CNY T-shirts

I had no luck finding kid sized shirts this year.  I wanted a set for the cruise.  In the end I ordered Jia a ladies extra small and two men's medium for the boys.  I hemmed Kai's, it's big and blousey on him but it works.  On Luk, not so much.  I was in over my head trying to resize it.  Penny to the rescue!  We'll wear them to dinner on Saturday.  Pictures then.

Paw Patrol

Kai is passionate about his love of Paw Patrol.  We brought him cereal the other day.  His favorite food still.  We had one happy little boy.  I told him he could open the box and have some for snack.  Then left the room.  Eric found him in the kitchen with a demolished box.  Too funny.  So the box was turfed.

Games of Chance

Jia has a project at school to create a game of chance to play with their little buddies.  She'll be away and seemed a bit sad about missing out.  So we sat together last night with some poker chips, cards and dice.  We played around until we created a game. Then played until it was fine tuned.  I think it turned out great.  She is so excited to show her teacher today. 

Family Movie Night

We did a movie night at the school.  The boys first time.  I made Eric come to help contain them.  There are kids running wild at this event.  Every time.  I have no idea why the parents there don't ask their kids to "watch the movie".  Oura were told if they were running around we'd go home.  Kai and Luk were hands down the best behaved kids there!  They played on their mat and watched the movie. Christopher Robyn.  Jia, not so well behaved.  She at least stayed on her mat but she was with Max and Ava and it was constant movement.  She admitted later that she only saw one scene of the movie. 

More Pics from the Addams Family Play.

What a fun production.  Super glad it's over.  It took over for a bit.  Fun to watch Lili.  Fun to see her so close with her peeps.

The boys have phones.

Big event around here.  Their tablets don't hold much of a charge.  About an hour.  Ok for car trips with charging ports in the car but not great for flying.  From experience, Kai does infinitely better if he can watch a show instead of focusing on everything new going on around him.  So, Eric and I cleared our old phones, both note 4s. I set them up with controls in place.  Took a few hours.  We quickly realized one of them wasn't holding much of a charge.  Ebay to the rescue. New batteries were here in a week.  Now we can load Kai up with downloaded Netflix and Minecraft for Luk.  That will help with all travel down times.  No phone or texting plan just  yet.  They have no idea.  They just know they have a phone like the rest of us.  Kai has figured out how to play 10/10.  So cute. 

Drawing Contest

Jia and I watched a YouTube video of how to draw a cute pig.  She clearly won.  Hers is on her phone and mine was on paper.  Although she won, mine was easier to photocopy.  We're using it to decorate the CNY goodie bags.  Took a couple hours but 75 red envelopes are filled and the party stuff is mostly ready. 

Toothless Luk

So cute.

The Addams Family

The play is fabulous. Thoroughly enjoyed the whole thing. If you're looking for something fun to do it's worth your while. Some talented kids involved. Of course the cowgirl ancestor is adorable ;) The whole process is wrecking complete havoc with our finely tuned shedule. Lili is getting sick. Yikes. Still 6 more evening shows and assorted matinees.
I'm trying to finish month end/year end at work. Getting sorted for CNY. Eric and I are packed and the littles are packed. Those teenagers don't want to get as prepared as we are. I keep warning them that we aren't going to be helping them when we're getting the house and critters ready for the house/pet sitter and hosting a party the night before we leave. Typically I go to bed before we go anywhere and listen to them scurrying around trying to pack looks like this is the likely plan again ;)

Last weekend.

Back to school tomorrow. BOO.

Saturday Jia went to Zoey's Bday party. It was a sewing party. Very cool. City peeps have more options. They made a book bag each. Jia enjoyed the project. She asked what she should put in the bag. I said "books?". Then she proceeded to use it as a potato sack race bag. Then a hat.





Fei came with us. We managed to meet up with Catherine and family for a long overdue visit.

Today Lili was off for an 8 hour rehearsal. Crazy. Not my favorite teacher. The rest of us stayed home. We puttered most of the day. Christmas is all put away. Eric and I did some organizing in one of our storage cubbies. We brought all the luggage out for our trip. We're all labeled. Travel bags sorted and general Luk supplies in the big checked bag. No clothes or shoes packed yet.


