What to do on a rainy weekend with four kids? A park would be too wet to play, shopping malls are too crowded, indoor play area - forget about it! It's a mad house with wild children. I wanted to take them to a nice trail in the woods, but it was already in the late afternoon. After some pondering we decided to take them to the Botanical Garden in Bellevue. They have done some renovations recently and it has nice clean bathrooms and cute gift shop. There weren't too many people out there so it was in a way very nice. We put Noah on a leash and he was skipping and hopping singing some songs. He seemed very happy to be out. There is an Asian looking hut in the garden and we call it grandma's house because it's fun to call it that way. We brought my Mom here a few times and we sat in the hut together and took pictures.
As we strolled through deeper, we found a Japanese gate leading to "Yao Garden", a Japanese garden dedicated to the sister city Yao in Osaka. "I am so excited about this," Sean said and he ran toward the garden. Maybe he remembers visiting temples, shrines and gardens in Japan three years ago. After visiting the garden for many times, it was a big surprise for me to find a Japanese garden there. I had no idea such thing existed and I was just as excited as Sean to take a look. The gate looked authentic to me and it reminded me a lot about beautiful gardens in Japan. A gravel pathway led us to the walking path around the pond (it was more like a swamp) which you could cross on the big stepping stones. It was not picture perfect because it was not maintained very well, but I was still happy to have a Japanese garden nearby. Kids happily ran around and played even though it was raining.
Noah was good until we got out of Yao Garden. He wanted to go touch something in the fenced in area and he got very upset since I won't let him. He threw a kicking and screaming tantrum and I had to carry him back to the car. People might have thought I was kidnapping him! It is getting harder and harder to take him out. I have a feeling that he is almost at the tipping point where he is ready to listen to us. At times, I think he is pretending that he doesn't understand it to get what he wants. He looks at me with a certain dark shine in his eyes as if he knows how to trick me. It's mother's instinct and mothers know everything, of course!
Aly took a long test to evaluate her for the gifted program on Saturday. I didn't think she could take a test for 3 hours, but she did it! She even said it was fun. I didn't expect to hear that from her. She said it was difficult, but she tried her best. I don' think she qualifies for the program because she is not the type to show off her academic knowledge. Her favorite subject is recess and she rather be chatting with her friends than studying... Oh and she is engaged already. A boy proposed to her last year and she said "yes!" It cracks me up. The reason why she accepted his proposal is because he said he will invite her to his birthday party. Good reason, I suppose. His Mom and I volunteer in the class on Fridays and we had a good laugh about it. When she mentioned their engagement to her son, he said "but it was supposed to be a secret!" Ooops, I guess he learned girls gossip.
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