A local connection

As you know, I'm all about local. But this is different.

Dear friends of ours, Wibby's family, are currently in China to be united with their baby daughter. As I talked with J before they left, I kept feeling all the same feelings that I had when we went to get CiBaby. The neatest part...they are going to the same Province that CiBaby was born, as that is where there little one is from as well (CiBaby from Jingzhou, babyM from Wuxue...opposite sides of Wuhan along the Yangtze River). As I type this post, since they are 12 hours ahead of us, they are either on their way or getting ready to depart for Wuhan, in the Hubei Province. The kicker of the whole thing is that they will have our absolutely fantastic guide, Grant, with them every step of the way. He lead us through the process flawlessly, showed us the sights and talked to us about the Chinese culture. It was a fantastic experience and I only hope the R Family will have the same.

And again to think...a garage sale was the catalyst for a wonderful relationship, and now...a local connection.

They had a field day

truly.

This last month of school there is a lot happening, among them...Field Day. I recall my own field days with fond memories. Spending the day outside, just playing. And now my girl had her first one as well...and she had a ball.

I tell ya, this kid can run...and run, and run. And she's pretty fast too! Of course, she's not all grace. After I picked her up and she had her playtime in "the pit"* But in true form of their school, all of the children got a gold medal.

One thing CiBaby did not tell me in her brief of the day was what happened after she fell. I found this out later. One of her awesome teachers, Ms. G., captured this moment for us.

This is CiBaby's buddy, J. J and CiBaby bonded at the beginning of the school year over My Little Pony, and the bond continued. They are a great match.

During the Field Day race, when CiBaby fell, J stopped running, went back to where CiBaby was and started walking with her. Later, Ms G asked J why she did that and J said, "Because. [CiBaby] is mine friend." Well, I don't know about you, but that got my eyes to well up. I feel so blessed that I found such a great school that brought my girl together with such a wonderful being, who is no doubt the product of her awesome parents.

Preschool may cost you money, but it was a priceless year in my book.

*There is adjacent lot to the school that has a huge composting leaf pile that the kids love to run around and in...and they have lovingly dubbed it "the Pit." Not a day goes by that they don't want to have a romp in the pit after school.

Happy Hallo-week!

What a great week. Our Hallo-week started with an Adults-Only party. T-Daddy and I were the Time Life couple...aka Kissing Sailor. The week continued with pumpkin carving with Auntie and Great-Gram, trick-or-treating at a nearby senior living apartments, multiple parties at school, a party with friends, quick crafting by Yours Truly and of course...trick-or-treating on All Hallows Eve.

We were lucky enough to have a buddy to collect candy with us this year...of course there were times where we thought we were watching Preschooler Smackdown as they ran to see who could ring the doorbell first.

All-in-all, it was a great week...full of fun and sugar!

Fate or Destiny?

A random neighborhood garage sale brought
two little girls and two women a friendship.
Fate or Destiny...
Whichever it is, I'm glad it happened.

Playground pals

Gems of St. Small...

good friends and rockin' playgrounds!

BFF

Aren't they cute?!?! This is CiBaby's friend, "Wibby." The girls get along and play (generally, unless a nap is needed) so well, it makes my heart sing.

**It's a pretty rare pic to catch CiBaby smiling. If you know her, you know she smiles all of the time, except for pictures, of course!

Year of the Ox

Happy New Year!

Today we celebrated the beginning of Chinese New Year...the year of the Ox (which happens to be my sign as well!) which will continue for the next 15 days, ending with the Lantern Festival.

The day began with a very fun playdate with 9 other mom friends and their 11 children, it was a full house. Fun was had by all. In an effort to minimize stress on myself I made nothing except for coffee. I did buy some fun treats at my FAV Asian market...trying to keep to the New Year traditions (and still be American kid friendly) I got green tea pumpkin seeds, sweet candies and taro filled wafer cookies*.

After the house quieted and was tidyed up, I set to preparing our meal. It was a simple dish but delicious and very easy to make, which was served with Yu Choy. G-Mama and Bopa joined us for the festivities.

Xinjian Rice Pot with Lamb
san geung yeung yuk faan

(copied from Food of the World - China)

This wholesome dish from Xinjiang Province is known in Uygur as "poluo rice" which means finger-food. Thus is eaten with the fingers rather than chopsticks* or spoons. This dish is always served at weddings, funerals, and traditional festivals, including the first day of Chinese New Year.

