Our (mighty) Quinn

Gotcha Day!

2012-01-04T19:52:00.000-05:00

Slowly updating...All new updates are on the new blog...

The penultimate entry

2011-12-31T21:48:00.001-05:00

We are currently composing a longer "retrospective" of keeping this blog for the last three years of our lives as we move to the next blog. It has been much harder than we thought (and we thought it was going to be really difficult!). While we leave for China tomorrow and meet Anais in just a few days, we will also try to post our last post here. In the meantime, please see our new blog http://theadventuresofqanda.blogspot.com for updates re that new adventure!

And then there were two...

2011-11-30T16:42:00.001-05:00

We have a rather large announcement to make: Quinn is going to be a big sister!!!

We have thought from the very beginning that Quinn would be a fantastic big sister and we started the process of adopting a second child from China a little while ago. There have been lots of ups and downs in this process (one would think that it would get easier!), but we are happy to say that we will be traveling to China very soon (probably by the beginning of 2012) to adopt Quinn's soon to be mei mei Li Guan Yun who will soon be Anais Liyun (Anais is pronounced Ana-EES - click this link to hear the pronunciation)!

What we know now is that little Li Guan Yun is from Dongguan City near Guangzhou in the south and is just over 3 years old. This means we will do a little bit less traveling than when we went to adopt Quinn, and it also means that Li Guan Yun is slightly older (by a few months) than Quinn was when we first met her. We will begin a new blog soon enough about these adventures (http://theadventuresofqanda.blogspot.com) but for now, here are a few pictures of Anais:

These were taken just about a month ago on Anais' third birthday. We were able to send her some presents, a cake, and a little note.

This is Anais' foster mother.

Here are a few pictures that we received earlier of Anais with some gifts that we sent to her:

And here is the first picture that we ever saw of little Anais. What a sweetie and we absolutely love her hairdo!

Skiing

2011-11-30T14:41:00.001-05:00

While we are here in the beautiful Pacific Northwest we wanted to make sure to take advantage of all that this incredible part of the world has to offer. For the long Thanksgiving weekend we decided to head out to Whistler, B.C. to take Quinn skiing for the first time. Neither of us had ever been there before and though we didn't really need a world-class Olympic venue to teach our 5 year old how to ski (let alone did we need one for ourselves since it had been something like 20 years since either of us had skied - grad school and living in the midwest will do that to you), but it was supposed to be beautiful and the village was supposed to be good to just hang out after shredding up the mountain (or falling down the mountain as it were). In any event, we were not disappointed. Absolutely magical place with one of the most spectacular drives on the "Sea to Sky" highway that we had ever seen.

The best part of our trip though was watching Quinn ski for the first time. We decided against doing a lesson for Quinn. Well, actually the $150 price tag for a ski lesson decided for us, but we figured that Quinn was strong and coordinated and that she would probably pick it up fairly well. Of course, there was some risk of the "blind leading the blind" down a steep mountain, but we thought we would give it a try.

The first day we took the gondola part way up the mountain to the beginner area.

Here's a video of Quinn going up the gondola:

Quinn in the gondola.

And then putting on her skis:

Unfortunately, instead of turning left off the gondola to the beginner run (named "Upper Olympic" curiously enough) we took a right which was a "green circle" run called, well, "Lower Olympic" (green circles, if you are not familiar with ski symbols, are supposed to mean "easy"; this is all relative, of course, and for us it really meant "less difficult than that sheer cliff over there"). Unfortunately "Upper" and "Lower" did not correspond directly to "Harder" and "Easier" and in fact the word pairs seemed to be inversely related to each other. To make a long story short, it took us about two hours to get down "Lower Olympic" because poor Quinn had been put into this situation by her idiot parents (well one idiot parent - the one writing). Should we mention that this "relatively short run" is about 1000 feet of vertical drop (Whistler is #2 in North America for vertical drop with almost a mile between base and peak). She was a trooper though and tried and tried to snowplow, but she was having trouble stopping and digging her skis in to the snow. By the time we got down, she was pretty tired but up for more. So, we went up the gondola again and this time went over to Upper Olympic.

We took the chair lift at Upper Olympic (very exciting for Quinn) despite the fact that there was a true-beginner's run using a much easier ramp. The ramp and the really easy slope though were absolutely packed so we continued on to the chair.

Here is a video of Quinn skiing after taking the chair lift. As you can see, she picked it up pretty quickly on the gentler slope of "Upper Olympic", is quite balanced, but ultimately had trouble stopping. Remember stopping is not a trivial skill when you are dealing with over 1000 feet of vertical. OK, we exaggerate, this chair was only a few hundred feet, but still!

Quinn's first skiing downhill

We did more of this for the rest of the day, and had an excellent time. It was really fun watching Quinn. She would zip along and then fall on her bottom to stop. Our goal for the second day was to get her to stop in a controlled fashion.

Indeed, our second video is from the next day. We woke up to it raining...hard. At first we were disappointed, but this actually had the effect of (1) clearing the mountain of obstacles (that is, other people) for the day, and (2) making the snow wet, heavy, and most importantly, SLOW. This was the perfect opportunity to get Quinn to learn to snow plow and as you can see from the next video she got it down pretty well.

