We went to the annual Chinese New Year party that our local Chinese Cultural Association hosts. Kai and Shen performed with their class from the Mei Hua Chinese Language School. We had a great time and saw a lot of friends there, both adoptive families and Chinese American families from the Mei Hua School. They held the event at Sehome High School, so there was a lot more room for people to move around. The kids got to run with their friends and the grown-ups got to visit. There was a TON of excellent Chinese food too!

I took a few pictures, but Kai really wanted to use the camera today. I was a little worried about letting him use our only digital camera, but it has a neck strap and he was being pretty careful with it. Surprisingly, he got a number of really great photos of a bunch of people! Now he clicked off close to 200 shots (thank God for digital!), but that's a strategy I use for getting good photos too! I often will shoot fast and hope to hit something. Anyway, about three of the photos in the slideshow above are ones I shot, the rest are Kai's!

We took Kai and Shen to their very first* big screen movie experience today. We saw Jackie Chan in The Spy Next Door, in which Jackie plays Bob Ho, a retired international spy who is called back for one last job while he’s babysitting his next-door-neighbor’s three children. I think it is more than fair to say that Kai and Shen were VERY excited about getting to go see this. While I am writing they are busy acting out fight scenes with one another, and while they always love rough house play a lot, the energy level they are exhibiting right now has definitely been kicked up a notch!

The movie was about what I expected, it is definitely aimed at kids. I knew this going in, so I wasn’t expecting much for the adults. I got my enjoyment from watching the boys see the movie.

The opening credits play over a montage of action scenes from earlier Jackie Chan movies set to the song Secret Agent Man. The immediate gratification of seeing their man in action was immensely satisfying, but Kai found the following scenes that set up the plot and characters a bit tedious, “When is the Kung Fu?!” he whined to me after about the 10 minute mark. Fortunately he didn’t have to wait long. While Jackie had plenty of hi-tech spy gadgets, there were lots of classic examples of him using his environment and found objects (including a bike, ladder, folding chairs, frying pans and a refrigerator) in humorous ways to take down the bad guys.

A couple of things in the movie that Tina and I found quite touching were when Jackie’s character sang Chinese lullabies to put the 4 year old girl to bed, and when he explained to the 13 year old half sister who felt she didn’t belong, that he had been an orphan and had grown up in a group home. He told her that family wasn’t about whose blood you had, but who loved you.

The Spy Next Door is far from being a timeless classic, but Shen and Kai were thrilled with it so we were very glad to have taken them to see it. We were also presently surprised to see a preview for Jackie Chan’s next movie, a remake of The Karate Kid with Will Smith’s son, Jaden starred in The Pursuit of Happyness with his father. Interestingly this remake is set partially in China and the "Karate Kid" learns Kung Fu.



I have written before about our family’s fondness of Jackie Chan, who has a special place in our hearts because he built an entire new children's building at Kai's orphanage in Baoding, China. After we wrote and thanked him he sent Kai an autographed picture that now hangs in the boys' room. Yep, bonafide Jackie Chan fans in this house! To read what I wrote about that four years ago CLICK HERE.

*we took Kai to see Curious George in the theater four years ago when he was three, but he doesn’t really remember it.

What a Great Saturday! We had nothing mandatory on the schedule today, the new house is looking pretty well put together. Sure there's stuff we need to get done, but nothing we absolutely had to do today, so we made it a super fun play day! The boys let us sleep in a little, I made pancakes for breakfast and we had a nice lazy morning. Then we packed up Juno (the dog) and headed to Lake Padden to let her play in the dog park there. The place was pretty busy, with a lot of big dogs so she was a little overwhelmed by the pack, but she's used to big dogs and held her own pretty well. It was a beautifully warm day out for January, and we even had some sunshine! After Juno was done playing, Kai and Shen got to play on the climbing structure and run around in the main park. Now that we had all had some good outdoor playtime, we headed back home to drop off the dog and get some lunch before heading downtown to visit Mindport.

It's kind of hard to explain Mindport. We used to take Cam and Ben there all the time when they were younger, but we haven't been there in years, and Kai and Shen had never been before. It's kind of like a science museum, but it's more like an interactive art gallery. The exhibits feature many different science principles, but they are so beautifully designed and presented that they truly are art. While there are high-tech electronics featured in many of the pieces, most presentations are designed of wood and other natural materials. I was pleased to find that many of my favorite pieces from when we were last there years ago are still just as beautiful and fun to play with. Kai could have spent the whole time just playing in the stream of water. Shen was fascinated by the floating ping-pong balls. Tina and I both enjoyed watching the two of them explore the space.

