Programming for kids!

The highlight of the month is that Renee and Max are learning to program!

Renee continues her progress with dancing. I keep on trying to get her to learn Taich with me, as I thought she would be great with her flexbility.

I arranged a playdate with Max and one of his best friends: Ben. We went out for a hike and looked for Geocache.

This is Ben's first time for Geocaching. So he took some time with the cammo-container.

The three kids are playing some-kind of make-believe adventure game along the way

Max went to a coding event and really liked it. Once got home, he showed me how he leaned to program. Renee joined soon and also went through the practice.

Chinese New Year

With the rain coming down, February was still a busy month.

We started the month with Cardboard box racing. The tigers look so funny in them.

Max got his driver's license for the PWD (Pine Wood Dirby) race. Unfortunately, he was sick and couldn't attend the event.

On a sunny day, we went outside to our old favorite spot. Hung around and took a picture to wish everyone a happy new year.

Renee got her first Green Belt! Renee worked pretty hard for it.

Max and I continue going to the Den meeting. He is not exactly the rule-following type but if I talk to him through the responsibilities he generally took them.

For the Den meeting of the month, we built the table center piece for the Minecraft theme. Each tiger picked an animal, searched online, and painted the side of the cube. On top of the cube, we put letters D-E-N-9-! on them.

This is another Cub Scouts event where all the kids get to eat dinner and celebrate the older kids going through the ceremony. The table pieces are what we built together for the Minecraft theme.

The DI (Destination Imagination) team on the day of competition. They found this tree and claimed it as their territory.

This is the DI team at the time of competition. They did a great job on this play.

Here is the team relaxing during lunch hour waiting for the second part of the competition.

They look like troopers. They really enjoyed the whole experience.

During the school's Chinese new year celebration, the school brought in lion dancers. After the show, the kids get to try the small one on.

Renee and Max got in line and took a picture with the lions.

Renee dressed up for the Chinese music show.

Max also sang along with his friends.

Winter Outing

For the first month of the year, we continued to have the needed rains. But there were still enough sunny days that we were able to enjoy the outside.

The family went on a bike trip and hunting the geocach along the way. This is one that we found at one of the vertical poles at the fence. After that discovery, Renee and Max tried to rock all the fences. That habit was quickly put to stop.

We took a few group selfies along the way.

This is another bike trip that we took at a nearby park.

Renee and Max decided to climb all the way up before their kungfu class. For their kungfu learning, Max shows good sense of the form but sloppy on the details, probably due to lack of enough practice. Renee has good basic skills from the dancing and gym practice. She is still learning to get a hang of kungfu.

Max really loves building stuff out of the blocks. He can focus on it for a long time. We start getting ones that is aimed to be older kids. He enjoys them much more. I just need to stick around on the few cases where he does not have enough strength yet.

We continue having the monthly Den meeting with Cub Scouts. Here are the tigers playing outside at the end of one meeting.

I served as a chaperon for a Renee's school trip to the oldest school in town. We all dressed up and lived in year 1888 for half a day.

During the recess, we played the games in those days. They were actually pretty fun.

Renee learned to use the feather pen to write and use the paper towel to dry the ink. Renee felt very proud after because she wrote the whole thing without a mistake.

Max is playing piano now. He has been making pretty good progress to our relief. The teacher appears to like him too.

Renee joined a team for "Destination Imagination" competition. They met frequently to build a structure, build the scene, and make a play. Even though we didn't get to go to the state, we all enjoyed the time and learning tremendously.

Max and his team took this picture for the driver's license. However, he got sick and was not able to join the Pinewood Derby race.