One of the parents at the birthday party took some great pictures of Maile and Lauren on the beach…
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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!
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(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.)
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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
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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.
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She may be tiny, but she packs a mean punch!
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Lauren’s new favorite thing is running after pigeons, and when she gets close, jumping at them and yelling “hi-ya”…
Yes, it’s as adorable as it sounds.
(Click here for the video.)
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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.)
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Lauren and Elena
Just something about this picture that I really love – Lauren and her best friend, Elena.
Have a great weekend!
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I have to say, I’ve probably heard “Let It Go” hundreds (if not thousands) of times at this point.
But watching Lauren sing and perform never gets old for me….
(Click here for the video.)
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