Easter 2015

I am finally working on the Easter post and it is still April!  I might be able to catch up to the current event if I keep this up :-)

Easter this year was a bit of a torture for me.  I was still sick with high fever and a couple of my children were also on antibiotics.  We weren't well at all to celebrate anything but the kids were looking forward to it so much, I sucked it up and went shopping the night before to collect items for the egg hunting in the backyard. 

My Mom helped put the candies and a little nick knacks in the plastic eggs.  She also sneaked out and hid them in the backyard.  The girls got dressed up in their Easter dresses from last year and were ready to go.  They all waited by the patio door with their buckets in their hands.  They ran out the door when it was time and excitedly looked for the eggs.  Some eggs were easy to find and others, well my Mom also forgot where they were.  There were 27 eggs total and each kid got about 8 eggs.  Noah wasn't interested in looking for eggs.  He just wanted to climb out of the fence and immediately started climbing the fence door.  That kid may become one of those escape artist you see on TV...

We did not do dinner because we were sick, so we took it easy all day other than the egg hunting.  I felt bad for my Mom and Nana since we could not celebrate Easter the traditional way.  I bought lamb for the dinner, but it had to wait.  Well, I suppose some years are going to be like this.  The children had a fun Easter and being able to spend it with my family, especially with my Mom itself was something memorable.

Grandma's Visit

Grandma demonstrating her origami trick boat with a helpful volunteer.

At the lunch room.

Grandma in action - making dinner for us.

My Mom visited us from Japan for three weeks from mid March to the first week of April.  I was looking forward to having her here because the kids always enjoy their time with grandma and she helps a lot with the household chores.  She was a lot of help as expected and played with the children, playing games with them and teaching them how to fold origami.  The kids had a lot of fun with grandma.  She is 76 years old, but has the energy of a 40-year-old (that would be like me).  She even took three of the kids to the Great Wolf Lodge by herself overnight by herself.  The children sucked her energy up like a leech, but she was unfazed and played in the pool for a long time with them.  I don't think many 76-year-olds could do that.  It must be something to do with being a teacher for 40 years! 

It happened that Saya's Royal Week (her class has a royal week where a student can be a prince/princess for a week) was on the first week of her visit, so she was able to go to her class to read a Japanese story and talk about Japan.  The kids were glued to the story and enjoyed listening to a Japanese folklore.  She also showed them some Origami she made and they were very curious about the art.  I need to learn how to create Origami as I don't know how to fold other than the simple "crane".  After the classroom visit, my Mom and I went to the lunch room and ate lunch with Saya.  She was very happy to have her grandma and I there.  It was a very special day for her.

We also were able to celebrate Easter with her.  Unfortunately, Mike, Sean, Alyson and I became severely sick with cold on the last week of my Mom's visit.  I had a fever of 104 for four straight days and finally on the fifth day, all four of us went to see a doctor to find out what is wrong with us.  It turns out, Mike, Sean and I had bronchitis and poor Alyson had pneumonia.  It was a terrible, terrible week.  This cold was so stubborn, it took a while even after taking antibiotics to get better.  I finally started to feel normal again in mid April.  Mike still has some coughs and being sick like that reminds me how precious being healthy is.  I felt bad for my Mom because I could not take her anywhere during our sick week.  I was impressed thought that she didn't get sick at all.  I think being around children often and living in a big city toughened up her immune system.  We, who live in the forest, are the weak ones! 

I did manage to take her to shopping often and she was able to experience the life as is, which is hectic, loud, crazy and lively.  She understood that I am barely surviving with everything I need to do, but I am also capable and well rooted in the community here in Bellevue.  She volunteered with me in four classes and saw how her grandchildren are doing in the class.  She tells me those are the things she wished to do, so I guess she was happy.  I just wished that I could have taken her to Vancouver, Canada or Portland.  It seems to me that we haven't yet progressed to giving back all she does for us by taking her to trips.  Next time we'll do that.  I surely will not get sick next time!

Thank you, Okasan, for coming to visit us!  Your visit means so much to all of us and we are very thankful for everything you do!

St. Patricks Day 2015

I am playing a catch up with my post as you can tell. :-)

St. Patrick's Day is an event our kids get excited about.  The idea of Leprechaun and a pot of gold are fascinating for little children.  Ever since the kids' kindergarten teacher taught them what Leprechauns do (which was Saya's first year learning about it at school this year), they have been wanting to catch them by making a trap.  Living in America for 20 plus years, I had never heard of making a Leprechaun trap before Sean's teacher taught him at school.  I had to call another Mom to ask what the heck he was talking about.  At 9 years of age, Sean still softly believes in Leprechaun.  I guess he is at an age he wants to hang on to all the familiar beliefs he cherishes and shut the reasoning part of the brain off for the sake of having fun.  Otherwise at 9,  how could he so be serious asking me where I think Leprechauns appear in our house at night?  He is a funny boy.

The girls and Sean made a Leprechaun trap each, designing it carefully to successfully trap a Leprechaun.  After my advice, Sean put his on the kitchen stove and girls put theirs under their dining room chair.  The girls excitedly chattered what the Leprechaun might bring for them this year.  They might be thinking Leprechauns are green Santa Claus.  I had to ran to Target after they had gone to sleep to find items from Leprechauns.  I spent good one hour looking for a suitable gift.  I blame myself for this tradition.  I left a little present for them one year and alas the kids think they get something on St. Patrick's Day.

