Final Cross Country Competition

 Over the weekend, our entire family traveled with the MS and HS cross-country teams for the end-of-season conference.  The girls raced a 3.5km on day 1 and a 2.5km on day 2 on a gruesome course in the woods that resembled an adventure obstacle course more than a cross-country course.  Our girls were tough, though, and didn't let the course stop them from trying their best.

On day 1, Kaelia got out pretty strong to avoid getting stuck in rougher parts of the course.  By about halfway through the 1st lap of the course, she was leading the entire race and looking good.  Taelyn caught up to her during the second lap, and the two of them pushed each other all the way to the finish.  In the end, it came down to the final sprint where Taelyn edged out Kaelia and won by 1 second!

On day 2, Taelyn had a slight lead over Kaelia for the first lap.  Then a runner from Prague surprised both girls and took the lead during lap 2.  With about 300m to go, Taelyn went after her and outkicked her for her second victory of the weekend. Kaelia ended up just behind and came in 3rd.

Taelyn's final stretch, running for gold!

Overall, our school also did quite well.  We came in first place in the team competition for MS boys, MS girls, HS boys, and HS girls.  But what the students loved most was getting to know runners from the other schools and making new friends.  They had a wonderful time, and it was a fantastic end to a good season.

Next up... both girls are in the MS musical, and Kaelia will start basketball in season 2.

Cross Country Races

The girls both joined the middle school cross-country team this season and have been learning a lot about pacing and how hard they can really push their bodies to go over a distance.  Kaelia was consistently the first girl on the team until recently when Taelyn took that position as she figured out her pacing a little more.  Team Walker is a strong addition to the team this year!

I am also coaching high school cross-country, so I had the opportunity to travel with both middle and high school teams for the races which means I got to see the girls race too.  Last weekend, we traveled about 4.5 hours away to Wroclaw, Poland for the PAAC championships where we competed against two other international schools in Poland.  Taelyn won the entire middle school girls' 2.5km race in 10:52, and Kaelia came in 7th in 11:45.  

This past weekend, the girls got another shot at racing as we flew to Munich for the SCIS championships.  This meet was a much more competitive weekend than Wroclaw with teams from Vienna, Budapest, Zurich, Basel, and Munich.  The girls raced 3.5km the first day where Kaelia finished 10th to earn a ribbon for a top 10 performance and was the first girl for our team.  Taelyn struggled a bit that day with her glasses and had to stop a few times when they fell off her face from too much sweat.

The next day was a 2.5km race where Taelyn came back with a vengeance and placed 7th with a time of 11:03.  Kaelia improved her 2.5km time from last week to 11:23 and finished 12th that day.  The awards ceremony was soon after that race where both girls got their top 10 ribbons, and our teams earned overall awards: the
HS girls were 2nd, the HS boys were 5th, the MS girls were 4th, and the MS boys were 3rd.  With all four teams combined, our school came home with a 2nd place overall finish - the highest our school has ever earned at this meet.

We have had two great weekends of travel and racing.  Our next and final meet is in one month.  We are so proud of our girls for their hard work ethic and can't wait to see what they do in their next race.

Thanksgiving Getaway in Sanya

We had a long weekend for Thanksgiving, so we decided to head to Sanya - China's closest version of Hawaii.  We stayed at the Atlantis Resort which is a replica of the Atlantis in Dubai where there is an outdoor waterpark, aquarium, sea shows, and more all on-site.  There was so much to do, we never even made it to the beach.

After a huge buffet breakfast every morning, we made our way to the waterpark for some thrilling rides.  Our favorites were the 4-person tube toilet bowl, a drop slide where the tunnel goes through the middle of the shark tank, and a small slide that strolls through the middle of the aquarium where we saw large sharks, manta rays, and sea turtles.  Afterward, the girls would stick around at the wave pool while Justin and went back to the room to rest.  Each afternoon, we went to the aquarium to see a different view of the sea life and got to see a mermaid show and beluga whales.

 

In the evenings, we went to one of the great restaurants at the resort, including a Gordon Ramsey restaurant where we had the beef wellington specialty.  One night we saw the C-Show which was similar to a Cirque de Soleil show.  It was great.

