The Curly Hair Dilemma

Maggie has curly hair. Really curly. And Thick. It's gorgeous. But Like every curly haired person I know, she hates it. I get it, it requires upkeep, product, blowdrying, diffusers ... and she's 13, and busy with school work, she just doesn't have time for the part time job that is her hair, so ... she got it straightened last week. There's this treatment called the Brazilian Blowout. It's some natural thing they put in her hair, blow it dry, flat iron it, and it's supposed to last 3 months. It's amazing. She can now just wash her hair and air dry it. It's smooth and silky. She loves it. I'd give anything to have her curls. The grass is always greener I guess ...

Zoo Field Trip

I know I'm a curmudgeon, but the truth is ... I hate going to the zoo. It's hot, crowded, the list goes on and on. I know it's un-american to hate the zoo, so I make up for it by volunteering for the zoo field trips, of which there are at least one a year. So last week I tagged along with Sally's k-1 class to the zoo. The kids loved it, it was a beautiful day and we spilt the class up into 4 groups of 5 and each group had a dosent(sp?) leading it. I even had an almost okay time. Til next year ...

One down one to go ...

Front teeth, that is ...

Brownies

Sally joined a Brownie troop and so far they've had two meetings, both times down at the Arroyo because they've been trying to earn a 'be good to nature badge'. They learned how to identify three different trees, which animals live in that habitat and on Saturday they spent the day picking up garbage along the riverbed. It's a small troop. only 6 kids, which I love, and the parents take turns being in charge of meetings. I'm next! I have to look through the book and see what badge we should earn, maybe cooking.

Reptile party

Today was Sally's friend, Isabella's birthday party. She's turning 7 and loves animals, so they had a reptile person come and show the kids a bunch of reptiles as well as one very hairy tarantula that the kids could put on their head if they wanted. Sally loved it, I, however, was as far away from the reptiles as I could get.

6 years ago ...

on March 8th it will be the 6 year anniversary of meeting Sally and it will also be Sally's birthday. Because both are on the same day, we don't ever really get to celebrate 'family day'. Here's a picture I came across tonight that made me smile. I love how cute Sally is in the picture and the way Tony's smiling. And I even think I don't look as crazy as I know I was feeling.

I just realized the other day that Maggie will be graduating high school the same year that Sally will be graduating from 6th grade at Walden. It's impossible to imagine Sally that old, not so impossible to imagine Maggie that old, cause she's already more mature than I was when I graduated from high school, but it is hard to imagine her away and on her own.

Anyway, time flies. Better enjoy the now.

Oh, the picture is taken in the conference room where everyone had to fill out paperwork to complete the adoption. The Chinese government are sticklers that every i be dotted and t crossed just right, so our adoption coordinator took us through each form, line by line, it took all afternoon. The picture is when Sally and I came down to visit Tony for awhile.

San Diego weekend

A few weekends ago, Maggie and I had tickets to see a new musical at the Old Globe. Since it's a 2 hour drive, we decided to spend the night and Tony and Sally decided to come along for the ride. On the way down we stopped for a few hours at Legoland and it was really fun because since the weekend was rainy, really rainy, NO ONE was at Legoland. I mean, NO ONE. Like maybe 200 people. And for the 2 hours we were there it didn't rain at all, it started pouring rain as we got into the car at the end. Sometimes you get lucky like that. Anyway, it was fun. Although Legoland is certainly below Maggie's age and coolness level, she was a good sport and went on some rides with Sally. We went to dinner at the hotel which was really nice and then Sally and Tony watched a movie in the room and got room service dessert, while Maggie and I went to the theatre. The show was bad. Can't even remember the name of it. Whisper House maybe. The songs were by Duncan Shiek who wrote the music for Spring Awakening, one of Maggie's favorites. And the songs in the show were beautiful, but the story was really bad. But it was still fun to go see.

road rage

I love this picture of the girls taken by Martin over Thanksgiving

7th grade dance

The other night a few of Maggie's friends came over before the 7th grade dance. Once a month there's a dance at one of the private schools in the area. There's a DJ, pizza, lots of standing around. It sounds pretty much like the 7th grade dances I went to all those long years ago. Maggie, being her father's child, has started bringing a book. Here's some of the girls who were at our house, and yeah, Maggie wore the snake head to the dance.

ski trip

Over President's Day we went to Deer Valley for a weekend of skiing. We skied three days and had a great time, the weather was perfect - not too cold, one day was even sunny. Sally went to ski school the first day but by day 2, she skied with the rest of us and did great. We stayed mostly on green runs, but did some easy blues, and Maggie and Sally spent most of their time looking for paths through the woods - they're very adventurous. We had a couple of chairlift mishaps, mostly because Sally's so small and would sometimes have a tough time getting all the way on the seat and I'd have to kind of lift her on. Anyway, no one died, which is what I consider to be a successful ski trip. Also we went with our friend Mark, from work, and his son Andy who is 12. It was really nice having Andy there because he was so sweet to Sally and he and Maggie got along well too. On the lift rides they'd often talk about how to defend yourself against a zombie attack.

gymnastics

Sally has been taking gymnastics once a week for about 2 years. She loves it and is getting really good. It's fun to see her work hard to learn new things. She has chosen gymnastics to be her sport over soccer and t-ball. We just don't have time to do everything. She already takes Chinese one day a week and has joined a Brownie troop. I like to leave a couple days after school free to play with friends at home.