Boys and I are going back to visit Mickey.

The boys turn 9 this year!  It's their turn.  Lots of conversations about how to get twins on individual trips.  A bit daunting to take Kai, come home and then take Luk.  We've looked a lots of options.  Take Luk this year, take Kai next year.  Take Luk in September then take Kai in November.  First week of September is crazy busy with back to school.  Plus Lili likely starting University and moving out.  Eric thinks Kai won't notice his trip not on his Birthday.  He's likely right but family tradition is family tradition.  The culture at this house is a Disney trip at 9.  So I did the logical thing and asked the boys. They were both emphatically clear that they would rather go together.  Flights and tickets are both on sale right now so I booked our flights and bought our tickets today!  I'm insanely excited to be taking the boys just the three of us!!  We're going right in between their Birthdays.  Should still be hot in mid September.  So we can pack light ;)  Squeal.  They were happy with the news but not quite as excited as I am.  Go figure.  

Lunar New Year - Year of the Rat

Our local FCC group met for dinner at the Dragon Yuan.  Total chaos.  Spent too much time trying to rearrange chairs and tables.  Didn't get the coloring pages to the kids.  Scattered chocolate coins out after kids had food.  It was crazy busy.  Stupid long lines for the food.  I ended up barely getting to talk to anyone.  It was loud.  Oy.  Kids looked to be having a good time. There was a massive upcharge for the crab legs. Yuk. Then...the wait staff actually  came and asked us to leave so other people could have our tables.  Yikes.  Not totally sure how the rest of the group felt but I think we might need a different plan next year.  And, worst of all, I forgot entirely to take a group picture of the kids!  We had 21 there too.  

Then most of us moved onto our place.  Where the pace was a little calmer and we got to visit with the adults and the snacks were good  :)

Newest little one to our group.  Shannon and Ken are fostering Silas! 

Emily stayed overnight with Jia.  Then Fei and Eric drove her home Sunday afternoon.  Fei is wanting more practice hours her road test is end of Feb.

Little miss had a skating day at school.

Millie and Esmei playing on the stairs.  I could let you all think they just magically posed pretty like this but the truth is Fei and I took about 10 minutes with pencils/toys and treats to get them like this. With a pencil waving above my head to get them to look up.  Haha.  Love it.  

She is sooo curious about what we're all up to.  She peeks like this until she feels safe enough to come all the way down.  She bolts back upstairs and hides under my bed or behind Fei's bed when she gets scared.  

Last Minute

Filling 80 red envelopes.  Packing up goodies for Jia and the boy's classrooms and getting ready for the CNY dinner/party/ goodie bags for our FCC group.  Phew.  I skipped trying to wrangle kids into helping and got Eric to help instead.  

Commissioned Art

How cute are we?!  I love it. I paid Jia $2 a person plus a tip for fast delivery.  She's for hire if anyone else wants their picture as Gacha characters.  She says if the family has 20000 people she could lower her rate to 1.00 a person. Haha.  Oh the look of joy to have earned money.  She is extremely short of funds right now.  She used her savings and Birthday money from Gramma and we gave her the red envelope money early so she could buy the Nintendo Switch.  Then Gramma got her a couple games to go with.  The console should arrive today from Amazon.  To say she's excited is an understatement.  

Mini Me

Jia made me in Gacha Life. Too cute.  I've commissioned her to do a family picture with Dragon's on our shirts for CNY.  

Scratch, Comedy Night and Dumplings.

Jia enjoyed Scratch camp so I signed her up for another session.  However, it's not a group thing and the teacher decided to just have Jia and one other kid, Oliver as "the class" because she thought they were well suited.  Friday was her first class.  She LOVED it.  Not doing Scratch but exploring tech in general.  First class was working in 3D to create her name on the 3D printer.  It will hold her flash drive on the wall.  Very cool.  It was fun to pick her up and just be confused by all that her and Oliver had to tell me.  Haha.

Then Eric and I escaped for an evening out.  Watched 'Snowed In' at the theater.  Four comedians. We had fun and a few belly laughs.  

On Saturday we stayed home.  Girls are heading into exam week so they needed study time.  Eric and I made dumplings to start out the Chinese New Year traditions.  Took four hours to make, a few minutes to devour.  Sigh.  Max spent the day with Jia.  He liked the dumplings too ;) They made cookies.  The kitchen had a good workout.