The biggest highlight of the weekend, though, was the seal show and beluga experience that we did on the last day.  The girls even got to touch and kiss a beluga whale!

 

 

 

Happy Halloween from China!

 

A Week of Performances

 The girls both had their fall concert this week where their strings classes performed in front of the school community.  Kaelia has been learning the cello this year and enjoys the low sound it makes.  Taelyn is in year two of learning the violin and is able to play with much better fluency and speech this year.

To top off the week, the middle school had a lip-sync competition on Friday where students could form their own groups and volunteer to perform.  Kaelia choreographed a routine for her friends to "Your Welcome" from Moana, and they had a fun time practicing all week.

Taelyn had a vision to perform solo to "Let it Go" from Frozen but wanted a few extras to execute her plan.  Justin agreed to help out as well as her best friend, Ikki.  He is a snowflake in the background with a sign that says "snowflake" and Ikki produces snow at just the right moments.  The final performance was the showstopper and won first place without question!

We are so proud of our kiddos for their hard work and for putting themselves out there in front of all their teachers and peers.  And, of course, the girls and I are proud of Justin for his confidence and determination to be the best snowflake he could be!

Trash Wars

The girls have brought their on-screen performance to a new level to start off this school year.  Thanks to a new friend and neighbor, Penelope, who has a great vision for film, we now present...

Trash Wars! 

We Officially Have Two Middle Schoolers!

We started our first day of school for the 2021-2022 school year this week.  It was a day to celebrate because our entire family is now on one campus together as Kaelia joins her sister in the middle school - the same building where Justin and work in the high school.

Both girls had a great time seeing their friends that they missed over the summer, finding out who is in each of their classes, and getting their new schedules.  Taelyn was very excited to have all of her core classes with one of her best friends, Ikki, and Kaelia was happy to see that her core classes are with some of her buddies from her 5th-grade class as well as a new faculty kid (and our new neighbor), Peppy.

When asked about the difference between elementary school and middle school, Kaelia said she loved all the freedom in middle school and how she gets to go to different classes.

One other highlight was our school's dynasty day on Friday.  The entire secondary school (6-12) was placed into different Chinese dynasties, set up like a house system (think Harry Potter).  The girls and I were all placed in the Tang dynasty, and Justin is in Yuan.  We will see how the year goes and who will win each dynasty challenge.

We are all looking forward to a great year!

The girls get ready for the bus that is pulling up in the background.

Kaelia's 1st day of 6th grade

Taelyn's first day of 7th grade

The Best Surprise

After 6 long months of being apart from our Meeka dog, she finally arrived in China, and the best part was that the girls had no idea she was coming! 

The girls have not quite been the same since we had to leave Meeka behind in the US last November as we headed off to China.  More recently, however, they have talked about her more and more, wanting to know if we would ever be able to get her here.  Little did they know, that I was planning her arrival for months, and months is what it took.  Her travel alone took 7 days to get from Michigan to Guangzhou!

This past Saturday, it finally all worked out.  The girls and I were watching a Netflix show about the world's best dogs, and we, of course, talked about Meeka throughout.  Then we heard some whimpering and scratching outside the front door and thought it sounded like a dog.  The girls ran to the door and found their Meeka waiting for them on the other side!  Their reactions are absolutely priceless.  Taelyn even lost her voice for several days afterward after screaming so much.

About 30 minutes prior to this moment, I finally got the notice from the pet relocation company that Meeka had arrived in Guangzhou.  I left the apartment to "run some errands" and greeted our pup in the back of a van that came from the airport.  I have never seen Meeka bark so much as when she saw me.  Meeka never barks, but she was so excited to be with her people again.  My video is terrible as I was trying to hold the camera and see Meeka, but you can get the idea of how excited she was.

