100 Days of School!!

by Amy

The kids and I have been counting up to 100 days of school. We done several different things to keep track of the days, but our favorite has been putting together a puzzle one day at a time. Each day we had school, each kid put up one puzzle piece. (The pieces were ordered, numbered and color categorized to make it pretty easy.) And, on Wednesday, we put the last pieces up!! To celebrate, we had a 100th Day of School Party! It was super fun! The kids and I put quite a bit of time in preparing for the day....

The biggest thing we did was make a pinata. It was fun ... sorda. Well, it was fun to have a pinata, but making it was kind of a pain! And, it didn't exactly turn out the way I had pictured it, but the kids weren't disappointed, so I was thankful!

(Notice: we all have on monogrammed aprons/smocks - thanks, Sue!)

And, Peter and Savannah decided to take it upon themselves to color 100 day decorations, so our home was covered with new pictures all celebrating 100.

Then, Wednesday, finally came! We invited Clara, Chloe, Aunt Rachel and Aunt Becky to come and be apart of our celebration! That definitely made it more fun! We began our day, by having Savannah count to 100 by 2's, and Peter and Alex count to 100 by 10's. Next, Clara and the boys counted 10 rows of 10 paperclips. Then, we clipped them all together to see how long 100 paperclips really is! It's pretty long!

Then, after helping the kids have a visual concept of how many 100 actually is, I asked them some questions and recorded their answers on some paper hung on the wall.

First, each person said what they would like to have 100 of....

Adults answered too. These were some of my favorite answers. RC, can you guess who said what? marathons...pinatas...stickers...mango steens...bites of ice cream...kisses

Then, we each said what we would NOT like to have 100 of...

Some answers were: mosquito bites...lion in our house...hours of crying babies...shots...bags to carry. I'd agree with all those answers! Wouldn't you?!?

Next we read Ps100 and asked if we could 'enter His gates with thanksgiving' by coming up with 100 things to be thankful for! Aunt Becky manned the Thankfulness Chart, taking one kid at a time, while the others were at our school table. I had 3 bags of things. The kids had to look at each bag and guess which one had exactly 100 items. I had a bag of 60 peppermints, 120 pennies, and 100 beads. The size really seemed to trick them! Since 60 peppermints were the biggest, they must have the most... They were surprised when they counted and only found 60.

After making bracelets with the beads, the time came for putting the last puzzle pieces up! We went from:

to:

(Yes, we started school, on July 21, 2008, and it took us 227 days to do 100 days of school! That's what happens when you take a month off when Grandma comes to visit, a month off to go to Thailand, and other random days here and there.... That's the beauty of home schooling!)

After completing our puzzle, we looked at life 100 years ago. What kind of cars did they drive; who was president of the US; what type of clothes did they wear; and what did the trains look like 100 years ago? Thanks to google image searches, I could quickly find pics of all those things and more!

Finally, it was time for the pinata! My kids were so excited! Clara and Chloe had no idea what a pinata was, so their excitement levels were not so high... Chloe did take the first swing, but decided, she didn't need to do that again.... Leigh, my house helper, had never heard of a pinata either, so she came to watch the fun!

To be honest, I wasn't sure that thing was ever going to break.... Here's a tip, just in case you ever decided to make your own pinata (which, if you live in the US, I don't recommend doing): 4 layers of newspaper are too many! It took quite a while for my kids to finally bust it open.

Unfortunately, Brad had decided to hang the pinata from Savannah's overhead light. Somehow in all the swinging, one of her lights crashed and shattered on the ground below. Serious bummer. Thankfully, no one was hurt!

After cleaning up all the glass, it finally busted (thanks to Pedo's bat swinging strength!) So, the kids all had a great time picking up the candy.

We concluded the celebration with some yummy homemade chicken fingers, fruit salad, and mashed potatoes that Leigh prepared for us. Then, we topped that off with some 'special' cupcakes that the kids and I made. (Thanks to Papa for the special cupcake toppers!)

It was a really great day! I think we'll definitely look forward to doing this again next year!

** Most of the pics above are complements of Aunt Becky! Thanks!

The New Earth

by Amy

Last Friday night we had some other American families over to our home. While Brad and the adults were in the living room enjoying adult conversation, I had the kids back in Savannah's room for a story from the Good Book. We talked about J's return and the New Heavens and New Earth. We looked out Savannah's window and discussed all the things we think they new Earth will have or not have. For example, none of the buildings will have paint peeling off or holes in them; all the trees will be alive, full and beautiful; the ground won't be dirty; you'll be able to see really, really far because there won't be any pollution, you won't need locks on bikes, etc. Then, we talked about not needing a sun, there being no night and no more tears. It was really exciting -- for me and the kids -- to think about this. Then, when I told them that J could return any time -- even tomorrow -- they were SHOCKED! Like most of us, we just assume it's a long way off.... So, we moved on to talk about being prepared for His return.

