These blueberry fields are ENORMOUS with huge crowd and sea of vehicles from Illinois. After getting a bucket, off we disappeared into the blueberry patch. The abundance of blueberries looks so much alike grapes in the vineyard. It's a pity that many rows of blueberry trees have not ripen yet. They should be ready given a week or so. The sun was brutal and we soaked in sweats plucking the berries. It's glad to have nice shades at the corner end to chill out.
What a fickle weather we had today! At the time we hit downtown for the Taste of Kalamazoo event, the sky turned into a gloomy mood and the rain started falling off the sky. Elle was overjoyed of carrying her strawberry umbrella in the rain. We ran into the library playing a few puzzles while waiting for the rain to slow down. Half an hour later, we stepped out into the light rain, strolled along the streets and greeted with a shower of "Awww, so cute" praises from the onlookers.
Shortly after, the sun broke out. After getting our sushi fix at the Taste of Kalamazoo, a short stay at the KVCC museum, we hang out at the park next to the place we parked the car. That's when the fun roll'n in. Water shooting out of the fountain and the kids went crazy over it, screaming and running around as the water being blown around by the wind. Elle quickly blocked the water with her umbrella when the wind came to our way. I laughed my heart out watching her running wildly around trying to dodge the water with her umbrella. Her face expression of "what the heck is going on?" was so precious as she's holding her umbrella running against the wind. The umbrella almost flew away. What a joy to watch her having such a great time with a simple soak'n fun!
Elle is so thrilled over airplanes after her first flying experience across the pacific ocean. Imagine how excited she got when we told her we're going to see airplanes! Air zoo is like 5 minutes drive away and the best of it is in celebration of 30th anniversary, we get free admission through September. Right on!
The mural artwork inside the Air zoo is very impressive with lots of aircrafts on display and amusement-park like rides. She couldn't get enough of riding inside the planes and rockets in the Kid's corner room. She was so pumped over the Montgolfier balloon ride. Gosh! the ride was spinning real fast. She kept screaming "baby flying! baby 晕了!" in the air.
It's crazy spending half an hour driving back and forth between 6th street and 8th street finding the entrance towards Lillian Anderson Arboretum. Just about to give up, I decided to give it one last chance turning into a little paved road which could hardly be seen off the main road. We found it! Finally.
Elle hopped onto her umbrella stroller and off we ventured into this vast expanse of woods. We did not see a soul as we walked deeper under the forest canopy along the magnificent pine trail, only heard the sounds of crickets and rustling leaves. Minutes later, I heard Elle started saying "I want go home.". I could tell she's a little intimated by the wilderness as I felt the same. I sped up the pace and all of a sudden she was thrown out from the stroller and landed on her fours. After mere seconds of shock, we burst into laughter for this silly accident. We continued winding down the trail until our eyes greeted rows of incredible tall pines lining perfectly on two sides. The view is spectacular. Elle had so much fun picking pine cones lying around as I was snapping away. We saw two big dogs when we got back to the parking lot. I'm surprised to hear Elle waving to the dogs and said "I see you later". 
After the nature walk, we went shopping, had an ice cream treat and then burnt off her energy at our favorite park. It's an awesome day - taking her nap right on the clock at noon, did not act fussy when we're out (thanks to the nap), and she was dog-tired when we got home so no stalling at bedtime.
Skamania Steelhead at Grand river. It's funny to see Elle quickly grabbed her playdough scissor, placed her little chair next to dada and stood on it when dada was getting ready to fillet the fish. Oh yeah, she's getting all excited about "cutting" the fish herself. 
My grin was getting wider every second as I was snapping away Elle and dada eating sunflower seeds. Their rhythmic movements were so much alike, acting at the same direction at the same time.
Elle started using "One minute" and "One second" in the conversation today. When I finished my sunflower seeds, she told me: "Baby go get. One minute. OK?" and then headed towards dada. After a few steps away, she stopped and turned her head back saying "One minute. OK?" to assure me it won't take long. One minute later, she came back to me with handfuls of sunflower seeds wrapped inside her shirt. Too sweet.
