Daddy turned 40 today

Here's all we have to say on the matter:

The eyes have it

Here's looking at you, kid...

The Chappaqua Halloween Parade

On Sunday, October 21, we all marched in the Halloween Parade that the Village of Chappaqua puts on every year. A good time was had by all, although CJ grew a little tired by the end. She perked right up for the playground at the end of the parade (it seemed like a good idea, something all parades should have).











Two days later, we went for a nice walk with my parents on my brother's birthday. Here's a nice photo of CJ, who thoroughly enjoyed her first taste of autumn in the Northeast.

Rembering Mike.

My brother Mike would have turned 35 yesterday, an occasion that we commemorated by visiting the cemetery and then taking NaiNai and YeYe for a nice walk among some fall foliage.

CJ of course charmed the weather into cooperating, and brightened what could have been a gloomy day.

It’s hard to believe that he passed away more than six months ago. So much has taken place since then, but the passage of time is always accelerated when you have a little one at home.

In some ways, we are at a crossroads. As CJ grows, the size of our one bedroom apartment seems to dwindle daily, and the looming question of where to live next tosses out more questions – do we buy a house? can we buy one in the NYC area? and if we leave, what does that entail?

But every day you face decisions that could impact your life and your family’s life. The worst thing in life is to avoid making these decisions, to become too timid to chart your path and be content with letting the wind blow you where it will.

One of the many things I admire about Mike is that he always dreamed big, and always tried to follow through on his dreams. Even after being laid low by the peritonitis whose complications eventually killed him, he continued pushing his dreams and secured his graduate degree. He had the audacity to look for a job even while trying to figure out how to get nourishment when his digestive system failed.

Can you imagine going on a job interview when you have no idea when you will be able to eat solid food again?

I need to start living like that. The stakes for me, with a little daughter, are certainly high. But to not live life to its fullest, to not chase your potential come what may, is to not live. I think that is one of the most important lessons I have learned from my brother.

I only wish that the lesson hadn’t come at such a high price.

-- Dan

(photos from yesterday, and the weekend, to come eventually)

Steam Eat!

Our friend Sanj just opened a cafe bistro in New Rochelle called Steam Eat. The food is quite yummy!

Here's the Mayor of New Rochelle, Sanj, and his Dad at the grand opening ribbon cutting this past Thursday.



And here's CJ looking for more desserts!



Steam Eat
179 Main Street,
New Rochelle, NY 10801
Phone: 914-355-2063
http://foodpage.us/cafebistrorestaurantPeetscoffeeteabakery

At play and on tour

A week ago, we visited with Stefanie and Karen and their families. Stefanie and Karen worked with Dan at the American Cancer Society (and are still with ACS).

The kids all got along quite well.



After brunch at Stefanie's, we went to a nearby park and zoo in Teaneck, NJ. CJ had a good time scouting out the new playground.



And all four kids got in some good Halloween practice.



Last Tuesday, Meg and Aunt Annie took CJ to places they associate with their grandmother Naomi. Here they are at the Landmark Inn in Warwick, New York. CJ was puzzled by the old doors that had been used to create a patchwork ceiling in the main dining room. As Meg and Aunt Annie reminisced, CJ spent most of the meal looking up!



We then proceeded to the hamlet of Cragsmoor, an artists' colony begun in the 19th century, to go to the 1830s mountaintop farmhouse where Naomi lived in the summer. The outhouse was gone, as was the well and flagpole, and everything looked a wee bit smaller than we remembered, but seeing the house brought back many happy memories.



Here is Aunt Annie on the porch giving some pointers to CJ on how to rock.



Unfortunately, the dozen "No Tresspassing" signs prohibited us from visiting Chetolah, the summer estate just down the road from Naomi's that was built by artist George Inness Jr. and was the focal point of the artists' colony at the turn of the 20th century. As children, we loved to play at the mansion and surrounding grounds. Especially in its dilapidated state, it was fun to explore and imagine what living there must have been like. However, we were able to visit the local library and look at photographs and other documents of the mansion in its heyday. It was indeed a magical place.

Reading with Nai Nai

There are plenty of photos to post from an outing Meg and CJ had with Aunt Annie on Tuesday, and a family visit that we had with two friends and their kids. But I couldn't resist posting this photo of my Mom and CJ last night.

Hopefully, we'll get the other photos up shortly.

At Katarina's birthday party

On Saturday, we took CJ to a birthday party for Katarina, a 3-year-old adopted from Hunan Province in China. The party was held at a "gym" in Northern Westchester that was not quite like other gyms we've been to. Workout equipment, for example, was rather hard to find...







But I think CJ had a good time.

