To celebrate a sunny New Year’s Day, we go for a walk around the neighborhood. It’s warm for January, but still a little chilly. Anya wears exactly the same outfit she wears all year round: t-shirt, skirt, and Crocs.
Anya has grown old enough to realize that the dozens of Rainbow Magic books she made us buy for her are all exactly the same story. Since Anya likes Mad Libs, Jan suggests to her that she distill the archetypal Rainbow Magic story into Mad Libs format. She gives it a shot, and nails it. You can read the result at http://www.scribd.com/doc/77308561/Name-The-Thing-Fairy.
Bree is learning her alphabet by making a paper “laptop”. She got the idea from Anya, but the drawing and writing are hers. It folds in half; the keyboard is the bottom half.
In the evening, we’re playing our occasional dinnertime game of: “Which three adjectives best describe your day?” Somehow we end trying to guess Anya’s adjectives, and are having trouble guessing one of them. She’s given us the first letter, but we still can’t guess it. After she says, “No, that’s not it” over and over for a few minutes, she leaves the table to make up an index card that says, “No” on it. Thereafter, she holds up this card in response to incorrect guesses. Our guesses devolve somewhat, and we start offering silly, made-up words. Anya flips the card over to reveal that the other side of the card says, “That’s not an adjective!”
Anya and Liya’s school starts their annual Winterim tradition: for the next six Fridays, kids will go skiing or ice skating in lieu of normal classes. This year Anya will continue to ski at Crystal Mountain, while Liya is trying ice skating.
Johnny and Zenni fly up from L.A. to spend the weekend with us. All the cousins (our girls, their boys) are delighted to play together all weekend long. We all go on the interesting tour at the Boeing factory, but the real highlight is that it snows. Cousins Anthony and Brian (pictured) have never seen snow falling, and have a great time joining the girls in a snowball fight.
The cousins have a fun time sledding down the hill at Madison Park beach. Bree and Brian love sledding over a small jump someone’s constructed halfway down the hill. Johnny plays “catcher” to make sure no one goes sledding straight into the frigid waters of Lake Washington.
Last year, Jan gave Liya a kid’s cookbook called, “Honest Pretzels”. The two of them take advantage of the long weekend (MLK Jr. Day) to cook up dinner together. Liya helps plan, shop, prep, and cook the meal: baked potatoes with red pepper puree, and a chocolate tart for dessert.
The snow has kept the girls’ schools closed all week.
We take the girls skiing at Stevens Pass. Bree does an afternoon lesson, and afterwards has fun having Jan pull her up the gentle slope so she can ski down. Bree ends up outlasting her older sisters, who call it a day early so they can warm up in the lodge.
Sabriya’s Saturday morning Chinese school celebrates the Chinese New Year with their annual talent show.