Karen and Ashok's Wedding!
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Now that the boys have a few years of Mandarin under their belts, I've been asking them to write their grandmother's thank you notes in Chinese. As I was walking out the door for my flight to Hong Kong, I grabbed Adam's card to Popo since it was with his other thank you notes but unfortunately didn't see Colin's. Oh well. So, anyway, I delivered Adam's note to Popo in person at our New Year's Eve dinner. Everyone was tickled to read it.PoPo read the card out loud in Cantonese. I only understood about half of it!
Gung Gung applauds Adam's Chinese skills
Aunty lisa was pleased to see that he used the notecards she gave himGung Gung announced to the whole table "That deserves a reward!" and took a US$100 bill out of his wallet and handed it to me. I asked if the reward was for me because I am the one who has to put up with all the whining and complaining about how hard Chinese is. He said no, it was for Adam. Phooey. Colin didn't get a reward because he didn't make sure his note got delivered. I encouraged Adam to split the reward since Colin helped him a little with it. He says he'll think about it.
Needless to say, I was SOOOOOO proud of both boys. It's not easy for a kid growing up in the US to learn Chinese and they PERSEVERED, sometimes DESPAIRED, but never gave up. Good job!
This Christmas was twice the fun because we have Chris' parents AND Erica PLUS her boyfriend Ted visiting us. It's a crazy house bursting at the seams and full of love and laughter. Just the way we like it!
Fun at Zippy's
Our traditional post-movie group photo with the Aaltos. We saw Sherlock Holmes and LOVED it!
Playing Taboo on Christmas Eve. Girls v. Boys!
Erica was relentless with the buzzer.
The boys team was stacked with English majors and other verbally-gifted people. We girls gave it our best, but they eked out the win.
Someone is in love. Handsome, helpful, loving, funny...I think he's a keeper!
Our tree. Truly an embarassment of riches.
Cute shot of Chris and Erica.
Getting ready to open gifts
Adam is all smiles
Colin got a new tie with monkeys to wear to debate tournaments. Aunty Erica showed him an alternative use.
Two cool cats
I love these shoes so Chris thinks this gift was more for me than him. Guilty!
We received four of these cards as the boys' gift to me and Chris. Priceless!
I saw this on Facebook today and laughed so hard! I particularly LOVE #8, 12, 19 and 21. Totally disagree with #6 and #5 doesn't apply to me because Chris' Mom taught me the proper technique years ago…Thanks Mom!!!
I've always wanted to be in a flash mob. So when Yelp invited me to participate in their Halloween event, I jumped at the chance. Fortunately, Sue happened to be in town and she was crazy enough to join me. a couple of others that I invited were too chicken. I won't say who they are, but one of their names rhymes with "bane" and the other one rhymes with "briss."
Sue and I attended one 2 hour rehearsal and then practiced a couple times at home. Fortunately, it was simple choreography and not the actual Thriller routine!
It was planned to go off at Hallowballoo, a Halloween arts and music street festival in Honolulu. We had about six "real dancers" who started us off. Then, three groups of amateurs joined in, each at their own specified time in the song. The video begins as group 2 (including me and Sue) start to stagger in all zombie-like. That's us in the white t-shirts and shorts (I enter first and that's Sue right behind me). What--you've never heard of Hawaiian tourist zombies before?
Unlike 99% of his Junior class, Colin chose to spend his birthday morning taking the SAT. Thinks it's good luck or something like that. Chris and I were so pre-occupied with making him a special SAT breakfast that we forgot it was his birthday. We dropped him off at school and never said boo about it. Oh brother. Bad parents!
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