Monday, November 7, 2016

When Daddy's Away...

 While Jonathan was away all week, we managed to survive.  The kids did a great job of helping out and getting all their schoolwork done.  Hudson thinks Regan hung the moon.  What a way to do your homework :)
 Katherine and Benjamin had their art class.  Every week, I think they must be about finished, but then they add the cutest details.  Katherine cut up some straws for the base of this, glues a patterned paper on top, found a rock outside to glue on it, used a fake tree, and made the cutest little flowers out of clay and paper.  So creative!
 Benjamin is also loving this class!  He has added a pool and a fire pit and now he is working on other small details.  He has a small grassy area that the teacher wanted him to put a playground on.  He said that he didn't want to do that because then there would be no room for the kids and the dogs to play together :)  So, she agreed and told him that next week he can make little models of animals and kids to add to his house.
 We took a field trip!  Hudson fell sound asleep on the bus!  He was so funny.
 On our field trip we went to see the WTA tennis tournament.  The tickets were only 5 dollars!  We couldn't pass up the opportunity to learn what tennis was and see some really famous athletes at the same time!
 The kids all got tennis balls painted on their cheeks before we went in.  I was trying to get a selfie but my arm wasn't long enough to get us all in.  Thankfully, someone agreed to take our picture for us.
 We didn't even know who we were going to see until the match started!  It was Zhang Sai Sai from China against Timea Babos from Hungary.  China won, making it into the semifinals.  After that we saw part of a game with Australia playing France.  We left before the end so that we could get back for dinner. The kids didn't really want to leave!  They enjoyed it more than I thought they would.
Benjamin made the comment that it looked easy until I pointed out how fast the ball was going.  The slowest ball we saw was 145km/h (91mi/hr) and the faster was 181 km/hr(112mi/hr)! No wonder they are tired after playing for an hour.
 You can't go to a sporting event without concessions!  No cokes and popcorn or hot dogs or nachos, but they did have these.  It tasted a bit like a waffle with the sweetness already added.  It was actually pretty good.
 Hudson was so excited to paint his birdhouse!  Everyone loved helping out!  Katherine opened the paint, Benjamin cleaned the brush for him.  You'd think he was a movie star the way he was being waited on ;)

Then, we hung it outside on the balcony...17 floors up.  He ran to check on it every 5 minutes to see if a bird was living in it yet :)  He's too cute!!!
 Since Daddy was gone, he got to go around with me to so many different places.  We were waiting on Lauren's dance to end and he wanted to try to make his hair spiky. This was the best we could do, but he thought it was funny.

 Look who got her official uniform!!!!  She's number 1 and sooooo excited!
 I'm so proud of her.  She is my most shy, but did not even hesitate to jump right in and play soccer.  She's the only girl, the only foreigner, and the only 3rd grader (in a class of 4th graders) and fits in perfectly!  Even her height!
 Warming up with some drills...
 Day 2 of learning soccer and she went right for the ball!  Go Katherine! They are supposed to start on the field next week.  It was supposed to be this week, but one of the kids didn't wear the right shoes.
 This is a true smile.  Natural. Hot. Sweaty. Tired. Happy.
 Daddy is finally home!  So what do we do?  We went for a family bike ride at night to celebrate!
 Jonathan's arms are long enough to attempt the group selfie :)
 We rode out to one of the islands.  It was so nice.

We all enjoyed looking back at different parts of the city at night.  The island was really crowded at night....tons of people biking, walking, running, and singing/playing instruments along the way.