minlin space

kevin is having a good time in shanghai. one thing he likes is the subway station. today is the first day the line 8 opens its second phase stations. it goes all the way to the aerospace museum. we decided to take kevin for a ride. it goes from underground to ground (so called 轻轨) at the last few stations. kevin had a good time. we then toured the famous yuyuan. kevin is like a little photographer shooting pictures like crazy. there are quite some good pics and i plan to create a album for pics taken by kevin.

[tba: pics]

I got a book about brain training in harvard which is said to help kids develop their analytical and emperical thinking. i asked kevin about one question, it is like this:

x
x
x
x x x x x

there are eight coins above, the vertical row has 4 coins and the horizontal row has 5 coins. you can only move one coin to make both rows to have 5 coins. kevin spent some time but he finally got it after i gave him some hint.

the next one i ask him is a brain teaser, 一只狼在追一个男孩，碰到一条河，男孩不会游泳，也没有船，但是男孩却过去了，为十么？

kevin kept coming with ideas, jump over the river, drink a lot of water to float over, driving a plane, etc, the one a like most is: give the wolf a candie. the answer? 他昏过去了， but i like kevin’s answer better.

Kevin had a spring break week early april. I took him to a train ride trip to portland thur through saturday. this is his first real train ride and he is excited (to be accurate, this is my first train ride in usa also, and i am excited too). the trip from seattle to portland is scenary and beautiful, it travels along the pristine beauty of puget sounds elegant water, then passes through the valley like majestic cascade mountains. the best place on train to view the scenary is the lounge car, it provides the seating in front of windows just like a cruise. we also had a dinner on the train in the dinner car, it is relaxing and kevin can spread out his drawing gig and took pictures outside the window. he also found some playmates on the train back to seattle and enjoyed playing games with them.

walking on the bridge in portland

portland chinese garden

relax at 知鱼亭

小小表演家

picture taken by kevin

on the cascade dinner train

scenary outside the trainplay on the cascade train ride

play on cascade train dinner car

kevin has completed the level 1 swimming class and is now attending level 2 class. he is doing great. he is still not able to swim by himself but that day may come anytime. he has all the skills to do that but he has never swim by himself before so it may take a bit longer, just like a baby walk, the first step is always the hardest.

yesterday I went with kevin to his school’s annual scientic fair. it is like a festival or something and lots of displays of the kids have accomplished during the school year. there are quite a few really deep thoughts and experients, but for the most part there are kids (not so scientific) thoughts but shows that they are eager to explor and learn and generating good ideas that may or may not seem accurate. there is a display of a kid who studied the color and physical changes of egg when they are raw, and when they are cookd with cook, coffee, etc. and wrote down what she observed. there is another one experient that a kid doing on some leaf (not quite sure), he mentioned several steps he followed and at the end he stated honestly that his experiment failed. i feel it is pretty good accomplishment althought he did not get teh results he expected but at least he was being honest and he never stop exploring new ideas.

kevin and chris had a good time going from booth to booth, play with anything they can get a hand on and show good interests on the cookies and sweet eats. they are 50c each and made by volunteers of hte student family.

kevin also created a book in his calss with nice pictures with something about the fall:

Kevin vip book

Kevin’s class composed a VIP book this week. The book was created by his classmates at challenger kindergarten. in the book every kid in the class draws a picture and write a sentence as a gift to him. It reads: To Kevin, I like you because _______________________________ from your friend, ________.

all the pictures are quite creative, and the messages are charming. happy to see this book and glad to learn that kevin has made some really good progress at school.

Here are some pictures.

[Show as slideshow]

this is a record setting for seattle - 12/17-12/26 none stop. i had a scare moment when i try to pull the car into the garage, i need to make a turen in the cross road of the community but i have a hard time to drive the car uphill, it was icy and slipy. i have to drive to the cue-de-sec and use some speed to get up the hill.

the other night we went to a friend’s house which is just a short walk away. i was holding chris in my arm. but i slipped and fell on the ice. but i was still holding chris. i was a bit worried about chris and try to make sure he is ok. chris is a bit scared, but he said to me “are u ok” right after we fell - it is like a holiday present for me!

kevin & chris's music room

it's too cold outside

here are more photos taken last weekend in the trip to seattle center.

bluenose program book with ms Hana Lass's signature

it was a nice day last saturday, there is sun shine for a period of time. kids like it more than anything else, it was raining for the last few weekends and they get bored staying indoor. I took them to the seattle center. it was all decorated with christmas light on the trees and magic lights near the water fountain. when it is getting dark, the scene is extremely beautiful, the water display, the holiday music, and the background key arena and internal lights and space needle standing tall in the sun set. I took a shot of the space needle take a look.

we then went to watch a show Bluenose. it is an execellent show for kids. here is the introduction:

“This rollicking pirate story has quick and witty banter, fantastic physical comedy, and a lovely story of tolerance and acceptance. Three red-nosed pirates stumble across a blue-nosed girl fishing in the water around their boat. Being different from them is an unthinkable offense, and they don’t like it! Despite their bumbling, stumbling ways, she teaches them to let go of their prejudices and fears, and they all learn a little bit about themselves along the way.”

three bumbling red-nosed pirates Ratt, Spatt and Knat (Hyland, Emily Chisholm and Brandon Simmons, respectively), who drink, smoke and cuss, encounter the blue-nosed girl Ku (Hana Lass). Ku’s different — and therefore, inferior.

after the show, kids got to go to the stage and ask questions. chris went up there and asked a question to Ku (Hana Lass): when you jump into the water, there is splashes. why is that”. Ms Lass, seemingly not trying to explain the physics of how the water splashes, asked chris: “yah, when you go swimming in the water, do you make splashes?”, to her surprise, chris answered, firmly, “no”. everybody laughed at that point.

chris even got a signature from ms Hana Lass.