When we were finally able to pull the boys away, we walked down the street for a doughnut at Rocket Doughnuts. This is another great little Bellingham spot, which I'm embarrassed to say we had never been to before. We are pretty hardcore fan's of Lafeen doughnuts which was very close to our old house, and while I still love Lafeen's, Rocket makes an excellent doughnut and a great cup of coffee!

Look who's 7! It's amazing to us that he has gotten so big so fast! We had a special birthday dinner for him tonight with his favorite, egg flower soup, and dumplings. We didn't go very big on presents for him this year, but he really enjoyed all the little things he got. And of course, the cardboard boxes they came in were even more fun! One of Kai's favorite expressions is "I gotta idea!" Here he is building a space ship after everything was opened...

Kai and Shen both LOVE Santa Claus! And I've got to admit that Tina and I are really enjoying getting to experience things like this a second time. We took them to the mall and stood in line for our turn to visit with him. I was really impressed with the jolly old man this year, he was truly in good form. I watched him take his time with each of his little visitors, and he was actively engaged in talking with each one of them and giving them as much time as they wanted. It may have meant the line moved a little slower, but it was very fun to watch. I would guess that being Santa in a busy mall the Saturday before Christmas could be pretty grueling, but this gentleman seemed to truly be enjoying himself and spreading the holiday cheer.

Today was Shen's 6th Birthday! We had a great little family celebration at home. Cam and Ben had work and school this evening but we're hoping they will join us in a joint Shen/Kai birthday celebration in a couple weeks. His big present was a new "Big" bike (16" wheels) which means he can now keep up with Kai out on the road. In this photo he is sporting a new night shirt hand-made by Gramma O -- check out the custom length sleeves, Gramma jammies are the best, no rolled up sleeves! And that hand gesture he's flashing, that's not a gang-sign, that's the Chinese hand sign for six (liu)! Cool thing about hand counting in Chinese, you can count to 10 on one hand, very handy for kids with one hand!

For the last year he's always seemed confused when asked how old is. He almost always answered "4", but today he seemed to be quite happy with being 6, and there was a lot of reinforcement. At bedtime Kai said that now that Shen was 6 they are twins. I told him, "Yes, for the next couple weeks they are twins." Then Kai said they'll be twins again next year when Shen turns 7.

And here's a shot of him riding the new bike!

Whatcom County Museum opened their new Light Catcher Building today. We took the boys to the free open house to see the new space. They have nature, art and history exhibits, as well as what they are calling "F.I.G." the Family Interactive Gallery, which replaces the old Children's Museum. The art exhibits were really well done, it felt like being in Seattle or Vancouver, I think it's an amazing facility for a town Bellingham's size. The FIG was good, but less than I had hoped for, it's not clear that they have a plan for rotating exhibits in this space. The boys liked it though, and it would be fun to take them back sometime when it's not so crowded. I'm amazed you can't see it in the photos I managed to take, but people were really packed in.

Wow, this is kind of late, but I just got the video up on Youtube last night. It's a little long, but there's some good video of Shen really getting into the goo. Kai is much more cautious, but he certainly participated more this year than ever before. I like watching the two of them just playing with the mush together towards the end.


Here's a couple pictures of Kai and Shen in their costumes. One is a firefighter and the other is Buzz Lightyear. I'll let you figure out which is which!

The house was very quiet when I got home from work tonight. Tina had classical music playing and Kai and Shen were both using a different laptop to play on Starfall.com. It's a great website for young children learning to read.

When we told the boys yesterday we'd be going to get pumpkins today Kai quickly protested that we couldn't because they have Chinese language school. We were pleased to hear that this has become a priority for him, but assured him we could get to the pumpkin farm early enough to do both. The farm we have always enjoyed going to in the past isn't open on Sundays, they have also started charging 3 bucks a head just to get in, so I wasn't too disappointed in having to choose a different farm. We originally thought we'd go to one we found down in Skagit county, but Google Maps said it was almost an hour drive. We wouldn't make it to Chinese school if we did that, so we settled on a farm we like for berry picking in the summer. I wasn't really happy with this plan as they don't have a lot of activities there, but the boys really wanted to get pumkins so off we went.

It turned out to be a beautiful outing! There was a brisk wind blowing down from the north, but it was sunny and clear. The boys are big enough to pull each other around in the wagons this year, which they thoroughly enjoyed. The farm had a tractor-pulled train ride which was free (something you have to pay extra for at the $3 place), and they were letting people cut dahlias for free as it's supposed to freeze tonight out there. They also have a great little playground where the boys enjoyed digging in the sand for quite a while, and the pumpkin prices were pretty much the same as at the grocery store. All in all it was a great time, and we made it back in time for Chinese school!