Where we live has still been on holiday, so it has been fun to see how things are different during this time. We tried to take a bus to a store (known by us as the art store....has mostly pens and papers and a few supplies like that), but found that it was closed. Since it was closed, we just walked around and found this pretty little park. It was good for the kids to break their routine for a bit.
I also wanted to have some special time with the two little ones because I knew that I was going to be gone for a week with the older two. They wanted to get their nails painted, so we did that and got ice cream. They had so much fun. Katherine chose dark blue and Lauren chose light purple. The ladies got a kick out of them being able to talk with them.
We had another REALLY special time....AUNTIE EM on SKYPE!!! She is the only person in the world that I know that can hold all four of my kids attention for hours if she wanted to. They heard that Auntie Em was on the computer and immediately started asking for her to tell them stories. She has quite the talent.
So, the older two kids and I got up very early to catch a flight to go meet up with other homeschoolers around the world. The kids were able to get testing done to make sure they are on grade level, give presentations, make lots of new friends, and have loads of fun. We had no idea what it would be like when we were headed there, but this was the view from my window. I'll take it :) It was great. The kids were a little afraid at first because we had some little geckos living in our room her were quite noisy at times. The kids got used to them and even named them. They didn't mind them so much after I told them that they eat mosquitoes.
The kids had to choose a character from any book that they had read this year in school and dress up as that character one night. Regan chose Pocahontas and Benjamin chose to be David (he's carrying a slingshot).
The parents were supposed to dress up or carry a prop, so Benjamin nominated me to be Goliath. HA!
One of the BEST parts....Swimming! Just look at all those kids! Our kids were having the time of their life.
Benjamin was not a fan of doing a presentation. Actually, he did not like it at all, but I was very proud of him for doing it. I held his quilt square that he had made while he read his story.
She always had a group at her table listening to her commercial. She was in her element that night. I think she could have gone on forever and been happy :)
Loved making new friends!
And Benjamin loved making friends, too! :) (2 legged and 4 legged)
We had a LONG trip home. We had several delays and ended up being awake for nearly 20 hours. We were happy to be on a plane headed home.
We got back just in time for the parade. Yes, all the people to the left of the police officer's head is in the parade. Everyone else is watching.
Even though we were watching the parade, even the people IN the parade noticed US watching :) How many eyes can you count looking at us? :) And no, it was not our imagination. They called out to us from the parade many times.
And even took our picture....
But the girls hardly seemed to notice. They just enjoyed the parade.
A dragon dance
And I'm not sure the name of this dance.
They were constantly drinking water and spitting/spraying it into the air to look like smoke. We are now thinking that it might not be water. It was interesting and we were glad that we lived less than a block away. It was so easy to get home and try to recover from our travels.