[Side note: we live on the 13th floor on our apt building. Savannah's bedroom has a window wall that overlooks the northern part of our city. Our city, well our country, has a problem with pollution so I have several "pollution markers" as I look out that window. For example, there have only been about 4 days in almost 2 years that have been clear enough for me to see a big bridge that's out there. Then, there's "the mountain." If I can see the mountain, the pollution's not too bad. But, if I can't even see the German building less than half a kilometer from our home, then I know it's really bad.]

Well, last Saturday, after our New Earth discussion, Peter walked into Savannah room and looked out her big window. We couldn't even see the German building just down the street. He said, "Mama, I guess J didn't come back yet....maybe tomorrow." Oh maybe tomorrow....May it be so, Pedo. Maranatha! Come Quickly!

Google Translate Still Has a Ways to Go...

By Brad. We were surfing the internet trying to understand what current movies are playing in our city's theater. The website of course is all in our local language which is just a little difficult to read. So, we used Google translate to find out about the recent movie, "He's just not that into you..." Here's what was translated:


Translated Title: "Well, he did not like you"
Video Introduction: Kim Goodwin, who plays Jennifer Love Gigi has just experienced, she has been "in love anxiety disorder" tortured, she is looking forward to be able to give a Man loves her phone, but unfortunately, phone has not rung. Fall in love with Anna Scarlett Johansson and his lover for many years friend Ben, but their relationship will be limited to playing ambiguous and, more importantly, Ben is played by Jennifer Connelly Janine's husband, only But between the two men already had no passion. Rather than Drew plays Mary Moore found online at Shincho Her love, but in reality are in the end the sweetheart who does not have the slightest clue. …… So while we all love a loss, in fact, for women, the Man's heart is not good to understand Jennifer Aniston plays Beth with her boyfriend has been long-distance love for many years, no doubt she would like be able to quickly put their married But the boyfriend thought that maintaining the status quo is not a bad idea

So, there you have it. I think I know about as much on this film now as I did before I read the introduction. so I have a feeling we're going to pass on this one.

By the way, I'm pretty sure this is how we sound we we speak to locals in their language. :)

An Explosion!

by Amy

This week we've been studying volcanoes. We began by reading a book about Pompeii (a city in Italy that was destroyed by a volcano and relatively recently discovered.) Then, we watched several youtube videos about the 1980 Mt. St. Helen's explosion and some lava volcano explosions in Hawaii. After that, we made some homemade play dough so we could mold our very own volcano. That was fun. Savannah especially enjoyed putting plastic trees and flowers all around it while Peter rolled out long "snakes" to wrap around it. Alex just like banging on the table to make the dough flat.

After letting the volcano dry out a bit overnight we made our vinegar-soap-water-baking soda- lava. At first, the kids were a little disappointed that our lava wasn't hot or burning, but the soon got over that because they enjoyed putting their fingers into the volcano.

This was a really fun 2-day study. Now we're moving on to making a pinata for our 100 days of school party, scheduled for next Wednesday.

Elephants

by Amy

While we were down south, we spent a day at an elephant camp. It was really great! We got to see the elephants up close and personal! We could feed them bananas and sugar cane and sit on their trunks! It was crazy! Peter was a little hesitant to feed them, but he finally did it!

Savannah and Alex both enjoyed sitting on the elephant's trunk. It's amazing how strong these animals are! We also got to enjoy an elephant show.... My camera battery light was blinking, so I didn't take many pics since we had a full day ahead of us, but it was so fun to see elephants playing soccer, twirling hoola-hoops and painting pictures. -- Yes, these elephants can paint pictures! It was pretty crazy! Granted, they paint about as well as Savannah, but they're elephants -- it was pretty cool!

After the show, we got to go on an elephant ride. Alex and I were on one guy and Brad, Savannah and Peter were on another. It was crazy! These elephants were walking through rivers, up and down hills and we were sitting on a little chair with only a bar "keeping" us in place. There was plenty of space for Alex to slide right off his seat and under the elephants' foot as we wobbled our way down hills. My shoulders were tense and tight after an holding on to him for dear life for about an hour!

Then we got to ride in an ox cart for about 10 minutes. That too was a little rough, but the kids thought it was pretty cool.

