Last Day of School!

Mali is wearing one of three smiley-face shirts that she, Hannah, and Rachel bought so they could all match on the last day of school, and they're going to have everyone sign them. Mali cleverly attached three different color short sharpies to a necklace so she'll have them with her.
She's out early today, at 2:40. Andrew will be home by 11:30. It's sunny and warm here - ~73, so maybe they'll go to the pool. Andrew was there all afternoon yesterday with Rian, Tiana, and Eric (and Tiana's charge, Cody.)

Andrew's Birthday Evening

Andrew did not go to the track meet, because none of his friends wanted to go (so we still have a ton of chocolate muffins...) Instead he met up with them at Tiana's house, and she made him a cake. It was ridiculously hot here, so no one was too interested in dinner. Mali cooked up some raviolis that she and I ate, and Susy made Andrew a Caesar salad at his request. Kind of lame for a birthday dinner, but we'll take him to GoGo's next week. Andrew LOVES his Mongolian Grill.

Chauffer

My evening:
Drove Andrew, Rian, Tiana+Cody, and Eric to the Division Varsity Track Meet at Jesuit. Gave Andrew a $20 to pay for everyone, since no one brought money. They were lucky I had some cash.
I rushed home to pick up Mali and drive her to meet Collin and someone else (?) at the 5:30 showing of Iron Man. Susy may have to pick her up afterwards.
Update: Nope, Collin's mom gave her a ride home.

Track Meet at Southridge vs. Beaverton

Andrew ran his 1500m in 4:38, beating his old best time by 8 seconds. He came in third best for Southridge, though there was a Beaverton runner or two ahead of him. It took a lot out of him, he looked a little tired for his 800m run an hour later. He ran a decent-for-him 57 second 400m as the first leg of the winning JV 4x400 team.
I brought Rian and Moose along with me, and saw Tiana and Isabelle and it was mostly a party-like atmosphere. Very fun for everyone, even through the intermittent rains.

Mali missed out on that, but seemed to have a great time at her rehearsal for The Music Man. She says they're ready, which is good since tomorrow is Opening Night! The grandparents will be here and it should be quite an event. Details tomorrow.

Scrabble

It has been a long time since the usual suspects got together for a game of Scrabble. Susy and I joined Paul and Nancy (where we left Mali) for awhile after Indian food. Then Alana joined us, Susy took Mali home, and we called Pablo to come over for Scrabble while Nancy watched Bruce Almighty.
Andrew had a night out watching movies at Tiana's with his usual gang (Rian, Tiana, and Eric.)

Running in the rain, Dancing in the street

Andrew decided his ankle was better enough for track practice today, I'm sure only because they were doing 400m time trials. He hasn't run a 400m in over a year, and was very curious how he would run. His goal was to finally finish under a minute.

I went to pick him up early to see if I could watch, and I got there at the perfect time: just as the first heat of boys were starting. Andrew ran in the second heat, and got second to last place in his heat, but it looked like the other kids were all juniors and seniors. He was so happy with his time I think he forgot it was raining for awhile: 57 seconds!
Very close to 57 flat, so he's sure he can get a 56.something soon, especially since this was in the rain, which he hates, and he got stuck in lane 1 with all the puddles.

After track he decided to go to the dance with Rian, his friend girl - not girlfriend, and practically Mali's big sister. I dropped them off at Tiana's house, where they (Eric too) got all decked out in Emo attire. The Spring Fling was a come as your own theme, or something. I picked them up at 9:30 and there was a WIDE assortment of outfits wandering around the school. I'll post a photo of Andrew after I upload it off my camera.

Friday night shopping

Woohoo! Mali needs clothes for the cruise - she just keeps growing. We all (except Andrew, who was lucky enough to get out of it) went shopping last night. At least it wasn't crowded. Who goes shopping on Friday night?
Andrew went to see Jumper with Tiana and Rian.

Maiara's Birthday!