Quinn skiing the next day - getting the "snow plow" down

The next video is a little bit more of the same, but you can tell that it is really wet (hence the trouble that the video camera had in focusing because of the rain drops on the lens). Quinn is super flexible so she began to take the snow plow to the extreme and doing full-on splits while trying to stop. If we tried the same we would be hospitalized right now.

Wet snow plowing while doing the splits.

More of the same, but this time Quinn breaks into song while skiing:

"Fun, fun, fun! So much fun!"

Here's another where I try to ski and film at the same time. Harder than it looks. Actually the quality of the video is such that I made it look even harder than it actually was.

Filming while skiing

And then finally, here Quinn is towards the end of the day where she has her snow plow fully down. We are happy to say that shortly after this, she skied all 1000+ feet to the village in about 25 minutes (the same way that the previous day took us over two hours)! What a trooper.

Skiing towards the end of the day.

After a long day skiing, nothing like some udon noodles!

Oh, that was fabulous! Everyone had a great time and Q is definitely up for more. Perhaps when we get a little bit more time off around the holidays.

Rollin', rollin', rollin'!

2011-11-14T18:51:00.001-05:00

Note the lack of training wheels!

Indeed, last week Quinn learned to ride her bike without the extra set of wheels. She was so excited. It only took a few days to get it down (and only a few rather large spills including a flip going down a grass hill at the labs). Once down though, it was down and Quinn rode and rode.

I was obviously having trouble keeping up.

Griffin Bay in the background (and FH airport runway)

Check out this cornering...

VERY satisfied.

Got hot, so a couple without the coat...

The Evil Empire...umm, we mean the Magic Kingdom

2011-11-09T22:07:00.002-05:00

Yes, Peggy Orenstein, Cinderella ate our daughter too, and it happened without us even knowing. We came back from China and within weeks of being in preschool Quinn knew every Disney Princess in existence. Predictably, she has been into princesses since. We have managed to get Quinn to think about how not all princesses are created equally. Indeed, there are very smart princesses, and ones that are, shall we say a little bit passive and who gravitate towards the intellectually-challenged side of things. The small victories in parenting are what we have to feel good about. Although she likes their dresses (A LOT), without prompting from us (really!), Quinn will declare that Sleeping Beauty and Snow White are, well, "kind of boring". We will chalk that one up in the "W" column triumphantly!

In any event, we bring this up because perhaps it was inevitable, but we had the chance to take Quinn to Disneyland this Autumn. The three of us plus Danny Shusu went down for a few days. Full disclosure: despite our reservations about Disney princesses, we LOVE Disneyland. Both of us have tons of great memories going to the park when we were younger with our families. It felt kind of weird forking over big bucks since we are not fond of the way Disney takes over children's lives, nor do we like their corporate and cultural dominance, but we figure that as long as we have SOME control (who are we kidding?), it's OK to expose our child to the likes of Chairman Mouse and the gang.

So, we thought that a trip to Disneyland would be a fun way to spend a few days in fall before she gets out of her princess phase (again, who are we kidding?), and before other adventures (more later...). We had a blast as you can see below (but it was exhausting).

On the shuttle. Someone is happy and excited...

At the entrance. Still excited.

With Danny Shusu.

First ride: DUMBO!

Quinn's favorite ride (OK, one of them) was Autopia. She absolutely loved driving (sort of) her own car. Note to Disney: why are these cars still operated using GASOLINE in "Tomorrowland"? Oh yeah, the ride is sponsored by Chevron. We're not trying to ruin everything, but really??

Unfortunately most pics from Autopia feature a large silver bar right across Q's nose and mouth!

Here is a good video that Danny Shusu posted of Quinn driving. You have to look carefully, but she would turn around whenever we would call out and then shortly after she would careen wildly from side to side. Danny Shusu was also egging her on by telling her that we were about to bump into her (in fact, we did do that once, and Quinn was shocked and disgusted at our utter disregard for Disney law). You can see that she had a BLAST.

Quinn also loved Splash Mountain. We could have purchased this picture for $18.99.

We'll stick with this picture of the aftermath (free of charge, mind you!)

The classic carousel...

While waiting in (many) lines, Q got a hold of our camera. She is quite the little photographer (with emphasis on little).

by Q

one more from another day...

by Q

The next few are from "California Adventure", Disneyland's twin sister park next door. We had a lot of fun there too.

One of Quinn's other favorite rides was Ariel's Undersea Adventures (or something like that) over in California land (or whatever it is called). I think we went on this about 6 times in the few days that we were here. Actually, it was quite fun.

We heart mermaids!

Of course, the classic thing to do at Disneyland is to get your photo with a character. Any character. We have old photos of us with characters back in the, well...a long time ago, where there was no one around and no competition to get your photo. In contrast, you have to wait in line now to get your photo op. The following with Pluto took about a 20 minute wait. Not too bad, actually.

But, the real highlight in meet and greet character photos had to have been at Ariel's Grotto: part of Disney's "Premium Character Dining". You might imagine that in parent code "premium" means ungodly expensive - so expensive that not even King Triton could foot (fin?) the bill for a party of 4. Luckily our travel package included this, so why not give it a shot?

Disappointment it was not. This was the princess mecca. Or since the princesses were all apparently non-Muslim, whatever the equivalent pilgrimage (Graceland?). The problem is that with one exception (Hint: the one that ate our daughter), all of the princesses seemed to be a bit off, and well, chemically enhanced. See below for proof.

Princess Ariel!

