Dragon Boat Race picnic.

Michelle and Joe have participated in Dragon Boat Races for five years, and since I have "known" them for almost six, I have followed along through their blog. As it was the case with their many visits to D*sneyland, it made me miss Southern California even more. I went as far as telling P that upon our return I wanted to join a DBR team. Yeah right, forget my lack of exercise and overall health problems. A girl can dream right? Aunt Michelle called my bluff and invited us to her team's picnic, where we could conveniently sign up to participate. A few hours at the beach, good company, SS gets to play in the sand, with that in mind we readily accepted. We had a late start, but did make it, and decided to sign up our family. Although SS is too young to be in a boat (must be eight years old), there are many children cheering on the team. We are sure SS's voice will arise above all.

When we arrived there were forms to sign, information to be absorbed, and logistics to be arranged. Joe volunteered to take SS to play in the sand. SS ironically had an identical set of sand toys to the ones now collecting dust in Grandpa's closet in Maui. She was ready to get her sand on, and could not care less what her parents were doing. When the official business started, the group started to note who was present.  Someone self assuredly stated that Joe was with his daughter playing in the sand. It did not faze me one bit.  But P is usually just the opposite in that respect. Need to fast forward to say that P told me just a while ago that he was not bothered by that assumption at all. 

I decided to rescue poor Joe after a while and spent the rest of the informative talk playing with SS in the sand. Michelle joined us, because we felt P and Joe were perfectly capable of absorbing and relaying whatever information was imparted. Sadly P gave me a good dressing down for not being there. Dude, who the hell was supposed to mind OUR daughter? 

While I do not know, nor care about every family's origins, it appeared that SS was surrounded not only by faces that looked like hers, but by families with a similar composition. There were beautiful Asian faces from a girl who appeared to be younger than SS, to several teens. Since there was only one Asian parent in the group our deduction is not far fetched. The first practice is next month, and it looks like even if the time changes, they will be held on Sundays. Perfect for us because of P's work schedule. The only hiccup will be during the DBR Festival, on a Saturday and Sunday. P won't be there Saturday, SS and I will go solo.

SS got her sand fix, we said goodbye to Michelle and Joe, then we moved on to another first for SS.  The last picture is a clue.