So, remember the epic melt down story in Disneyland in front of the castle.  I felt heard by "the lady".  Then I was reading about the new ride in Galaxies Edge and saw a picture of Bob (the CEO of Disney) having a peruse of the land and he's with the lady I talked to.  So, I was HEARD.  The meltdown might have actually had some impact for change to help families with special needs kids.  We can hope anyways.  

Not my picture, took from the internet.

On Sunday we got up and started getting organized for Chinese New Year.  Our group dinner is next Saturday. The decorating is done.  Only took one picture.  Will get more later.  Kids are all just excited about Chinese food.  Haha.  

Antique linens are from Sue's Mom.  Kids walked by and wanted know if they were getting dumplings again.  Ah No. Definitely not giving them soy sauce on those linens!  

I just wanted to play with my dishes and linens.  

The Last One

This was the favorite and it was made into the complimentary canvas.  

Two More Cruise Photos

Bayblade Club

They've started their own private secret Bayblade Club and base camp in Jia's room.  Not so secret because I was invited to see immediately upon entering the house.  Secret because we're too big to fit through the tiny door so don't know what they're up to in Jia's room.  They're having so much fun :)  So much fun that they're planning a sleepover in there.  Hillarious.  Oh ... and ... Luk and Jia got Kai to play outside in the snow today.  Eric didn't get pictures.  

Cruise Picture

Can't remember the last time Eric and I had a picture taken.  The kids were hillarious while this was taken.  The photographer was funny doing all kinds of ohh la la and kissy comments.  Made for a good time.  He took a few.  We picked this one, seemed normal, versus the oh so fake kissing shots.  

Luk as a voice actor?

We heard from the Spina Bifida Association yesterday that DreamWorks is looking for an 8 year old boy in a wheelchair for a voice part in a new cartoon series. They want an authentic print.  Luk fits the bill.  It took MANY reads through the script for Luk to get the mp3 file down.  He was definitely WAY overthinking it.   I finally told him how it would play out. Emphasizing that he would always have a parent with him.  Then I read the part, Fei read the other parts and he watched "the conversation" and then it finally sunk in what I was asking him to do.  Fei had the patience to record over and over until he did it without flubs.  Haha.  So, I just submitted his photos and mp3 reading.  It was a fun little project on a snow day.  Luk isn't expecting anything to come out of it.

Update, one hour later, we heard back!  They think he sounds adorable, thanked us for the quick response and are presenting his audition to the client.  Cool. 

Another snow day.

Another 10" last night.  We had a full day planned.  All cancelled.  We were meeting with a vision therapist from Sunnyhill to look for ideas to help Kai.  Bit sad about that.  No clue how long it will be before she is back on the island.  More waiting.  We're good at waiting.

No one here is thrilled about more snow.  Eric went out and dug us out. Then he went grocery shopping.  We could have made do but Izzy's new food ran out (she likes it) and Eric didn't want her to eat the previous chow.  It was making her farty.

Even Isabel is done with snow.  Right now the only one out there willingly is Walter.

Yesterday

Today.

Sasha's 1st Birthday

It's a snow day.  It's my flex day.  It's Sasha's 1st birthday.  She did not care for her first snow haha.  Thank goodness for pee pads.  I have zero plans to touch snow today either.  Guessing some of the kids will head out eventually but none of them seemed in a rush. Kai dislikes the snow as much as I do but he was super happy to hear there was no school.

Feels like an eating day.  Counting calories for 3 of us so can't just bake and eat with abandon.  Drat.

We missed doing a house this year, kit was on clearance for $2 after holidays. Seems like a good snow day project just for fun.

Doesn't seem like enough for a snow day.  It was -9 through the night so it's really icy on the roads.

It's a good start.  Been up for an hour and already on nap one.

These 3 played for a couple hours.

Lazy day with all 7 of us home.  Gate is still closed.

Rare.  Very rare.

Jia and Luk's project.

Just dance.

Cruise Photo

This one was fun.  Pretty cute little family.

From our Pixel package onboard.

Home to the critters!

Best part of any trip is getting home.

Isabel was out of her mind.  Sasha was squirmy and super wiggly.  So squishable!  Jessica managed to get some weight on her.  I'm guessing she wasn't moving around as much if she wasn't at work everyday and trying to keep up with me.

