Grandparents

Grandma Sue and Grandpa Del stopped by today on their way South for the rest of the Winter. We all ate Subway sandwiches at the apartment, and then played Hearts. Mali refused to play since she hates Hearts for some reason. She helped Grandma for awhile, then left her winning to dish up ice cream. By her return, Grandma was losing and Andrew ended up winning.
Moose also came along. He would come by every so often to put his head on my leg and give me a big stare. Andrew held him for the last half of the game, which Moose enjoyed watching until the ice cream showed up, and then he intently watched Andrew eat it, bite by bite.

Game Night

The two dukes (Andrew and Matias) were over for game night tonight. We got started around 7:00. Andrew and I went out for pizza at Pizzicato first while Matias worked on his essay on Abraham Lincoln. We played three games:
Settlers of Catan
Blokus
Puerto Rico
We each got first, second, and third in a game, and the winner was a surprise every time. We played until 11:00.
Tomorrow morning Andrew has the swim-a-thon from 7:00 - 9:00, and Matias has an all-day band practice from 10AM - 9PM.

Mali is at Zoë's birthday party sleepover tonight, so no skiing for us tomorrow.

The Duke Everyone Loves

Andrew is voted The Duke Everyone Loves for the Southridge H.S. Winter Formal! This is the at-large dukedom, won with most votes overall without winning a category. The categories:
        Intellect (Matias wins this one!)
        Athletic (Jacob - from our soccer team.)
        Style (Andrew's friend/classmate Bret)
        Humor
My theory is he got a close second in Intellect and Athletics, with a few votes in humor and style from his fan club, such as it is.

He was very happy, especially to tell Mali that he wants her to escort him at the assembly at school before the dance. This made her very happy too. I'll get photos. Here's a photo of them reading the invitation to the assembly, Andrew in the crown he had to wear all day, after the trumpets in his leadership class announced his position.

Swim Team

Andrew has been swimming great. He's won two backstrokes in a row now. The photo below is from the Aloha meet. Southridge won easily.
100m Butterfly: 1:07.21
100m Backstroke: 1:05.07
1st leg (50m Backstroke) of 200m Medley Relay: 29:59 seconds

Nutcracker

Mali and her friend Zoë finally had their Nutcracker performance, postponed previously because of snow. Their class made up the party-goers in the opening scene. Mali was actually the first person to walk onstage. More photos here.
Here they are, after their performance:

Here they watch in amazement as the toys start to move.

Braces!

Mali got braces this morning! I took them out to dinner tonight. I was late from dodging the flooding in Fife and Chehalis, and we arrived at Tom's Pancake House at 8:01, discovering a large sign saying "Dinner served 5 - 8 PM" So we went to Denny's, where we were the only customers.
Here's Mali's new look: