Sept Update

Celebrating Two Years together...a day late. Don't tell Marie. Jim had judo class on the actual date so we pushed our dinner out one day. Here she is shortly before we went to the restaurant.
Her two current faves are with her: Neenee and Hoho. Ironically, both are Chinese. Neenee is one of the Olympic mascots that Aunt Ab brought back from the actual games; Hoho is a character on the Nick Jr. show, "Ni Hao, Kai Lan." She has been sporting them around the house with her since mid-August.

At the Chinese Restaurant. The waiter was fascinated with Marie. He chatted with us all night, telling us about the area she is from and wrote out "Jiangxi girl" in Mandarin for us to take home. He was very concerned that she wasn't learning Chinese but...we are in Northern Michigan. Frankly, I want to learn Chinese too!

We had an exhausting weekend. I got roped into running this year's Homecoming Dance at my school (the year that we added 400 new kids to the school). Friday night we went to the football game and Marie loved the marching band. "Where did the band go?" was heard repeatedly for the first half. She did clap enthusiastically at every good play though! Her babysitter was also home from college and Marie was so excited to see her. "MY FRIEND!" she kept saying over and over! This being Traverse City, we also saw her teacher, my former students, neighbors, etc. It was fun. Saturday was planned as Daddy-Daughter day. Jim had his most brilliant moment in our 10 years of marriage. Instead of paying to take Marie to gymnastics, he snuck her in to the kids judo class. She played on the mats and "threw" the teacher down. We think this will be her regular Sat morning routine. Sunday turned out to be Daddy-Daughter day as well as I didn't fall asleep till extremely late Sat night and was in bad shape Sunday. Here are the two of of them making muffins Sun afternoon.

Oh yeah...I hear there was a Michigan football game too! Something about the biggest comeback ever and the 500th game at the Big House. I was crepe papering-and-ballooning the cafeteria and Jim had Marie out and about; we both missed it!