She Did it!!

By Amy


Back in April, when I started teaching Savannah how to read, we set a goal to complete all 100 lessons by her birthday (That gave me about 103 days, incuding weekends.) Back in April, the lessons were really simple and we could easily do 2 lessons a day. Therefore, I figured we'd have no problem finishing by her birthday. Well, the lessons soon became more difficult...then, we planned a family vacation (who wants to do school on vacation!?!?), so there were several times I wasn't sure we were going to make it. But we did! Savannah was really motivated, therefore so was I. We even finished with one day to spare!


The other day, as I was getting lunch on the table, I looked in the living room and this is what I saw....


Savannah was reading Alex and Peter one of their favorite "Choo-Choo train" books. Fun times! I'm really proud of her! Peter and Alex are pretty excited too!

Vacation Highlights

by Amy

Wow...where has the time gone? Thanks, Julia for encouragement to get back to the blog! :) I can hardly believe that our vacation was almost 6 weeks ago and I haven't posted pics yet! So much has happened over the last few weeks, that it will take several posts to catch you up! But, since school is starting on Monday, I hope to have more time to blog (more about school starting later) Now...back to our super-fab, really-fun family vacation!

We went down to a HUGE city in the southern part of our country. We had never been there before, so since we could get such cheap airline tickets, (under $600 for 5 round-trip tickets!) we decided to check it out! It was great!! This city had tons of fun things to do with kids! We were there for six full days and only returned to the hotel for naps twice. Needless to say, our kids were worn out by the end of the day!

We spent one whole day in a really big mall. How could a family of 5 (with three kids, 5 and under) spend an entire day in mall, you ask? Well, this mall was full of rare finds (rare in Asia that is.) It had a huge bookstore with a pretty good selection of English books; a large "Chuck-E-Cheese" type arcade for kids, a really nice movie theater, Burger King, Starbucks, Dairy Queen, and a Toys R Us! We spent at least two hours in Toys R Us playing. My parents gave the kids money for their birthdays, so they all got to pick out a favorite new toy -- within reason, of course!

Another day we went to a huge indoor play area called Fun Dazzle. It's like a McDonalds play area on steroids. It has big slides, tons of things to climb and rope bridges. My kids (along with the two other children there on a Wednesday morning) found it to be a great place to play hide 'n seek! They had a blast and were worn out afterwards. So, Brad took the kids back to the hotel for one of their two naps of the week while I headed off to scope out IKEA....

I was never a big fan of IKEA in America. I always felt like once you started waking, you could never get out! It's the same way in Asia-land, but now I love it! I love all the decorating ideas they have and their prices are not bad -- especially for those hard-to-find-in-Asia items -- like candles, measuring cups, bakeware, cute dishes, serving pieces, and organizational things. It was a treat to feel like I could take my time and browse.

Another day we spent at a super fun science museum! My kids loved it! All of the exhibits were in English and Asianese, so that was nice. Their favorite part was getting to "go to work," as Peter put it. They had a room full of hands-on kid activities -- similar to Kid Zone, for anyone from Louisville! My kids loved getting to be construction workers. They pushed wheel barrels, pulled levies, and built walls. It was great fun!

We also go to celebrate Brad's birthday the second day of our vacation. It was fun for him to be able to get super yummy food for his birthday and get to drink Starbucks coffee! Mmmm! After a fun, adventure-filled day, we returned to our hotel to find a birthday cake waiting for him. I guess, since they had to copy our passports, they made it a point to notice birthdays. :) Even though Asian cakes look way better than they taste (they are spongy and not very sweet), it the thought that counts!

Here's Brad the morning of his birthday, posing in the hall with the kiddos!

It rained all but one and a half days of our vacation. In our city, rain = no taxis, which means it's huge pain to go anywhere! But, in this Mega city, our hotel was literally four steps from the entrance of the subway. That was beautiful!! The rain didn't dampen our plans a bit! And, we even got to enjoy a boat ride one a "rain-free" day....

Well, I'm not sure that's all our vacation details, but it's all I can remember 6 weeks after it! To all of you faithful Morello Madness checkers, thanks for hangin' in there! I'll try not to wait another 6 weeks.... Savannah's birthday celebrations and more --- coming soon!

Were still here.

Hey all, sorry for the long, long delay. The last month has been a whirlwind with activities, studies, birthday celebrations, home school prep, and other exciting things. I'm sure Amy will have a fun, entertaining post soon, but this was to let you all know we're still alive and kicking! Brad

A Litigious Society?

From Brad.

I was always annoyed by the number of lawsuits that are filed in the US each year. It has led to a irresponsible attitude on the part of many Americans. Suing tobacco or fast food companies because the products I chose to put in my body are harmful to me. However, for the first time I realized that despite the excesses, a litigious society is probably better than the alternative. In our society, lawsuits are not too common. People are generally not held responsible for their foolish decisions, and things as a result are not always designed well. For example...

