My Boys

After ALL these years (nearly 17) Jason still just melts my heart. I get excited to see him at the end of the day- and not just because he can hold the screaming baby. To me he is still my blue- eyed high school heart throb. On Valentine's Day he surprised me by bringing home my favorite- sushi. Then he seared the salmon with his blow torch, it was yum (and fun for him to play with fire) 

 Josiah is a mini- Jason in many ways and has equally stollen my heart. Look at these two!!

Olympic Fever

We have had SO much fun getting in the Olympics!!  I've been so inspired by all you can learn through the Olympics; geography, flags, events, rankings etc. This is really the first our kids have heard of the Olympics and their enthusiasm has been contagious. Around our house you'll hear them cheering "Team USA, Team USA" or "Go Jamaica!" 

 Any guesses at what "sports" they are practicing here?

 Answers : figure skating (with wax paper skates), bobsledding (that's right) and curling

Here is Josiah sporting his salt- flour gold medal. A champion in the making!

Grandparents in da House!

This Chinese New Year brought with it the best February weather ev-er AND Grandma and Grandpa! We've had so much fun with them!

 Guy Stuff

 Josiah came to breakfast like this the day after Grandpa's arrival

Of course there was building. . . the crowning project being a catapult per Josiah's request

 Girl Stuff

 We had a tea party a home then later in the week Annette went to her first REAL tea at The Langham Hotel. They offer a princess tea set for little girls. Annette loved every minute, especially putting sugar cubes in the tea cups and capturing everything on her camera.

We did some cultural things like the Lion Dance and fireworks over the harbor

 Got four Paines on the ice

Took a fun hike with friends to lunch by gorgeous Sai Wan beach

 Enjoyed the Zoological Garden

 And a surprise meeting of orangutan twins!! So fun!

 We'll miss you Grandma and Grandpa (and the San Diego weather you brought- it is now freezing!!!)

Beauty in Brokeness

I’ve gone through my life wishing for a big eraser. I’d like to erase all that is ugly because it distracts me from beauty. Saturday morning after my run I stole away for a short walk down our beach. It couldn’t have been more beautiful, clear skies, breezy 70 degrees, and birds singing. Except that to me, it actually could have been more beautiful because I wanted to “erase” the trash that had washed up and spotted the shore. I had to force myself to enjoy the beauty beyond this distraction of imperfection. 

I want to erase the parking lot from my living room view. I want to erase the wrinkles forming around my eyes. I want to erase the way I snapped at the kids to hurry up. I want to just clean everything up and have it as it should be. Part of the reason I love photography is because I can crop the messes from the frame to bring the beauty into focus. 

There is an ache in me that longs for the beauty of the Garden on Eden, no trash, no pollution, no sickness, no bad moments in a day. Sometimes I fool myself into thinking this could be found in life back in America. But life is messy (even in sunny California) and beauty and brokeness often seem intertangled, inseparably rolled up together in a ball called “life”. 

So I continue my journey to find beauty in unexpected places and learn to accept that life, while far from “perfect,” is full of treasure. I want to choose each day gratitude rather than criticism and to love rather than erase the broken world around me.

10 Months

It breaks my heart to think that our baby is just around the corner from being a toddler. These 10 months have gone by so fast! 

- when I say "let's go" she pants excitedly, grins and crawls to the door like a puppy dog

- she loves daily picking up her big brother and sister from school and gives me the widest smiles through the car window as a I go to get her out of her car seat

- her favorite foods are blueberries, bananas and fried rice

- occasionally without warning she crawls up to Josiah and Annette and sinks her teeth into them. . . yeow!

- she is very quiet most of the time but does say "mama" and "dada" (I think with some meaning attached)

- her newest games include pulling laundry off the drying rack, unraveling toilet paper and emptying 180 baggies from the box

- she has 9 teeth and working on 3 more 

- we've been doing a bit of hiking lately and she is all smiles riding up in the baby backpack