Karina is 7!!!

Our Karina turned 7 years old in early August.  We had a simple celebration at Grandma and Grandpa's house.  She also shares a birthday with her Uncle Charles and so they blew out candles together.

We also usually organize a party that the birthday kid can invite their friends to.  This time, however, instead of having a traditional party, Karina opted to go to the zip line course that we had gone to earlier, and have that be her birthday.  Since this was going to be more expensive, she was allowed to invite only a couple of friends.

And so off we went...it takes about an hour to drive there and I guess that's long enough of a ride where Ruffy needed to bring several stuffed animals and blankies.

Once we got there, it was time to gear up!  She invited a couple of friends, seen to her left and right.

And now she's ready to go!

Elvin stayed on the ground with the boys.  There is a mini-zip line with handles that the boys rode on over and over.

And there is Karina waaaaay up there.  Eliana went too.  They didn't seem to be bothered by the heights.

What is Karina's favorite part?  She'll tell you that hands down, it's the actually zipping down a cable.  The faster the better...

Elvin realized that not more than 10 minutes away was a sake brewing factory.  And, they conduct tours every hour.  So even though he was not sure it was a good idea of not, he buckled the boys into the van and off then went.  It was an interesting tour where they got to see the facilities where the rice is brewed into sake.  They had you wear funny booties to keep the place clean.

They also got to see and smell the starches in the rice actively being converted to alcohol.

After about an hour, they returned to the zip line place and it was then time to open presents!  Karina wanted and got a "Baby Alive" doll.  It comes with a play-doh like substance, which you mold into "food" for the doll.  After feeding it into the dolls both, the food drops down into the dolls hollow body and then comes out the bottom in the doll's diaper.  Nice huh?

And then we tried to have candles for Karina to blow out.  However, it was very windy and we couldn't keep the candles lit!

We finally gave up and the kids dug in.  Karina had a cupcake without icing because she likes them plain.

And afterwards, we ate dinner at the Chinese restaurant on that side of town.

And on the way out of the restaurant and into the car...some of the kids got an urge to dance...

Karina had fun the following day feeding her baby and then changing her diaper.

Another present that she chose to buy with some birthday money was a mermaid tail blanket.  It was a lot bigger than we realized when she picked it out!  It's more like a mermaid sleeping bag!

And the other present she got was two Lego Elves sets.  With it, you can build some pretty cool looking dragons.

Karina enjoyed building the dragons, sometimes with Daddy's help.  Here are her dragons!  

So now that she is older, she is allowed to do more things...such as being trusted to use a paring knife to  chop apples without chopping off the tips of her fingers. 

And also she gets a new daily chore--vacuuming the dirt and grime that inevitably finds its way on the kitchen floor.

So that's our Karina!  She's growing up fast... This past year, she has lost her two front teeth; one has come in fully and the other is about 2/3 of the way in.  As the summer is ending, she will be starting 1st grade being home schooled at home.  We look forward to what this next year will bring.

Visit to the Zoo

A couple of weekends ago, Elvin took the kids to the zoo.  Emily wasn't feeling well so she stayed at home.  We realized that we had memberships still but hadn't gone for a long time during the day.  The last few years, we had only during at night to see the lights.

Quite a lot has changed since we were last there.  For one thing, they've changed the big sign in the front.

There is a goat statue in the front and the kids always like to get on it.

We watched the Bird Show.  It was really neat because they had many of the birds fly from behind the crowd to the front where the stage is at.  They had this red tailed hawk fly so close to where Elvin and Gabe were seated, that Gabe jumped off of Elvin's lap, "just in case" Gabe said.

The zookeeper asked the audience to guess how heavy this bird was.  People's guesses ranged from 9 pounds to 15 pounds.  She then let us know that this hawk came in at a mere 3 pounds!

We went to the bear exhibit and the kids compared themselves to the bear figures on the wall.