The whole reunion took months of planning and working with a pet relocation company on both the China and US ends of the operation along with lots of paperwork, vaccinations, and health check-ups.  Grandma and Grandpa Walker were integral in getting about 99% of it all done and in getting Meeka across the world.  One week before she arrived in Guangzhou, they drove her to Chicago where she sat in cargo for an entire day before flying to Frankfurt.  There, she stayed another full day before flying to Shanghai.  Again, she spent another full day at the airport just to get cleared into China where the pet relocation company picked her up.  She had to spend a couple of days in a kennel in Shanghai while the company got her approval to fly to Guangzhou, and she finally boarded that final flight Saturday morning.  This dog has been to more countries in the past six months than most people in the world this year!

Unfortunately, Justin had an event going on when Meeka actually got to our apartment, but he had another special greeting from her when he got home.  It is so wonderful to finally be together as one full family now.

Performances in 5th Grade

Kaelia has really enjoyed her new school this year and loves being a part of the oldest grade in the school.  She has taken on a few leadership responsibilities such as a bus walker where she greets a preschool student from the bus and walks him to class before school.

Kaelia has also participated in several different performances this year.  For the Chinese New Year celebration, she was one of only a few 5th graders chosen to perform the lion dance for the school.  Kaelia was very excited that she got to play the part of the lion's butt; she is the student waving the tail at the back of one of the red lions.

Then Kaelia joined a special choir that was open to older elementary students.  They met during lunchtime and gave a final performance at a fancy international-themed gala about diversity at a hotel.

Finally, Kaelia was a part of the elementary school play where she helped write a script and song and performed in front of the school at an assembly.  The play was called Hairum Scarum, and it was about different princesses or famous females who end up in a hair salon together.  She did a great job playing Goldilocks who was hiding in the salon because she was wanted for trespassing in the three bears' home.  It was pretty cute.  The film of the play is not great, but here is the link to watch.

Secondary School Theater Production

Our secondary school, grades 6-12, just finished the theater production of Annie, and Taelyn had the opportunity to be a part of the show.  She showed quite a bit of promise as a 6th grader, and was the only middle school student with one of the major roles, playing the lead orphan role of Molly (Annie's best friend in the orphanage).

Taelyn had a fantastic presence on stage and did so well working alongside high school students.  She was really impressed with how big the production was with a pit band and backstage crew - parts of a play that she was not exposed to in her previous elementary school plays.  She learned quite a bit from the older students and was so happy to play the role of Molly.  

We are so proud of Taelyn for all the hard work she put into the play!  Here are a few pictures of the final production and the link to watch the entire play.

Kaelia's Camp Out

 Later this summer, Kaelia was supposed to go camping with her cousins and grandparents while Taelyn traveled to the World Taekwondo competition.  Since that competition will not happen, Kaelia decided to go camping for her birthday.  However, June is a bit unpredictable with the weather, so we set up a tent in the upstairs living room and turned on the electric fireplace for a campfire.  Grandma and Grandpa Walker, Aunt, Kate, and Jacob and Riley all came to celebrate as well.

Kaelia had a great time with her cousins.  She also loved the tent and how warm it was inside, she loved her new mp3 player and Bluetooth headphones, and all the kids had lots of fun tubing and fishing in the lake.  At least one of our summer plans could still sort of happen this year.

Happy 10th birthday, Kaelia!

First-Degree Blackbelt

The day has finally come when Taelyn officially earned her first-degree black belt in taekwondo!  It has been a very long process over the last year, especially during the last couple of months.  To prepare for her blackbelt testing, Taelyn has been attending taekwondo sessions for 3-6 hours a day, including: 

• specialty classes such as extreme and creative forms every day before school from 7-7:45 am
• her regular classes after school from 3-4
• leading younger belt classes after that from 4-5
• a combination of regular, leadership, blackbelt-focused, and special seminars from 8-3 on Saturdays.  
  

It is amazing to see how much she has grown this semester, and it all paid off during her two-day testing sessions.

On day one, Taelyn had to show mastery over all the lower belt forms. In the past, she could advance from one belt to another by showing an understanding of some of the forms up until a certain point.  Each testing focused on a different form as well.  This time, she needed to execute each move flawlessly over every form.  

