To catch up on the Choi happenings over the past couple of weeks:
Cadence and Hansen were awarded their class’ ESLR Award for the month of December. The ESLR is an award that is given to 2 or 3 children from each class, in recognition of their achievements for the month. Cadence and Hansen received theirs for their communication skills. We are very proud of them both, but those of you who know Cadence will understand how incredibly proud we are of her. Cadence has struggled with her communication skills since she joined our family. However since June of this year, her speech and confidence has grown tremendously. We often find ourselves telling her to ‘be quiet or stop talking!’ I don’t think Richard or I felt this would ever happen. We should be careful for what we wish for.
Cadence was so proud to receive her certificate
>Hansen and his 'girlfriend' Rachel with their ESLR awards
All three of the kids made their acting debuts in the school production of Jack and the Beanstalk. The entire lower school each had a part to play. Aimee was a pony, Hansen was a bird and Cadence was a cloud (?). The couple of beers a few other moms and I had before the show definitely improved our appreciation of the extravaganza. I haven’t laughed so hard for a long time. The kids did great. Aimee was nervous, but you couldn’t tell, Hansen goofed off in his normal style and Cady was the cutest cloud you have ever seen. After the show we headed to a local restaurant for a celebration dinner.
Hansen doing his goofing off walk, with his mask on his head instead of his face
Cady being a cloud
Aimee the pony singing her heart out
Aimee recently celebrated her 7th birthday (Dec 13th). It was very quiet day, since we intend to celebrate all 3 of the kids’ birthdays when we are in England with my family later this month. In true Choi style, Aimee still made out like a bandit, with her big present this year being a Nintendo DS Lite in pink; complete with a TT card that contains 20 games. We are hoping this will help us on the long flight to the UK for the holidays.
The week before Christmas there were multiple holiday parties at school for the kids, Aimee and I attended her field trip to Disney English; this is a new project that Disney has recently set up in China to teach English using Disney characters. Since most of the kids already speak English, they gave the class a twist and had the kids learning Chinese instead.
Rich made a quick two day trip to Luizhou, complete with a nasty cold, I finally had my crown replaced by a very delicious French dentist, and I actually managed to sort out all our closets, while preparing to pack for the trip. This was a major task since our ayi, Xiao Liu had very helpfully opened all the boxes of clothes we had brought from the US, and filled the closets. This doesn’t sound too bad, but she had everyone’s clothes mixed up and she had opened all the ‘new’ clothes that we were supposed to be keeping. The good news was that after sorting the clothes out, I ended up being ready early for our trip and all the closets looked great too.
Never in the history of the Choi family have we been packed and ready to go earlier than a couple of hours prior to travel. It was quite unnerving having a full day with nothing to do. The dogs were safely delivered by Xiao He to the incredible kennels they will call home for the next couple of weeks. The kids and Rich finished school/work early on Friday, so with nothing left to do, the girls and I did what all girlie girls should do before the holidays; we went for a festive manicure and pedicure. Cadence had her fingernails painted with tiny strawberries and her toenails were painted pink with little diamond encrusted Christmas trees. Aimee opted for pink fingernails with white snowflakes and pink toenails complete with diamond topped candy canes. Since I bite my fingernails, I settled for a fancy pedicure of dark pink with white diamond highlighted roses. They looked very festive and at less than $40 for all of us, the price was merry too. The girls were thrilled. I really wish I had taken photos, but I was too busy being relaxed!
The final highlight of the week was that Friday 19th December marked our 4th anniversary of Cadence joining our family. It is so hard to believe that 4 years ago we were in China celebrating Christmas with our youngest family member. She has come so far and has changed so much, but even back then she was a beautiful little girl inside and out. We could not imagine life without her. Cadence’s smile brightens the even the darkest days. We love you Cady Mei – You are the Best!
