Memorial Day Weekend

I wish I could say we did fun, fabulous things over the four-day weekend, but that wouldn't be true. J is getting over a cold and the cold hit me Friday afternoon while I was in at work catching up. This cold is awful. I've never had one like it, but I'm starting to feel (slightly) better. We went to my Mom and Dad's on Saturday for carne asada and stuffed jalapeno poppers wrapped in bacon.

Sunday we did a couple of errands. A was over at her BF's making tamales. I think they made around 40 dozen. For dinner my Mom and Dad came over and we ate tamales and more jalapeno poppers wrapped in bacon. I think the best tamales were asaparagus and pepper jack cheese. They were to die for!

Today we felt a little better. We cleaned house and went to see Kung Fu Panda II. I snapped this picture of Cara as we left for the movie. I think it will be my new screen saver. I love it!
Cara didn't pay that much attention to the movie (her first one). She liked the popcorn, pop, and gummy worms, but once they were gone she really wasn't that interested. She kind of danced around and went from person to person. She had to go to the bathroom 3 times. ;) When we got home, it was time to assemble shish-ka-bobs for dinner. I snapped this pic of Cara "supervising."

A kiss for Daddy while he was making shish-ka-bobs. Hope you had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend. Next weekend we will be super busy celebrating Cara's 4th birthday and B's 14th birthday as well as cousin L's 5th birthday. Good thing we got the house cleaned this weekend!

Trip to Spokane to Visit Grandma

We went to Spokane this weekend to see Grandma's new place. It's pretty nice and she seems happy. She couldn't get over how tall Cara is getting, and she is getting tall. I was looking over her referral paperwork earlier this week. In Cara's paperwork, they gave us her weight and measurements from 18 months to 35 months. In that amount of time (17 months), Cara grew 8 centimeters. She has grown an additional 8 centimeters in the time we've had her (a little over 7 months). She gained 1 kg in 17 months and has gained 1.4 kgs in the 7 months we've had her. It's funny to look back at our in-China pictures. The legs of her jeans that are folded up in those pictures are now high-waters on her! ;)

We did not go downtown to watch the Lilac Parade; we watched it on TV at Grandma's. It didn't seem all that exciting, so we quit watching and headed to our hotel. This morning we got up, went to visit Grandma again, then went down town to Riverfront Park. We decided to ride the gondola over the falls, which none of us have ever done before. The water was so high! It was cool to see.

Kids in the gondola:
Mom and Dad in the gondola:

Here's one of the pictures of the water. It was gushing like crazy!

After riding the gondola, we took Cara to the carousel. A and B haven't been on it for 5 or 6 years. They had actually forgotten ever riding the carousel. This carousel was built in 1909. We rode it twice. Cara thought it was pretty fun. She kept saying, "This is awesome!"

Overall it was a pretty nice weekend in Spokane.

The Swingset's Mostly Done

The ladder to the slide still needs to be put up and we obviously need to get some pea gravel down, but Cara can at least swing. She was laughing and giggling uncontrollably. Yes, she's in a swimsuit. We took the rubber boots off her for pictures. She was playing in the yard in a swimsuit, bow, and rubber rain boots.

She'll get a lot of use out of the swingset now that the weather is warmer.

Celebrating Zillah's Centennial

This weekend is Zillah Community Days and it also happens to be the Centennial Celebration. This was Cara's first parade experience. She sat with her cousin, L and watched the parade. A and B both marched in the band.
Cara loved the parade. What's not to like? You get to wave at princesses and people throw candy to you.

When A finished marching, she came and sat with the girls to enjoy the rest of the parade.

When we got home, Daddy, B and Grandpa started working on putting together Cara's new swing set.

Cara and A supervised in their bathing suits from the lounge chair, cuz that's what girls do. ;)

A Busy Two Weeks

The Livestock Show was this past week. It basically consumes our lives for about two weeks before the show. The difference this year was that J and I left for a reading conference in New Orleans Wednesday morning. So not only did we have the show to worry about, but we also needed to pack to leave and coordinate efforts to get the educational display taken down. Our club had 33 animals at the show this year, which is many, many more than it has been in years. Four years ago it was 2 pigs, 3 steers, and a lamb. Overall, the club did well. B won champion lightweight hog and got callbacks for fitting and showing; which means he was in the top two of his fitting and showing class. Both of my big kids are excellent showmen, in my opinion, but neither won a medal this year. A won the gold medal two years ago and didn't even make callbacks this year. She was very upset, but that's the way it goes sometimes. Here is A during her fitting and showing class. She's in the pink.

Here is B selling one of his pigs. This was the only animal we got to see either of them sell because we needed to leave for the Portland airport at 11:00 a.m. B received $2 a pound for each of his pigs. A received $3 a pound for one and $2 a pound for the other.

I attended the Plain Talk About Reading conference in New Orleans. J and Cara came with me because I didn't want to leave her; even for a few days. We've only had her 7 months and I thought it was too soon. One night we ate at Margaritaville. It was pretty good.

After dinner we walked down Bourbon Street (it was a Thursday night). I'm a sucker for beautiful flowers, window baskets, hanging baskets, etc. so I had to take a picture of this house.

Here is the view down Bourbon Street at about 7:30 p.m. They were already blocking off the streets for the evening. Wow. I've never seen anything like it. It was pretty inappropriate to walk down this street with a 3-year-old, but it would have been even more inappropriate to bring the teens. Public drunkenness, prostitutes, transvestites, scantily-clad women dancing in the windows of bars. They never show that stuff in Mardi Gras footage; just parades. I guess I was just unprepared for what I saw. At least now I can say I've been there.

J took Cara to the aquarium one day while I was at the conference. That's an albino alligator behind her in the picture. Please excuse her hair; J did it. ;) They both thought the aquarium was better in New Orleans than in Newport, Oregon. I wish I would have been able to go with them. They took a ton of pics and the marine life was amazing.

We attended Jazz Fest on Friday afternoon. It's this huge festival that happens two weekends a year in New Orleans. It is in the book, 1,000 Things To Do Before You Die. We got there at 4:00 p.m. and it goes until 7:00 p.m. By 5:00, Cara said, "I'm lay ma (tired in Mandarin). I want to go to bed." We assured her we weren't leaving until 7. It was hot, tons of people, not a lot of shade, and not much grassy area. It was mainly sandy soil so it wasn't like you could sit on the ground. We found some shade and grass by the entrance for a little while. I love to take pictures of Cara with her dad. They take great pictures together.

This was the Gentilly Stage where Willy Nelson was performing. Look at all the people. All of the stages were packed like this. It was a fun time, but didn't change my life or anything. I can cross it off my bucket list now. ;)

Overall, Cara did great. She missed A and B, but didn't have any major meltdowns. The plane ride from Houston to PDX was hard on her, though. Then we got in the car to head home (at 1 in the morning) and she said, "I don't feel good. I need a diaper." I thought maybe she was going to have diarrhea, then she puked. All down the front of herself. Did I have napkins? One. Did I have wet wipes? No. We cleaned her up the best we could and got home at 4 this morning. She feels great now. In the shower this morning she said she was glad to be back at Cara's house. I was glad, too.

Happy Mother's Day, everyone. I've spent mine lounging on the couch today.