So.  Every trip I post "home".  No pictures because travel days aren't usually pretty.  I'll paint a picture of our lunch today, later.  Haha.  So this time I was thinking I'd post critter pictures because that and our beds are the most exciting part of home.  Then I was thinking of how daunting it would be to get 7/8 pictures of them.  Then we came home to a gift from Jessica our house sitter.

How crazy is that?!  How could she have known what was on my mind?

The trip was a success.  All home safe and sound.  Car did great.  Nothing went wrong.  We're just chaos.

The lunch story.  

On the ferry.  We have a routine.  We get 4 burger combos.  One for Eric the rest of us eat a half.  Today I gave instructions.  Lili and Fei take the littles to find a seat.  Lili  come back and help me get 7 waters.  Then Eric takes off with Luk and Jia in the opposite direction  of Lili, Fei and Kai.  I chose to follow Kai.  The girls take him to sit down.  Eric brings Jia and Luk into the line with me.  Except they're both sick with hacking coughs.  Thanks kids club.  So I send Jia out and make Eric take Luk out.  Lili comes back.  I have food on a tray.  She gets waters.  We go to pay and don't have the 4 combo drinks.  We can't manage.   Can we come back?  Yes.  Thinking  coffee for Eric and drinks for the girls.  Get to table.  No one got knives, napkins or ketchup/vinegar.  So Lili is running around.  I run around.  We end up with double ketchup.  I got 14 napkins.  Cut and divide food. Before I can sit down Kai has devoured his burger. It's everywhere.  Takes a few napkins to clean him up.  Strong admonination to slow down.  Divey out grapes and a fig newton and ketchup for his fries.  I sit down.  Eric and the girls were getting their drinks.  Now everyone is in the wrong spot and has the wrong waters.  Some have ice, some have lots of ice, some have no ice. Some kids won't touch things touched by certain other kids.  So that was fun.  Luk and Jia aren't really hungry because they're sick.  So we talk about water.  Lili gets more napkins.  Jia suddenly has a nose bleed.  Lili gets more napkins.  Lili has her first ever headache and is quite unhappy about it.  I tell her to eat and drink, it might help.  Eric says Luk's illness started with a head ache. Lili is in a panic, upset the kids made her sick. Jia is starting to make noise because her nose bleed is heavy and not stopping.  She gets them all the time so we're sort of ignoring her.  I realize she has a for real problem and we revert to old methods.  She's laying on her back across Eric's lap.  He's pinching the bridge of her nose.  Complaining that there is nothing there to pinch.  Quick admonishment to Kai to slow down on the grapes.   Chew chew swallow before more goes in.  We need cold on Jia's neck so need ice in napkins.  Lili gets more napkins.  Put ice on the back of her neck but it's making Eric's pants wet.  Lid from a water under the napkin.  Luk is asking to not eat he doesn't feel good.  Lili gets all emotional and has a few tears/while laughing.  Fei has her own issues.  I can't find napkins to help Luk.  Luk is already on second outfit and projectile vomited at Walmaet earlier so we're all a little scared.  And then Fei makes a comment about the condition of our family.  Yup.  It's all good.  We're obviously here for everyone else's entertainment.

Now they want to know what's for dinner.  Haha.  Toast, fruit and cereal. I think we're all done for today.

Bellingham

We're in for the night.  Hotwired rooms from the road.  Rodeway.  Price was great.  Reality not so much.  Luk discovered the toilet covered/sprayed in blood.  Yikes.  I already had the boys unpacked and Kai was in bed.  We got a new room.  New room looks ok but we'll all feel better to reach home tomorrow. The girls are next door a bit freaked.  I missed the crazy man in the parking lot yelling at them not to bring their dog and lock their doors or cars. 

I also looked up times and booked a ferry and then did an online grocery order to pick up tomorrow.  Very efficient use of time.  We've allowed for a couple hours at Twsassen Mills so Lili can look for grad dress shoes.

Good morning Mt Shasta.

Thankful the snow isn't down with us.

Woke up from a nap in front of a museum.

I thought Eric was joking.

He wasn't.

I did a fair amount of grumbling. Kids wanted to go.  I was listing off things I'd rather do.  And we had to pay. Yeesh.

In the end, it was a decent stop. Spotlessly clean and well cared for displays. Very interesting. I still rushed everyone along though.

Jia's pictures from horseback riding.