Ayden's B-Day

My boo-boo turned 5 on July 12. This was the first year she was excited to celebrate her birthday. She also talked about it months before hand and was very active in planning her birthday party. She let us know where she wanted it and who she wanted to invite. A few months before her birthday she said to me, "Mommy, when I turned 4 it was so fast but I have been waiting a really long time to turn 5. Why is it taking so long this year?"

We had Ayden's birthday at the Great Rivers Water Park. It was a great deal of fun. We had over 30 kids attend and 20 adults. Surprisingly it was not overwhelming to have so many kids. Thanks to all of our friends and family who attended and helped out with the party and the food. Most of the delicious food was prepared by an Aunt or Uncle. We are truly blessed to have so many people around us who care and support us.

Ayden with her Friends and family. The majority of people are in the kitchen or still jumping on the trampoline. Of course we only had one person jumping at a time ; )

Sweet Ayden turns 5. Is that a peace sign or is she giving bunny ears to the ball?

Ayden and friends

Can't forget the big sister. Taylor also had friends attend.

This is really funny. The first video we took in the morning. Ayden couldn't be more excited about celebrating her birthday.


This is a clip of the birthday song. There is something about that song that makes the birthday person really embarrassed. I'm sure you all know what I mean because you've felt it too : )

Lastly, I wanted to share this picture of my parents with all of their grandchildren. We took the kids to an indoor play area in Woodbury a few weeks ago. We had a great time. It's nice that most of the kids are big enough to enjoy a setting like this. Great times!

Diving

Swimming has been coming along so well for the girls and I. Unlike her big sister Ayden has always been more reserved in the water. The swimming lessons have been so wonderful for her. She has learned to dunk her head into the water, swim under water, play with confidence and she's even jumped off the diving board with a life jacket. This is huge for Ayden considering she would cry if water was splashed in her face just a few weeks prior.

Taylor is doing great also. We started working on diving yesterday. Like the fish that Taylor is she had no problems with diving head first into the water. As for me, I was extremely hesitant. Just a week ago I learned how to jump into the deep end of the pool so the transition was much harder. By the end of the evening Taylor was diving head first off of the diving board and I was diving off the diving board from a kneel. After I over came my fear it was actually fun diving. We both suffered minor injuries (Taylor a bloody nose and a scraped foot for me) but we greatly enjoyed our lesson yesterday.

Here are some pictures my sister took while she was home two weeks ago. She asked Ayden for a fierce look and this was the result. The second photo is of Taylor and her cousin Ethan.

Whew! Got it off

After visiting Cheng and Stacy I gained eight pounds. Cheng is a great cook so needless to say I ate too much. Hard to believe that even when food is healthy you can still gain weight if you eat too much. Go figure!

Anyway I can't blame it all on Cheng and Stacy. The few days leading up to our visit I had been eating more and less healthy. With Kong in CA for a week I was not able to cook so we either ate out or ate something I could make quickly at home. Last Thursday I ate three hot dogs with three servings of real Lays potato chips. It tasted good going down but I felt unusual after consuming all that food.

Routine is very important in our household. It keeps us on track for eating right and exercising. It was hard to keep things going without Kong. I forget how important his role is in allowing me to be the kind of mom I want to be. I couldn't do all of the things I currently do if it wasn't for him.

Upon our return from LaCrosse I attended Kuk Sool work out class which helped me shed four pounds and with last nights Kuk Sool (regular class) and then swimming afterwards I was able to get rid of the rest of the weight. It wasn't just the exercising, I also had to watch what I ate too. Thank goodness I'm back down to my "normal" weight. We'll see what happens after this weekend with Mom and Dad's celebration and having family up for the Holiday.

By the way, Kong was not pleased when he saw the Father's Day entry. He felt that with the title, "Father's Day Weekend" I should have had a picture of him and not Kuk Sa Nim posted. In honor of my loving and supportive husband I'm posting this special photo collage for him : )

Lastly, here is a recent photo of Ayden. She was thrilled we found a lady bug rain coat to match her lady bug umbrella.

And a small clip of Taylor in her Spring Concert.

Done!

We started work on the play set on Saturday, June 14 and finished it on Wednesday, June 18. Kong and I did the majority of the project together and we really enjoyed it. I'm really proud of him as his strengths do not include putting things together and/or fixing "stuff".














Between then and now lots has happened.

So on June 20th I turned the big 35. In all my years I have never dreaded or dislike an age but turning 35 was very significant for some reason. I was not looking forward to it. Maybe it's knowing that I've nearly lived half my life or that in five more years I'll be 40. Maybe it's knowing that death is inevitable and approaching slowing but surely. Whatever the case I feel a sense of urgency to enjoy life, change my bad habits and appreciate all that I've been blessed with.

Kong surprised me with a date on my birthday. This is a rarity for us as we have a very difficult time leaving our children with other people. Since we try to spend quality time with each other everyday I guess we never have the need to go out on dates. Anyway, Kong took me out to dinner and a movie. When we arrived at the movie theatre they changed the time of the movie so we ran errands instead. We still had a great time. Ayden's response to us going out on a date was, "I'm coming too, right?"

