year end countdown 2008

10. Holland trip - Ethan's hair gets caught on fire. When we were visiting back in January, the kids were waiting for me while I shopped. When I came back, I immediately smelled something burning. When asked, Joe's sister was like "ummmm. . . . ethan's hair got caught on fire. . . ." ethan was reaching out to grab something and his hair touched the kerosene lamp that was on the table. this picture is of the aftermath.



9. Ethan sleeps through most meals - seriously, I would say he missed about almost all lunch outings on the weekends. He would fall asleep as we near the restaurant and sleeps through the meal - then he would wake up and we'd give him the left over or buy him a bagel. It's nice and quiet meals though.


8. Siu's in nature - Ethan getting dragged as we go into the woods to go berry hunting. It's crazy how one with the nature we are becoming being in Poland. I'm a big fan of manicured landscaping, none of that here, thank you very much. just wild and crazy.


7. Learning Chinese - My lessons are going well!!! I'm so much more motivated and actually study during the week! My teacher and I had a funny conversation about the need of Chinese people to have Chinese food. She herself has been in Poland for 7 years to get her PhD. She was telling me that many Chinese men have come to study here but couldn't last more than 5 months because they couldn't eat Chinese food everyday. Puahhahahah. It reminded me of the time when Joe and I went on the Chinese tour of Italy and they would bus us to Chinese restaurants instead of Italian - we ofcoursed escaped to get local fare.


6. Having visitors - this year, we had visits from Joe's parents and Joe's sister :) It was great to show them the town and enjoy their company.
5. Home Leave - crazy but enjoyable. non-stop shopping (for such essentials like ziploc and cold-eeze - not shopping like bags and shoes. . . . unfortunately) and visiting friends :) here, a picutre of ethan making turtle shell sculpture in Cape May and Makayla's birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese.



4. Barcelona Trip - LOVE LOVE LOVE Barcelona. Good friends, good food, good art, friendly people - can't get any better than that.




3. Mallorca Trip - this was a year of all things Spain. I loved every minute of it. Here, every house in this town (Valldemossa) had a plaque of St. Catherine who is Mallorca's patron saint. Joe and I went around town to hunt for different kinds of plaques and gave up after finding out that there were too many varieties. (we have about 10 pictures of me/joe posing with different ones - silly, i know - but that's what we do.)



2. Mak swims! Mak performs! - monumental year of growth for Makayla - oh yeah, she is aslo starting to read and does math but that seems to matter more to Joe than me. Different priorities for different parents.


1. Ethan enters school!! - I was tempted to post a video clip of Ethan kicking and screaming while we forced him into the school bus. But I'd rather leave you with this happy picture a minute before the bus arrived.

PICTURE OF THE YEAR

Makayla chillaxing as she surfs the net sucking on candy. We fear the years to come.

Christmas 2008

We started our 10 days of Christmas with a quick visit from Joe's parents. First stop was to the pool to witness Makayla's swimming progress. Can you believe she was scared to put her face in the water just 3 months ago???

then off to the market square for the annual Christmas market where kids for some reason end up with lollipops.

on christmas day, kids got to open their presents, little did they know that some of them were gifts from our friends back home from their birthdays in the summer. (like the lightsabre that ethan liked so much - thanks grace!!!) we're not cheap, we're just wise. . . .

also on christmas day, we were invited to one of the american family whose been in Poland for now 20 years! they have 3 lovely daughters who love our children and our kids adore. in fact, ethan has said to the oldest daughter, "i will be with you forever. . . ." we had a great time and had american pecan pie that i've been craving!!!! yummmm.

during this visit, i forgot why, but i started to tell them about the first couple of days in Poland which was the roughest for me. i told them with my dramatic flair about how i had to suffer using a traditional mop and a bucket to clean the floor of our house since poland doesn't have wet swiffer nor steam vac. then they told us their story about when they first came here - how you couldn't buy anything. a truck will come periodically with supply of toilet paper - they would announce that they had toilet paper and people would rush out to get their ration. they also said that you can still read prints off the toilet paper and basically fell apart whenever you used them. i quickly cowered and said "times were different then. . . . ." hee hee.

the day after the christmas, we headed off the the market square - it was way more crowded than last year for some reason. there was a nativity set up at a church (with real mary and joseph!!) and monk band playing. joe loved it for some reason and was rocking it out with them. it was hilarious. what do you guys think??

winternational '08

kid's school had their winter performance. the theme was around the world and each class was assigned a country to represent. ethan's class represented all the world and we were told to dress the kids in traditional clothing. only thing i had in hand was makayla's purple chinese clothes and a cowboy outfit from halloween. i tried the chinese shirt and pants on him and i thought it looked pretty good. but joe ofcourse was adamantly against ethan wearing girl's clothes and for some reason ethan said "i don't like chhhhiiinneeeseee." so we settled for the cowboy outfit which he didn't even wear - just the vest. as you can see, only the Polish kids dressed up in their nice outfits and kids from bland countries like the States or Sweden ended up wearing good ol' blue jeans.

ethan's performance didn't disappoint. to my surprise, he refused to participate. it was like deja vu of makayla's past 3 performances. now my dream of ethan becoming the next matt lauer has been shattered. he is stage shy and he can't be forced to participate. though there's a glimmer of hope when he gave into peer pressure and came back to the performance - though he didn't dance in circles.

makayla on the other hand participated fully! it took 3 winter performances but she has overcome her fear! her class represented australia so they dressed up in summer clothes. they sang "kookabarre sits in the old gum tree..." it was really cute. makayla hung out with other kids the whole time during the show. . . . she is already entering the stage where friends are cooler than her parents. . . . sniff, sniff. . . .