4th July Uncle Brad's Family Visit

Brad, Karin and Kaia came for a week visit during 4th July as well. Andy split time between my family and Joe's. He grew very attached to cousin Kaia.



Having a good time at a birthday party at Seattle Children's Museum (which has become a ritual to go with daddy on Sundays).

Boise Trip

We went on a long car trip (8hr, split into 2 days) to Boise to visit Matthew's grandparents (10/1 eve-10/8). It was a lot of fun and relaxing (internet free). Andy did surprisingly well on the trip. He only got cranky when we got close to Boise declaring he didn't want to go to Boise. He got even better on the way back: he just quietly enjoyed all the scenery (which was really gorgeous that'd I'd love to spend a month painting along the highway) mostly. I guess even car trip is trainable: he was significantly better on the way back.


The first rest stop in Idaho



Chasing ducks at the Julia Davis park to the zoo across the street.



Playing with dog Chole
Andy loved Charlotte (Matthew's aunt)'s dogs and cats. When he saw a dog days after, he talked about Chole, we were really surprised that he still remembered. He warmed up to the grandparents well. He and Matthew's grandpa fed a lot of ducks together by the river stream running through the back yard. By the end of the trip he didn't want to leave Boise, he said let's go to Charlotte's house and go play with Chole instead.



Climbing the sand dunes!



The discovery center full of physics experiments!




Andy remembers places along the way many days after: his favorites were Yakima and he'll add that there're 3 swimming pools (referring to the hotel we stayed at) and Pendleton (the hotel on the way back, pictured him in the pool).
It was a wonderfully relaxing week with wonderful people. I painted with Matthew's grandma (who also paints) in their sunroom during duck feeds.

3 Year Old

Time flies! Andy turned 3 already. Here are some pictures taken on this birthday, including one around the tree that he was photographed under 3 years ago, in the same car seat.
Three years ago:


Today:


At the magic age of 3:
- Andy talks a lot, and is cheerful usually. He asks "why" a lot lately. He does the natural switch of speaking Chinese to me and English to others. He understood he is 3 now, and asked where did 2 go. We are volunteers in this Plagiocephaly study so Andy goes for an extensive Child psycholgy evaluation at 18 mo. and 3 years. The researcher at his 3 year visit said his language skill was impressive. At school, his teacher was surprised that he knew octagon in their shape lesson.
- He loves reading and doing Chinese flash cards on computer. He also loves Elmo CD's and Chinese children music (MeiMei was his fav, losing out to Elmo recently) and has taken over car music selection.
- We are switching him to a bilingual school called Little Dinosaurs starting November (next week)! Will see how that plays out.
- He is mostly potty trained since the summer. I think hanging out closely with Cedric (5 months older than Andy, potty trained before 1) had a large influence on him, so did intently watching elephants peeing and pooing one day. He just kinda got it after that. He was doing really well at night too, waking me up at 3AM because he had to go. The night training seems to have regressed now that the nights are longer and the bed warm cozy.
- He learned a couple more yoga moves. His favorites are down dog (learned a year ago), up dog, and side stretch. He likes to turn on the "yoga TV" for moma in the mornings.
- No doctor visiting all year. Andy has been very healthy.
- Andy is a foodie. He loves to sample everything and help cooking. His favorite is same as mom's: pbb.

It's been a blessing and adventurous 3 years. Andy brought us so much joy that I'm grateful for everyday.

July 4th Week With Grandma Zhong and Uncle QI

It was a busy week. Grandma Zhong and uncle Qi came to visit for about a week following the 4th weekend. Uncle Brad, auntie Karin, and cousin Kaia also came the same week (Joe can speak to the fun outings on their side).

We went to the Pacific Science Center on Saturday, and then Portland for 4th and 5th. Andy loved the Rose Garden and Oregon zoo.

The next week Andy got to skip school a lot and spend a lot of time with relatives. The next Saturday (7/10) we went to the Seward Park in Seattle in the morning and then both XiaoXong (Cedric) and XiaoShi (Andy) got a hair cut in the afternoon.

Seward Park

Posing with the new hair cuts, saying bye to Uncle Qi (back to CA)

XiaoXong and XiaoShi have been spending a lot of time together on weekends.

This is the first time the two held hands (on a Friday (7/3) evening stroll back from the Kirkland marina), and then they became hardly apart on weekends. Xiaoshi often asks about XiaoXong out of blue now.

2010 Olympics in Vancouver

Andy and I went on a 2.5 hour car trip to Vancouver for the last day of Olympics. He was good most the way through the ride before becoming cranky. But the promise of Chinatown food kept him going for the last hour.

We parked at Riverside in Richmond and took the air train to the city (Andy liked that a lot). The torch was beautiful. We spent a long time around it (too long, should not have got into the way-too-long line for seeing it close up). Andy fell asleep during the loudest street celebration of the hockey final of CAN v.s. U.S., such lively patriotic crowd! Andy woke up shortly on the train back. We stopped by Richmond again and we were content with the food again :)

More pictures:

20100228Vancouver

Slug at Daycare 6/7/2010

Another interesting daily summary from teacher Andrea at the daycare:

Andy had a great day! Today we painted paper grocery bags blue. We'll turn them into police men vests once they dry :) On the playground we found a slug in the garden. Andy was very cute and asked me if he oculd touch it. I said only with one finger and very softly. After he touched it he told me it was "slimy". Andy became very protective of the slug. When other children went to touch it, he'd tell htem what I told him and then he'd also tell them they could only touch it once :) It was really cute.

I can totally see him doing that, it seems to be in his nature to be caring, protective and rule abiding.

He started using the toilet at daycare lately. Hope he'll get potty trained soon.

Andy Talks in Daycare

Tuesday 4/27 is the day.
Today's report is a bit unusual:
- In the Deposition circle where Andy usually gets "happy, curious, friendly, busy", he also gets "chatty" marked.
- The hand written note started with "Andy had a fantastic day!" instead of "a good/great day", and was double in length that it went on to the back of paper.
It goes like this:
Andy had a fantastic day! Today on the playground he was speaking to us in full sentences! He found a lot ladybugs and was telling Vanya all about them then when I (Andria) got outside he came over to me, grabbed my hand and pulled me over to show and tell me. He kept saying "Look, I found a ladybug", "Oh, there's another one." Then we started talking about the plants in teh garden. I showed him where the strawberries were growing and he then told me "It going to grow big, big, big". It was really cute and made us all so happy :=)

Then he kept his mouth tight again the next couple days. On Friday he talked again when he found ants. Andria wrote "I guess I need to get into bugs because today on the playground Andy found some ants and talked to me about it :=) I love hearing his voice!"

Julie (was his teacher, left daycare recently) came to visit the daycare that Friday afternoon. Joe said Andy was talking to Julie when he picked up. At night, when we usually talk about what he did today, instead of the usual answer of "see daddy", Andy kept repeating "I talked to Julie". He must have been pretty excited seeing his favorite teacher coming back to visit him.