Today was the SF Aloha Run – a really nice 5K they organize to support a Japanese community center here in SF. In addition to the 5K, they have a “keiki” run of a mile for kids 6-10 and a 100 yard dash for younger kids. We thought it’d be fun to sign the girls up.
Maile and Christine ran the mile – and they absolutely rocked it. Lauren ran the 100 yard dash and came in first place in the 2 year old heat! (She had some great coaching from her big sister).
Here’s Maile in the homestretch of the mile – check out that speed!
And here’s Lauren doing her 100 yard cash – just absolutely focused on that finish line 🙂
I think we have another thing where the girls are taking after their mommy – and we couldn’t be happier 🙂
(Dad note: technically this wasn’t Maile’s first race – back in 2013, she did a fun run out in Oakland. Remember that?)
Mommy and the girls ready to rock (Lauren was being shy, but gave us a nice view of her racing number)...
Mommy and Maile right before the start.
On the run...
A post-race Maile showing off her medal...
Coach Maile giving Lauren a post-race pep talk!
(Click here for the first video.)
(Click here for the second video.)
Maile came home from school today all excited to teach us a new method she is learning for adding up big numbers that you can’t quite do in your head. She grabbed a piece of paper and showed us how it works. It’s pretty cool – I don’t personally recall learning it quite this way before.
After she nailed it a few times, I asked her if we could video how it works…
We had fun after dinner seeing if I could stump her with different problems (I got her once, but she got it the second time through…) School is definitely getting pretty fun this year 🙂
Last week Maile started an after school class learning the Kongfu Fan dance. Kongfu Fan is a traditional Chinese dance that is over 2,000 years old. There are 52 movements in the dance. Here is a good video:
And here is one of the 52 moves that Maile learned today:
Strike a pose, now let's get to it...
This year, the teacher gave all the kids a fan to bring home to practice with – Maile was pretty excited to show us her fan dance moves. Here’s a taste of what’s to come…
95% of the time the girls play together amazingly. Lauren absolutely worships Maile.
5%, okay maybe 10%, of the time things go down hill a bit. Typically this involves Lauren playing with some toy or stuffed animal that Maile hasn’t even glanced at in 3 years and all of a sudden, Maile decides to lay claim to it and insisting on playing with it again.
But most of the time, we still get a lot of this (from 2 years ago – 2013)…
Maile’s school started a new program this year called, Jiating (Family in Chinese). Maile has her own family consisting of children in the various grades – there is a 3rd grader, a couple second grader, a couple 1st graders and a few kindergarteners. They’ll play and work together over the course of the year with the cross grade groups. Maile’s family is called the Pandas.
For their first activity, they made a rock garden – they painted rocks – right up Maile’s alley!
We hope all of our Jewish family and friends are having a wonderful Rosh Hashanah! We celebrated last night with some apples and honey and a delicious roast chicken meal that Christine put together. Maile led us in a recap of all we should be thankful for and Lauren, of course, followed her lead (Mommy is high on the list as she should be 🙂
Rosh Hashanah family picture (Maile 6 and Lauren 2.5)
Remember awhile back when I posted how Maile started making videos about her various arts and crafts projects? Well, she is still at it. And, she has a protege in Lauren now too.
Warning – these videos are super long. You’ll get the gist of them in just a few minutes. However, you might find yourself sucked in.
Maile is quite chatty in her videos. You’ll find that Lauren takes a bit of a different technique. Quieter, more focused on, well, she likes looking at herself in the camera. You’ll see…
(Click here for Maile’s video.)
(Click here for Lauren’s video.)
This afternoon while Lauren was napping, Maile and Christine embarked on an origami adventure. No longer satisfied with your standard butterfly or crane, the scoured the internet and found some pretty cool shapeshifting/transforming/more-than-meets-the-eye origami coolness.
And, of course, they would not rest until they learned how to form these creations for themselves.
Having an artistic mommy is basically the coolest thing ever for a little girl like Maile.
My favorite origami goofball!
When Lauren woke up they had moved on to make 3D creations and they all studied the tape to learn how it was done...
