Miracles of Mitch Triathlon, July 2011

With our extremely chaotic summer in 2011, I missed the boat on a few things.  This is one thing that we are so proud of and cannot be forgotten.  Last summer, Kyra raised money and participated in the Miracles of Mitch triathlon in Minneapolis.  This year, Trey decided to join her.  They did an amazing job and we are very proud of them.  We are hoping that no matter where we are living, that it is possible for them to continue to be a part of this fabulous organization.

Craig's "Send-Off" From His Hong Kong Colleagues

Once again, time to play a little catch up on "things to share" or just to post for memory purposes...These are a couple of photos that don't truly capture what a great effort that was made from Craig's colleagues in Hong Kong as we were getting ready to say goodbye and move back to the U.S.  They had an amazing cake made that had items on it that were either Craig's interests, hobbies, events he had organized for the company, etc.  It was truly a piece of art.

They also had some wonderful personalized gifts that they gave him as well.  I know that Craig truly enjoyed his short term in Hong Kong and would have loved to stay even longer, if that is what the job had required.

October

October was a busy month. On top of all of our daily sporting commitments, Trey and Kyra started Cotillion, we celebrated Tyson's 9th birthday and had fun with Halloween!

COTILLION
While Kyra is enjoying participating in cotillion with a couple of her new friends here in Laguna Hills, I think it just makes Trey miss his Hong Kong friends even more since that was a regular routine for him with so many of his friends last year.

TYSON'S BIRTHDAY
Tyson decided to have his birthday dinner at Dave & Buster's.  First birthday in a while that we weren't celebrating at Outback Steakhouse in Hong Kong.  That was our staple birthday restaurant so the majority of us could enjoy a nice steak!! 

HALLOWEEN
The kids were so excited to have a "normal" Halloween of walking the streets to get their candy door-to-door like back in Eden Prairie.  In Hong Kong, we walked up and down the flights of stairs in our apartment building and that was it.  You could feel the excitement in the air as we discussed who would stay home to hand out candy, who would go out trick-or-treating, do we dare all go out at the same time and leave a bowl of candy out? How long would it last?  Would one greedy kid dump the whole bowl in his bag?  Well, we took that chance and decided to go out as a family for our first Halloween back in the States after a few years. 

Let's just say...apparently our house is in a bit older community with not as many young kids...I'm pretty sure not one piece of candy was gone from our bowl on the front step even after being gone for 1-1/2 hours.  At one point, we were on a long residential street and we were the ONLY trick-or-treaters on the street the entire time we were on it.  And I think it would be generous to say that 4 out of 10 homes were giving out treats.  Hmmm....not exactly what the kids were hoping for...unless the neighborhood was really going with the theme of "ghost town"???  Oh well...at least they had fun carving their pumpkins!

Keely's Birthday (August 23)

Unfortunately for Keely, in August we really didn't know anybody and school hadn't started yet so she hadn't met any new friends so we tried to go all out in our celebration of her birthday with just the six of us. She remains our "princess" so that was the theme she decided upon.  She even decided to dress up for the "party" in one of her many princess dresses that we picked up while we were in Hong Kong.

Happy 5th Birthday, Keely!

School Project

In Trey's Algebra class this year, he had what was called a "Super Size Me" project where he had to use mathematics to enlarge an object a specific number of times.  They had to be able to recreate it with similar materials (needed to feel similar to the original object) and make it look as close to the original object as possible.  Parents were allowed to "help" but not to do the project.  Trey chose to do a Dots box.  He figured out the specific measurements in centimeters for the enlarged object spent hours and hours in the details of the box.  Have to share it...