The day after my birthday Taylor tested for her blue stripe and I tested for my yellow belt. It was a small testing group so PSBN Steffen found a way to make testing excruciating even without small children invoking hundreds of push ups. I felt that this test really pushed me to the limit. Since Taylor was testing for a higher level belt she had to test longer. Watching her push along made me question if I had it in me to keep progressing to higher level belts. I was so proud of her. She even broke a real board. We both received our next belt level. I was also invited into Black Belt club. Yeah!

This past weekend was our 11 year anniversary. It's hard to believe that we've been together for 14 years. It seems like just yesterday we were playing pool at the Memorial Union at UW Madison. We've tried to plan anniversary trips in the past but they've never panned out so we decided not to plan anything this year. We spent the weekend visiting Kong's brother Cheng and his family. Cheng and Stacy made great food and took care of us. The kids played and had a great time. We couldn't ask for a better way to spend our anniversary.

That's it for now. More to come in the next few days as my Mom and Dad are home from their Laos Mission. We'll be having a celebration for his commision as a Probationary Elder in the United Methodist Church and completion of his Masters of Divinity.

First Swimming Lesson

We attended our first swimming lesson yesterday evening. I was the only adult in a class of about 14 kids. You know you are getting old when everyone looks young. The instructor looked like a teenage kid but I'm sure he was probably in college and home for the summer working for some extra cash : )

Taylor was bumped up to my class so we are taking lessons together. Yeah! The instructor said that he thinks I'm a better swimmer than I think I am but it's my fear of deep water that I need to over come. He made us all do bobs in water over our head to help with this. I have to admit I was nervous about this but I did it.

After the lesson we were so tired that we zonked out after we washed up. We'll have to see if we are all better swimmers after the 10 weeks. Keep your fingers crossed!

Father's Day Weekend

Father's Day weekend was very busy for us. We started Saturday with a church picnic then sprinted off to the Super Seminar. It was quite awesome to see our Grand Master in person. It was such an honor to meet Kuk Sa Nim and receive instructions and lessons from him and the team from TX.
I had never been to a Super Seminar before so I did not know what to expect. The training was rigorous and about an hour into the seminar junior martial artist were crying and adults were exhausted. I think many of us were just overwhelmed by the intensity and pace of the training. Exhaustion aside, it was an amazing experience to meet a living legend. I also learned why my right knee is in such pain. I'm not suppose to snap my leg when I do the round house kick. Who knew. I thought I was just getting old.

Kong's been busy building a play fort and swing set for the girls so he didn't get to sleep in on Father's Day. We did however have a fun packed day waiting for him. We bought him three much needed books: The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success (which is really awesome plus it's an easy read), Don't Sweat the Small Stuff and Why a Daughter Needs a Dad. Kong and I spent most of Father's day working on the play set.
This is the tower piece of the play set. Hopefully we'll have it all put together by this week.

Saturday afternoon we headed out to the Excel Center to see Walking with the Dinosuars. We had suite tickets so it was an amazing view of the show. If you get a chance to see it you should. The creatures where huge and magnificient. Taylor loved the historic replay of events. Though Ayden also enjoyed the show she was distracted by the soda, mini donuts and popcorn.

Here is a link if you want to catch a clip of the show => http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/06/12/_walking_dinos/?rsssource=1
We tried to go to Kong's favorite restaurant afterwards but the place was booked (They don't take reservations) so we ended up eating at Burger King for dinner. All in all we had a great time together.
This is a picture from Saturday night. After a long day of building the playset Kong thought it would be appropriate to give Kal-el a beer for all his hard work.

Note: This picture is not distorted. Kal-el's head is that much bigger than his body. This picture does him no justice. He's cute in this picture but not nearly as cute as he is in real life. He's an extremely happy baby too! To bad he's not mine : (

Year of Doing Thing's I've Always Wanted...

So as I said earlier this year, 2008 is the year I'm going to do things I've always wanted to but just never got around to doing it. I started martial arts (Kuk Sool Won) in February, which by the way I will be testing for my yellow belt next Saturday, and starting next week Taylor, Ayden and I will start swimming at the Oxford pool in the Jimmy Lee Recreation Center.

Sad to say I do not know how to swim. I have a huge fear of deep water. I've been thinking about taking lessons for a really long time but after Kong's boating accident last Sunday it just pushed the issue home. Though Taylor is a good swimmer I thought it was important to also put her into an intermediate class as she could use some help with techniques and strength building. Swimming is the one thing you can not be over confident about. Not to sound morbid but I am keenly aware that if you make mistakes or over assess your abilities the end result could be death. I think people forget the real dangers that come with swimming.

Speaking of the Jimmy Lee Rec Center, they renovated the whole building and added a new gym and water play area. We signed up for a summer membership and tried the pool out last night. The girls really enjoyed themselves. Next up, joining a writers group so that I can write a screen play.