I am still sick, but getting better. Drugs help. Now Susy is also sick. At least she got to sleep most of today since it was her Friday off.
Andrew's swim meet last night was his best yet. He got his best times and took second place in the backstroke and third in the butterfly. I got to go since it was at Aloha H.S. and Mali's first soccer practice of the year was also there. Chauffeuring made easy, for a change.

Today is Maiara's birthday! Susy made a chocolate cherry cake and we're bringing it over in a few minutes. We won't be staying long, since I have a strong desire to fall into my bed. Andrew went to a feast at Southridge, and just called to tell me he's going to the basketball game with Tiana and Eric. The feast was to follow a fast several classes did to raise money for Uganda, but athletes were supposed to raise money some other way. Andrew did this by exchanging the fasting bit with a promise to eat extra food next week. Some of the swimmers fasted, and their coach yelled at them today. Duh. Most of the freshman swimmers look like scarecrows.
Here's Maiara with the cake and the only candle Alana could find:

Snow!

Okay, mostly just a little ice. Andrew woke me up at 5:00 so I could take him to swim practice. The roads were icy, but not bad. I came home and went back to bed. At 7:00, he called and asked for a ride home because school is delayed two hours. There was still no snow at our house, but there was about an inch at Southridge. Very unusual, since we're a couple hundred feet higher. I drove him, Tiana, and Alex(andria) to Rian's house. School MAY have been already postponed when we left for swim practice, but neither of us checked.
Here's Mali taking Moose out for a walk this morning.

Poker Saturday

Rian and her mom, Terri, threw a Texas Hold'em poker party Saturday night. Andrew and Mali were very excited - for entirely different reasons. Andrew is quite keen on poker, and Mali thinks Rian is her wonderful new big sister. There were four adults: Terri, Joan (Eric's mom), and Susy and I; and 7 kids: Rian, D, Tiana, Eric, Aaron, Andrew, Mali. Kyle was supposedly coming late, but never showed up. Food was an assortment of chips, candy, and pop until the pizza showed up.
We played on two tables and mixed them up a couple of times. I only got to play with Andrew and Susy once. We all made money except Mali, who, after losing her $2 initial stake and buying in twice more at $2 apiece, ended up coming back strong to only lose 90 cents of her $6. I was the big winner, ending with $5.31. This was difficult as I lost a lot early playing next to Joan, who'd never played before, so of course was ridiculously lucky.
All in all it was a great time, though a bit noisy with all the kids. It was very nice to get to know Terri a little bit. We will probably try to have a similar party here soon.

Happy New Year!!!!

We spent the evening at Pablo's with Rocio, Tsulan, and Tom. Pablo and Rocio threw together a delicious sweet potato soup, and so we barely touched the pizza we ordered.
Andrew threw a big bash at our house with Rian, Tiana, Eric, and Kyle. Mali made them cookies, and they cooked pizza's from Papa Murphy's. Matias and the twins crashed it early. We made them all come over to Pablo's at midnight for the New Year's toast, then the kids moved into the garage to play ping pong on Rocio's new table. They challenged me to a game since I'd been drinking, but I still managed to demolish Andrew and Matias with little difficulty.

Merry Christmas!

Mali slept until 8:16, so we had until 8:30 before she and Andrew roused us for the great opening. Andrew said they have a deal: whoever wakes up first wakes the other one. There's really not any question as to who that would be.
At 10:00 we headed to Tsulan, Tom, and Tiana's for breakfast, and met Pablo, Rocio, and Matias there. We all stayed and watched A Muppet Christmas Carol. We just got home, and Rian is here. In an hour we're going to Paul and Nancy's for a ham and smoked turkey dinner.

We have tree.

