Parent/Teacher conference and trip to Seattle

Reggie’s teacher’s conference was scheduled for Monday afternoon but sadly, Scott Lui (Trina’s cousin) was called to the Lord and Trina had to fly back to Seattle for the memorial. She flew out Monday afternoon and the kids and I started our “Disneyland journey.” The kids and I managed to only eat in once and enjoyed every other meal out. We also pulled out the Christmas decorations and put up frosty.

I had to keep their minds off of their Mom being gone (they missed their mommy). Trina was gone for just a couple of nights. She enjoyed seeing her extended family as all of the cousins were there. The circumstances weren’t ideal, but the company was a blessing from God. It was nice for Trina to get away and spend quality time with her family without the kids. Once she got back we settled back into our routine and before we knew it Reggie’s conference was here. We knew we had a sweet boy, but when you hear it from his kindergarten teacher, it just re-confirms it. Reggie is making great progress in school as he’s learning his “sight” words (the, and, it, we, etc..) along with hand-writing, and basic math. His teacher Mrs. Pierson tells us that all of the boys in his class fight over who gets to sit by Reggie, eat by Reggie, and play with Reggie. All in all, he is right where he should be with all the things he is learning and is a joy to have in class. I’m so thankful to God that Reggie is the way he is. Remembering back to my childhood I dreaded going to school and was never very good at it. I can tell that most of it will come easy to Reggie (must be the Norwegian genes) and that he’ll enjoy going to school. Hopefully his sister will follow in his footsteps.

A very late Halloween update

Oh, the fun of Halloween! Reggie dresses up a lot at home, but the week of Halloween, he got to wear his costumes out in public! His school had a fun parade and class party which he thoroughly enjoyed. His eyes were darting everywhere, looking at everyone’s costumes and he was really excited. Ainsley dressed up as Bell and was met by her "friends" in kindergarten. She plays with a couple girls who hang around after their morning class and they were excited to see her.

Here's a clip of Reggie at his school parade:

Ainsley's class doing a Halloween craft:

Sat. was Halloween and Reggie woke up with the sniffles. He still hasn’t gotten over the cough from his first cold, so I was bummed he was getting another. Ainsley got his first cold and we were up many hours of the night for about 3 days trying to get her to stop coughing. She coughed so hard, she threw up a few times. Thankfully, the days are much better for both of them. Anyway, Reggie wasn’t feeling well on Halloween night (wouldn’t even eat dinner!), and we were at Bill’s house (Ryan’s boss), so we decided to go up and down the street and call it a night. Ainsley was having a lot of fun because they have 3 girls and they had their friends over. She wants so badly to be a big kid! I think she would have been fine with us leaving her to go with the big girls! Reggie fell asleep in the car at 7:30 and had a great night of sleep, so he was a different, happy kid on Sunday. And the best part was we didn’t end up with much candy!!! We were home in time to give out ours and we were left with only 1 candy bar :o).

Visit from Aunt Liha and Maggie

We had a great visit!!! It was a little more challenging to find time for fun activities with school and preschool, but I think we found some fun things to do.
Reggie had his school carnival/walkathon on Sat., so I was able to help in the classroom on Friday. The carnival is put on by the PTA and I volunteered with another mom to be our class PTA rep., not really knowing what was involved. Let’s just say, it was good there were two of us and good my sister was in town, because we were pretty busy! The Kindergartner’s were in charge of decorating cakes for the cake walk (it is kinda like musical chairs) for our class game on Sat. We had an abundance of cakes because the morning classes gave us their extras and some people brought 4 cakes, so each kid decorated 2. It was quite the sight and we finished just in time!

Liha had a really bad cold and a migraine, so things started out a bit rocky, but everyone finally slept on day 3 and she started feeling lots better. All the kids went to the carnival on Sat. morning. Reggie walked laps (he was coughing so much that he couldn’t run) and the girls played on the playground. They had all kinds of carnival games, so we ended up with lots of stickers, spider rings and candy! They had a bake sale and Aunt Liha got them a decorated Halloween cupcake, so they had their sugar for the week! They also were raffling off class theme baskets and some were really cool. We did a Christmas theme basket that Libby and I put together….making those baskets look nice is quite the task! I only mention the baskets because I won one….the one we spent so long putting together!!!

Thank you everyone for supporting Reggie and his school for their walkathon!

Sunday we went to church and then headed for Six Flags. They had a new tiger show, so we watched them dive for dinner. It was super cool to see the tigers swim and dive. The kids rode a few rides and then we watched the sea lion Halloween show. It always seems like we are there for a long time and don’t get to do enough, but as usual, the kids had fun. It was dark when we left and they had “smoke”, along with crazy dressed people scaring those walking around, so it was kinda spooky.
We didn’t have much excitement after that. The kids played and played….I’m not even sure what they did, but there was a lot of giggling going on with intermittent shrieking! We took a few trips to the park and the kids played outside in the sandbox and yard because the weather was so nice. And we had to go to Sweet Tomatoes and get bagels for Aunt Liha. For some reason, there’s a lot more bagels shops here.
The night before they left, Livermore had a downtown Halloween festival. Usually, the kids trick-or-treat through the local businesses, but they decided to switch it up this year. It was o.k., but similar to Reggie’s school carnival, except with really long lines. It was kinda chilly, so we didn’t stay long. Colds aside, it was a great visit and we’re bummed they won’t be back for a long time…why did Liha have to go and get knocked up???? It will be exciting to meet the new little girl/guy at the end of April :o).

Cousin Scott

Today is a sad day. Scott lost his battle with pseudomonus, aspergillus, and some mystery fungus in his one functioning lung. He was on life support for almost 3 weeks and had his ups and downs, but took a turn this week. They decided to let him go and he went quickly. I can just imagine he ran to God without having to stop to catch his breath, excited to be rid of his sickly body. Praise God!!! I’m happy for Scott, but sad for the rest of us who will miss him. Please pray for his wife, Kristin, and daughters, Stella and Ruby, along with his parents and brothers and all that loved him.
He’s been the cat with nine lives, surviving his transplant and numerous infections and hospitalizations. Although this day was inevitable, somehow, I think everyone thought he would pull through yet again. Funny how it comes as a surprise when the day is actually here….wow…I can’t believe he is really gone :o(.