The Winner: Suzanne!

Elizabeth and Suzanne's elementary school has a Mandarin (one of China's two main languages) immersion program. So Chinese culture is celebrated at Woodstock. This year, there was a contest to see who could produce the best poster to promote the Dumpling Festival. Suzanne decided to give it a go, and spent a lot of time and effort designing, drawing and coloring her poster. It features a dog (because Suzanne loves dogs) eating a dumpling with chopsticks. The color around the dog is red because she knows that's a lucky color in Chinese culture. Barb's only contribution to the poster was printing out the boilerplate stuff -- when, where, etc. on the computer and helping Suzanne paste that onto the poster. That was necessary because Suzanne's initial lettering was so large that it left little space for the fine print.

In any event, the poster turned out awesome and Suzanne won the contest for her grade level! Unfortunately, when the winners were announced at the weekly all-school meeting, Suzanne's class was out for a field trip. So she missed her moment of glory (where, reportedly, her name was announced as "Suzanna Larson").

But tonight, during the dumpling festival itself, there was recognition of the poster contest winners. Suzanne not only had her name called (again as "Suzanna Larson"), but got a gift bag containing a gift card to a local pizzeria, some candy, a couple of Chinese-themed calendars, and a laminated copy of her poster.

Great job, Suzanne!

Don't forget you can always click on the picture for a larger version!

Solo Parenting, Day Two

Well, we didn't go to the arcade as planned, but had a great day nevertheless. Pat came over late morning so we could go for a run. We did a short one (2.8 miles) because we didn't want to leave the girls alone for too long. And it was cold! In fact, we got a little snow in the morning. That riled up the girls, who are crazy for the stuff.

Then we went out for a late breakfast. Our preferred restaurant had a huge wait list (that's Portland for you), so we went to Diane's, a reliable old school diner that always has a booth available. Karen met us there and we enjoyed a nice meal.

Then Pat and Karen hung out with us until almost dinnner-time! Having not seen much of either of them in a while, it was really nice to get so much time. Pat, of course, brought books. He allowed Elizabeth to borrow his book about the making of Hamilton, which Elizabeth immediately began to devour. Elilzabeth, in turn, brought out Atlas Obscura, and the girls and Pat and Karen spent a lot of time leafing through that. Pat also loaned me a biography of the author Philip K. Dick. Good stuff.

At night it began to snow in earnest. The girls thought it would be cozy to sleep in my bed, which was okay by me. Elizabeth wanted me to lie with them until they were asleep, but I had dishes to do and video games to play, so I declined. She settled for having her dreamcatcher moved from above her bed to above mine.

Suzanne watching the snow fall onto her hands. You can't see it, but it was actually snow.

Exploring Atlas Obscura.

I love that Suzanne is now reading on her own. So great to see the two sisters cozy in bed reading together.

The snow came that night.

Solo Parenting, Day One

Barb flew back to New York to visit her Dad, so the girls and I have a rare opportunity to create our own experience this weekend. Here's what we did.

Suzanne woke up at 6:30. I woke up at 6:31, thanks to Suzanne. Elizabeth was awake a few minutes later. The girls went downstairs to watch TV while I caught a few extra Zs.

After breakfast and chores we played Ponyville for a good long time. We had a late lunch, then went to our neighbor's to feed their cats, clean out the litter box, and pet their bearded dragon. They are out of town.

Then we went to Grandma's for an ice cream social. While the girls hung out with Grandma and her iPad, I went shopping for some much-needed pants. After that, the girls (mainly Elizabeth) cleaned up the pony-stuff and the Lego stuff. We got in the car and made it just in time for a 5:05 showing of Paddington 2. The plan was to eat dinner at the theater, but Suzanne didn't like any of the food on offer. I had pizza, Elizabeth had a hot dog, and Suzanne had... a green apple.

The movie was good, and when we got home the girls ate more: Suzanne had two servings of cereal; Elizabeth had a piece of toast. I'm emphasizing the food so much in this post because Barb implored me before leaving not to forget to feed the girls. Something I've been known to do.

All in all a good day. Tomorrow, we go to the arcade!

In Ponyville, there was a grand wedding, complete with ice sculpture (foreground).

Elizabeth read to Suzanne in the morning while I did dishes and laundry. Elizabeth really stepped up today and helped me out.

Elizabeth dressed up for the theater.

The theater was packed. We were lucky to get three seats together, but they were second row and all the way stage left.