Serves 6-8 (generous servings)

2 tablespoons vegetable or peanut oil

10-1/2 oz/300 g lamb or mutton, cut into bit-size cubes

2 carrots, coarsely chopped

2 onions coarsely chopped

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1 teaspoon Sichuan peppers, lightly roasted and lightly crushed

generous 2 cups short- or medium-grain rice

3-3/4 cups water

In a large casserole, heat the oil and stir-fry the meat for 1-2 minutes, or until the pieces are sealed on all sides. Add the carrot and onion and stir-fry until the vegetables are beginning to soften. Add the salt, ginger, and Sichuan peppers and mix well.

Finally, add the rice and water and bring to a boil. Cover the pan and cook over low heat for 30 minutes, or until the rice has absorbed all of the water. Serve alone or as part of a meal.

We cracked open a bottle of wine

we picked up in China, and put some
traditional Chinese music on the stereo.

CiBaby was so proud of her chopstick skills,

even though there were near misses!

Wishing you all the best,

CzaMama, T-Daddy and CiBaby

*If you see Durian fruit wafer cookies by Garden Company, run fast and far. Horrible. They smelled so awful and tasted just as bad. The coconut and peach were good, and the taro (by I-Mei) were good too. All not terribly sweet...like american wafer cookies.

**We used chopsticks...Bopa wasn't too excited about using his fingers to eat.

It arrived in the nick of time!

I am a lucky gal as I have a group of girlfriends that live all over the world. Each year we either do Secret Santa or an ornament exchange, as was this year. I was lucky enough to get my beautiful friend, J9, who lives in New Zealand as my recipient.

J9 and I have an extra special bond. Not only are we mothers to wonderful, beautiful daughters, both of our daughters came into our families through adoption. Last year, just before Christmas, J9's Christmas Miracle, her little angel, came to be.

Well, the ornament that represents her precious daughter arrived today, Christmas Eve Day (in New Zealand). Whew!

Merry Christmas my friend.




*This was the project I almost burst about several days ago. You can see below the process, pre-grout, during grouting and the finished product (above).

Retail Therapy

Being a Stay At Home Mom (SAHM) is a tough, but rewarding, job. Just like any job, a vacation from the every day is the ticket to refreshment. A lot of women find retail therapy a quick trip from reality to a happier place. Not me. I hopped a plane Friday morning to my retail therapy and worked in my friend's store!

What could be as nice as sitting in Business Class when you don't want to spend a whole lot of airline miles? An open row of seats! I was able to spread out and work on our Christmas cards and not have to worry about a fellow passenger looking over my shoulder or bumping my elbow while I was writing.

This trip started out much better than the last. The plane was not only not late, it was actually early. Unheard of. This time instead of arriving at 1:30 AM PST, I arrived at 11:30 AM and we drove straight into the hills...to cut down a Christmas tree! I came prepared for the trip as I was wearing jeans, long-sleeve t-shirt, sweater (did I mention it was unseasonably warm while I was there?!?) and my freshly polished hiking clogs...well, almost prepared...although I was able to scale the hills really without a problem.

After finding the perfect tree, we headed back to the city. Completely starved we stopped at a roadside stand for one of the best hot dogs I've had in a long time and some sodas. We talked about the craziness of life while watching the traffic whiz by...all at a leisurely pace. It was lovely. Once back at the store we worked a bit, closed up shop and went to a wonderful Indian restaurant where, due to the unseasonably warm weather, we sat outside, had delicious food, drank wine* and talked.

Then it was time to turn in. We drove back to my lovely sanctuary of an apartment, chatted with my wonderful hosts and I was met with the following...a menagerie of breakfast food/snacks, beverages, tea, a tea kettle and a brand new microwave. It was divine.

After an uninterrupted night of sleep I woke up early Saturday morning, 4:30 AM**, checked email on my snazzy new phone, did more work on our Christmas cards and got ready for a day at the store. The bonus was that the store was closed that day so we could set up all of the gorgeous wears that Mme hand picks for E&F.

We unpacked, moved, merchandised, sparkled and decorated our tushes off, all while having lots of laughs and a good helping of Peets. Must. Have. Caffeine. Once fully glittered, we headed over to Rick & Ann's for a quiet dinner of homemade mac & cheese...with a side of spinach. mmmmm

Sunday was the big day...the Champagne Holiday Open House! Everything looked great, including the very happy shoppers.

