OUR ITINERARY

From Sunday the 22nd of May till the 3 of June, the Putney's will BE IN CHINA!!!!

June 3 - Arrive at LAX at 6:50 pm. Go directly to immigration and baggage claim. Who knows how long that will take. Then go directly to hotel and BED.

June 4 - Get nails and pedicure done for mom. Pick up keys from the Luce's
4:00 - Early dinner with Gini and David (friends of the family)
8:30 - Go to the Luce's home.

June 5 - Hang out with our China family. BBQ in the park.

June 6 - Head down to San Diego but not before visiting with my bro "Jim"

June 7- Take Mimi to Sea World

June 8 - Take Mimi to Disneyland, sleepover with the Fratkins

June 9 - Take Mimi to California Adventureland, sleepover with the Fratkins

June 10 - Just hanging out and having fun with the Fratkins

June 11 - Head for home.

June 12- R & R

June 13 - Back to the old grind again. Mimi has a whole sleuth of testing this week.

June 20 - SCHOOL'S OUT FOR THE SUMMER !!!!!

Maple Valley Summit Gymnastics tumbling and trampoline team participate in state championship

Maple Valley Summit Gymnastics tumbling and trampoline team participate in state championship

Mimi's gymnastic team made it into the local newspaper. She's super jazzed about it and so are we!

CHINA FAMILY GET TOGETHER / BABY SHOWER

Yesterday afternoon Lisa, Art, Nathan and Emily hosted our monthly get together / baby shower for us at their home. They have a great home that is super kid friendly. As you can see Mimi put her crutches to the side and that is where they stayed the whole afternoon. We got to the Spencer's home and the next thing I knew Mimi was walking around with no crutches. She was just limping a smidgen. The girl told me that under no condition was she going to use those crutches at school cause that would be embarassing for her. I just wish the girl would use the same determination toward her homework. The crutches went back to Halli's house the second we got home.

As you can see, Elsie just loves doting on Emily and Emily is eating is all up too. As you can see in the picture, the Spencers have a huge playroom upstairs. So in between the eating and playing outside on the playset, the kids would go upstairs to play while the adults would visit in the family room catching up on what's going on in our lives. Lisa came back down after checking on the kids upstairs and reported to us that the girls were playing "Orphanage" and that the only boy there who was Nathan, was the "Director" of the orphanage. We all cracked up.

Besides the good food, there was great company and many beautiful clothes and baby items for Mimi's mei mei.

TONGGU

I found by accident on Google the SWI of where Mei-Lin is from. The dirt road is the road that leads to the SWI. The picture on the bottom right is the Tonggu street scene. Our hotel is there somewhere and so the Walmart, should we need to make a shopping trip. The upper left picture is the Farmers Market. Now, we do know that Mei-Lin was left at the gate leading into the Farmers Market and I think that this may be the one. Just can't say for sure.

LEAVING ON A JET PLANE.....

Or so the song goes. Got our tickets today at the gym.

There is another woman in our group by the name of Krista. I love reading her blog. She has got quite a sense of humor. She is a single mom by choice. Her little Tonggu baby will be her first child and I just chuckle to myself when she says that she has all of these lovely visions of spending the whole summer with her new baby before she goes back to work in August. Krista says that she envisions lovely walks in the stroller, taking her to the beach, going to the park so on and so forth. Wait till reality hits baby is what I say.

Right now Mimi is not too sure about this little one who is coming into our family and disrrupting Mimi's world 10 times over. She is still pissed off that we did not consult her with this decision of adding to the family unit. How could we? The girl was only 2 at the time. Oh well, que sera sera.

She has already told us that if dad is holding the baby, I get to hold Mimi and vice versa. I think not. Mimi now weighs 52 pounds. I have heard about kids reverting when and new one comes along. It seems to be playing out in our house now. Sheesh!!! I tell you, I am really looking forward to some of Allyn's famous Mai Tai's when we come for a visit cause I'm pretty sure I'll be needing it then.

URGENT CARE

This evening Mimi was out front climbing her tree as usual. Despite the many times I have told her not to jump especially after her fiasco with the cast last year, the girl still thinks that she knows better than I do and proceeded to jump anyway and somehow laded wrong and hurt her foot. Argh!!! I debated whether or not to take her Urgent Care then thought that I would rather be safe than sorry, so off we went. While there we met another mom and her teenage daughter who were there because the dad accidently slammed the van door on his daughter's wrist. The mom and daughter as we found out used to live in our old neighborhood and now live up here. How about that! The best news is ...... Mimi only has a sprain and the doc says for her to give it a rest. Easier said than done in my book of experience. I now think that the girl actually gets it when I tell her to take it easy and not run and jump everywhere. Also found out tonight from Rhonda that Emma decided to do a backflip and landed on her head. Thankfully she's fine too. I think I am ready for my glass of wine right about now. Man! What a day! And to think it's only the beginning! We're going to have our next chili pepper in less than two weeks!!!

HARU GA KITA

Spring has finally come to Maple Valley!!! My Tulips and Daffodils are in full bloom now. Also there are blossoms on our apple tree. Hopefully this year we will get a bunch of apples come this fall. Last year we got quite a bunch of them. Usually I would be planting more flowers in our backyard but as we are going to China in a couple of weeks, I'm holding off on my gardening until we get back. At least I am able to enjoy the flowers I have now. They'll be dead by the time we get back which is ok because that will be the usual time for them to kick the bucket. This summer I am planning to put a garden in our backyard and hopefully be able to grow our own veggies and fruits. Dad has his own projects too. One is to put the kids playset that we purchased a couple of months ago.