Oh for God's sake Little Mermaid, how about a smile? Just a little one?

There, did that hurt? Actually, it looks like it hurt quite a bit.

Lots of eager anticipation as the princesses came out one by one...

This was so exciting that Quinn went into another dimension (sort of like in Jacob's Ladder).

And, more are coming out!

Cinderella was actually very kind and seemed sort of genuine and sweet (nor did she consume Q).

Awww.

Let the medication begin...

Quinn was very happy to be with Sleeping Beauty. But, you'll see Belle in the back trying to make her way in on this action.

Look out!

Either Sleeping Beauty is enraptured while in the clutches of our daughter, or she has just been stabbed in the back by Belle.

And here is Belle (now that SB has mysteriously left the scene)...

OK, that's kind of cute.

And Snow White. She is kind of low in our ranking of princesses. The actor in this get-up did a nice job with her though.

She certainly has the Princess hand down.

Yay!

Like we said, we had fun, but it was exhausting...

Soccer!

2011-11-09T12:49:00.006-05:00

Quinn has had lots of fun this fall playing soccer on the "Orca Whales" (team colors are black and white as you see below) sponsored by the "Hungry Clam"...

Kindergarten

2011-09-12T13:36:00.004-04:00

And here is our obligatory "first day of kindergarten" post. Don't get us wrong, this was a very special day for everyone! Quinn LOVES kindergarten and will tell you if asked (or even if not asked).

Our summer: Part 5 (trail-a-bikes and marshmallow roasting)

2011-09-12T13:32:00.007-04:00

One of the funnest things about this summer has been riding our trail a bike. We went to school every day on the trail a bike and we ran errands on it as well. Quinn loves it, and still squeals with joy as we ride down a steep hill (of which there are many in town). She will frequently talk to people if we are stopped in traffic (there is a little bit of traffic in town associated with the ferry). The conversation usually goes something like this:

Quinn: Hi! (long pause) I'm riding my bike!

Friendly person in car/truck: Well, hello! You sure are!

Quinn: Bye!

We've also done our fair share of beach bbqs. This one involved roasting many a marshmallow.

Our summer: Part 4

2011-08-25T18:04:00.010-04:00

More horse camp!

A little trouble with the dismount.

Shortly after her third horse camp of the summer, Quinn declared that she wanted a horse of her own...We'll work on that one.

Here we are with ye ye (Grandpa Vaughn)

...and Quinn with Nai Nai at the Bellevue Arts Fair with a great interactive art exhibit that they had for kids. It was basically a series of steel frames that, over the course of the day, were decorated with yarn that kids would weave through hooks on the inside of the frames. The results were pretty neat. Quinn spent much of the day here.

Then inside for a kid's craft show. Quinn posed with Clifford, who I found rather terrifying, but who she thought was pretty cool.

Then she drew a great picture of a sea urchin, a crab, and a mermaid with a fish on her head. This was then painted over with blue water color. We found this to be inspired by Joan Miró (one of our favorites anyway).

And then big score from Nai Nai who got Quinn some Mulan pajamas!

Our summer: Part 3

2011-08-25T16:48:00.015-04:00

More summer fun:

Quinn is anticipating seeing whales here.

Harbor seal. Not bad, to start off.

Wait for it...

Bingo! And, that's a mama and baby whale too.

We saw the whales at Lime Kiln State Park on the west side of the island. That's Vancouver Island in the distance.

Quinn went to Horse Camp several times this summer. She got to really love it there.

While it wasn't Donkey Camp, this is a Donkey...named Donkey, no less.

A little lunch after camp.

Some more tidepooling...

...and our buddy Bruno (aka Uncle Bruno) came to visit.

Danny Shusu came back too.

We actually saw more whales out past South Beach.

And then it was over to the labs to see some fireworks for the 4th!

They seemed to have some technical problems though, so the show sort of fizzled about halfway. Good time though.

Here's Quinn out at the labs checking out mommy's (very labor intensive) experiment. You'll have to wait for the publications to see some more shots! :)

And our good buddy Leslie (Auntie Les) came to visit too!

Hanging out downtown Friday Harbor.

...and back to Lime Kiln for a picnic and hopefully whales.

Lots of fun, but no whales! Closest thing that came to a whale was this massive cruise ship.

Our summer: Part 2

2011-08-25T16:00:00.016-04:00

Playing with butterflies.

Rowing in to town from the labs.

Quinn loves her Uncle Danny (Danny Shusu).

Out at Cattle Point to collect snails for mommy's experiment.

Found a Nucella ostrina!

Seastar and ham.

Painting in the backyard.

Worm composting.

Mermaid.

Mommy and Quinn making Father's Day brunch.

More collecting.

Dead Man's Bay.

Family portrait.

Someone's developing a bit of an attitude.

Next series is of us trying to take a decent shot. Someone was feeling a little bit goofy.

Our summer: Part 1

2011-08-25T14:47:00.008-04:00

We have been having lots of fun on San Juan Island this summer. Here are some pics...

Hanging out in the front yard, swinging on an apple tree.

One of Q's b-day presents was a bike. Working with the training wheels...

Planting seeds was a big activity early in the summer too. These were some seeds planted in pots from Nai Nai (Grandma Vaughn). The petunia on the right was mommy's mother's day present before we left (actually the day we left for the west).

Yeah, we could get used to this...