To top it off, there was a trunk show of beautiful Me & Ro jewelry. drool

Once the customers left we closed the doors, turned off the lights and made our way up to the glorious Claremont Hotel where cocktails, food and a gorgeous sunset awaited us.

Monday was a quiet day. While the store was open, it normally isn't on Mondays, making it easier to get a lot of restocking and organizing done. I even completed a couple of transactions all on my own!

Once the day was over, C & B and I went to meet S & T at the Imperial Tea Court. The atmosphere was great, the tea divine, the food delectable and company...well, need I say? It was a wonderful ending to the day.

Tuesday was wrap up day. Sad to say. Mme and I had a wonderful breakfast over at Bette's Oceanview Diner, again, chatting about the craziness of life. I had my last cup of store made Peets (for awhile), stuffed my carry-on as tightly as I could, grabbed an avocado shake (I know it sounds odd, but it was wonderful if you like avocado!) and headed for the airport. We both decided that it was much easier last time when I had to bolt for the door in order the catch my plane. This time we got to linger making it so much harder to leave.

As luck would have it, this was the view I had on the way back as well.

While I love being a wife/mother/daughter/niece/etc...sometimes it's just nice to be "me."

*At least I had wine. Mme had a cocktail and B, I believe, had a beer.

**Not intentional, I swear to you.

One year ago today - October 16, 2007

One year ago today CiBaby was officially ours.

Before going off to that grey government building to sign the official papers, we went down for breakfast...with our spoon and bottle cap. Although very basic and wouldn't be considered a "toy," both provided much needed entertainment and diversion for our overstimulated babe.

This hotel also had a breakfast buffet, as I think most of the hotels do, but this had even less "American" style breakfast items. One of my favorite things was a spicy noodle soup our new friends had introduced me to. He (who has the same name as T-Daddy) was of Chinese heritage but grew up in Canada and she was also Chinese and had grown up in Vietnam, I believe.

CiBaby, in addition to her jarred baby "paste" was indulging in steamed eggs* and Congee with bits of pork. Unfortunately one thing we found out later is that poor CiBaby was SO constipated from all of the rice, bananas and apples they gave her in the orphanage she was in serious pain that evening. I won't go into all the gross details like T-Daddy thinks I should tell, let's just put it this way, I have NEVER pooped anything so large, even as an adult! This drastically changed what she was eating while we were in China, and it helped.

The following is a picture of school children doing morning exercises in one of the many school yards near our hotel. The hotel was located in what is known as the Education District. Wuhan is broken up into 3 districts...Education, Industrial and Business. You will also notice the haze in the picture. I actually took this picture out of an open window, so it's not from a dirty window. This is how the air was all of the time. It was a little darker then because it was before 7AM, but other than that you could tell the sun was out, but it was never clear.

Today CiBaby and I met our new friends for breakfast. Her new little friend is also China and only a couple months younger. They were so cute together. They fought over crayons and toys on the table while the moms got to sit and chat over breakfast and coffee...for 1.5 hours! Once we left the girls walked hand-in-hand down the street. It was adorable, and of course neither J nor I had our cameras with us.

*It's almost like an unsweetened custard.

The End of an Era

I received a call from one of our lovely neighbors* on Saturday that they would like my consultation on some landscaping they are thinking about. Not an odd request, really.

We were able to get together tonight to go over the plans. During the discussion I learned they were planning on putting their house* on the market after the holidays. While I know this as the right thing for them, we will be very sad to see them go...even if it's only a couple miles away.

*We have great neighbors. These particular ones brought us baked goods on Christmas Eve, the day after we had moved in. How very thoughtful...so much so I remember the deets almost 7 years later.
**So if anyone is looking to live across from us, let me know, I'll hook ya up! I can't guarantee baked goods though...but I do make "damn good hummus."

The Girls

The Girls got together last night to celebrate our friends' wedding!

The blushing couple

Laura* and Colin got married on Friday in a beautiful location in the Wisconsin North woods and came back to party their pants off with the rest of us! What a fun event. The party was held at Intelligent Nutrients and there were a lot of personal touches in the party by the bride and groom. Laura, event designer and owner of Flings Event Design, and now husband Colin, a brewer with Barley John's Brew Pub, had beautiful, delicious and interesting food and outstanding beer brewed by the couple.

Food and drink(s).

Our guys, holding up the bar.

The Ladies and their Men.

*Laura was the last of The Girls in the longtime bookclub to be married. Congrats guys!!!