Tag Archives: weiwei

8th grade graduation

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Our son graduated from 8th grade a few weeks ago in a lovely ceremony held at the school.  Being a 14 year old boy with only an embryonic frontal lobe (at best), he neglected to mention that he was part of an ensemble that was singing as part of the ceremony.  (If you knew the history of the non-existent singing genes of both the Lintott and Liang families, you would understand what a shocking development this is.)  Nonetheless, he did a lovely job (you can actually hear his voice during the performance).
It’s a little bittersweet to now have two children in high school.  I was a bit melancholy the week of graduation, but it was a sweet ceremony, and the kids were all great.  Our son has a great group of friends, which should stand him in good stead in high school.
I have already decided that come next school year, with a high school senior and a high school freshman, copious amounts of alcohol is what is getting me through the year! 🙂

filing in for the ceremony

filing in for the ceremony

singing (!) during the ceremony

singing (!) during the ceremony

graduating!

graduating!

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A B’Not Mitzvah in St. Thomas

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A close friend of our son’s held her bat mitzvah in St. Thomas (U.S. Virgin Islands) at the site of a historic Jewish synagogue first built in the late 1700s. Her younger sister was having her bat mitzvah at the same time (the plural of bat mitzvah being b’not mitzvah, which is pretty much the extent of my Hebrew).

The ceremony was very touching and both girls did a fabulous job! The synagogue itself was beautiful, with its sand floor and whitewashed walls. The Torah was one that had survived the Holocaust, and the ceremony also honored two young girls, ages 7 and 10, who did not survive.

We arrived late Thursday afternoon, admired the beautiful views, and took it easy.

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view of St. Thomas

Friday was pool day. (Actually, every day was pool day.) Evidently, 10+ hours in a pool in one day is a totally fine way to spend a day for a 13 year old boy. So that’s exactly what we did. There was also the beach, the ocean, and kayaking.

Pool Day(s)!

Pool Day(s)!

Saturday’s ceremony itself was beautiful. Both girls did a fabulous job with their readings. The rabbi exuded such genuine warmth of spirit in everything he uttered.

The extrovert in our family had the time of his life at the party on Saturday night. There was food (a minor consideration when there’s a party), a speech to be given (that was surprisingly poised and articulate and heartfelt by the son), and dancing (with everyone).

A high point for me was the half-dozen or so moms who made a point to come up to me and tell me how kind and sweet our 13 year old was to all of the younger kids who were there. Even the little girl who announced that our son was her new boyfriend did not faze him, and he happily danced with her without (much) embarrassment.

Sunday consisted of more time in the pool and a snorkeling trip to St. John’s where we saw a variety of colorful fish and a stingray. Oh, and then there was more time in the pool.

All in all, it was a very meaningful trip to have our son be with his friend during this very important occasion and, of course, it was tremendous fun as well!

a fun trip!

a fun trip!

Disneyworld…the ultimate Americana experience

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We now have a third child (a temporary one, before you all get too excited about the news). Yinan is an exchange student from Beijing going to our kids’ school, and she is staying with us for the school year. She is a lovely person, and my only concern about her is how she could put up with our weird family for so long.

Anyway, we decided to celebrate Marcus’s 13th birthday by—you guessed it!—a weekend at Disneyworld. Naturally, Yinan came along (as well as one of Marcus’s best friends). You can’t get a more quintessential American experience than Disneyworld.

With the help of Disney’s guide service, we managed to get to all four parks—Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, Hollywood Studios, and Animal Kingdom—in two days. Even more impressively, we spent the first day entirely in Magic Kingdom and managed to hit the highlights of three remaining parks all on the second day.

There isn’t much to say about Disneyworld that I haven’t already said, either in previous blog posts or in my travel tome about it. That being said, it was really an even more amazing experience to go with someone who had never gone before. Yinan was a great sport about it—tried every ride and food experience (as you know, with us, it is also about the food).

And Tarl, our guide, was fabulously super. Without him, there would have been no possible way to hit three parks in one day (plus lunch, of course).

Happy birthday, Marcus, and welcome to the United States, Yinan!

on Space Mountain

on Space Mountain

Expedition Everest (Animal Kingdom)

Expedition Everest (Animal Kingdom)

with our guide, Tarl

with our guide, Tarl

Awesome Con 2014

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Because Jim and I are awesome parents, we took the kids to Awesome Con at the Washington Convention Center on Sunday, April 20. This was an interesting sociological event. Awesome Con is unlike Star Trek conventions, which are dedicated to one show (more or less) and are totally obsessed by that one narrative (not that I’m admitting to having gone to Star Trek conventions, mind you).

Awesome Con 2014

Awesome Con 2014

Awesome Con is mainly devoted to Dr. Who fans (or Whovians, as they like to be called) but there are also some Star Wars, Disney, and Sherlock (the BBC version) fandoms there as well. We saw a trio costumed from the Disney movie “Up” (Kevin—the bird, Russell, and the Ed Asner character), lots of Dalek and Dr. Who costumes, and the occasional convention-as-an-excuse-to-dress-in-skimpy-outfits costumes.

We also saw J. August Richards, better known as Mike Peterson/Deathlok in the television show “Agents of Shield.” He could not have been nicer, chatted with the kids, told us that his makeup took 2 hours to put on and ½ hour to take off.