During a recent earthquake, many, many buildings crumbled in an instant because there was no re-bar (steel) strengthening the concrete structure. This actually might have consequences because it is such a 'high-profile' mistake.

Closer to home (our home)...

You might remember when the kitchen guy ran our plastic gas tube right over the top of our oven which caused a malfunction. After my friend helped me to get him to fix it, I asked my friend what recourse would I have if it exploded and hurt someone. My friend basically said absolutely no recourse. If there is no recourse, they why would the 'kitchen guy' spend extra time ensuring safety or a job well done? Bottom line, he has no reason so he doesn't.

Last week on vacation, while Amy was walking down some outside stairs to get to the subway (it was raining), she slipped and had a nice fall (she's okay, just a little bruised). However, once again the designer really doesn't care that much about putting down those little 'friction-producing strips' because he would prefer saving money and time over ensuring the safety of those who use his stairs. This would never happen in America where the designer is more worried about someone slipping and suing for big bucks.

Many, many other examples could be cited, but the bottom line is the next time you hear about a ridiculous lawsuit in America, although you should be upset at the excess, you should be thankful for a society that holds its workers responsible for their decisions and thus protects its people.

More Birthday Details

By Amy

After opening presents on the boys' birthday, we headed to the "lake park." The boys requested to spend their birthday there. This park is fun for several reasons:

a.) we have a membership to all the parks in the city, so it's free to get in.

b.) it has fun carnival rides for the kids to enjoy for a minimal fee.

c.) it has grass!! that's a rare find in our concrete city.

d.) it has a lake, which is a great place to practice your sling-shot skills.

So, I packed up a picnic lunch and we headed off to the park! After slinging a thousand rocks into the lake, riding some fun rides, and playing on a jungle gym, we ate a yummy lunch complete with tootsie pops! (Thanks Grandma!) Then, we explored a bit and headed home for some cake and ice cream. It was a fun-filled morning! After naps, we spent the evening playing with new toys, eating volcanoes (a taco-salad type thing that my kids all LOVE!) and leftover cake, and packing up for our vacation! More vacation details to come....

(I had a few more pics to upload, but blogger is rejecting them....sorry!)

Birthday fun!

By Amy


Well, it's only 8:30 am on the boys' birthday and we've already had enough fun to last for another year! And, since we're heading out of town tomorrow, I thought I'd take a quick second to post a few pics for your viewing enjoyment....

After breakfast, we opened gifts....



New SpiderMan dress up clothes....


Alex requested a football and Pedo, of course, wanted a baseball cake. Don't worry....They didn't have cake for breakfast. They just got to see their cakes. We'll dive in to them tonight after dinner (volcanoes-- their favorite!) For breakfast they enjoyed double chocolate muffins -- not cake! ;)

This is first thing this morning. They slept in their new Lighten PJs from Grandma. Aren't they cute!


Last night, as Alex was heading to bed, he very seriously looked at me and said, "Mommy, will you have to buy me new shoes tomorrow? I'm going to be so big, I bet my tennis shoes won't fit me anymore."

Now we're off to the lake park for a picnic. We're taking the new soccer ball and the slingshot! It should be a fun day!

Birthday Money

From Brad.

It's birthday season in the Morello home. Three will be celebrated in the span of 3 days next week and Savannah's is next month. My Mom still loves to buy things for me, but the past few years she has generally sent a check and told me to do something fun with it. In the States, that would typically meant buying some new books or attending a baseball game somewhere (Houston, Denver, Cincinnati, or Chicago over the past 5 years). But both of those options don't really exist over here. So we made plans to go to one of the largest cities in our country. Its a relatively modern city that we've never been to and have some exciting places for the kids to play/swim. Moreover, it has exciting eateries like Burger King (yes...very exciting for all of us though it may seem a bit odd/dull to you), TGI Fridays, Tony Roma's, Starbucks, etc. What is amazing is that we just bought 5 round trip tickets (this city is about 800 miles away) for about $375 (tax added on another $200). How they can afford that with oil prices the way they are, I'll never know. Also, our hotel is pretty nice (so the reviewers say...cross your fingers) and is $38/night which includes all taxes. Needless to say, compared to America, it is quite inexpensive to travel in our country.

We continue to grow in our grasp of the language here. It has been a slow, uphill climb, but we do continually see progress. I've read from 'communication experts' that in the most ideal of situations (same language, background, close relationship, etc.) that communication is only 80% effective. You can imagine what happens to that figure when someone crosses cultures. A funny story I came across recently said that when Kentucky Fried Chicken first expanded their business here, they inadvertently translated 'Finger Licking Good' to 'Eat Your Fingers Off'. Not good for business you can imagine.

A recent picture revealing Savannah's favorite activity these days...