I hope children remember all these fun memories from the little holiday like this.  I sure will remember them and think what a late night last minute shopper I was in my "young" days.  Thank you, Target, for opening until 11 pm at night...

Early Arrival of Spring

I thought this is something that is noteworthy.  We have two bushy cherry blossom trees in our front yard.  They are not much of a looker most of the year except of course when they light up pink and white in late March.  They tell us the pending arrival of spring every year and it happens usually around late March.  They bloom a tad earlier than the famous cherry blossom trees at the University of Washington.  This year they surprised me.  The lower buds started to blossom in late February.  It was in full bloom by early March and the flowers perished a week before my Mom came to visit.  It was the earliest since we moved to this house.  It looks like the flowers and trees are about three weeks early this year.  We did have a warm winter.  The kids were disappointed that there were no snow day.  I felt sorry for those people with a season pass at the nearby ski resort.  There was hardly any snow at the mountain.  It might mean that we will have a hot summer.  We, Seattleites, don't mind the hot summer days since we don't get those very often, but I am sure there are certain consequences we have to suffer like higher produce prices and water shortages.  It's just something that was interesting to me.  The nature is quietly telling us something is up.  I want to turn up a notch in becoming more earth-friendly this year. 

St. Edwards State Park

Exploring new parks is one of the favorite activities in our house.  Last year, we visited St. Edwards State Park in Kirkland since I heard from a friend that it has an amazing playground.  We went there the whole family and things were going well for a while until Noah started to act out at the playground.  He was mad at other children who wanted to use the plaything he wanted to use.  It became almost impossible to stay since he was screaming, so we left hastily leaving the other three unsatisfied. 

So one sunny day in March, I took the three children back to the park.  It was a glorious day with bright sunshine and everyone in the Puget Sound was out and about enjoying the sun.  That made the traffic and parking situation difficult, but we all need to make some much needed Vitamin D.  Seattleites naturally crave sunshine since it's way better than taking VitaD supplement. :-)

The park has a huge castle like play structures with multiple slides and hidden ladders.  It's fun to play hide and seek there since there are many little hiding places.  We played hide and seek together and with the huge crowd of children out there, it was more like "Where are Campbell kids?" game.  We had a good time.  I just wish we can come to parks like this with the whole family.  It has been an issue with Noah for a good four years now.  He takes off without considering his own safety and throws a huge tantrum when his stimuli gets overloaded.  When the weather is sunnier again, we can take him to a playground at a nearby elementary school.  School playgrounds on weekend are a good place to take him since it's practically empty and it has a huge area to run around.  Mike will usually watch the other three and I focus on Noah.  It takes one adult to make sure he stays safe outside.

We ended the day with a snack at Crossroads.  It was so fun that Alyson wrote about the day on her writing test and she received a high score.  As the weather gets warmer, I am sure we'll have many more outing like this.  Bring out the sun! (It was a drizzly day all day today...)

Sean's Winter Basketball

Oh good golly, it's been a month since I updated this blog!  This doesn't happen very often, I promise. The last time I abandoned the blog for a lengthy period of time was nearly three years ago when we had a flea infestation from our lovely cat, Grace.  Ok, no fleas this time, I was just plain-o-busy.  My Mom came and stayed with us for three weeks and most of my family had managed to get sick with severe cold.  We ended up having bronchitis and pneumonia.  Terrible, terrible, stuff!  I had a high fever every day for 5 days which went up to 104F at night.  We still have some left over coughs and it feels like we have been sick forever.  I can't wait till we are all healthy again.

So, looking at my photo archives, I missed writing about Sean's basketball season this year.  Since he had such a positive experience with football, he was very eager to keep himself occupied with team sports during his "off season".  We joined a local basketball team for third graders and the kids quickly bonded.  The good thing about playing team sports is that you develop an instant comradeship within the team having the same goal.  The coach was a high school junior but Sean seemed to like him and respect him a lot.  The practice was not as hard as football, but it kept his fitness level up and he often practiced dribbling and shooting on our driveway. 

I went to see his last game in March and I could not shut myself up.  "Sean, move this way!! No that way!!", it is so hard to keep quiet.  He is not the aggressive type of player, so he sort of runs around unnecessarily and doesn't get the ball as often as he wants to.  Once he gets the ball, he doesn't keep it too long.  Maybe he is afraid of screwing up.  It was his first season, so I think he was doing the right thing.  Once he gets more comfortable, he should be able to seek out the ball better.  He was happy that his team shirt is green as it is his favorite color.  He did take the team and individual pictures but we are not sure where they are.  I have to ask the coach when we are going to get them.  One of the parents emailed me wondering the same thing. 

He is taking a break right now from sports since I missed the registration for baseball.  I was hoping to put him in the Little League this spring.  I might enroll him in basketball again until summer.  It's just that drop off and pick up are a pain when I have to haul everyone in my van.  Alyson and Saya started taking a Japanese Calligraphy lessons on Thursdays, so their schedule got a little crazier.  It's a common grievance amongst parents and I want to salute all the Moms and Dad's out there in their minivans running around town like a rat chase everyday!