These Boots Were Made For Walkin'

It seems that Zen also has a shoe fetish like his cousins Madison and Jake.

Chinatown

Zion had a 4 day weekend, and I had been wanting to take a trip to the north side Chinatown (different that the "real", south side Chinatown--more like a little Vietnamese town) for awhile. I had been hankering for some Bao buns, and I thought the new sights and smells would be interesting for the kids. We found our delicious buns, perused all the foreign items in the grocery stores,and explored a plant shop, marveling at their amazing bamboo and bonsai trees.

The highlight of our trip, however, was the store which only sold live animals swimming in tanks. The patrons would point to various fish, crabs, and lobsters and the man behind the counter would snag each one, stun them with a mallet, and gut them and clean them right behind the counter in seconds in full sight of the customers. We were awestruck by a lobster the size of a briefcase (pictured below) and fascinated by a tank of 50-60 large bullfrogs. Do they eat just the legs? I wondered. "No. Whole Thing." was the answer to my query. Good thing it wasn't summer; we might not have resisted the temptation to bring a few home with us just to play with them. All in all, a nice little urban adventure.

We Really Need to Get our Dog Back...

This is pretty much Zen after every meal these days since he insists on feeding himself.

Superbowl

We're about a month behind on posts...here are the two football fans in the family watching the game. Our team didn't make it that far, but Zen was happy to spend some time in Daddy's arms and learn how it's done.

Inauguration Day

Zion was wildly happy to go to school on Inauguration Day. Not only did students not have to wear their uniforms, they spent the day in the gym watching the festivities on a huge movie screen and eating popcorn and cupcakes. Zion paid special attention to his appearance, donning all of his Obama gear and spray painting his hair red, white and blue. He even insisted on doing Zen's hair, though Zen was too squirmy to pose for a photograph of his 'do. Zen and I stayed home to watch the hoopla. We were joined by Wendy and Esther, which was very nice. When Sam came home, we celebrated his birthday. A very good day.

Lego Discovery Center

We spent MLK at the lego discovery center. Legos are still Zion's passion--he put together a 1,009 piece set (a gift from Uncle Michael) a few weeks ago in under 6 hours, working patiently with a few breaks for food and water. This may be useful someday. I'm guessing that we probably have close to a million legos in our house right now, but Zion uses them over and over and is always seeking to add to his collection.

Sam's Family Birthday Celebration

Betty made a delicious Mexican dinner for Sam's birthday--Zen had fun playing with his cousins, especially Madison and Brian.