result of over crowding. Our district has 4 elementary schools, 1 middle school, 1 junior high school and 1 high school. They were also slated to do improvements on our existing high school. Tahoma High School does not even have a gym for the high school gymnasts to practice so they have been coming to Summit Gym to practice in the early hours of the morning and for a while they were coming after school along the Summit gymnasts. Some of our team members were complaining because they said that the high schoolers were not nice to them. It was a problem for a while. Not sure what is going to happen now. Also what has happened is that there was a ground breaking ceremony for the new Fred Meyer's that is going up on Four Corners. Lots of people not happy about that either cuz we like our small town the way it is. The funny thing is....is that where the new Fred Meyers is going up.....well, it's not part of Maple Valley at all. It's the small part of Kent that is surrounded by Maple Valley. The bigger part of Kent is about 10 miles down the road.

CELEBRATION OF LEARNING

This past Thursday was something else! You know how the girl scouts have their yearly cookie fundraiser. Well Mimi's gym has their yearly plant sell. This is the first time I had done it. I thought I did pretty good selling just a smidgen over $200.00 worth of flowers, hanging baskets, veggies and herbs. Then there was Rhonda who brought the order sheets to her church and it took on a life of its own. She was able to sell somewhere in the neighborhood of $400.00 and another mom did even higher.

The real hard work came when we went to the gym Thursday morning to help and volunteer with filling all of these orders. All the plants were in our gym parking lot and the of course the weather did not help at all either. No snow but there was wind and rain and the temperatures was freeeeeezing!!! By the time my four hours were up, it was time to go home, eat a quick lunch before picking Mimi up from school, getting her ready to go back to school for the "Celebration of Learning/Raffle Basket" fundraiser night. For this past quarter her class had been learning all about South America and the Rainforest. The class has been working hard on doing a class play and Mimi got to play the Toucan. She was really jazzed about that. We also got a chance to see what they all are doing in their classroom. By 8:00 p.m. I was in bed fast asleep. I don't even know what time the girl went to sleep. It was a loooooong exhausting day for me 'n' dad,

SNOW IN APRIL

Believe it or not the weatherman was right. When the shower was over, it was time to pick up Mimi from school, take her to the gym for practice. Then just before we started to head home, IT SNOWED! Enough already!!! Fortunately is didn't stick. However it snowed more up in the passes which kinda stressed Lisa out as they were getting ready to head up to Ellensburg to go to Nathan's deaf camp this morning. They wanted to make it safely through the passes. I do hope that they are having a good time. I will see Lisa again next Tuesday as Butch has a playdate with Sophie and Maggie their dogs. They are so sweet to take care of Butch while we are in China and California. Can you believe it?! In just a little over two weeks we'll be in China?! We have yet to get our TA's. Hopefully Norman will send them out next week. I tried calling his office these past few days to no avail.

THE FIRST OF THREE BABY SHOWERS

+

This past Wednesday the ladies of my special neighborhood gave me a baby shower. OMG! We had so much fun! There was so much food and drinks!!!! Great food too and oh so tasty delicious! My friend Julia loves to bake especially when life stresses her out. She is the one who made these beautiful lemon bars. Her husband Andre' is trying to get her to stop baking so much as he is trying out for the marathon that is coming up in a couple of months. Her cookies are to die for. Then there is Robin (the one with the scrunched up face), she was nice enough to pull all the weeds out of my backyard last week. Her son Bryce is just about the nicest kid you could ever meet. He's the kind you want to have your daughter take home to meet the parents. The reason why her face is scrunched is becaused we played this really fun game of "dirty diapers" where you had to guess what the poop was that was in the dirty diaper. Krista told me that her son Xander already said that he was going with Mimi to China. He so adores Mimi. The ladies did not want Mimi to feel left out so they all pitched in to buy Mimi a small inexpensive digital camera to take photos with when we get there. What a great bunch of gals I'm hooked up with! I love them all to pieces.