Knitting

To fill her time at her Grandma's Maya has been doing a lot of knitting. So far she has made this lovely wrist and headband which I think we can all agree is quite stylish.

In Wisconsin

We met Maya's Grandparents in Eau Claire on Saturday for lunch and had a little early make-shift birthday party for Annah. Our original plans of having them over for the weekend were scrapped since Annah, Zaheeda and me are all still kind of sick. After the lunch Maya left with the Grandparents to enjoy a little time away over spring break and we returned back to Saint Paul for a week without Maya. So far our experience has been that the house is much quieter and cleaner in her absence.

Spring Break

No more school for a whole week! Maya intends to take full advantage of this years break because last year her sister was born on Tuesday meaning she had to spend the rest of her vacation helping her Grandma take care of the daycare kids - not fun.

Another Danger Photo

Sick

If you are a regular viewer of this blog you may have noticed it hasn't been updated in a timely manner as of late and the reason for this is we have been sick - Annah with coughing, slight fever, and maybe some other stuff that she can't tell us about. Then Maya got sick with the basic flu symptoms - puking, fatigue, aching joints, etc. Sunday I came down with essentially the same thing Maya had minus the puking and tonight Zaheeda said she's started to feel a bit queasy. It's been a pretty sad scene around here.

Gas Grill

I along with my trusty assistant Maya put together our gas grill this afternoon and despite Zaheeda's prediction that there is no way I'd ever get that thing together without throwing a fit, I'm happy to say it went together without a hitch. Although there were a lot parts making the job a bit time consuming it really wasn't too difficult. Maya was big help - I'd get the parts together and start the screws and she'd tighten everything up. We tried it out this evening by making chicken and asparagus and it worked like a dream.

Parent Teacher Conference

Hard to believe but we had Spring parent teacher conference tonight - seems like just a couple weeks ago we were having the Fall conferences. Once again Maya had a really good report and is ready to progress onto the 5th grade. Geez, how can a young couple like Zaheeda and me be the parent of such an old kid?

Exploring around Fort Snelling

Danger Photo

This is for Grandma.

Scooter

Finally a nice day! Maya took out the scooter she got for Christmas and we went for a walk over to and around Fort Snelling. It was a beautiful day and the paths were filled with walkers and bicyclists all out and about welcoming the Spring weather.

Wolves Game

Timberwolves Game

Last night we went and saw the Minnesota Timberwoves take on the Memphis Grizzlies thanks to Maya and some comp tickets she got from school. The Timberwolves have not been tearing up the Western Conference this year making a late season game against Memphis not exactly the hottest ticket in town but we had a good time nonetheless. Maya played around with some of her friends from school and Annah had the best time dancing to the music and clapping - basketball games are right up alley. The Timberwolves even managed to surprise us with a big blowout win, thereby ending an eleven game losing streak.

Jumping Jasper

Ice Fishing

Maya and her Grandpa went to a kids ice fishing contest at the Mill Pond in Hawkins today and was quick to discover that the sport of 'ice fishing' could just as easily be called 'prolonged staring at a hole.'


Fortunately there were drawings and Maya came away with a whole bunch of loot: gloves, backpack, DVD, water bottle, Wall-E beach towel and some licorice. Given those kind of prizes Maya had a great time even though she didn't catch any fish.

Field Trip

The fourth graders are heading over to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts this morning on a field trip to learn some of the finer points of fine art. Maya will also be staying after school this afternoon to work on some mosaic or something - to be honest I'm not exactly sure what she's doing all I know is we had to chip in five bucks to so they could order pizza. As soon as Zaheeda's daycare kids are gone this afternoon we'll stop over at the school pick up Maya and then head for WI to visit Grandma and Grandpa.

Hall Monitor

Maya took on the role of Hall Monitor the other day thereby grabbing hold the reigns of justice the likes of which Les Miserables Javert would even deem a bit over the top. On a sheet of paper she had listed all the kids of whom she assigned tickets for crimes ranging from talking out of turn to not being in line etc. (After all that's what law is all about right? - keeping people in line), and she had nearly every kid in her class on the list - some more than once. I told her she might want to go easy on giving out citations, that handing out tickets is a good way to make yourself really unpopular with your peers. She didn't seem all that concerned - she's seems to subscribe to the idea that you can't break the law you can only break yourself against the law and she's simply been cast in the role as the heavy hand of justice.