A late evening visit to Earl's berry farm for these beautiful ripe and plump berries. We couldn't stop popping handfuls of berries into our mouth while picking at the same time. We must have filled up our stomach with at least 3 pints of these goodness.
After an hour of hard work, we treated ourself a luscious blueberry pie and a creamy chocolate shake at the cafe. Delish.
Two days ago, I caught a glimpse of reds in one of the trees at our apartment. It's mind-boggling to see leaves turn into autumn color such early. Early July? No kidding.
Even Elle appears to be very observative in nature. We heard her screaming "What happen?" from the back of the car, pointing at the red patch of the tree and wondering where on earth the red comes from.
Dear Elle,
Conversation with you is the most light-hearted, giggling moment. You keep on sweeping our feet off with the new words and things you learn every single day. To quote a few of your favorite words: "什么来的?", "Why?", "Where're you?", "What you doing?", "What? What!", "Here you go", "What happen?", "this way", "See", "let's go", "Okay", and "How about..".
That evening you drew hundreds of repetitive circles overlapping one another and said the drawing is "打雷". Later on, you used the scissor cutting the paper saying "I cut 打雷". It's funny that when you want to get our attention, you say, "knock, knock, mama/papa" as if you're knocking a door.
You've thrown us so many questions of why that we need to crack our brain coming up with all sort of explanations for you. The way you say, "Oh! Okay...", as if you understand fully with our explanation is so precious. On the other hand, when we ask you "Why?", you'd reply us starting with "Because...". 
One day, mama kept saying "baby super naughty!", and out of nowhere you countered back by saying "No, baby superman!". Oh boy, you're such a complainer in nature! Every time when dada saying no to you or against you doing anything, you'd immediately turn into a sorrow face with tears spilling all over your face. You'd come to mama saying "爸爸壞蛋,爸爸 naughty!".
You're getting more and more playful, cheeky and sneaky. You covered dada's face with playdough animal cutout. It's hilarious that you just had to keep brushing his front hair to the back so that the playdough cutout on his forehead did not get blocked. It's so much fun of our whisper talk before bedtime, especially our lil' bad talk behind dada. You place your index finger over your lip saying "Shhhh..." and whisper as light as a feather telling me all the bad about dada.
Mama enjoys the most at bedtime as we're lying on the bed singing "好娃娃" and "兩只老鼠" together. When it's time to sleep, the moment dada asks you to close your eyes, you'd immediately close your eyes as if you're going to fall asleep. That night, we caught you faking sleep as your eyelashes flickering like black winged butterflies. We watched you closely and silently, waiting for the moment of you taking a little peep. Yes! You did and caught off-guarded that we're watching you. You burst into a nervous laughter, jumped on your feet in a sudden, and turned your back jumping away. In a lighting speed, you fell over the pillow fort and headed down to the floor before we could catch your legs in time. It's quite a scare, yet funny.
Love,
Mama
Back to St. Joe river again since we were here two days ago. We enjoyed the peace and tranquility when it's not crowded with anglers. Mature trees lining along two sides of the river bank. You can hear the leaves rustling as the wind blows through. Very harmony and soothing with big fishes flip-flopping out of the water occasionally.
While dada was fishing, Elle and I were hanging under the shades of the trees, throwing rocks, picking branches, balance walking on the trunk of a fallen tree, blowing bubbles, eating snacks and walking along the river bank. Her tinker-bell giggling and ear-piercing shrilling drew a few curious glances from the anglers. The funniest moment was the time when she's sitting alone on a deserted chair, talking to the weeds while wrestling with them. "Go away! NO! NO! You go away!...", her silly mumbling to the weeds cracked us up. When she was tired, I wrapped her around my arms with her head tucked under my chest as we sang along all her favorite songs. We barely noticed the time slipped away.
By far, dada caught a clam and got a few bites from Skamania steelheads which got away before reeling in. He can hardly sleep on the fact that those fishes slipping away at arm's reach for many nights since then. We met quite a few friendly anglers there who had a great day with great catch. They all came to Elle asking her to give a pat on their catches. Elle was so thrilled over touching those big fishes.
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