LIFE'S A BEACH...........

Life can really be a beach at times. While our good friends the Fratkin's and Berris's are having the time of their lives down in sunny Southern California, we are experiencing our usual northwest rainfall.

After our fun time with Spencer and his family at Chuck E. Cheese, we stopped by Sara's house to drop off items that she left at our house. Mimi tells me "mom, can you talk with Daphne for a while?????" Meanning that she wanted time to play with Sara. Between Daphne and myself, we worked it out so that the girls would come back to our house for a while, then dad would take them to South Center Mall, meet up with Daphne and the two of them would take the girls to see Ponyo. In between time I had Mimi take a short nap as she was getting to be a bit nutso. It worked. She woke up a happy camper.

While are gone, it started to really pour down rain about 15 minutes ago. It has since let up some. This video was taken of our kitchen window. Hopefully tomorrow it won't rain much as Mimi and her gymnastic teammates are in a parade. It will be her very first one that she is in. She's excited about it but in honesty, I think that I am more excited than she is.

SPENCER'S BIRTHDAY

In reality Spencer's birthday was August 29th and unfortunately Mimi was not able to attend his party. Therefore we thought that it would be a great idea to celebrate with him and his family at Chuck E. Cheese this afternoon. They all had a load for fun. I think that Mimi had more fun than Spencer. Although she really likes Spencer, she really, really likes his big sis Katarina.

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE HAWAII

At the new Uwajimaya market they have quite a bit of Hawaiian food too. Mimi and I tried all of their samples. Quite tastey too! Mimi especially like the rib sauce used to mix with the cooked salmon and sprinkled with furikake. I liked it too.

Kind of sorry that I forgot to get the owner's name but she is a very nice lady who took the time to take a picture with Mimi. She said that she is actually from Hawaii but has been living here in Seattle for the past 25 years. Both she and her husband developed these products and are very simple to make dressings out of the syrup, or put them on ice cream. She says that she drizzles the syrup onto white cake and tops it off with whip cream. mmmmmmmm.

MIMI AND ELSIE

I tell you, that little Elsie, she is a pistol. Not sure where in China she if from but she is definitely on hot little chili pepper. I think that Mimi has met her match.

As usual Mimi woke up yesterday morning at the ungodly hour of 4:30 in the wee hours of the morning. You can best bet I made her go back to bed and while she slept I remained WIDE AWAKE! Doggone it!!!

Then as soon as school let out we had to jam it down to the gym for team practice. As soon as practice let out I took the girls through the McDonald's drive through. I was too tired to do any cooking last night. At first Elsie was a little anxious about coming to our house without her mom. Rhonda had some work to do before she went back to the gym to pick up Emma. As soon as Emma's practice let out, Rhonda took her out to dinner and allowed the two of them to have some mother/daughter time alone by themselves which is a rare treat Rhonda tells me.

By the time Rhonda came to the house, Elsie did not want to go home. This time all of the girls were upstairs playing and when Elsie came down stairs she was crying. Rhonda asked what happened and Emma says that Mimi was not doing what Elsie told her to do. Elsie can be a little bossy at times. None the less both girls had loads of fun running around the house calling each other "sister". When I asked Elsie how she liked the Great Wolf Lodge, she said she absolutely loved it. A couple of weeks ago Rhonda took the girls there along with her sister and niece who also is from China. Mimi tells Elsie "Elsie, I have been dying to go there" It's amazing how much of the english slang Mimi has picked up in the past year. Things are either awsome, freaky, or she's dying. Then when things don't go right she'll say "geezus".

UPDATE ON THE KENT TEACHER STRIKE

When we moved up here to Washington two years ago, we really lucked into a super great neighborhood, super great school district, and a super great school with a amazing Principal and teachers.

Last year at Mimi's gymnastic school, I met another mom by the name of Jo. Jo's daughter was in Mimi's gymnastic class and her niece Olivia was in Mimi's class at school. Go figure. Like I always say, small town and I love it. Jo and her sister Julia are from the Bay Area in California. Last year Jo said that when she and her husband moved up here from California some time back, they purchased a home in the Samamish school district. That's the Bill Gates country for those of you who don't know. Then when the kids started to come along, their house was too small and so they had to sell their home and they purchased another house in our town. Jo says that when she moved, she had checked around thoroughly since she is an elementary school teacher herself and like most of us, she and her husband wanted the best for their kids. She told me that our school district is the next best to the Samamish school district and then she talked her sister into moving up here.

Many people are fighting to get their kids into our school. Now with the strike going on, it is my humble opinion that since the Samamish district have people living there that make quite a bit of money. So it is natural that they want good schools and take good care of their teachers and based on what I was told by Jo, our district is the same way. However we don't have as much money as the Bill Gates and we work really hard to give our children the best education as possible. In our community soooooo many parents are involved with their children's education including many of the grandparents. Mimi's grandma and grandpa I am sure would help out too if they could, however they are not in the best of health right now.

Also in our town, I know of a couple of families where the dad works in the day and the mom works at night so that at least one parent is home with the kids when they are not in school.

In the Kent district, I have heard from only one parent and that is my friend Daphne (Sara's mom). She says that at Sara's school they have a very hard time getting the parents involved in the kids education. Also it has been said that some schools in the Kent District are very good schools and some are not.

As of now Sara has already missed one whole week of school. So has Mimi's other friends Alex and Chris. The teachers are on strike because they want more pay, smaller class sizes ( the ratio at Mimi's school is about 20-22 to 1), less staff meetings and more respect. They want the same treatment that the teachers in our district and the Samamish district receive. I say who can blame them? All of the teachers I know work so darn hard for their living.

This story has been a HUGE part of the King 5 news. As of now the judge has ordered all of the teachers to go back to work. My friend/neighbor Jason, who is a teacher in the Kent district says that negotiations will still take place this Labor Day weekend and if there is still no solution they (teachers) will not go back to work. Poor kids.

SECOND DAY OF SCHOOL

This past summer I thought that since Mimi will be in school full day,
I can get a whole lit of things done. NOT!!! It seems that I am a
whole busier now than ever before.

Even though Mimi wakes up early, she just loves to dawdle on and on.
Meanwhile I need to get her ready for school, get myself ready, fix
breakfast and lunch with two cats and one dog under my feet only
because they think that they are going to get something to eat too. It
is definitely a madhouse here.

Then I had the bright idea of taking Butch for a walk when I walk Mimi
to school. That turned out to ne a disaster.

Mimi made it to class just fine. There was a man there on the
schoolground walking his two Labradoodles home after dropping his kid
off.

Butch saw the two dogs and thought to himself "Woo Hoo!!! Somebody to
play with!!!" Ollie who had followed Butch and myself to school
thought to himself "You two dogs better stay away from my Butch!" The
war was on. Ollie whacked the dogs on the nose. He absolutely is not
afraid of any dog. As I went to snatch h up, Butches collar broke and
he was on the loose. Somehow I made it home all together and in one
piece. And my day was just beginning too.

WINE ON THE BRAIN

How could I forget? This was the most important part of my day
yesterday! While the girls were in school, Janet and I had a nice
visit catching up on all the news this past summer.