This was the first week of school for Regan and Benjamin! Everyone was very excited to start the day. Benjamin was up and dressed and in our room at 5:30AM!! He kept telling us that it was no fun because it was taking so long. I responded by letting him know that if he had slept a normal amount of hours, that he would not have to wait long at all :) I'm sure you notice the "peace sign" or "victory sign" as they refer to it here. Everyone here does this sign when they get their picture taken. As you see, it did not take long for my kids to notice and start doing it also.
I just wanted a shot of the three of them with their little backpacks on. We walked to school the first 2 days, but the rest of the week, we let the kids ride their bikes. The school is pretty close to our apartment.
Here is my handsome boy on his first day of Kindergarten. Can you tell he is excited? He said he had to wear his Tennessee stuff to school on the first day so that everyone would know where he was from.
Here is Regan on her first day of 1st grade! I'm going to have to make sure I label this picture carefully because she is wearing the exact same clothes that she wore for her first day of Kindergarten in the States. She had a new shirt that I had in MY mind for her to wear, but she had "been saving this outfit" for the first day of class...she had no idea that it is what she wore last year, too. Oh well.
This week we had a cool spell. It got down into the 80's. I thought it was funny seeing our little one dripping sweat and wearing shorts and a T-shirt and this other little guy all layered up.
It's funny what things will make you think of "home." Jonathan and I were walking back from dropping the kids off at school when we both said, "Ahhh. It smells like America." What was it? The smell of fresh cut grass. I had to catch an image of this. There was one guy cutting the grass and three guys raking it up into these baskets, and then they would haul the baskets off somewhere.
Katherine will celebrate her birthday at the end of this month, but she was super excited to get a early birthday present in the mail! We were all a little surprised at how quickly it got here. It only took a week. She opened it up and got a baby doll (plus some candy and clothes).
In the birthday package, everyone else got a few surprises. One of those was POPCORN! YUMMY! This picture made me laugh. The kids were just shoveling it in. Benjamin is not in this picture because he took his own bowl and went and hid on the top bunk so that Lauren wouldn't "steal" any.
This is a wet market that we found when we got turned around. We were trying to find this furniture store to look for a bookshelf and our taxi driver dropped us off here. We walked down the alley and back, then saw the huge sign across the street for the furniture store. This is a typical stall though....fruit and veggies out to be sold, someone hanging out to sell the food, laundry drying above the food. Most of the places at this market had their homes above the store.
This is our little friend that we play with every week. She loves to play ball with the girls and she is very protective of Lauren. When she is there, she doesn't want anyone else playing with Lauren. It's quite cute. We tried so hard to get a picture of them together, but Lauren would not stay still long enough. We finally got one on the steps of the playground. Most kids tell us "goodbye", but this little friend always says, "See you tomorrow!"
I thought you might enjoy some picture from a local supermarket. Beef jerky anyone?
How about some pigs feet? I don't think I have had this to eat yet...key word...think :) Getting our meat has been a different experience here as well. You pick out your meat like you would fruit in the States. They have a little bag to put it in. You pick the piece (or pieces) that you want, go have it weighed, and then buy it at the checkout. Of course, if you don't want to get your meat at the supermarket, you can always buy it live on the street.
Our Ayi cooks lunch every day for us. She is a wonderful cook. One day she fixed some ribs and they were delicious. She usually fixes a kind of porridge for Lauren (and Lauren is a big fan of it), but the day we had ribs Lauren was demanding to try some. She liked them just as much as we did! :)
This was the first week of school for Regan and Benjamin! Everyone was very excited to start the day. Benjamin was up and dressed and in our room at 5:30AM!! He kept telling us that it was no fun because it was taking so long. I responded by letting him know that if he had slept a normal amount of hours, that he would not have to wait long at all :) I'm sure you notice the "peace sign" or "victory sign" as they refer to it here. Everyone here does this sign when they get their picture taken. As you see, it did not take long for my kids to notice and start doing it also.
I just wanted a shot of the three of them with their little backpacks on. We walked to school the first 2 days, but the rest of the week, we let the kids ride their bikes. The school is pretty close to our apartment.
Here is my handsome boy on his first day of Kindergarten. Can you tell he is excited? He said he had to wear his Tennessee stuff to school on the first day so that everyone would know where he was from.
Here is Regan on her first day of 1st grade! I'm going to have to make sure I label this picture carefully because she is wearing the exact same clothes that she wore for her first day of Kindergarten in the States. She had a new shirt that I had in MY mind for her to wear, but she had "been saving this outfit" for the first day of class...she had no idea that it is what she wore last year, too. Oh well.
This week we had a cool spell. It got down into the 80's. I thought it was funny seeing our little one dripping sweat and wearing shorts and a T-shirt and this other little guy all layered up.
It's funny what things will make you think of "home." Jonathan and I were walking back from dropping the kids off at school when we both said, "Ahhh. It smells like America." What was it? The smell of fresh cut grass. I had to catch an image of this. There was one guy cutting the grass and three guys raking it up into these baskets, and then they would haul the baskets off somewhere.
Katherine will celebrate her birthday at the end of this month, but she was super excited to get a early birthday present in the mail! We were all a little surprised at how quickly it got here. It only took a week. She opened it up and got a baby doll (plus some candy and clothes).
In the birthday package, everyone else got a few surprises. One of those was POPCORN! YUMMY! This picture made me laugh. The kids were just shoveling it in. Benjamin is not in this picture because he took his own bowl and went and hid on the top bunk so that Lauren wouldn't "steal" any.
This is a wet market that we found when we got turned around. We were trying to find this furniture store to look for a bookshelf and our taxi driver dropped us off here. We walked down the alley and back, then saw the huge sign across the street for the furniture store. This is a typical stall though....fruit and veggies out to be sold, someone hanging out to sell the food, laundry drying above the food. Most of the places at this market had their homes above the store.
This is our little friend that we play with every week. She loves to play ball with the girls and she is very protective of Lauren. When she is there, she doesn't want anyone else playing with Lauren. It's quite cute. We tried so hard to get a picture of them together, but Lauren would not stay still long enough. We finally got one on the steps of the playground. Most kids tell us "goodbye", but this little friend always says, "See you tomorrow!"
I thought you might enjoy some picture from a local supermarket. Beef jerky anyone?
How about some pigs feet? I don't think I have had this to eat yet...key word...think :) Getting our meat has been a different experience here as well. You pick out your meat like you would fruit in the States. They have a little bag to put it in. You pick the piece (or pieces) that you want, go have it weighed, and then buy it at the checkout. Of course, if you don't want to get your meat at the supermarket, you can always buy it live on the street.
Our Ayi cooks lunch every day for us. She is a wonderful cook. One day she fixed some ribs and they were delicious. She usually fixes a kind of porridge for Lauren (and Lauren is a big fan of it), but the day we had ribs Lauren was demanding to try some. She liked them just as much as we did! :)