They had feeding time for the elephants and enticed them to go into the elephant enclosure's swimming pool by feeding them slices of apples and sweet potatoes.  The baby elephant, which does not look like a baby anymore, liked to perch himself on the edge and open his mouth wide like a baby bird.  The keeper then tossed the goodies directly into his mouth.

The polar bears were having a special treat as well.  They threw down a salmon carcass and the bear was happily devouring the whole thing, fins and all.

Again, the kids wanted to figure out how big they were compared to the actual size of the animal.  You will notice in the picture below that they lined themselves up by matching the size of the animal to the size of the kid--meaning, Eliana being the tallest kid stood in front of the tallest bear, etc.

We've been having a heat wave up here, with temperatures getting up into the 100's.  It was still in the 90's but the kids still enjoyed getting themselves wet in the misting station set up by the zoo for this exact purpose.

How does Xiao Yu measure up to an orangutan?

Here is an actual female orangutan.  We found out from the zookeeper that she was 57 years old!  That put her as the oldest animal in this zoo and also the animal who has been the longest at this zoo. She has had 6 babies and is now "retired" and is now living out the rest of her life here....the zookeeper said most orangutans have a lifespan of up to 60 years.

We also watched the penguins being fed.  They got to eat anchovies.

Here's a video of the cute little penguins diving for their fishy treats.

Because it was so warm, the kids got to eat shave ice.  Two kids had to share one.  The only problem was that Gabe knocked down the one that he and Karina were sharing, so about 70% of it fell on the ground.  He had to mooch off of Eliana to get any as Elvin wouldn't let him eat much of what was left of his.

There were some planters around and Elvin videoed a hummingbird, in slow motion, feeding on the flowers' nectars.

The kids enjoyed petting the goats, especially Xiao Yu.

In the goat enclosure, there are various structures and equipment for the goats to play with to keep from getting too bored.  Elvin caught our boys on tape, nudging up against a huge bristly thing that looked like it was for goats to scratch their backs on...

Towards the exit, there were little statues of pikas.  Which for some reason Gabe was enamored with.

And there they are on the poor goat statue again.

By the time they left the zoo, they have been walking around for six hours and now it was dinnertime!  They stopped by a nearby Chinese restaurant which is way better than any of the restaurants in Vancouver, and everyone ate their fill!

Bicycle Ride!

Elvin tries to organize one-on-one time with the different kids and on a certain (very hot) weekend in July, it was Karina's turn.  Elvin had considered taking Karina on another backpacking trip.  But after talking to her about it, it came to light that she really does NOT enjoy hiking.

On the other hand, riding her bike was very fun and so that was that!

They went off to an area on the west side of town, where there is a 6 mile biking trail.

It was forecasted to be over 100 degrees that day, so they went earlier in the morning to try to beat the heat.

The scenery was pretty.

And they made good time and got to the end of the trail in no time!  The destination was Vancouver Lake.

A regional rowing and crew championship was taking place at that time, and so they got to watch boats get launched from shore.

 

Karina got to drink what might be her favorite drink in the world--Coca Cola.

It was getting really hot, and so after lunch, they stopped to get a lemonade slushy.

The event organizers had set up a misting station for all the athletes.  Karina stopped to take advantage of it and cool down as well.

And then it was time to head back!  It was much cooler when riding because of the breeze.  The breeze also made her dress blow up like a ballon!

And we made it back to the car!  Here is Karina also showing off the box of Shopkins band-aids that she got.

Monopoly!

The kids saw the Monopoly box and so wanted to play it.  We have never played it before with the kids and they had to learn all about paying rent, buying houses, and passing "Go".

After about an hour, they were still having lots of fun.  They had to pause the game for the night, to re-start the next morning.  At that moment, Karina was probably in the lead with six houses on her properties.  Gabe has three houses sprinkled amongst his red and yellow properties.  Eliana owns Boardwalk and Park Place, with a house on each (but we all know that people rarely land there!)