Mali requested a tree this year. We have tried placating her in the past with several of the small, two-foot high, pre-decorated, artificial trees, but apparently that has not done the trick. We stopped getting Christmas trees after we had spider infestations three years in a row. Nothing like sitting down on the floor Christmas morning to discover those tiny black specks on the carpet are moving, and are really tiny baby spiders. Now that we have hardwood floors in the living room I thought it would be easier to monitor the spider situation. Or at least clean up afterwards.
The first words out of Mali's mouth this morning were, "Where are the Christmas lights?" We didn't decorate last night because we were across the street at a holiday party to meet the new neighbors.

Our new next-door neighbors are great. Jeff and Allison, and their kids: Andrew(4) and Holly-rhymes-with-Mali(1), the same age our kids were when we moved in. Other similarities: Holly was the happiest baby I've seen since Mali, just thrilled to be crawling her way into every cabinet and drawer she could get her hands on. She is late to walking, like Mali, whereas her brother was an early walker/runner like Andrew.
The other relatively new neighbors have a tiny kid too, but Molly stayed home with her dad.

More News: I finally got to see Maiara and meet Samira! Alana brought them over on the way to the Saturday Market downtown. Maiara is the skinniest girl I've ever seen. She looked like a model, which cannot possibly be healthy, but is very striking. Samira is her older sister - 23 and also beautiful.

Alana also rescued us by bringing over a box of appetizers for us to take over to the party. Mali really didn't want to go, because she knew she and Kelsey were going to be stuck watching the four mobile little kids, Lucy, Alex, Abby, and Andrew - only Holly was trapped in the kitchen with the adults. They did a great job, playing hide-and-seek, and of course Mali put on a show for them involving her and Kelsey in a sleeping bag moving around like a giant worm. I think she even had fun. We stayed after everyone left and talked with Dave and Gayle for awhile, finishing off the wine and eating too much of the artichoke dip that Karen brought.
We came home to find Andrew's roving party had been pared down to Rian and Tiana, Eric and Hailey had gone home. They were watching Pirates of the Caribbean 1. We crashed on the couches and watched the rest with them. They had started out at the nearby House of Good Fortune for lunch, and were all playing poker in our kitchen when we left for Dave and Gayle's house.

Halloween!

Mali did her trick-or-treating with Hannah and Rachel - they left around 7:00, somehow returned to trick-or-treat our house around 8:00 with Andrew's friends Maddie and Joe, and then ended up at Alana's around 8:30, where Susy and I joined them and the full-scale party going on. There were over a dozen adults and what seemed like a hundred kids at Alana's - All the adult usual suspects and then some, plus scores of Olivia's friends. Alana had her usual gargantuan pot of chili, Jennifer brought an amazing apple tart, and of course Deborah brought more cookies and brownies then even the hordes could get through.

Andrew had Rian and Kyle over after school, then around 5:00 they headed over Kyle's party. Andrew, Tiana, Ethan, and Rian ended up at Tiana's house when the rest of the party went trick-or-treating, and Andrew finally got home around 10:30.

Supergirl Hannah, Waitress Mali, and Pirate Rachel.

Southridge Back-to-School Night

Andrew got stuck going with us to his back-to-school night because of traffic problems on the way home from allergy shots. This was lucky for us, since we had a guide to navigate to all of his classes. Most of his teachers seem very good - his Japanese teacher was very funny, and his English/Social Studies team seemed like a lot of fun too.
He didn't have soccer after school today, so Rian and Tiana came home with him, and Eric joined them and they all played poker for awhile.
Mali had her first Acting Workshop after school today. Rachel is doing it with her, and they both had fun with it - after the initial scare - Mali had to go to the office to retrieve her permission slip.

Superbowl weekend

Beautiful weather, and I did not go skiing. Instead, we went to Tsulan, Tom, and Tiana's house for a superbowl party. Fun, except the wrong team won and I didn't win the office pool even with great numbers. Mali won $5 for the first quarter of the party pool, but that was the only victory for anyone from this house.

Last night we had a South Beach Diet dinner at Paul and Nancy's. Paul cooked a roast beef and some ribs, Susy brought a capri salad with roasted red peppers, and Alana brought sugarless cheesecake.