A couple of Maile’s classmates were having a birthday party up in Point Reyes on Saturday. Its about an hour and half drive from the city, so I found a little cottage on Airbnb and we decided to make a weekend out of it. We drove up on Friday and came back Sunday AM. In between we had a fun visit to a part of the Bay Area that I’d never been to before.
The girls have been on a big Totoro kick lately so they were thrilled when we arrived at the cottage and it resembled the house in the story set way back in the woods as it was...
On Saturday morning we set off to find this abandoned boat that a friend had told us about. Clearly Maile thinks she has found it...
... and she was right! Doesn't this look like she is standing in front of a painting?
Family Picture (Maile nearly 6 and Lauren 2.5)
... and, of course, we had plenty of watermelon all weekend!
(Apologize for missing a couple posts this week – busy times for the blogger 🙂
So proud of this girl!
Alas, we make it to the actual Kindergarten Graduation ceremony – they did a really nice job with a few songs in both Chinese and English and calling each kid up to receive a diploma and a proper handshake from their teachers.
The full ceremony is below – its about 7 minutes long. If you want to skip to see Maile Girl collect her diploma, you can go to the 3:22 mark.
The graduate accepting her Kindergarten diploma
(Click here for the video.)
I sometimes reflect back on my own memories and try to think about what Maile will remember. Most of it is a big blur. My guess is this blog will play some role in helping Maile with her own memories. Or she’ll just be lucky and take after her mother instead of her father and remember absolutely everything.
To the extent my writing her has some influence, let me just remind you, Maile, that you had two amazing Kindergarten teachers! The didn’t coddle you, but they loved you and supported you and taught you so much. My guess is you were having so much fun most of the time that you didn’t even realize it. With them as your guide, your Chinese went from words strung together to full, confident sentences. And you used those words and sentences to explore so much of the world around you. Your senses. Our family. Art. Water and weather. The food we eat. How things move.
Yesterday I posted pictures of how much you grew and changed physically – but the mental and emotional changes you went through this year are even greater. Matthew Lao Shi and Lorraine Lao Shi were your guides every step of the way. You certainly don’t have everything sorted quite yet, but they led you well and gave you an incredible foundation to keep building upon.
Maile and Matthew Lao Shi
Maile and Lorraine Lao Shi
Maile’s Kindergarten graduation was on Friday afternoon – we’ll be talking about it more this week, but for tonight I thought these pictures captured all the thoughts going through my head about how fast and how much our little girl has grown up this year.
Here's Maile all ready for her Kindergarten graduation...
... and here she is on her very first day of Kindergarten last fall.
And to really blow your mind, here she is on her very first day of school in 2011. Wow.
We’ve covered it here a few times before that Maile Girl is a bit … cautious … when it comes to heights. She’s up for her fair share of adventure, she just prefers to know a bit about what she is getting herself into.
Needless to say when Christine said she wanted to take the girls over to the climbing wall they had setup at a nearby park, I didn’t have high hopes – but Maile certainly proved me wrong … and I couldn’t be prouder!
Maile Girl getting her bearings - there's a long climb ahead.
And then up she went!
(Dad note: Lauren would like me to add that she was ready to rock the wall too, but they deemed her too light to partake. Next time, Lauren, next time…)
(Click here for the video.)
Today Christine completed the San Diego Rock N’ Roll Marathon – it was the culmination of countless hours of training and a goal (“run a marathon”) she has had for as long as I can remember. I brought the girls down to San Diego to watch. Now a marathon isn’t a super easy thing to watch, we caught her around the 10K mark and then again at the finish. Maile made a great sign all be herself and they both had fun yelling and cheering and watching Mommy run. They definitely didn’t totally understand how far Mommy ran (I tried a few different ways to convey it to Maile, but not sure it stuck).
For the girls, this is one of those accomplishments that will gain meaning over time. I couldn’t be happier that Christine is the role model they see day in and day out of what a mom, wife, friend and, most importantly, woman is all about. It doesn’t need to be a marathon. But the fact that Christine took the time to train for this, to raise money for Leukemia via a phenomenal Team In Training experience and that she pushed herself on the day of to go further than she ever had before — and that she did all of this while still doing all of the very many things she does for our family. Well, that’s the part I’m excited to tell the girls about. And that’s why I’m so very proud of Christine!
We first caught Mommy right around the 10K mark. Well, she techncially caught us. Things were a little slower than anticipated getting the girls in gear, so she ended up ahead of us, but she doubled back to say hello.
Maile and the sign she made for Christine all be herself...
Shockingly, we enjoyed cheering on the runners...
After the earlier 10K timing debacle, I might have gotten us to the finish line a little too early - so the girls had some time to kill...
And then all of a sudden, there Mommy was!
So happy to see Mommy at the finish!
Mommy and her girls - somehow they gave her 2 medals - lucky for us 🙂
All of us celebrating Mommy's first marathon!
(Click here for the video.)
Mommy capped the weekend of adventures by taking the girls out to the Oakland Zoo on Monday morning. They had a fun girls day exploring the zoo and playing on the rides!
The animals are cool. But the map is awesome!
And if Maile has a map, Lauren has a map too.
Cheeks in full effect!
Maile likes going on the merry go round solo now...
... Lauren prefers to be right next to Mommy.
Mommy, Lauren and Maile on their girls day adventure to the zoo
Mommy was on a roll this weekend with the fun activities. On Sunday, we headed down to Stanford to check out the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford. It actually re-opened while I was at Stanford back in 1999 (it had been damaged in an earthquake) – but I’m actually ashamed to admit I had never actually been to it before. It’s a pretty fantastic museum and on certain Sundays they have a family day where they give the kids art kits and they have special tours and art classes. Right up our alley!
You'll sense a theme in these pictures - Maile does something, Lauren checks it out...
... and then gets involved!
Maile working on her first piece of art for the day - a very colorful gumball machine.
Lauren LOVED her art kit. She pretty much loves anything that can carry things.
We've seen Maile do this before, but a first for Lauren - working on her art projects in orange, of course, her favorite color!
Museums that let kids lie out on the floor like this and create are awesome - kudos to Stanford for a great family day!
We stayed local this Memorial Day weekend, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t have some fun adventures. Things started off on Saturday morning when Mommy planned a trip out to Point Bonita Lighthouse. It was just a short drive over the Golden Gate Bridge near Sausalito. We had fun hiking down to the Lighthouse with the girls – unfortunately, we didn’t time it right, so, as you’ll see, we didn’t make it to the lighthouse proper – but we still had fun!
Mommy, Maile and Lauren at the start of our mini hike...
Not sure what started the head tilting...
Hey, what are you doing?
Nailed it! If Maile is doing it, it must be cool.
Still rocking the head tilt.
Sister love with the Golden Gate in the background...
And here ends our visit to the lighthouse. This door doesn't open until 12:30 PM and it was about 10 AM when we got there. Ah well, a reason to come back 🙂
Lauren has the beginnings of a little cough, so we decided this morning to give her the nebulizer. She was not pleased with this decision and kept saying “no tank you, no tank you” over and over. She was clearly scared.
Cue Maile Girl who offered to help. She had Lauren sit next to her and then she held the nebulizer while the girls watched a show together. Definitely some big sister bonus points were earned – Christine and I were quite proud 🙂
Don't worry, big sister won't let anything bad happen to you...