Jade with August Richards (aka Deathlok)

Jade with August Richards (aka Deathlok)

Marcus with August Richards (aka Deathlok)

Marcus with August Richards (aka Deathlok)

We really had a lovely time at Awesome Con (well, maybe the kids and I had a nicer time than Jim, who is not as enamored of the nerd crowd as the rest of us). It was certainly a unique, although fun, way to spend Easter Sunday!

Hope all of you had a lovely Easter as well! (Although not necessarily at Awesome Con.) 🙂

Children’s Ball 2014

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The Children’s Ball, a fundraiser to benefit the Children’s National Medical Center, was held on Friday, April 11 at the Ritz-Carlton in Washington, DC. The Ball was co-chaired by Yousef and Abeer Al-Otaiba (the UAE Ambassador and his wife) and Amy and Bret Baier.  There were over 900 people in attendance with a lengthy waitlist as well.

Thanks to the wonderful co-chairs, the Ball broke a DC fundraising record and raised $10.7 million for Children’s National Medical Center. The live auction included a Labrador puppy (which our children were strictly banned from bidding on).  Yousef announced at the end of the live auction that he had called the Crown Prince of the UAE and the Foreign Minister on his way to the event, and both agreed to contribute $1 million each.  And as a final surprise for the guests, Jennifer Hudson performed for the crowd, including a stunning rendition of one of my favorite songs, Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen (better known as one of the songs on the Shrek soundtrack).  🙂

Jim is Chair of the CNMC Board of Directors for another 2 months and 9 days, and this is one of our favorite events of the year.

Here is our family at the Ball:

Children's Ball 2014

Children’s Ball 2014

The kids also got to invite their friends. Here is our daughter’s group (minus one):

Jade & her friends

Jade & her friends at Children’s Ball 2014

And here is our son’s group of friends:

Marcus & his friends

Marcus & his friends

You can learn more about Children’s National Medical Center at www.cnmc.org.

A Palo Alto Wedding

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I took our 12 year old son to Palo Alto for a cousin’s wedding on March 15.  We arrived in Palo Alto late Friday night (which was made even later with a request for a late-night snack of black truffle French fries).  Once we finally got up on Saturday, we made the obligatory brain-washing visit to Stanford and walked through the Engineering Quad.  It was one of those gloriously sunny 80 degree days that Palo Alto specializes in (what a woman I talked to briefly called “stupid nice”).

the Stanford Quad

the Stanford Quad

an aspiring Nerd Nation member

an aspiring Nerd Nation member

The wedding itself was one of the loveliest ceremonies we’ve been to.  I was only sorry that Jim and our daughter couldn’t be there, too.  And it was wonderful to see my parents and all my relatives and catch up on what they’ve been doing.  (Although our son, after being presented with a plethora of cousins he never knew existed, decided we had too big of a family.  He wasn’t reassured on being told that this was the less populated side of my family.)

the kayak wedding cake

the kayak wedding cake

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note the Chinese Coke cans

note the Chinese Coke cans

Naturally, after a weekend of glorious weather, we came back to DC and had 10 inches of snow overnight.  School was cancelled on Monday, and I suspect it will be July before school finally lets out!

Snow Day Activities

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While the MLK long weekend gave us sunny and even warm (relatively speaking) weather, Tuesday brought us 6 inches of snow.  For hardy Midwesterners and New Englanders, this amount might be a mere blip on the winter radar.  However, for the mid-Atlantic and for DC in particular, it’s enough to shut down the federal government and school systems in the area.  Our kids managed to get 2 snow days out of it.  While much of it was spent watching Dr. Who and Phineas & Ferb, there was also outdoor play.  A snowball fight, complete with snowball guns, was a requirement.  Unfortunately, the snow wasn’t ideal for snowball fights, being light and fluffy, but good fun was still had by all (2 kids + dog).  And when the snowball gun fails, a hand-packed snowball is a perfect substitute.

Marcus with the snowball gun

Marcus with the snowball gun

Jade making snowballs the old-fashioned way

Jade making snowballs the old-fashioned way

Meanwhile, the prerogative of the parent is to stay in the toasty warm house and indulge in baking.  I got a bread machine as a birthday present last year, and Tuesday was the perfect day to try out a recipe for chocolate challah.  I doubled the amount of chocolate chips the recipe called for (duh!), and the loaf received an enthusiastic thumbs up from the family.

Chocolate challah

Chocolate challah

The kids are now back in school (yay!) and enjoying their 2 day school week.

Hobbesian Choice

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We were presented with the dilemma of the following choices:  (i) 7 5th grade boys (10-11 years old) at a black tie event for Children’s National Medical Center; and (ii) 20 8th grade girls (13-14 years old) at a Taylor Swift concert.

As a practical matter, there was no choice in the matter.  Jim is Chair of CNMC, so his presence was a requirement at the Children’s Ball.  Fortunately, I enjoy Taylor Swift’s music, and the concert was quite fun.  As it turned out, a great time was had by the boys, who all cleaned up quite nicely.

Children's Ball 2013

Children’s Ball 2013

And a fabulous time was had by all the girls.

Taylor Swift concert 2013

Taylor Swift concert 2013

The only complaint I had was that I had underestimated the frequency and pitch of the squealing by 8th grade girls.  My eardrums may never be the same!