Daddy's band took a trip to the east coast and the whole family went along. The California Repercussions toured New York, Philadelphia and Washington D.C. over the 4th of July holiday. Much is seen and photographed.
Hayley's 7th birthday party! It was a week early and she had a bowling party with her friends. The next day she had a family gathering at Gma's house.
The following week her school had their annual walkathon to raise money and health. Her class also celebrated Hayley's birthday that day.
A week later Hayley had another birthday celebration on her actual birthday and a special birthday trip to Great America! At the same time Hayley lost another tooth! Her first top tooth! The set ends with another Patio Performance from the Cousins Club on Memorial Day featuring visiting Hawaiian cousins Connor, Colby and Carlyn.
Another school year down! So long, First Grade! Before that, though, Mommy had her birthday and her school went on a field trip to Happy Hollow. Stop me if you've heard this, but visiting cousins from Hawaii mean another Patio Performance! This time with cousins Kevin and Kristina. Hayley also went to Great America again, this time with Paige. Just a short trip this time, but that's the benefit of having a season pass.
Welcome new cousin Benjamin! Hayley is looking forward to playing with one of her few boy cousins. She can introduce him to Star Wars, Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings.
Hayley's first summer camp was a two week theater class where they performed "Cinderella Caterpillar." Hayley played the part of "Junebug" for Act 1 (they changed for Act 2). Daddy is working on a video with subtitles since it was a little windy.
Forgotten New Years 2010, Easter, Great America and More!
Still playing catch up on the pictures! See this? It's me playing catch up months later.
First, the forgotten New Years 2010 set featuring another Patio Performance by the Cousins Club and the annual paper fight. Hayley does more of her magic! Also, a trip to see Gma and a visit from Lucy and Leigh.
Next. we see that Hayley got a matching outfit for Felicity! Then Hayley's school had two school field trips. The first to Petco and the second to Yamagami's nursery.
After that is Easter with the twins and another school performance. Music time! Also, Hayley got her glasses!
Then we took a spring break trip to the "new and improved" Great America. New for 2010: Snoopy! It's now California's Great America and Snoopy is the new mascot. The park was freshly renovated and everything was new! No crowds and cool, but not cold weather! A great Spring Break!
Finally, there are pictures from her 9 Fruits show, and birthday parties for cousin Cassie and classmate Regan.
It's been a crazy few months, so I'm declaring blog bankruptcy and posting the back load of pictures in bunches. This set includes the trip to the snow, the trip to see Wicked in San Francisco and Brent and Diana's wedding.
Hayley's favorite time of year is upon us. Of course, she loves the gifts and the candy and not being in school, but what Hayley really loves is playing with her cousins. On Mommy's side of the family she is the little cousin. At the recent family gathering they have been putting on a "Cousins Club" show. The kids have been singing, dancing, acting and doing magic!
On Daddy's side of the family Hayley is the big cousin. She really loves to be "big sister" to her twin toddler cousins, and they seem to like her. Hayley loves to make them laugh and only gets a little frustrated when they don't follow instructions. :)
Before the break Hayley's school also put on the 1st Grade Musical Performance. The show was about "Life Cycles" and Hayley played the gardener who explained how crops grow. The show was followed by the class party where Daddy Santa made an appearance. See the video below!
Christmas saw the return of the Cousin's Club and also the return of the extended Star Wars and Snoopy Christmas trees. We also added the Star Trek garland since Hayley has now seen a few episodes and the new movie. Time travel paradoxes don't seem to bother her much so maybe she can explain the last season of Lost to Mommy.
Happy Halloween! Hayley was Little Red Riding Hood this year. The hood was a hand-me-down from Auntie Claire and it fit perfectly. Hayley received lots of compliments from multiple people during all of the pre-Halloween festivities, and of course on Halloween night itself. The slide show has pictures from the pumpkin patch trip all of the way through Halloween night.
Daddy and Hayley also attended the Star Wars in Concert show at the San Jose arena. This is a full symphonic concert featuring the music from Star Wars. They told the story in chronological order, so Episodes I through VI and not in movie order. They had huge digital displays showing the movies as well as other effects, such as lasers and smoke. The whole story was narrated by Anthony Daniels, who played C-3PO in the movies and still does his voice for the animated show. The show travels with multiple props and costumes from the movies. Hayley found those the most fascinating.
The last set of pictures features another fun visit from cousins Lucy and Leugh, and also some birthday parties that Hayley attended. Tinkebell played host to one party and the other had all sorts of games and fun.
Summer is over and school has returned once again. With the end of summer comes the August birthdays and the last summer parties. Hayley attended Granddad's 70th birthday celebration and friend Zoe's gymnastics party. School mate Colton also had a swim party for the locals. Hayley really enjoys swimming now. She loves her class and also really enjoyed going to the pool at "Auntie Lisa's place" (her old condo complex). Hayley insisted on going as often as she could during the warm weather. She can swim across the width of the pool now and also really like to dive for the rings.
Hayley also loves magic still. She gave several command performances at several family gatherings. If you haven't seen it, she'd love to perform for you!
Hayley is also enjoying 1st grade now. Her teacher started the year off pregnant and had the baby a few weeks into school, so Hayley has a long term sub for a few months. We're hoping the regular teacher returns, but the sub is pretty good. Hayley is quite the reader and speller now.
Finally, we took our first trip to the Oakland Zoo, which we really enjoyed. It turns out that the zoo is barely in Oakland, if at all, and is not that far away. Hayley, of course, made the most of her photo ops.
Hayley has been enjoying her July. Her normal Chinese summer school is working out well. She's having a blast being reunited with her old school friends. Christine was also able to have her own birthday lunch with the girls.
Hayley is also doing well with the academics. She even was moved up a level in Chinese! But the highlights for Hayley have been the field trips. Berry picking and the movies were fun, but the real favorites were going bowling for the first time and then a trip to the NASA Ames space museum in Mountain View (near Moffett Field).
Hayley did take a week break to attend the Destination Science camp. Hayley really enjoyed this week-long camp because every day she received some new gadgets to play with and take home. They also spent the week building their own "roller coaster" which Hayley is very proud of. She definitely wants to do the camp again next year.
During the NASA field trip Hayley was able to recognize a special robot that uses optical sensors because that was one of the gadgets she took home from the Destination Science camp! Score one for knowledge!
This past weekend was the first birthday for cousins Lucy and Leigh! Happy birthday, girls! The party was a full family affair complete with huge 15 foot tall water slide, a roasted pig and a piņata. Amazingly, no injuries resulted from any of those, despite multiple video cameras running to catch the action. The slide was a little too tall for Hayley, who preferred her old whale slide and the twins' little pool.
After Hayley finished school we took a Father's Day trip to Reno with Ang Ang and Bo Bo. Hayley enjoyed the pool and the flat panel TV in the bathroom. She also won few more stuffed animals for her growing collection.
Later we took a trip to the San Francisco Zoo. As luck would have it, the south bay was having a heat wave, but the zoo was nice and cool. Hayley has been to this zoo before, but Mom and Dad haven't actually been with her. We had a nice relaxing time and stayed much longer than we had expected.
Hayley has started a summer school program that should help maintain her Chinese skills. Two of her old Monarch school buddies are also there. She now doesn't want to go to the two other "camps" we signed her up for (science and drama). We'll see how that works out.
Hayley Rene Chu
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