Lily's Kindergarten concert

Here are some pictures from Lily's first school concert. She did great! She sang and danced and played the xylophone with two mallets. Not bad for a 6 year old with only one hand! :o) We had bad weather that week, so the concert had been postponed. It ended up on Chinese New Year. We went out for Chinese food afterwards.

Xin Nian Kuai Le!

Since Lily's birthday falls during the winterbreak, the last few years we have waited until the end of January to have a party with her friends. This way we can combine our celebration of Chinese New Year as well. We like to share our knowledge of Lily's culture with her friends. They had great fun seeing pictures from our trip to China. They made crafts and got to try to eat sticky rice with chopsticks. (which is really more for our humor) :o) They ate typical Chinese New Year food of oranges and peanuts and even got a few fortune cookies. They topped the eating off with a Chinese Lion cake (or the best I could do to make it look like one). :o)

Here is some of the information I sent home with the kids:

Xin Nian Kuai le
Happy Chinese New Year!

Chinese New Year starts on the new moon on the 1st day of the new year and ends 15 days later on the full moon (Lantern Festival).
Foods: peanuts (long life), oranges (wealth), tangerines (good luck), noodles (long life)
Traditions: the color red (good luck), clean the house then hide the cleaning materials. People wear new clothes for the new year. There are lots of fireworks, the lion dance and family gatherings. Children get red envelopes (hongbao) from elders after bowing 3 times and saying “gongxi” several times. New bills are inside for good luck and wealth in the new year. Everyone stays up late on New Year’s Eve. It is believed that the longer the kids stay up, the longer the parents will live.

Xin Nian Kuai le
Happy Chinese New Year!
February 3rd, 2011 – Chinese year 4708
Year of the Rabbit
You are a rabbit if your birth date falls during the following years:
1927 1939 1951 1963 1975
1987 1999 2011
Rabbit Traits: They are affectionate, talented, obliging, always pleasant, values security and tranquility. They can sometimes get too sentimental & superficial. They are cautious and conservative.
Famous Rabbits: Albert Einstein, Johnny Depp, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Bob Hope, Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods and Frank Sinatra.
Please join us in celebrating the Year of the Rabbit!



Our Chinese Princess

Lily Su Grace Messina, age 6

Everyone came wearing red to the party!

The party girl...Lily celebrating Chinese New Year with her friends and her birthday (a few weeks late...since her birthday falls during the holiday break).

Eating some Chinese New Year food....oranges, peanuts and fortune cookies! We also made some sticky rice so everyone could have a try at eating with chopsticks. :o)

Lily gets ready to blow out the candles on her Chinese lion cake

More Basketball shots

Our whole lives seem to revolve around basketball right now. Here's some more pictures of the boys in action....

Our Snowy Weekend

Last Sunday we got about 7 inches of snow. Churches cancelled all their services as most of us spent our morning digging out ourselves and our neighbors. Still not good snowman snow...but still a lot of fun!

Nebraska message to troops

The view downrange...

The view as you come to land...

This is something I wanted to show you all for awhile....funny enough, I received these pictures from a French friend in Norway. :o) She is married to a man from the Omaha area. Her mother-in-law sent it to her. She forwarded the pictures to me to ask me if I knew about it. Of course I did! I drive by this field everyday. It is less than 2 years from my house. :o) Now that Rich is flying again, he flies over this field all the time on his final approach to Offutt AFB. This Nebraska farmer puts this message in his field every fall after he harvests this field. This is just a wonderful thing. The troops here deploy often and for long periods of time. It must be wonderful to see this as they are coming home for a landing. Nebraska is very supportive of the military and have a long history of how they have gone about it. Rich was out to lunch with a group of pilots last fall and someone anonymously picked up the tab for all 8 of them. Almost every business has a military discount of some kind. It is really been a wonderful place to live so far!

Snow days.....

It started snowing on Saturday night...and it just kept on going until late Monday night. There was no school on Monday or Tuesday. Wednesday (today) brought frigid temperatures. It is definitely winter now in Nebraska! Our 13 year old snow blower is working well and the boys have been clearing the driveways of some of our older neighbors the last few days. Pro bono. No complaints thus far. :o) We ended up with about 8 inches. The pictures of Lily and Rich sledding were from Monday, when we only had about 4 inches of powder. We had a good time but the powder wasn't very good for sledding. Tim was a little upset about having a game cancelled...but I assume he'll get over it since he got to sleep in two extra days!

A Night Out with Tim

Last night Tim and I went to see our first (of hopefully many) men's Creighton basketball game. Some friends of ours got two free tickets and asked if we wanted them. Turn down a college game? Pah! Creighton is actually a pretty well-known college team that does very well. Tim got to workout with one of their star players, Josh Jones, at a local basketball camp he took late last summer. There is also a big Bellevue West stand out that plays there as well. The head basketball coach at BWHS, Doug Woodard, (who the boys have been training under since day one in Nebraska - okay, actually day two) has a daughter who is the star of their women's team, which is also outstanding. Creighton is a Catholic university that is about 20 minutes from our house. It is very well known for it's medical program and health care studies. Tim is toying with the idea of going there....:o)