Then Taelyn had to show the ability to spar with more advanced moves.  Sparring has always been a struggle for her; just a year ago she was running away from her opponent, but now she was able to use more advanced moves and read her opponent’s body language to try to block.

Next, Taelyn did board breaking, using more advanced boards that are harder to break.

On day two, Taelyn had to complete fitness and endurance tests where she had to continually punch a bag for 2 minutes followed by kicking the bag for 2 minutes.  The testing ended with a set number of pushing and 2 minutes of plank.  She was exhausted by the end!  What was especially nice, however, was that all the other older students that have already earned their blackbelt in the past joined in with her during the push-ups and plank, cheering her on along the way.  It felt like she was a part of a blackbelt family, and there were great, positive vibes in the room.

At the end of the two days, Taelyn officially earned her first-degree blackbelt with no hesitations whatsoever.  There was a lovely candle ceremony afterward where her instructor highlighted some key strengths that Taelyn has shown over the last year.  Then she was “crowned” with her blackbelt that is embroidered with her name and rank.  It was such a special day, and we are so proud of her!

Message from the Future

It is now August of 2021, and the girls have been asking me more and more to see old pictures and videos from the blog.  We have such a good laugh together watching what feels like a lifetime ago.  As I think back to how I have not kept up my blog since 2019, I am filled with regret.  At the time, it made sense.  Life felt overwhelmingly busy at AES.  We each participated in numerous activities outside of school, and the community held so many events during any given week that it wasn't uncommon for us to be triple-booked on a Saturday night.  

The girls are now both in middle school, and I can't believe that 2/3 of their childhood is behind us.  I try to savor each precious moment I have with them, and we all want to be able to look back at our memories together.  So, I have decided to start up the blog again.  I will do my best to add current updates while also slowly trying to add posts from the "missing years" of 2018-2021.  My older posts may not be as detailed as they would have if I had written them just after the event, and perhaps I may only be able to add photos at times.  But I still think it's worth an update, and I want to keep those memories documented.  So here begins the next chapter of the Walker Family Blog!

Merry Christmas!

Halloween Fun

This weekend was jam-packed with Halloween celebrations.  It actually started Thursday after school with a superhero-themed Halloween festival at our library where kids went from station to station to complete various games and crafts.  Then the girls had a day off of school on Friday for parent-teacher conferences, so they used that time to get together with other campus kids and decorate the apartment for Halloween. They all did especially well with the front door!

That night, we had our faculty trick-or-treating on campus.  Kaelia dressed up as Moana and Taelyn was Mal from the movie Descendants. Then we all headed down to the faculty housing playground for a potluck and photos before the kids teamed up with their buddies and made their rounds to all of the apartments.  We love how independent they can be on campus at outings like this; we even had a little get together with some of the adults in our apartment as we passed out candy.  Then several of the campus kids came to our place after trick-or-treating and stayed for a Halloween movie, followed by a sleepover.

On Saturday, our school held its annual Fall Fiesta where the high school clubs run carnival-type games, bouncy castles, a haunted house, and musical performances for the younger children at the school.  Again, the girls were able to get together with friends and walk around on their own to the various games.  They had so much fun with their friends and with each other.  At one point, they a
ll pooled in their winning tickets from the games and shared some prizes together.  The evening was topped off with a raffle, and I won a free massage!

We had such a nice weekend full of spooky fun.  Happy Halloween!

Fall Break

We just cam back from our fall break where we spent the week in Amsterdam, Netherlands and Bruges, Belgium.  We had an amazing time and felt a nice change of pace from the busy school year so far.

We started the trip in Amsterdam where Justin and the girls ran races in the Amsterdam Marathon.  The girls entered the 700m kids' runs while Justin completed his 71st marathon!  Taelyn was very excited for her run and really focused on how to race well.  She wanted to pace herself instead of sprint from the start, and she learned that she can pass a lot of people at the end of the race this way. Kaelia has always been nervous about  races but wanted to try the run here to just see if she could have fun, and that is exactly what she did.  She didn't care about competing but just wanted to enjoy herself, and this was actually the first race that she did not walk in the middle.  Both girls were also excited that they got to finish their runs in the Amsterdam Olympic Stadium.  When their races were done, the three of us found Justin out on the course and cheered.  It was a beautiful day, and all three racers were happy and healthy!

