Awards and parties!

Every once in a while, the girls' school holds an assembly where they hand out awards to select students for excellence in a number of different categories. UPK is not included in the assembly, so Luci has to wait a year before she can even be in the running! Drew was awarded twice in kindergarten, once for music and another for something that I can't recall at the moment. Look back in the archives if you're really interested, they're both there. Anyway, her school had another of these assemblies on Friday and Drew received an award for Excellent Work. Yeah, I asked, too. Apparently, it is for a group of things, like neat handwriting, tidiness, finishing assignments, and other work-related habits. She really does have some nice penmanship and she strives to make her letters neat and small. Way to go, Drew! Keep up the good work! Below she walks up to receive her award.




After school on Friday, we packed up the girls and left for Syracuse for the weekend for our adoption agency's annual Chinese New Year party. Here are the three Musketeers before lunch.

Normally, this event is held the last weekend of January, but they found their attendance dwindling as the local FCC (Families with Children from China) held their party the same weekend, and most people would rather attend that event as the entertainment is far more interesting than the agency's. So they changed it this year hoping to prevent that. By changing it (at the last minute) they had to change the venue as well. So they held the party in the middle of a car dealership/mall. Sounds strange, but it actually turned out very well. They served Chinese food which was also a change this year. The food was great! As usual, they had a DJ and the kids all went nuts dancing to the music and trying to win dance contests. The kids had a lot of fun, even if the adults were rather bored. A bonus to changing the venue was that there were video games available which the kids loved!

There were just a very few kids dancing, so my girls and Sara decided to get the party started!

And start it they did!

No, it's not from hallucinogenic drugs...they were dancing the Hokey-Pokey and this happened to be the "Put your head in and shake it all about" part!

Sara and Drew win a dance contest and walk away with these super stylish felt hats!

Daddy slow dances with his best girls!

I took the escalator upstairs to get a better shot.

One of Luci's favorite movies, The Polar Express, gave her the idea to pull on Daddy's beard to make him howl like a caribou!

Drew doing the limbo! Wish I had this kind of dexterity!

Luci's turn!

Here are the six out of 18 girls from Luci's travel group. L to R we have Meilin, Claire, Karis, Olivia, Luci and Natalie.

Here are the four out of 14 girls from Drew's travel group. L to R we have Nicole, May, Sara and Drew.

All in all, though a bit "same old, same old", the girls had a blast as usual, so it was worth the trip. The best part of the day was seeing all the girls we haven't seen in a while! We look forward to seeing more of Drew's group this summer at our annual picnic! This year we'll have tons of stuff to discuss, especially our upcoming trip to DisneyWorld next year with as many of the families as we can convince to come along! THAT is going to be SO much fun!!!