Easter!

We have a few more photos and some video to post, but we'll use this one as a placeholder for now...

NaiNai's birthday (and follow-up visit)

At the beginning of March, we helped NaiNai celebrate her birthday with a fabulous brunch. Here's CJ bending NaiNai's ear on what it means to be a big girl now:



After we ate, CJ then taught Bogey a new bone trick.



And then, everyone's favorite entertainer tickled the ivories for us.



This past weekend, NaiNai and YeYe came by for a follow-up visit. NaiNai read CJ a great story:



And then all of a sudden, a pillow fight broke out.



It's just another day in the life.

An interesting take on how to look at China

As the parent of a Chinese-American girl, all of the criticisms and scandals swirling around China trouble me. Not that the news lacks justification -- I'll be the first to point out that China's government has an incredible amount of room for improvement. But we are very much on the edge of an era where it becomes acceptable to blatantly discriminate against China -- and by extension, anyone Chinese. (in fact, we're probably there already in most parts of the U.S.)

That is why I enjoyed this post from the China Beat. It effectively discusses how to look at China with a more holistic, big-picture perspective.

I'm also interested in hearing people's thoughts on this rather weighty topic.

Catching up

February was a pretty hectic month. My apologies for not posting all too much. To make up for it, this post will have to be very large...

But larger than Babar? Here's CJ in the Smithsonian Natural History Museum, hanging out with her favorite elephant. We were in Washington this past week for Uncle Herman's funeral. While I worked the day after the funeral, CJ and Meg went sightseeing.


Earlier this month, we added an extra day to President's Day weekend and hung out in the High Peaks area of the Adirondacks. Here's CJ and Mommy in a refurbished covered bridge:


Meg and I have been going up to the Adirondacks since the early '90s and were somewhat amused that the High Peaks area had just been "discovered." We had a fun time hanging out with one of Meg's high school buddies, Claudia, her husband John, and their son Joseph. CJ had a fun time goofing around with (and riding on) Joseph:


The six of us then went on a snowshoeing expedition to Roaring Brook Falls (on the south flank of Giant Mountain). The weather was global-warming-weird, fifty degrees in the middle of February in the mountains of Northern New York. Here's CJ, Meg and I at the top of the falls:


And here's Claudia, Meg and Joseph:


CJ, Meg and I continued uphill for another half mile or so, took a break to figure out where we were and whether we should continue. The place where we stopped was a large grove of birch trees, which would have been gorgeous had there been sunlight. Even so, there was plenty of beauty under the gray sky. Here's CJ taking in the sights:


With us, taking photos is like eating potato chips. You can't just take one.


We finally decided to continue on, but only snowshoed another thirty yards or so before coming to the place where the trail crossed Roaring Brook. With all the snow melt coming off the mountain, the brook wasn't quite passable.

And then it started raining, of course.

Here are a few shots from earlier in February, goofing around at home.


With Meg and I wearing our glasses ("goggles") around the house, every now and then CJ snags Mr. Potatohead's glasses and does the same. Here she is "shopping" on the coffee table:


She's a bit of a wackadoo, to be honest.


Way back at the end of January, we got together with three of the families with whom we traveled to China. Due to an unfortunate need for CJ to powder her nose, she missed the group photo. Here are Olivia, Cara, and Gabriella, wondering where CJ wandered off to:


The photo was taken at the tail end of the visit. Folks had to get going, but the three of us stayed a little bit longer with Gabriella, Jana, and Pete. Here's Meg, CJ, and Gabriella:


CJ even led an impromptu yoga class for all the girls.


Finally, CJ had a lot of fun hanging out and watching all of the Giants playoff games with me. We even dragged Meg to the Superbowl party hosted by our friends Josh and Betsy. We were all quite thrilled by the amazing game, but the experience really tired CJ out:


While CJ and Meg did not make it down for the ticker-tape parade, they didn't miss much. This is as close as I got to the Superbowl trophy:


Party on!