The next morning, we decided to leave Amsterdam while there was still a lot of people there for the marathon, and we headed to Bruges, a medieval city in Belgium, for a few days.  We went to several museums including: a beer museum with a special tour for kids, the Choco-Story chocolate museum, and a medieval torture museum.  We also rented bikes one morning and rode over to the next town for a snack.  We had such a nice ride on a bike path surrounded by trees, farmland, animals and colorful, fallen leaves.  It was also the first time that all four of us have been on a bike ride together -Kaelia on a tandem bike with Justin because the 5 mile trip was a bit long for her to do on her
own.  For the rest of the time in Bruges, we went to a lot of great restaurant and pubs, enjoyed delicious Belgian beer and hot chocolate, and ate lots of great food, including Belgian waffles!

After a few days, we traveled back to Amsterdam where we spent the rest of the week seeing the major sites.  We took

a lovely canal tour, took a tour at the Heineken brewery, visited the Van Gogh museum, and went to the Anne Frank house.  The Anne Frank house was especially memorable and a good way for the girls to learn more about the Holocaust.

When we were not touring around in Amsterdam, we spent lots of time at Vondelpark for runs and for the girls to play on the Willy trees and various playgrounds.  We also, of course, enjoyed the food.  We especially liked the stroopwafels (thin, crispy waffle sandwiches with caramelized syrup in the middle) and poffertjes (small pancakes with a doughy center, sprinkled with powdered sugar and butter).

Overall, it was a wonderful vacation with beautiful fall weather.  We managed to escape the rain until the very last day of the trip, so that was a great time to head home.

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Summer Fun

We had a very busy summer this year, full of lots of driving to see friends and family.  First, we drove to Minnesota to run the Grandma's Marathon with other colleagues from our school in India.  On the way, we stopped in the UP to see Pictured Rocks; it was beautiful!  We ended in Duluth at a friend's lake house where we stayed for the race.  There we enjoyed boating, fishing, and lake life while we also fit in a running race.  Justin ran the full marathon, and I joined two other colleagues in the half.  It was an awesome race, beautiful course, and fun atmosphere in Duluth.

For the next adventure of the summer, Justin flew to Bolivia on a mountaineering expedition while the girls and I stayed with Grandma and Grandpa Pepera for two weeks.  Uncle Joel came out too, so we had many days of endless activities and fun.  We went to a trampoline park, wave pool, and a Tiger's game with plenty of roller blading, jump roping, trail running, and playing school in between.  The girls also had a great time playing in the woods.  One of their favorite activities was building "Scotland" in the sand box where they made castles and rivers and labeled each part Castle Edinburgh, Inverness, Glamis, and then added Birnham Wood, Arthur's Seat, and Lake Loch Ness.  After finding lots of frogs and a turtle in the yard, they added these new friends to Scotland and put the turtle into Loch Ness so he could be the Loch Ness monster!

Justin came back in time for the 4th of July where we watched the parade and the girls collected candy.  Afterward, we headed over to Aunt Judy's for some pool time fun.  The local fireworks were actually a week earlier, and the girls were able to stay up that late for the first time to see the event.  We met up with Michelle (Taelyn's godmother and our good friend from high school) and the twins at the fireworks, and all four girls had an awesome time playing and watching the fireworks.

Our next endeavor was on the west side of Michigan where we visited Liz and Mike (Kaelia's godparents and our good friends from college) and their family, stayed with the Jettner's at their lake house, and then rented a lake house with Uncle Matty and his family.  Throughout this week, we had a lot of relaxation in the sun and boating and tubing fun.  Ari especially wanted to take the girls to a petting farm near her lake house where the girls all got to feed lots of animals like goats, donkeys, bunnies, camel, wallaby, and even a lemur.  There was also a pedal cart track and a giant air filled "pillow" for jumping.  One of the highlights was the parakeet section where we got to go into a large room of parakeets with a stick covered in food.  The birds swarmed us all, landing on our heads, shoulders, fingers, feet, and anything they could hold on to.  They seemed to really like Taelyn; at one point she was covered in dozens of birds.

