What is your name?

Annalie.

How old are you?

Five. And a half.

Where do you live?

In San Diego.

Do you have any pets?

Yep.

Do you want to tell me about them?

Yep. You see, there’s two of them and they’re cats, and their names are Katy and Lily. Katy has blue eyes and Lily has green eyes.

Who do you like to play with?

Bug.

What’s your favorite cereal?

The yogurt one. [Strawberry Yogurt Trader Joe O's]

What’s your favorite vegetable?

Strawberries and blueberries.

But those are fruits.

I know, but those are the ones I like. I guess I like carrots…actually, corn.

What’s your favorite drink?

Sprite.

What’s your favorite snack?

Peanut butter and jelly sandwich. And popcorn with butter and sometimes salt.

What’s your favorite toy?

Dolly, my dolphin.

What’s your favorite TV Show?

Fairly OddParents.

What’s your favorite movie?

Hmm…pause! [She was asking me to pause the interview because she needed to think about it.] My favorite movie is…a TV one: the Phineas & Ferb Christmas special!

What’s your favorite game?

I like to play catch a lot, with my Gramaw.

What’s your favorite book?

The one about a long time ago, the one I got for Christmas.

You mean the Little House on the Prairie books?

No. It was about the stories a long, long time ago, like Jesus and the flaming bush…

Oh, the Bible? Your Bible storybook?

Yes! That’s it.

What’s your favorite restaurant?

The place in Maryland that has hot dogs.

You mean Five Guys?

Yeah! Five Guys.

What’s your favorite holiday?

Christmas, because we give, and it’s really fun, and we get new stuff and we give some stuff up for other people who don’t have very much money.

What’s your favorite animal?

Horses.

If you could change your name, what name would you choose?

You know which one, Mommy. [in unison with me] Sarah!

What do you love about each person in our family?

I love that Daddy is really really funny, and he goes to work every day so I don’t get to play with him much. That makes it even more fun, ‘cuz I don’t usually get to play with him.

While I’m boring, because you see me all the time, right?

[A diplomatic silence is maintained, as Annalie scrunches up her nose and smiles at me.]

So what do you love about me?

What I love most about you is that you care about me a lot, and you are glad that I like going in the water now, so that way you can go in the water now, and go in the stepping area, and I can go in the water about up to my knees, or my feet. So we’re both happy!

What do you love most about yourself?

That I like cooking and painting, and I think a lot of things are funny.

Where would you like to go on vacation this year?

I would like to go on vacation to…Hawaii.

Really? Why do you want to go to Hawaii?

Because it sounds like a fun place to go to.

Where did you hear about Hawaii, do you know?

Um, it was actually in the movie Ice Age. You know, where that squirrel falls in the ice and he floats all the way to Hawaii.

What are we doing that’s a big change this year?

It’s a big change that we’re going back to…it’s a big change… [Annalie picks up a toy guitar and begins singing.] It’s a big change where we’re going back, we’re going back to Washington Dee Seee-eee-EEE! We’re moo-oo-oo-oo-OO-oo-oo-oo-VING!

Why are we doing that? Did we just decide, “Eh, we’re tired of California, we’re gonna go now”?

[Still singing] Because my fa-ther’s in the Na-a-a-a-vy!

What are some of your wishes for this year?

My wish is to help people and clean up the world. And I wish that Daddy would come home very very soon.

Good news, Daddy is coming home soon, in just a couple of weeks!

Oh, all right!

Thanks for the interview, Annalie!

Annalie’s self-portrait, age 5y8m

Inspiration for this interview originally came from New Year’s Interview for Kids at Blissfully Domestic (via The Crafty Crow). I don’t scrapbook, but I have a blog, and I’m not afraid to use it!

I did this interview in 2009 too. When I compared Annalie’s answers a couple of them were exactly the same. I guess she is my kid, so it’s not too surprising that she knows her own mind.

I guess I’m not a very good Chuck fan. I neglected to mention on Twitter, Facebook AND my blog that the two-hour Season 3 premiere of Chuck was this past Sunday, and that another episode aired at the regular time on Monday, on NBC. So, um, watch Chuck next Monday!