2011-06-30T18:00:00.001-04:00

We have a lot to say but little time to say it. Here is a pic of us enjoying San Juan Island. More later!

Happy 5th!

2011-06-14T17:45:00.006-04:00

After (quickly) settling in Friday Harbor, we had to return to the mainland not only to return our trailer to U-Haul, but also to celebrate Qs 5th birthday! We actually had the foresight to plan this about two weeks ahead of schedule by reserving a spot at Chuck E Cheese. To paraphrase K's astute Uncle Dale who noted after receiving the invitation - we don't really seem like Chuck E Cheese people. This is absolutely true, but it was the best that we could think of from afar and it was going to basically be planned for us, so it was a go. Chuck E Cheese may very well be the loudest place on earth. Quinn had a great time though. It was a little bit odd because it ended up being all adults and one 5 year old. This threw the Chuck E Cheese employees off a little bit as they are not used to sentient, skeptical adults as their audience, but they rolled with the punches. It did become a bit awkward when Chuck himself (itself?) came out and led a Chuck E rendition of Happy Birthday. The problem was that Chuck speaks/sings, but only through a pre-recorded script, thus when we were done with the rousing Chuck E (copyrighted) version of Happy Birthday he/it yelled out "Way to go kids!". This prompted lots of laughter from the crowd who was mostly above about 25.

While it looks like Quinn is about to get exposed to nuclear waste here, she is actually just going to go into the "Ticket Blaster" along with her Danny Shusu (Uncle Danny). No better way of celebrating your 5th birthday by being trained to be as greedy as possible by grabbing as many tickets as you can! Get this kid over to Wall Street ASAP!

Arrival!

2011-06-05T23:57:00.011-04:00

Whew. Long drive, and we finally arrived on Q's birthday no less. We had intended to get to Friday Harbor a day before her birthday, but a late departure and a longer-than expected drive put us in the position of being at a Ramada Inn in Moses Lake on her bday. While we astutely ordered presents for her while on the road (I think in N Dakota) to arrive in Friday Harbor by the time we arrived, we actually had nothing for her in hand. So, it was my (K's) charge to find something that morning. She had been getting up at about 8am, so this meant I had to do this very early. For those of you who have ever tried to find an appropriate birthday present for a 5 year old girl in Moses Lake, WA at 6:30AM (and I'm sure there are loads of you out there) you know that options are pretty thin off the interstate. Unless you plan to get the lucky lady a can of chewing tobacco, a bag of Funyuns, a 96 ounce travel mug, or some new mudflaps, well, let's just say that the chances that you come back empty handed are relatively high.

So, I set out to check out the truck stops to see if there might be anything --ANYTHING-- that could pass as a decent present all the while kicking myself for getting us into this position. Don't get me wrong, we had some classic presents waiting for Q when we were to arrive (we're talking her first bike, for example) but not to have something on her birthday when she wakes up? What is wrong with us???

So, I go out with Libby to the first truck stop, a Shell station I believe. The closest thing that came to a present for a 5 year old girl here was a bright magnet that said Moses Lake. We do frequently get magnets as presents (our pre-move fridge was covered in them after all), but this didn't seem like it would be too inspiring. OK, next stop the Texaco station. Looked around for awhile and despite attracting the attention of the bored clerk who surely thought I was about to rob her store, I didn't get very far here either. Purple coffee mug? No, probably not. Let's try again. Next up was the Chevron, but this was across the "street" meaning across the 4 lane highway that needless to say was neither pedestrian nor canine friendly. After making our way across (and attracting more suspicious looks), we arrived. This truck stop was bigger, and in some ways more promising. After passing the cases with food warmed by heat lamps (corn dog for breakfast anyone?), I found the regular stuff: the aisle devoted to Pringles and beef jerky, the refrigerator section with cases of Bud Light on one end, Monster energy drinks on the other and a small, thin row of Arizona iced tea and Minute Maid OJ in the middle, the magazine racks with Guns and Ammo, Soldier of Fortune and the Economist (this is Washington State after all). Around the corner though, lo and behold, there is an infinitesimally small aisle of TOYS. What luck! Unfortunately, the toys are of the quality such that they were probably rejected from your average Dollar Store, and the prices made an airport gift shop look like your average Dollar Store. After mulling over the options, I found a $10 rubik's cube key chain and an $8 Barbie coloring book. The Rubik's cube I had no problem with, but Barbie? Honestly, Soldier of Fortune might be less harmful to my daughter. ugh. That was that. Libby and I walked back to the hotel room before Q got up, and when she did and we all wished her a happy birthday, we had a couple of small gifts for her. Q is so sweet that she loved them both.

Being Moses Lake, our only option for Breakfast was Denny's - and we saved $3 since it was Q's bday!

We arrived in Seattle and had a quick lunch with nai nai (grandma) and Danny shusu to say hello (ugh where's the camera?!). We couldn't stay long because we had to rush to get to the ferry. We were the last ones on the ferry...

...and let ourselves relax and enjoy the beautiful weather and scenery.

...until we arrived in Friday Harbor!
(Libby liked the view too).

Still on the road...

2011-06-05T11:19:00.002-04:00

...and continuing...

photos from North Dakota's Jefferson National Park.

On the road again

2011-05-31T16:07:00.012-04:00

Continuing our backtracking...

We were also in the (long, long) process of moving out of our house. The last week everything was in total disarray like this...

