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.
Another school year has passed and Hayley is no longer in Kindergarten. She had a great year and a great teacher so we were very lucky. Hayley also did well in her two Chinese schools, getting grades of A and A+. All of her teachers seem to really like her and say that she is very well-behaved. If they could only see her at home!
Hayley's kindergarten class also performed several songs for the parents, so there will be video of that coming soon.
June is also birthday month, so the family gathered at Gma's place for food and cake. The twins were their usual cute selves and many pictures were taken. After the party we went to the Coyote Point Museum where we met Hayley's friend Christine. They had a great time exploring every exhibit and looking at every animal.
Hayley has also lost her second tooth! The first one is just barely growing in, so she has a rather large gap now. She looks like an old-time hockey player!
Hayley's birthday was extended (as usual) with visits to Gma (Hayley's great-grandmother), Nai Nai, Bobo and Ang Ang (but not all on the same day). Aunty Rici also stopped by for a visit, bearing gifts.
Hayley's school year is coming to a close. She has only two weeks left. Today was her last computer lab of the year. Daddy is the class volunteer in charge of putting all of their artwork on the web. You can visit their Kindergarten class page and then view the various art projects on the lower right side. It's now against the rules to post the students' names on the official site, so all of Hayley's work is labeled "#9."
Hayley turns six years old today! What happened?! The little girl is not so little any more. To celebrate we had an early family birthday dinner for her last weekend. Hopefully, everyone who came had a good time.
Before that, Hayley's school went to the San Jose Discovery Museum. Hayley has been before several times but it was fun for her to go with her class. Then on Mother's Day we took a trip to the Exploratorium in San Francisco. Hayley really liked that place. We spent twice as much time there as we had expected and still didn't see everything.
Daddy also visited cousins Lucy and Leigh and got a few pictures.
Hayley lost her first tooth! As previously reported, her tooth was loose on April 1 and it came out on April 23rd. It came out at school while she was eating a peanut butter sandwich, but fortunately she and the teachers were able to save it in a bag.
After cleaning off the peanut butter Hayley excitedly placed it under her pillow. The Tooth Fairy gave her a golden dollar and a nice bag to place future teeth in. We tried to capture the moment on camera, but she didn't want the lights on so soon after waking up. Thus, we have a nice "radio" broadcast of the moment.
Hayley also had two school performances. At Lincoln, the kindergarten music classes put on a short concert where they all played their little xylophones together. At Nine Fruits the whole school put on a much bigger show. Hayley even had a small speaking part in Chinese! The environment was a little video-camera-unfriendly (people running in front, and teachers conducting in between Hayley and the camera) but her two songs are posted below.
Hayley had her spring break the week after Easter so we finally took the SoCal trip that we wanted to take during her February break. No colds or threat of snow on the Grapevine this time!
We drove to San Diego first but stopped, of course, at Knott's Berry Farm for dinner on the way down. We didn't do any theme parks this trip and opted instead to lounge around the condo's pool and hot tub. Very relaxing!
Then we drove back north for two days at Disneyland. Even though this was her third trip there, Hayley is now over 40" tall (43!) which opened up many new rides. Some "first time" events were: Star Tours, the new and "improved" Small World, Club 33, Jungle Cruise at night, new Toy Story ride, Tom Sawyer's Island, Soaring Over California, and the "Tower of Terror."
That last one was a mistake. We had ridden the ToT in DisneyWORLD way back but the one in LA is much more, well, terrifying. No tears, but she didn't approve. She did like Club 33 (the fancy private club) and the brand new Toy Story ride. Her favorite ride is still the Monsters, Inc. ride, which we rode three times (no lines).
Small World was renovated recently and is slightly different. Now there are some Disney characters scattered amongst the regular kids. They've been "small worlded" so they don't stick out too much. I got pictures of most of them, but missed Cinderella. The music is also slightly different in that it doesn't get as "tribal" during the Hawaiian part.
You can hear Hayley's own recap of the trip in this video (9 minutes long).
Spring is here and with it came a flood of birthdays. The first set of pictures are of the non-birthday happenings, including some school pictures and her kindergarten open house. The birthdays are for cousins Charlotte, Ivy and Cassie. As always, Hayley can't get enough of playing with her cousins. She looks forward to these get-togethers for weeks.
In other news, Hayley has her first loose tooth! She noticed it on April 1 (no foolin') and we're keeping a close eye on it.
Hayley's Chinese is also getting better. She does well on the tests and homework. Daddy is writing an online flashcard system just to keep up.
We also made a Vulcan version of Hayley. Beware of Cheez-It commercial.
Hayley Rene Chu
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