Peng's Family
Lucinda and Naomi Peng
January 16, 2004
Hello, everyone. Happy the Year of Monkey!
Lucinda: I’m in the 2nd grade now and love my school. I am a book lover, like to read all kinds of books. The first thing I do when I wake up is to turn on the light and read. Laura Ingalls Wilder is my favorite author. I also like math, and am now doing the division. I continue playing piano. My music teacher, Mr. Garthee, let me play piano at the Holiday Party of Glendale Associate of Commerce and at our school’s Winter Concert. I felt very special because I was the only one doing that. Oh, I have to tell you that I had a lot of fun of learning roller skating in Ms. Timmerman’s class.
Soccer Champion
Family Trip to Devil's Lake
Lucinda: Besides school I have a lot of after-school activities. I continue to participate in the Girl Scout activities. My goal of this year is to sell 250 boxes of Girl Scout cookies. Please help me if you need Girl Scout cookies. They are so yummy! Oh, my soccer team didn’t loose a single game in the spring season, and won the championship in the Milwaukee north shore region. I am excited about next spring’s soccer tournament games. My swimming skills getting better and I have passed the lever 3A test. Last fall I took the Gymnastic lesson and will continue it in the next semester. I still run with my Daddy on the weekends while he’s at home. Although I won the 2nd place for the cross-country running in my school, I was disappointed because I felt I could win the first place. Well, next year I want to be in the first place. I am still taking Chinese lessons and have been enjoying our monthly Chinese Reading Club to tell Chinese jokes and read Chinese stories. What fun!
I am Strong!
Naomi’s 4th birthday cake
Naomi: I started Junior Kindergarten (K4) in Parkway school in the fall semester. In the morning I take the school bus with my big sissy Lucinda to school. In the afternoon I go to the Children Center at the Jewish Community Center. The JCC is a little different from the UWM Children’s Center. It took me a while to adjust it. At the beginning I had to bring my Panda Bear with me everyday. One day my Mom forgot to put the panda bear in my backpack, I felt so sad that I cried. But I don’t need the panda bear any more. See, I told ya I’m a big girl now. In fact, I love to go to JCC in the afternoon because there are so many activities that I can choose. I have swimming lessons on Mondays and Fridays, and dance class on Wednesdays. I can now swim under the water but I don’t want to open my eyes inside the water!
Like my big sissy, I love reading. This is the first thing that I do when I wake up. I can read “Color Dance” (by Ann Jonas) all by myself! I like to play cards and all kinds of games. My favorites are Ariel and I Spy, and of course playing with baby dolls. Oh, did I tell you that I won the 1st place prize in the Art Contest at the Junior Kindergarten level in my school? It was so fun!
Lucinda at Disney World
Naomi at Disney World
Lucinda & Naomi: We have a lot of other things to tell you. Here are some highlights.
Spring: We went to our dream place – Disney World. It’s so fun to see and talk with Disney characters that we saw in the TV. We were so excited to see “real” Barney there and sang and danced with him in the Universal studio, even though Lucinda thought the Barney songs were too babyish. We stayed with Daddy’s friend YuKong and had fun playing with his son and daughter.
Mom and her friends had a surprise birthday party for Daddy to celebrate his big 40th birthday and the publication of his book. Yes, his book is in the bookstore early this year! Mom used the book cover image for the birthday cake. We pretended to attend our friend Molly Joy’s three-year birthday party but it was a big surprise for Daddy!
Grandpa Ted and Grandma Eleanor came to town
Visiting Plymouth Plantation
Summer: It’s the golden season in Milwaukee. We enjoyed all kinds of outdoor activities and camping. We canceled the trip to China due to SARS. But we missed grandparents very much. Fortunately, our American grandparents – Eleanor and Ted came to Milwaukee to visit us. We had a lot of fun playing with them. We especially enjoyed doing flower pounding that Eleanor taught us. We are so luck to have grandma and grandpa like Ted and Eleanor, their love and care gave Mom a lot of support!
Autumn: Daddy went to MIT as a visiting professor for his sabbatical trip. We could only see Daddy every other weekend. We missed him so much when he was not here. At end of October, we had a nice trip to visit Daddy in Boston. The leaves’ colors were fantastic! Lucinda loves history, so we visited the Mayflower, Plymouth Plantation Museum, walked on the freedom trail, and fed the ducks in the Public Garden. We loved the Boston Children Museum and Science Museum. We are so thankful to Lisa and Joe to give us tour guidance in the Harford Museum where Lisa works. The glass plants and flowers amazed us. We also met my Daddy and Mommy’s college mate Gorge Lu. They had not seen each other for more than 15 years. We love Boston!
At Harvard University
Winter Snow Fun at Milwaukee
Winter: Daddy went to China for a meeting in Beijing. But we stayed home with Mom. So for the first time we had the Christmas and New Year without Daddy. Two weeks ago, we had a pretty good snow. Daddy took us to go snow sledding. It was fun playing in the snow. We are also looking for skiing in the coming weeks. Winter in Milwaukee is also fun, as long as you know how to enjoy playing in the snow.
I think that’s it for this year. We love you!
Happy the Year of Monkey!