I have good reasons for not mentioning it though. I was busy enjoying the last few days of my visit with Lauren, who sadly had to fly back home before the Chuck party.

Then I was getting ready for the Chuck party. We grocery-shopped and made magnets and put together some goodies for the party favor bags.

We got t-shirts made with the awesome graphic that Brenda designed. She also designed the bitmap art (inspired by the Chuck opening credits) for the favor bags.

We did some house-cleaning and some cooking.

Then there was the actual partying, woohoo! Along with me, my mom, Annalie and Brenda, Sonja and Noah, Jen and Emily, Heather and her girls, and Brenda’s mom Sue all came down for the Chuckaganza. (Troy came up with that one.)

We showed off our kung fu moves.

Then there were the mustaches. Oh, the crazy mustaches. I think Brenda came up with the idea, and then I said, “I have this cheap felt that’s been sitting in my cabinet forever…here, cut up some mustaches!” We got double-sided tape and the rest is history. Much to Sonja’s delight.

No one—and no thing was safe from Sonja’s mustache-ing fervor.

See? There were also mustaches on the kitchen trash can, Annalie’s piggy bank, and a drawing of a teddy bear taped up in the hallway. Though I think the trash can might have been Brenda’s doing.

And after we put the littles to bed, we settled down with our coffee and chocolate souffles to watch the two-hour premiere. It was, in a word, awesome. The episode that aired the next night was even better. I think this is gonna be a good season for Chuck. I’m so glad I discovered this show (thanks again, Mike!) and have been able to share the fun with so many other people.

Not to mention the mustaches.

For more photos of the weekend, go to the photoset Chuck Party 2010 in my Flickr.

If you want to catch up on Chuck, you can see the first three episodes of this season, plus the last few of Season 2, on NBC Video Rewind. A few more are available on TheWB.com.

I suppose I should write something, anything, to get that broken-blog post off the top of the page. I’m too tired to write a proper chatty post all about how we’ve been spending our days, but I’ll post a few photos to give you the basic idea.

I mentioned that International 7 Days Meet-Up we had at my house on Saturday. That was lots of fun.

I made Lamingtons, which are an Australian treat composed of spongecake, chocolate and coconut. They are as delicious as they sound.

My mom’s sister, brother, and sister-in-law drove down Sunday afternoon for a short visit. We went up to Snail Mountain and admired the view.

After lunch at our favorite local Italian place, we walked around the little downtown a bit. I saw this funny sign in the window of a martial arts studio: FEAR NO MAN. Inquire Within.

Lauren and I visited this fantastic little yarn shop. Lauren tried to control her yarn lust.

My Aunt Kathy and Uncle Bill checked out a secondhand store while Annalie, my Aunt Julie and my mom relaxed at the children’s bookstore down the street.

Back at home, we had a Vegemite tasting. Oh yes we did. Lauren says the problem most Americans have with Vegemite is that they treat it like peanut butter, spreading it on too thick. So we buttered toast and spread the Vegemite thinly on that.

I’m here to tell you, Vegemite is pretty darn tasty. It’s salty and tangy and I’d really like to try it with some cheese. I’m actually quite interested in acquiring more Vegemite and attempting to make a cheesymite scroll.

It’s sort of a tradition for my mom to take us to dinner at Outback Steakhouse when she visits us. I thought Lauren would get a kick out of it, so we took her there and she was amused. The food was delicious as usual, which probably made the archaic Aussie slang on the menu seem slightly less offensive.

Annalie made some crazy faces for my mom while we were waiting for the food to come to the table. She’s a nut.

I’ll have to write more about the zoo and the Air & Space Museum and the International 7 Days Meet-Up 2 (now with more internationality!) later, because now I’m tired and am going to bed. Tomorrow is Lauren’s last full day here and we deliberately planned a day of nothing so we could sleep in and Lauren could organize and pack. If we’re feeling really crazy we might go to Joann’s to buy Lauren some more stitch markers to go with all the yarn she bought so she could knit socks and things.

Now how about I end this post with our Day 157 photo for Troy?