Quinn spent a little bit of time watching her favorite movies like Tangled, and reading books.

Then it was time to say goodbye to some friends including her buddy Raffi:

...and then Westward ho!

Tangled was the first movie that we took Quinn too and it really captured her imagination. She has quite the nimble fingers too so she can braid very well:
She would play Rapunzel at home and tie hair bands together, tie the long strand to her hair and then let them down from the second floor of our house. It has been her favorite game for the last couple of months:

We stopped to see a little bit on our trip, but not a whole lot. D had to start her post-doc and it was slow going with the trailer and three females with small bladders. Here they are in North Dakota.

The highlight in North Dakota was a hotel in Dickinson that had a mini-waterpark. As one would imagine, Q LOVED this. Our pics aren't great but it was pretty fun seeing her shooting down the slide.

She also liked this little balancing game and got quite good at it:

More pics coming...

Last day of (pre) school

2011-05-29T11:12:00.009-04:00

Before moving, Quinn had her last day at pre-school. She had so many good times and made such great friends there that it was hard to say goodbye. About a month later (as we write this), Quinn is in a new school, but she still talks about her friends at the old one.

Sea-changes

2011-05-27T23:07:00.003-04:00

There have been some major changes in our lives over the past few months. The biggest change has been that we have moved back to our beloved Pacific Northwest for a year while D is on a postdoc and K is on sabbatical and research leave. More pics to come as Q is growing up so fast. For now, we'll leave you with a shot just before heading out west...

Gymnastics

2011-02-12T16:19:00.003-05:00

Quinn has been doing gymnastics for about a year and a half now. She is getting quite good and has some natural talent for it (we're not biased). Most importantly, she absolutely loves it. We have some practice stuff at home consisting of a yoga mat, a pull up bar and various rugs.

Here she is on the pull-up bar. She insists on listening to Stump's "Buffalo" when swinging on the pull-up bar. She also really likes climbing up the door-frame. Perhaps fittingly she is wearing a "pull-up" while on the pull-up bar in the first two videos.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xw48rOitz3c

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiCoF0lt9JI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNdylTbAGiw

Here she is doing a running round off. She just got this down today:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyED6ASiyV8

Merry Christmas, 2010!!

2010-12-26T08:14:00.024-05:00

Christmas time was upon us this year sooner than we were expecting. We had an excellent, excellent holiday though! Our days were spent with the time honored acts of making and eating lots and lots of food. Just like last (our first together) Christmas, Quinn was super helpful and wanted to get in on all of the action. We have posted tons of pictures and (one video) below with some annotations to help you along, but let’s just say we cooked a lot over the last few days!

Aside from cooking, we opened presents (of course), spent time with each other watching movies, talked to family and friends on the phone, and tried to stay warm. It has been a blustery winter so far. It snowed right at the end of the month in November and snow has been on the ground ever since.

Quinn got to open a present early, and she was very excited to try her hand at Operation.

She has quite the steady hand...

A little Lego...

...and some Shrinky Dinks!

...and time to make some food. Dawn and Quinn made cupcakes for Santa.

Of course, we couldn't keep Quinn from trying some of the batter...

We also made some pasta. Last year we made red and green ravioli for Christmas. This year we gave Quinn the option and she just wanted to make red and green noodles. We agreed. Not too far from the tradition (of one year).

A little beet for the red pasta...

And, voila!

We couldn't help but notice that the pasta dough turned out to be the exact same color as Quinn's shirt...

...and now for the green pasta...

Quinn really likes pasta dough.

...let it rest for at least an hour or it gets difficult to work!

...and then start rolling!

We also posted a video of this part to youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTlNITYj0jg

yummy!

The day before, we made mole for our xmas dinner. This was very complicated and the recipe actually calls for a simmer of 6 hours. Continuing the theme of red and green, the base ingredients are tomatoes and tomatillos. Add to those about 50 ingredients, blend, simmer for 6 hours and strain...

Despite the fact that there are chiles in this sauce, Quinn really liked it. Must be the chocolate...

...and here we are at Xmas dinner:

Posole, eggplant enchiladas with mole and homemade Mexican rice.

Here is the mole:

Mole is good to make the day before, so we first tried it out on eggs.

Started the week with risotto. ugh. we are full!

Oh, here's the posole.

...and xmas dinner...

Fancy night!

2010-12-14T20:26:00.003-05:00

Inspired by a story that we have been reading "Fancy Nancy" Quinn recently requested a "fancy night" out. We obliged by dressing up (including Kevin wearing a tie which hasn't happened in a long time, mind you) and going out to a local "fancy" restaurant for desert. It was quite fun and Quinn had a fabulous time!

At the Gym

2010-10-24T09:50:00.004-04:00

New Pics

2010-10-23T15:02:00.001-04:00

These are our new favorite pics of us with Quinn...

Painting

2010-10-22T17:04:00.006-04:00

A few weeks ago we got Quinn to help us paint an old shelf that we had. She picked the color, and when we finish (still needs a second coat), we'll put it in her room. Lots of photos, but most are too revealing since she painted in her birthday suit!

Hi there

2010-10-12T16:41:00.006-04:00

It's been a ridiculously long time since we have updated this blog. Our little Quinn has been keeping us busy with pre-school, gymnastics, dance, and swimming lessons and the like. Below are the latest preschool photos of our little girl. She sure is growing up!

