Ancient Chinese secret, huh?

We had a pretty fun weekend. Saturday night we attended a school carnival/fundraiser for Claire's preschool. The theme was Chinese New Year, which fell on February 14th this year - The Year of the Tiger. Claire had a great time dancing with her friends, making crafts, eating eggrolls and participating in games of skill. And face-painting was by far the most popular activity, so there were lots of tigers and kitty cats running all over the place. But Claire would have none of that - she wanted to be a zebra. In fact, she was the only zebra at the party, thereby proving once again that she's one of a kind! Us big people could participate in a silent auction, and I discovered Linda and I have differing views on silent auction strategy. While she sees them as a fund-raising tool for an organization, I view a silent auction as a way to get something pretty cool for very cheap. For example, she bid $10 for a "$10 gift certificate to Lion's Tap" (our favorite local burger joint). That's just crazy... although she didn't actually start out bidding the full $10. Plus, I doubt I'll complain much when I'm enjoying a couple delicious bacon double cheeseburgers next weekend! Too bad there wasn't a low deductible health plan up for auction to help when my arteries shut down after a couple tasty burgers and greasy fries!

I created a little collage of the night's events, and then I realized the text on the pictures is probably going to be too small to read when I finally post it. But I'm confident you'll figure out what Claire is doing in each photo, and hopefully you can see the look of sheer terror on her face when she sees the dragon entering the room for the Chinese Dragon Dance.

The boy sitting next to Claire is the infamous Nick, and Linda watched Claire dash across the room to sit next to him for the dragon dance. Earlier in the week, I actually got to have a conversation with Nick in the hallway at Claire's school. Unfortunately, I didn't seem to intimidate him. In fact, I think I was more nervous than he was, and I'm pretty sure he sensed it. And it turns out he's not five years old as previously reported - he's just a few months older than Claire. But we're still keeping an eye on him since he already knows how to act aloof to gain Claire's attention - a tell-tale sign of a true player at any age. And if I ever hear about him pulling Claire's hair, then I'm gonna have to bring down the hammer. But something tells me Nick's not shaking in his size 8T velcro sneakers...