While we were on the lake with Uncle Matty's family, we also went to an adventure park at Crystal Mountain to an alpine slide, rock climbing wall, ropes course, and pool.  The girls did an awesome job on the ropes course and rock climbing.  One day, we took the girls and Jayden to the Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes and hiked the entire way to Lake Michigan and back.  It was definitely not easy for the kids, but they did a great job and really enjoyed swimming in the lake.

During our last week of summer, the girls spent lots of cousin time with Jacob and Riley while we stayed with Grandma and Grandpa Walker.  They went to the pool, the movies, a robotics fair, and a Lego exhibit.  Once again, another fun-filled summer is in the books!

Kaelia's 1st Tooth Fairy Visits

Kaelia has had quite the wiggler lately, but she has insisted on not pulling out her first tooth until she is at school because she wanted a tooth necklace from the school nurse.  Her day finally came!

Kaelia's 1st Lost Tooth

 Kaelia has been waiting for the day when she would lose her first tooth for years now - ever since her sister started losing teeth four years ago - and today was finally the big day!  After breakfast this morning, Kaelia announced that she was going to lose a tooth today.  So we took a look in her mouth, and sure enough, she had a wiggler that was instantly ready to go.  She claims that it wasn't really wiggly until after eating today.  I'm sure it must have been a bit loose already, but it certainly wasn't this loose until today.

This Morning

Kaelia worked at wiggling her tooth back and forth all day and finally decided to try to pull at it just before bed tonight.  Taelyn was eager to give her a few tips during the process, and then she figured out how to pull it right out.  She was a bit scared to start but had no problems in the end.  I'm so proud of her bravery, and now let's see what the Tooth Fairy brings!

This Evening

Taelyn's 8th Birthday

For Taelyn's birthday this year, she invited her three closest friends from school over for a little party followed by a sleepover.  Taelyn planned the party for weeks before the big day and knew that she wanted to put together a scavenger/treasure hunt with obstacles and riddles for clues.  So after some brainstorming together, she made a map of campus, we colored it with coffee and burned the edges to make it look old, and I set up the clues and tasks.

Once Taelyn's friends arrived, they quickly got started on the treasure hunt.  They followed riddles to various places on campus in which they all had to complete a task before getting the next clue.  Tasks included climbing a rock wall, riding tricycles across a ramp, playing the bottle flip game, completing a relay on skooters, running a lap around a field, and sinking a bean bag in a corn hole

mount.  Their final clue directed them to an area where five bags of gold chocolate coins were hidden to them to find their "treasure."  All of the girls had a great time and were absolutely exhausted by the end.

Next, we had pizza and cake, followed by opening presents.  All of the girls were quite thoughtful with their gifts and were very excited a sweet watching Taelyn open them up.  Kaelia was very excited to give her a spy kit where Taelyn can crack secret coded messages, track fingerprints, and see behind with rear-view glasses.  Justin and I got her the games Top Trumps and Twister.  Taelyn's friend Logan got her a crayon dry erase board and a huge box of Goldfish crackers.  She was especially excited about the crackers because you can only get them through the embassy here.  Audrey got her a jewelry making kit, and Blanche got her craft supplies and a pocket compass for her exploring around campus.  That was one of her favorites as well!

After presents, the girls watched a movie and ate popcorn.  By the time that was done, it was time for bed. Everyone camped out in Kaelia's room and attempted to go to sleep.  Taelyn was actually passed out within 15 minutes, but the rest of the girls took a bit longer.  Little by little, more of them fell asleep except for two of the girls who claimed they couldn't sleep.  I came in every hour to check on them, and they finally fell asleep around 1 am!

In the morning, we all had pancakes for breakfast, and the girls were picked up to go home.  It was a wonderful party, although Justin and I were quite tired after a lack of sleep.  I think we'll hold off on sleepovers for a while now!

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