Chinese New Year

I meant to post this update last weekend as we had a four-day weekend due to Chinese New Year. It was nice to have the break, even though we just started school a mere three weeks ago. Having four days off, though, made it harder to go back to school on Monday. You just get into vacation "mode" when it's time to get back into the regular routine. It seems with three days off you just don't have time to get into vacation mode at all...so maybe it's better not to have four-day weekends :-) We didn't anything very exciting over the weekend. The neighbors up the street had a dragon dance (for more on that see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_dance ), which I took KJ to see and took a few photos. Unfortunately, for some reason, there is black on the edges of my pictures so you are probably better off going to the link I gave to see better pics (if you are interested).

Our dog, Dollar, does not like Chinese New Year. She hates the loud drumming and the firecrackers that accompany the Dragon dances, , and she really dislikes the fireworks that are lit off despite being illegal (most people celebrate the new year for about 15 days). She does everything she can to get in the house, or out of the yard just to get away from the noise. One year she managed to squeeze under the gate (maybe 5 inches high)...Poor dog. She got pretty scraped up that time (like in the photo above which was NOT taken at Chinese New Year but she did have a scrape on her face from something). If she didn't stink so badly I wouldn't mind having her in the house as much. But it seems, that even the day after we bathe her, she has bad BO. I wonder if it has to do with the 95+ degree temps we have been getting here lately! Maybe it's doggy sweat I smell! Irregardless, I don't have much sympathy for her sometimes!

Here she is as a puppy...wasn't she cute?? :-)

As many of you know we are co-sponsors (along with our good friends, the Steinkamps) of the class of 2008. On Friday night we had 10 of the Seniors over for dinner. They kind of invited themselves, but that is okay. We had grilled chicken and hotdogs with potatoes and a veggie tray. I made this yummy chocolate rum cake for dessert as well as some cookies. Young people sure can eat, ya know! Unfortunately that evening a heavy rain shower came through (we don't normally get very much rain during the month of February) and even with the awning over our back patio, the guys had to get out the umbrellas while they grilled the chicken. They made quite the sight out their with their delapidated umbrellas, as you can see below.

After dinner the students and the Dads played a round of charades while the Moms cleaned up and dealt with the kids. The students didn't stay too late and over all it was a very nice evening. I'm glad we did it. We only have three more months to spend time with this class and then they will graduate and be off to many other places in the world. It's nice to invest in them and get to know them a little bit more before that happens.

Here are a couple bonus pictures of KJ. She was eating marshmallows and began to look like a marshmallow herself! KR decided to take a picture, she was so cute. Then she got embarrassed and KR cleaned her up and then took an "after" shot. Very cute!