A trip to Woodstock, and a few other photos

Before we get to the current events, we came across the following photo that somehow didn't make it on the blog yet. Here's CJ back in August, showing her cousin Grace the proper pinwheel technique:



More recently, we visited Dan's sister and kids this past weekend. On a walk alongside the Ashokan Reservoir, CJ, Cousin Alyssa, and Nai Nai (Dan's mom) stopped to smell the flowers.



Here's the family photo:



On the way home, we took Ye Ye (Dan's dad) to Kaaterskill Falls. The half-mile hike through pretty woods presented a few good photo ops.



The falls themselves were running fairly low, but were still pretty spectacular.



Here's Meg, CJ, and Ye Ye on the walk back to the car.



When we returned home, we gave CJ some dark chocolate as a reward for behaving so well over the weekend. But in a crazy girly-girl fit, she used the chocolate as lipstick...



She does have her own inimitable style!

CJ celebrating Autumn

CJ can cut a mean rug:



This past weekend, we went to the Hammond Museum in northern Westchester to celebrate the Autumn Moon festival. We helped CJ paint a paper lantern.



The families paraded the decorated lanterns to a lily pond.



Candles were placed in oversize grapefruits that had been scooped out and scored. These votives represented lotus flowers and were launched into the pond to summon the spirits of our ancestors.



On Sunday, we met up with three of the families in our adoption travel group for dim sum. Here are all four girls in attendance (from left: Olivia, Gabriella, CJ, and Erin):



Group shots of the girls can be a bit of a challenge. The paparazzi parents proved too much for Erin. After she bailed, the photo op quickly devolved.



But when we had the girls hold hands they looked ready to take on the world!



Or at least, have fun at the nearby playground. Woo hoo Gabriella!



In the never-ending quest to get a decent group shot, we tried putting the girls on the playset. James, Erin's brother, sits in for Olivia.



But before Olivia could enter the fray, Erin took a tumble. Through it all, James waited patiently with Gabriella and CJ.



The second group shot proved as elusive as the first. At least the peanut gallery of local kids had fun watching the spectacle.

More from the Portland vacation

Sorry this has taken so long to post, but I finally downloaded and sorted through the Portland photos from Meg's camera. And there's some really good stuff.

First, a video of our walk in Portland's Forest Park with Stefee and Fergus. CJ was a little skittish around Fergus, although by the trip's end she really did like the dog...



When we were camping, CJ, Meg and I went for a nice walk through the woods. This little clip is especially popular for its soundtrack:



Back in Portland, the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry is a great place to visit with your family. They have the cutest little chipmunk costumes (next to the sandbox, of course).



And finally, on one of our last nights in Portland, we went out to eat "huo guo" or hot pot. CJ was especially fond of the noodles!

Lower Manhattan, Maryland, Richmond, she's everywhere!

Ok, so we're having some problems keeping up with the blog postings. My apologies for getting behind (again).

Here we have CJ and Grace, who get along quite well:



Last week, CJ and Meg visited cousin Chrissy down by the South Street Seaport. Here's CJ at her charming best:



And here's CJ, Meg, and a fairly stiff breeze:



This past weekend, we visited Uncle Jack, who lives near the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland.



There was a wonderful boardwalk that CJ enjoyed:



We then stayed with Art, who's known Meg and her brother Frank since childhood. Art is pretty tall:



CJ was impressed, of course.



On Sunday, we went to Richmond for the wedding of Meg's high school friend Rebecca. CJ and I chose to go incognito:



We had a great time at the wedding. After all the funerals and memorial services of the past year, it was great to attend a real happy occasion. Much fun was had by all.

-- Dan

Portland vacation

We spent ten relatively fun days in Portland, Oregon, to close out the summer. I say relatively because during this time about half of CJ's teeth came in. That part was the only not-so-much-fun part. But we had a great time hanging out with our friends Stefee and Mike, and their parents.

In fact, Bob, Stefee's Dad, took us camping -- CJ's first camping trip. And this was no casual jaunt. Bob knows how to camp in style.



Mom and CJ quickly adapted to this new way of roughing it. Here they are lining up for breakfast:



The site, a secret location in the Mt. Hood National Forest, was beautiful. Here's CJ trying to adjust one of her new teeth:



And here I am with CJ, hiking along an old logging road:



CJ had a lot of fun with Stefee and Mike's pets. They have a big German Shepherd that CJ liked but had a hard time getting up the nerve to pet. She mastered the cats in no time, though. Here she is showing Tigger the door:



We also checked out the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. Here's Meg and CJ test driving a replica of the Gemini spacecraft that launched the day Meg was born:



And here's CJ holding court in the museum's sandbox:



No, we don't know why the museum had a sandbox.

On our last day, we went for a great hike to a cliff overlooking the Columbia River Gorge:



There's a few more photos and some videos from our trip that need to be pulled off of Meg's camera, and I'll try to post them at some point this weekend.

It's too bad the summer ended. With CJ, the season just sped past us!