Kevin got this dress for her in a little boutique in Lima, Peru. Quinn proudly announces to her friends and teachers at school that "baba got this for me in Peru". When one of her new teachers asked "what does your baba do in Peru?" Quinn quickly and emphatically answered "he buys me clothes!".

Sugar Creek

2010-08-06T20:46:00.006-04:00

Last weekend we got to go canoeing on Sugar Creek about an hour south of where we are. It was super fun. Though we were worried that it was going to be super crowded given the hordes of people the bussed to the access point with our canoes, we ended up being mostly alone the whole time floating down the river. Joining us were Danny Shusu and Eileen Ayi, and even Libby. We had a blast!

Here is Libby getting ready for the big trip:

...and Danny Shusu in the bus...

...and the ladies...

The creek was shallow enough in places so that we could get out and walk around. Even Quinn and Libby (you can see that Quinn doesn't like to "dress down" for the outdoors - she loves this dress from Nai Nai!).

Libby

2010-08-04T13:24:00.004-04:00

As we stated in a previous posting, we couldn't keep Phoebe. She was a great dog, but unfortunately she was just too much dog for us as a family and she frightened Quinn a bit with her energy. We did not make the decision lightly, but we thought it best that Phoebe went back to the rescue so that she could find a more suitable home.

With all of this in mind, we cautiously sought another dog that would be a good fit for our family and Dawn found Libby through a rescue in Indiana. Libby is super sweet and gentle and loves Quinn. She reminds us quite a bit of our old dog Geti (though she is far calmer than he was!).

One of the big "selling" points for Quinn was the fact that niece of the owner of the rescue had painted Libby's claws hot-pink...

Turkey Run

2010-08-04T10:50:00.004-04:00

Quinn and Dawn went to Turkey Run State Park about an hour southwest of us with Quinn's friend Emma and her family. They had a blast as you can see in these pictures! We realize that some of these pictures are a little bit redundant, however, we can't help it...

Update!

2010-08-03T10:06:00.004-04:00

It's been a long time since we've been able to blog, and there has been a lot happening. Kevin was in Peru for a month, we had to get another dog (Phoebe was super sweet, but just too much dog for us and her energy scared Quinn a bit - she's back at the rescue), and it's been a hot wet summer in Indiana. We'll try to post pics as much as we can...

While I (Kevin) was in Peru, I received lots of great pictures like the above. We also got to talk a little bit on the computer (though my internet connection was pretty bad in Peru).

Quinn got to do lots of water related activities including swimming, splash day (at school), and splash day at home in the kiddie pool.

More updates coming...

Phoebe - the newest member of the family

2010-06-04T22:49:00.004-04:00

Introducing the latest addition to our family: Phoebe. We got her today from a rescue. She is a super sweetie and she adores Quinn (and vice versa). More pics soon!

Swiiiiiing Set

2010-06-02T22:57:00.011-04:00

The big present for Quinn's 4th (aside from the birthday bash that we did for her as seen below) was a swing set. Both grandparents and Danny Shusu contributed to the cost of the set, and we built it in the side yard. It only took a little over 20 hours to build (!), but luckily there were really detailed instructions that came along with the rather intimidating boxes (2 of them, one 170 lbs and the other 80 lbs) filled with about 300 pieces of wood, a whole bunch of plastic parts and about 30 pounds of hardware.

Here we area about 3/4 of the way through...

Someone is getting very excited about this!

Before it was complete we had the picnic table part up so Quinn wanted to pretend that we were at a restaurant. Here I am taking her order (noodles, soy milk, rice and kale)...

...and here Quinn is taking mommy's order.

While not complete, it was stable enough to use the slide and rock climbing wall...

We eventually got the last part of it up with the help of Mike and Gary our good friends down the street.

And the swings are up!

The Birthday BASH!

2010-05-31T19:21:00.010-04:00

For Quinn's 4th bday we decided to do a party at the place that she does her gymnastics and ballet lessons. One of her best friends, Emma, has her birthday the day after Quinn, so we the parents teamed up to plan the party. It was quite the bash as most of Quinn and Emma's classmates came along with some additional friends. In all there were 26 3 and 4 year olds! Only a year and a half ago we would have had trouble conceptualizing a party with 26 toddlers, but now that we are in the swing of parenting...

Here is Quinn before we left. She was kind of unhappy that I wanted to take this picture (little did she know that we were going to take a bunch of pics!).

Quinn immediately cheered up when we got there and saw her friend Emma though!

The party was for two hours with the first hour and a half or so doing gymnastics and generally burning off toddler energy...

Then it was upstairs for the birthday cake!

Here are the birthday girls with Emma's brother Aaron.

Aaron's getting a pre-taste of the cake while they aren't looking...

If you don't think pre-school is good for the kids, check out 26 of them - 26! - sitting orderly at the table.

This really wasn't our intention, but the girls got lots and lots of presents...

The birthday party was a blast and thanks go to Ping and Peter for their help in putting it together and to all the parents for bringing their kids out for the afternoon!

Self Portrait

2010-05-20T16:54:00.004-04:00

We know that we had posted this picture earlier, but we think that this self portrait of Quinn (well, of her toes anyway) is a wonderful composition.

(Go) Fish!

2010-05-13T20:22:00.004-04:00

Tonight we introduced Quinn to the wonderful world of Go Fish, or "Fish" as this cheap knock off was called. We had a blast. Quinn was quite good at getting the cards from us, and she could even hold lots of cards in her tiny hands!