No naps by people but the critters had lots of naps. Struck me as funny that Oliver and Isabel were in the same position.

Navigation

Holey Cow people...my Jeep has Navigation built in. Not quite as great as Alexa but better than using the phone. Fei and I used it today from home to get to Zoey's Birthday party in Langford. It worked great. So modern!

Eric knew I had it. He saw me put the address in my Google maps and told me I could just use the car. Hahaha.

Ugly People

Our world is so broken.

We're tired. Four seriously long hard days in the parks. We're in a line up for security at LAX and Jia has declared her back pack too heavy. So she is in a frog squat pushing her pack along the floor. I could care less, frankly was happy she was amused and not talking to me as I was texting a couple different conversations. I see a man staring at her angrily. Thought I'd make light of it and said with a laugh "she's really tired". He snarled and said "more like lazy". I was shocked at his anger. She wasn't next to him, wasn't making any noise, not holding up the line. For good measure he added "she's what's wrong with our country". I looked at him and just said "there's no call to be so mean". And the line moved and he was away from us.

I was in a rage but headed to security so pushed it away. It keeps coming back though. What on earth was that all about?! My gut says racial issue. Jia is by far the least lazy person. I don't think I could even do a frog squat walk. I don't think ugly old caucasian man would have been capable of the squat walk either.

Jia was thankfully clueless.

The frontrunner of things I wish I'd said "no sir, you are what's wrong with your country".

Home

What a day. Up early. Forward motion. Left the hotel in an uber. Great experience at LAX for the first time. No one yelled. Did get to have one very ugly moment with another traveler. Grrr. Flight was extremely turbulent and we had a seriously creepy guy beside us. He spilled his full messy life to me then said he didn't know why he told me all that. Ya' because it's my gift. Strangers always spill their stories to me. Then he was agitated and hunted down a beer. Jia and I hung back to give him lots of time to get off the plane.

Then...we exited the plane in a storm, sleet and snow, we stepped into 2" of water covering the whole tarmac. Yuk. In our Keens with soaking wet feet. We were thoroughly drenched by the time we got to the Jeep. We couldn't put the heat on because it was overheating and I was worried about it. Had to keep opening the windows to deal with condensation. Rain pelting in. Thankfully the border was quick. Just before the ferry the check engine light came on. Could be minor or catastrophic. Desperate calls to Eric.

Eric to the rescue. He met us at Duke Point. We switched cars. Jia was so cute about it. Daddy is totally her hero right now. On a dark and stormy night, there he was. I was pretty happy to see him too ;)

When we got home there was a lot of excitement and animals and stories and three girls talking at once. Eric escaped us and was outside dealing with a clogged drain in our driveway.

Serious flooding all over our valley. I've had enough of weather.

Last Day of Disney

Today was bonus since there was nothing left on our wish list. We slept in. Skipped breakfast. Were later arriving and wow...the lines to get in were huge.

We wondered. Played in Toontown. Went on the spin cars. Visited Pluto, Minnie and Mickey. We had lunch. Rode the train. Saw a show at the Golden Horseshoe. Got more dole whip and did the Tiki room again. We watched the whole parade. Rode Alice in Wonderland. Had dinner at the plaza on main street and battled the crowd out.

Nice relaxing day.
We're in the room, checked into our flight online. Packed. Set our alarm. Planning to uber to the airport. Sad to leave Disney. Happy to go home. Jia has really missed her whole family being together. Having Lili and Fei move out one day will be just brutal on all of us!




The line for security.











Golden Horseshoe is a restaurant now.

Lady Tremain and her daughters were hillarious in the parade. Loud and obnoxious. They're the new characters being added to my game.

New Years Eve

Eric hosted dinner this year. He sounds happy like they had a good time. Fei took pictures and was sending them to me. Lili had some friends over. Kai has had a language boom. Can hear him speaking more clearly on the phone. He's enjoying Christmas and time off school! I talked to Luk tonight and he's figured out the days and when I'll be home. Such a sweet kid. Jia and I were crashed at midnight ;)