After seven weeks of classes it was time for Jasmine to show her stuff. Ballet slippers were prancing, scarfs were flying and ribbons were streaming. I wouldn’t really call it a choreographic event, but it was entertaining for the dancers and the audience.
Spring is here in the Northwest, so Jasmine thought it was time to go to the zoo. And so we did with the rest of Portland. The main parking lot was overflowing, so we headed down the road to the axillary lots, which gave us a chance to ride the zoo school bus, which I think Jasmine enjoyed just as much as the zoo.
Upon arriving to the gate, we got to use the short line thanks to our zoo membership. After that, I let Jasmine lead the way. As you can see from the pictures, she made sure to climb every sculpture we encountered. She also discovered the sand pit and was intent on making castles for many minutes. She made friends with another girl, and they furiously guarded their pile of sand from those evil boy sand poachers with their dump trucks.
I’ve been to the zoo many times, even so I still see new stuff. This time around I got to see the bobcat. And of course we always make a stop to see the penguins – mainly because I think Jasmine likes to complain about the fishy smell.
We had a great sisters day. Selena’s family was up in Portland so we met at Destiny’s house for a sister’s play date. They hopped around on the trampoline, played zombie tag, exchanged presents and shared girl gossip.
That evening we took Selena to Jasmine’s favorite restaurant Si Senor. Then they played tic-tac-toe while watching movies at our place.
Spring has come early to the Northwest. The birds are flying north, the trees are blooming, and the flowers are budding.
For our “spring” weekend, Jasmine played dress-up with wedding outfits, played rockband at our friends place and exercised merrily outside.
I took Jasmine to her first sushi experience. We got setup taking stools at the sushi bar, opening up our chopsticks and pouring some soy sauce. Jasmine was mesmerized by the conveyor belt of plated food parading before us. I also found it quite pleasant and relaxing.
I selected a cucumber-avocado roll for her and a California roll for myself. She took one bite and said “I don’t like this”. I broke it apart and invited her to eat each ingredient separately. She discovered she liked everything but the green stuff which I informed her was seaweed. That produced a big “Eww” from her. I said it was safe, try another bite, it takes getting use to. She is so adventurous that she actually did try it again, but with the same verdict of not liking it.
Jasmine was quickly distracted by a plate of beautiful red raspberries going by and asked to try them. I said yes, and she reached out and grabbed them with a happy grin. She really got into the fun of the pseudo hunter-gatherer mode of searching the conveyor for choice items. Her next selections were blueberries, a mix plate of strawberries and grapes, cream puffs, and before I could stop her she grabbed a giant slab of cheesecake. At that point I cut her off. And a question for anyone who is reading, why do they have cheesecake on a sushi bar? It just seems odd to me. The cake was fabulous by the way, it was so dense and rich that we couldn’t finish it.
Our total was 10 plates and we will be back.