More Preschool Photos

2010-05-13T20:18:00.002-04:00

We continue to fork over money to this scam operation at Teddy Bear Portraits. But, you know, these are awfully cute...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY QUINN!

2010-05-12T21:33:00.022-04:00

Happy 4th Birthday Quinn! Amazing to us, but our little Quinn is 4 years old today! We celebrated by taking her out of preschool for the day and brought her to the Indy zoo. We were fortunate that it didn't rain and that there was NOONE at the zoo (except for the animals of course). We had a great time as you can see in the photos!

That's right, deal with it. I'm 4.

This next series is when Quinn took some pictures of us. These are actually quite good we think especially since the camera has a big lens on it making it rather cumbersome for her little hands...

I don't think dawn liked this too much (and we're not sure what motivated Quinn to lick her mama's face).

Another few shots by Quinn:

She got some good photos of her feet:

We LOVE this picture of her!

Next was the dolphin tank. She was starting to wear out. As you can see there was awesomeness all around her, but she was mostly interested in pretend-drawing on Dawn's face.

We finished the evening by going to a most excellent wood-fired pizza place in Indy and then went home for some birthday cake.

But first, a phone call from the relatives! She thought it was HILARIOUS that Danny Shusu had just woken up from a nap!

She had a great day. Next up is Saturday when we are having her birthday party with all of her friends!

She loves them worms...

2010-05-04T19:42:00.004-04:00

Getting warm enough around here to bring our worms outside. "Our worms" are our red-wigglers that we use for composting. By "use" I mean that we try to get them to eat our scraps. They do, but they don't seem to be a particularly ravenous bunch as it has taken almost a year to create about .5 cubic feet of compost. They are fun though, and they are fun for Quinn to feed them. Here she is cutting up a mushy apple for them:

She has very good (butter) knife skills.

And, time to feed them...

One of our pets...

"Backwards Day"

2010-04-18T19:10:00.005-04:00

Quinn is a HUGE fan of her preschool (remember when they called it "playschool"? It seems they should just cut to the chase and call regular school "prework" now!). She absolutely loves it there. Not only has she made lots of friends, she loves her teachers. She learns a ton and they keep her busy with fun activities (about every 10 minutes or so). We often get to school to pick her up and literally have to drag her out of there because she is having so much fun.

They do lots of fun things there like "Silly Sock" day and Pajama day and "Dress as your Favorite Attorney General" day (OK, maybe not that one). Last week she got to do "Backwards" day. While in a sense every day in Indiana is "Backwards Day" Quinn had lots of fun putting her pants and hoodie on backwards. Mommy joined in on the fun (at least before she went to work).

These pics are a bit disorienting, but what you can't see is that Quinn was laughing hysterically. She thought that this was SOOO funny.

Foodie Patootie

2010-04-07T15:20:00.003-04:00

Quinn made the front page of the Foodie Patootie blog this week! The owner of the blog is a friend of Kevin's from high school. Great blog! We love reading about people's experiences with having good food with their kids.

Easter Eggs and Sprinklers

2010-04-04T19:46:00.010-04:00

We had a very nice Easter today. It was beautiful outside, so we went to a local park for a bit of an Easter Egg hunt arranged by Talin and Ian.

Quinn was pretty pleased with her basket...

Most of the rest of the time was spent playing in the park including lots of swinging.

Quinn is very happy swinging!
I got in on the action a little bit. That was fun.

Nice angle dear...

Then Quinn got on this cool surfboard thingie (we know that the first thing you think of when you think of Central Indiana is surfing).

Quinn had a lot of fun on it and did pretty well, but fell a few times too.

OK, we won't show the rest of this series...

After that we went home and did a bunch of work in the garden. It was a blast and it was even warm enough to bring out the sprinkler!

Planting seeds, cooking, and a self portrait (not in that order)

2010-03-29T15:14:00.029-04:00

Looks like we are finally through the doldrums of winter! Quinn is really enjoying cooking with us. Here she is with a quiche that we all made together:

On our chalkboard in the kitchen, Quinn drew this self-portrait recently (this was before learning about Van Gogh despite the fact that she has no ears in the drawing! and, according to Quinn that's mommy right next to her!):

Living in central Indiana means a relatively late planting season (May at the earliest), so we've got to do seeds inside the house for a while. We had a lot of fun planting all sorts of seeds. For the occasion Quinn had her own special planter. It was purple (long Quinn's favorite color by far - though now she claims her favorite colors are blue and white - we'll believe it when we see it!), contained two pucks of peat, four kinds of seeds (sunflower, marigold, cucumber, and lettuce), and a bunch of stickers for the proper finishing touches. Here she is all ready to go!

Watering the peat:

Ready for planting:

Hmmm, let's get me some sunflower seeds...

...and some marigold seeds...

...and some cucumber seeds...

...and of course some stickers...

Ready to go!
Despite the fact that she is wearing the same outfit (we do change her clothes occasionally, we swear), the next photos are from about three weeks later. She is so proud of her seeds that have now become seedlings (and just like the seeds, you can see that Quinn is sprouting splendidly)!

