Fairy Visit

Kaleia, as half-fairy, attends fairy school in the middle of the night and is our resident expert on fairy life and the wishes of the queen fairy. In this interview, Kaleia introduces us to a fairy she has caught. 

P.S. Forgive the low quality of the video -- and length! I just couldn't cut any material! The technical difficulties with this video roadblocked my blogging the last few months, but now we should be rolling again. 

Pet Day 2015: Best Waver

Trudy attended Pet Day today at Maggie's school. She was awarded a certificate for "Best Paw Wave to Say Hi!" We think every pet received an award, but we aren't telling Trudy.

How to Make an Origami Dog

If you make an origami dog from my instructions, send me a picture!

Sisters...play soccer together.

After a little finagling, we got both girls on the same soccer team -- the Pink Pandas! They LOVE playing on the same team!

This 2-minute video of little kid soccer is probably too long for most folks. The last minute is the best if you only want to watch some of it. Kaleia is in pink shorts, glasses and wears #2. Maggie has black shorts and wears #3. 

This was there first game -- April 11th

Sisters...build a car together.

Spring break and some new furniture inspire a joint car-making effort.

Tinkering under the hood

Click below to see more pictures and to watch the girls tell you about their car.

How to Bake a Cake (by Magnolia)

How to Bake a Cake

by Magnolia

First you take the batter and stir it around.

Swish, Swish

Get a pan.

Clang,

Pour the batter into the pan.

Splish, splash.

And bake it in the oven.

Cook. Cook.

Tick, tock,

Goes the clock.

The cake is all ready.

The Divers by Kaleia

Recently, Kaleia's class had a publishing party. They have been working on authoring and illustrating stories of their own for some time. We've heard Kaleia share enthusiastically about these works in-progress and how she longed to bring them home to share. Normally noncompetitive, she surprised us with, "Today, we got to read out books with a partner at the publishing party. (My reading partner) only had one book to read and I had FOUR!" She is very proud of her work. We hope you enjoy the author reading below. Watch for more books by Kaleia in the near future. 

Click below to view close-up pictures of Kaleia's book.

Let It Go!

I'm sure this is not a unique scene right now. But, I can't help but share a Kaleia version.

Splashdown!

Brian and his brother Kevin had season's passes to Splashdown, a nearby water park, when they were growing up. In the 12 years we've been together, I've never been there, though I've heard frequently of its wonders. So when a deal came up for discounted tickets and Kevin's family was in town from Calgary, we had to go.

Click to read more

Cards with Lucy

Who needs a bilingual preschool when you can play cards with Lucy outside her parents' fruit store with your Spanish friends?

Lucy and Kaleia

Magnolia, Gabriel, and Lucy playing cards

Temple of Heaven

As our time in Beijing comes to a close, we are trying to at least see all the traditional sites near us. We took advantage of a BLUE SKY! Saturday and spent the morning exploring the Temple of Heaven and its surrounding park with our friends Julij and Prism. 

Kaleia, Prism, and Magnolia

More to follow the break...

Dance Class or How to Make Magnolia Meltdown

Bonus Track: How Kaleia fixes the falling house after performing her spins

Xin Nian Kuai Le or Happy (Chinese) New Year

2012 is the Year of the Dragon.

Red decorations -- lanterns, banners of Chinese characters, and diamond-shaped Chinese knots -- begin to adorn every door, street light and window. Shops post signs indicating their modified hours or return date as a new world record for largest human migration is again set. People from all over China return to their hometowns, and Beijing empties.

Here in Northern China there are few of the traditional Chinese New Year celebrations, although the girls' preschool did lots of crafts and cultural lessons around the topic. As part of the school celebration, they hosted a Lion and Dragon Dance. Make sure to click after the picture to see some videos and continue reading.

Here's to a Happy 2012!

Our friend, Blake was visiting us, but flying out New Year's Day. So he offered to man the fort while Brian and I rang in 2012 without kids. This would be our third time out alone since we arrived in August. Even though we were heading out at 11 pm, we were still excited. 

We grabbed a taxi and headed to Sanlitun Village, a more Western area near us with lots of restaurants. LOTS of other people must have had the same idea. Our taxi crawled. Eventually, we paid the driver and walked the rest of the way.

Maggie Gets a Bicycle

True to Magnolia form, she thoroughly inspects her new possession, apprehending it intellectually, prior to first use:

The less kinesthetic of our daughters, she surprised us by quickly mastering this new skill.

Zoom, zoom.

The Three Little Pigs

The Rush Theatre Presents...

Three Little Pigs

Directed and Produced by Magnolia Rush

 ~ Starring ~

Magnolia Rush as The Eldest Pig

Brian Rush as The Middle Pig

Kaleia Rush as The Youngest Pig

Shannon Rush as the Big Bad Wolf

Cinematography ~ Brian Rush

Casting ~ Magnolia Rush

Running Time: 3:19

Nĭ Hăo!

Sometime a few weeks ago.S: Brian, do you realize we haven’t had a blog post since April 27th?!
B: I know. Life has been a little crazy.
Screams heard from the other room.
M: Moooommmm, Kaleia is pulling my hair...

Later.
S: Okay where were we?
B: Blog. Do you want to write a post tonight?
S: Sure, but where do we start? At the beginning with what started all this craziness? Or with the current insanity?
B: Maybe a little of both, tell the now while it’s fresh and fill in a few holes while we’re at it. Let’s just brainstorm for now.
S: ...
B: Shan? Are you asleep?

Another night.
B: We're in China!
S: Yeah, there is so much I want to write about!
B: I know.  I feel like people don’t even really know Kaleia. We have this little character to unleash on the world!
S: Maybe we should kick off our grand re-opening with this video:

B: Perfect. Now, to figure out how to get a VPN so we can post it...

Word of the Week: Ah-poe

Ah-poe: (noun) any substance, composed of carbohydrates, water, fats, proteins and water, that can be eaten or drunk by animals, including humans, for nutrition or pleasure.

"Ah-poe!!!"

10 on 10/10/10

I've always wanted to participate in the 10 on 10 photo project:

Take a photo every hour for ten consecutive hours on the tenth of each month. Document a day of your life and find beauty among the ordinary moments. Then share your beauty with us!

10/10/10 seemed like a must. They are not the best pictures in the world, but they capture our day, even if the posting is almost two weeks late.

8:00 am - Breakfast

9:00 am - Waking Up Papa

10:00 am - Sisters Playing

11:00 am - Greek Orthodox Church

12:00 pm - Lunch!

1:00 pm - Everyone was Napping...so no pictures

2:00 pm - Grading Pre-Calculus Midterms...Blahk!

3:00 pm - Maggie Waking from Her Nap...Why does she bounce like that? 

4:00 pm - Entertaining Maggie While Driving

5:00 pm - Finding a Cricket with Papa

6:00 pm - Blowing Dandilions

8:00 pm - Getting Creamed by Brian for the 9th time...Next Week We are Switching to Cribbage

9:00 pm - At least we are together, right?

10:10 on 10/10/10

Magnolia's First Haircut

  

For those viewing through facebook, click through to our blog to see the video clip. I sped it up so you could see the entire wiggly process. If you make it to the end, you will see Maggie talking about her new hair.