When Sabriya has the chance to watch a TV show these days, she picks one of two shows: “Strawberry Shortcake” or “Survivorman”. The first show features a computer-animated series of chirpy miniature girls whose principal concerns are sugary foods, patching up friendships, and working together. The second show features adventurer Les Stroud trying to survive for a week with little more than a knife in the jungle or desert or arctic tundra, and whose principal concerns are catching enough bugs, limpets, and lizards to eat, making fires, and trying to keep out of the rain/sun.
Sabriya writes, rehearses, and performs for us a little number she calls “Bouncing Baby Bunnies!” Preparations for the performance include the production of, and collecting of, tiny paper tickets. The words go like this:
Bouncing Baby Bunnies!
Bouncing Baby Bunnies!
I like
You like
Bouncing Baby Bunnies!
If you see
you will love it
B-B-Bouncing Baby Bunnies!
I like
you like
Bouncing Baby Bunnies!
Jan and Bree take advantage of a rare bit of November sun to take a bike ride down the street. Bree’s still working on how to start pedaling on her own, but once she gets going, she’s pretty steady. She manages to ride with Jan several blocks down to the end of our street and back.
Liya, ready to attend the sixth grade’s first school dance!
Poor Bree’s been home sick for 11 days, setting some kind of record in our household. On Monday morning last week, we got a call from the school saying that Bree wasn’t feeling well. We brought her home, and later that day she had a fever. The next day, the fever continued — sometimes low, sometimes high. Same thing Wednesday, and Thursday. We brought her to the doctor that Friday, and all they could say was that it was most likely viral, but a test had ruled out the flu.
In the last few days, her fever trailed off, but a persistent cough developed. Today, Bree goes back to the doctor again for the fourth time in two weeks. It looks like she may have developed pneumonia. A chest x-ray confirms it, and so she’s starting a course of antibiotics. Bleah.
We can tell Bree’s feeling better today. She has a lot more energy, for one thing. She does some crafts and plays some games. She and Jan create a zipline for some tiny teddy bears that runs 40 feet from an upstairs railing to the front door.
Another way we can tell she has more energy is that she and Anya have a big argument.
The school holds its annual Engineering Event. For this year’s theme, “Drones”, the girls built a series of vehicles that drove, climbed, or ran suspended from a line. Liya’s been looking forward to the event for the past few weeks, and is so excited that she wakes up early.
Here Liya and her friend, Rada, wait to set their vehicles loose.
Anya and her friend, Kaila, collaborated on a little smiling buggy.
The rubber band-powered buggy zooms across the field.
After the Engineering Event is over, the school begins its 5 day Thanksgiving break. We stop by Eltana Bagels for lunch, which we like both for their great bagels as well as their fun daily crossword puzzle. We help Anya complete the crossword, and it turns out to be the key to an extended puzzle. Anya solves the puzzle and whispers the answer to the cashier. Anya’s happy with her prize: a dozen free bagels.
Greetings from Kouri, the hamster. She’s getting used to us, and is beginning to climb in our hands of her own will. She’s learned that, when playtime is over, she’ll get a little seed treat.
Jan’s stepsister Anne, her husband Jon, and kids Katie and Henry visit for the day. Katie wants to visit the Pike Place Market, so that’s where we head. We get piping hot doughnuts from the stall near the fish-throwing place, then let Katie get the picture of herself she wants taken in front of the original Starbucks retail location.
From there we stop by Uwajimaya, the Asian supermarket, to pick up ingredients for sukiyaki. The kids have fun picking out Japanese candy and snacks, then shopping in the Kinokuniya bookstore.
Back at home, everyone enjoys the sukiyaki meal. We’d thought we might have bought too much, but we somehow find room for nearly all of it.
Anne and Jon leave Katie with us for the night so she can have a sleepover with her girl cousins. Liya and Anya stay up late with her in the basement guest room.
Once again, we wait just a bit too long to pick our backyard kiwi. We usually try to do it the day after Thanksgiving, but this year we once again get a freakishly early snow flurry. We manage to get the kiwis off fairly quickly, but they’re partially frozen. Next year we need to do this a week earlier.