Not a nugget

2010-03-24T21:29:00.008-04:00

Dawn got this necklace not too long ago:

Very cute, kind of catchy. We have been off and on vegetarian for a very long time, and since we have had Quinn we have kept that up. I say "off and on" because recently we have taken to eating fish, and we do realize the hypocrisy in this. We also realize the stupidity in this since we decided to make this accommodation in our diet once we moved to Indiana (about as far as you can get from both oceans) from Seattle (where you can literally pick up fish lying on your front yard, seriously). In any case, Quinn has never given this gustatory lifestyle a second thought and doesn't seem to mind that she has a slightly different meal at school than her friends. In any case, we thought that this necklace would be kind of cute for Quinn too, but then we thought: well, Quinn isn't our prop here; she can make her own decisions when she is older about these sorts of things. We recalled the passage in David Sedaris' "Santaland Diaries" that goes like this:

"A child came to Santa this morning and his mother said, 'All right, Jason. Tell Santa what you want. Tell him what you want.'

Jason said, 'I...want...Prokton and...Gamble to ...stop animal testing.'

The mother said, 'Procter, Jason, that's Procter and Gamble. And what do they do to animals? Do they torture animals, Jason? Is that what they do?'

Jason said, Yes, they torture. He was probably six years old."

The point is, we don't need Quinn to advertise our values (especially if they are inconsistent!) or political points of view. Dawn showed Quinn this necklace and told her what it said. Quinn thought it was pretty amusing.

Dawn also got this necklace from the same artist:

Very cute, and also kind of catchy. Dawn showed this necklace to Quinn and asked her what she thought it said. Quinn replied "It says 'I am not a shark'" You know, that probably would have worked too...

Van Gogh

2010-03-24T20:59:00.006-04:00

We just came back from Chicago where we went to visit a couple of museums including the Art Institute. We used to go here just to take a leisurely walk through the galleries, but things are quite different now, you know. We had been preparing Quinn for this by telling her that she paints a little bit like Seurat because she often uses lots of dots in composing her pictures (she's a little pointilist at heart). So we got to see this painting up close and personal which was very exciting:

Come to find out, she is also a big Van Gogh fan (she kind of stays in the whole neo and post-Impressionism genre; you know, pretty much anything after Impressionism is OK with this kid). In particular, she was a huge fan of the painting below because it bears a striking resemblance to her own bedroom. We had posted a picture of her bedroom before here, and you'll have to believe us that this was not our intention (just look at the color, the bed, the bedspread, the floors, the little chair...).

In any case, upon return to Indiana we talked a little bit about Van Gogh and that he was really smart, but a little bit crazy too. We probably went a little bit too far in telling her that he cut off his ear, but we liked the fact that she was interested in the man. Now, of course, she knows of Van Gogh as the guy who cut off his ear. Just tonight, I (Kevin) was talking to Quinn as we were all getting ready for bed. For some reason, I said "Hey Van Gogh" when calling to Quinn. She turned around and in all seriousness said "I'm not Van Gogh, look it" and pointed to her two complete and fully attached ears.

Swimming lessons!

2010-03-24T16:48:00.002-04:00

Quinn has been taking swimming lessons lately. She absolutely loves them! She is learning to float, doing some strokes, and generally having a good time. Her favorite thing to do though is jumping off the diving board. Here's a link to a video of her in action!

Bats!

2010-03-01T10:37:00.003-05:00

We love living in an old historic home with some property near downtown Lafayette, but part of this is that we occasionally encounter wildlife who nest, roost, hibernate, and just plain get cozy in and around our abode. Last night we had an encounter with our simultaneous favorite (when it's outdoors) and least favorite (when it's inside the house) critters: a BAT.

Winter/Wonder Land

2010-02-05T10:58:00.004-05:00

Snow today! Quinn loves the snow. The pics below are from December when it snowed right after Xmas. We got her a pair of snowshoes to walk in the snow. Really, she was just happy catching snowflakes on her tongue...

One year ago today...

2010-02-02T13:39:00.003-05:00

...we met our little Quinn in Nanning, China. This picture below is the first time we saw her. Of course, we fell in love instantly and it has been nothing but deeper and deeper love for our little girl ever since. We will post more pictures of that wonderful, poignant, emotional day soon. For now, here is what happened and what was going through our mind that day.

Quinn at the dentist

2010-01-29T19:44:00.002-05:00

Quinn went to the dentist with mommy the other day. She had to go because she had a couple of cavities :( . So, they had to do some minor fillings so that they didn't get any worse. Our dentist actually took video of some of it so we'll post it here. That's mommy holding her left hand, but you can see she is just sitting there (for a full 30 minutes) letting them do their work! She was pretty happy to have those big sunglasses on. What a trooper!

Here's the video.

Update

2010-01-18T08:41:00.002-05:00

We finally got a chance to update the Xmas post with pics and video (see below for full post). We are obviously way behind!

Quinn is sick this weekend with a bit of a head cold. With a bit of (reluctant) sleeping she is getting much better though!

Xinian Kuaile (from Seattle)!

2009-12-30T21:49:00.001-05:00

Off for a quick trip to Seattle to visit ye ye, nai nai, and Danny Shusu! Quinn was a little angel on the plane ride from Chicago to Seattle. She colored and we watched a little bit of Ni Hao Kai Lan (it's really the only thing she likes to watch - though she will sit for a few minutes at a time to watch movies every now and then). Again, it will take us a while to get some pics up, but we wanted to wish everyone a Happy New Year!