Later, after we enjoyed a surprisingly yummy lunch, we got to ride on a bamboo raft! Apart from feeding the elephants and watching their show, this was my favorite part of the day. We floated by several other elephant camps and lovely jungle/forest-type lands. It was peaceful, cool, and fun!

We were thankful for the warm, but not too hot weather and beautiful blue sky! What a day to be outside, enjoying God's creatures and creation!

We're back!

by Amy

Well, after being away from home for just over a month, we're back! We had a wonderful time visiting Hong Kong and delightfully sunny place a little further down south. Can you believe we didn't see rain for a whole month? Isn't that crazy?! (That's especially great when you hope to go swimming almost everyday -- like my kids did!)

We had a wonderful time riding elephants, connecting with friends, worshiping, swimming, attending a homeschooling conference, and more. What a blessing this past month was for us! We also battled a few sicknesses, and were so thankful to be at a place where we could see reliable English-speaking drs. (Thankfully we didn't have anything as serious as Brad ending up in a wheelchair like we did last year!)

One of the great things about going out of country (or even just out of our city) is we can buy many things that we can't get here. So this years' great finds consist of: White Chocolate sauce to put in coffee (to make a white mocha), fresh roasted coffee beans, 14 t-shirts for my boys (most for $1US each! -- that will clothe them this summer), UNO Attack, chocolate chips, dryer sheets, some cute clothes for Savannah, crocs flip-flops for me, books to help with homeschooling, and some Velveeta cheese (that a friend brought me -- Velveeta can't be found anywhere in Asia, as far as I know!)

ThaiAir is a great airline! When you check your luggage, they have a per-person weight requirement, but they don't care if all your "people" pack in the same bag or in 14 different bags! So, what that means is, since we have 5 people in our family, we have a total of 150kg, to use in how ever we want to divide it. (They tell you it's a 25kg/person weight limit, but the chick said they'd let us go up to 150kg without any fees -- good thing!!) The only catch is they don't want any one piece to be over 32kg --that's about 70 lbs! Most suitcases are built so that they can't fit over 70lbs anyway, right? Wrong...

In my mind, the fewer pieces the better... So, I pack our suitcases REALLY full and REALLY heavy. (Another benefit of traveling out of country is all the resources we have available to us -- we kind of went overboard in the book area.) Since Brad's back issues last year, he doesn't pick up our suitcases; he calls a bell boy to handle them. So, I usually don't feel bad about packing full, heavy suitcases. So, when we arrive at the check in desk on our way home, both of my mega suitcases were rejected -- too heavy, over the 70lb weight limit. So, they give us a box to fill, and I make our carry on a checked bag by taking our our camera bag to carry and replacing it with books, etc. So, when all's said and done, we have 6 checked pieces, which includes two "rice bags" -- plastic duffel bags, filled with light, bulky stuff -- crocs, cereal, etc.

After everything's checked in and we're settled in the waiting area, Brad looks at me and says, "Aim, you're one-of-a-kind." I'm feeling flattered....until I ask him why he would say that. "Not many people can pack a 92lb suitcase! I just feel sorry for the bell boy that only got a $2 tip out of the deal! I wish I could have seen his face when he picked that one up!" Yes -- 92lbs and 82lbs...that's how heavy those two big bags were. Craziness!! At least it all got home without anymore issues!

I have some fun pics and stories from our vacation adventures, but those will have to wait until another day....I'm off to bed!

Disneyland

by Amy

When I was two years old, I'm told my parents took me to Disneyland. Supposedly I saw Mickey Mouse and was so scared I turned around and ran right into a turnstyle thing and got a huge goose egg on my head. Thankfully, I don't remember that at all, so I'm not scared for life!

Since I have no memory if Disneyland in the US, I can honestly say I was so surprised at how GREAT Disneyland is in Hong Kong. That has got to be the cleanest place in all of asia! It sparkled! I think I would even let my kids eat off the ground if they dropped something -- well maybe not, but it was really clean! And, everything was done extremely well and efficient. To the right here, the kids are on the Disney Subway Line, waiting for the big day! The subway train was all decorated with Disney characters, so that made the kids even more excited!

Disneyland HK was just perfect for young kids. There were teacups and flying dumbos, Buzzlight years, and princesses. The only real rollar coaster was Space Mountain. Everything else was small enough and slow enough that none of my kiddos were scared.

Savannah's favorite thing about the day was getting to meet the princesses. She was a little shy at first, but soon warmed up to them! She was a little dissapointed that Ariel wasn't there that day, but that was OK. Brad and I thought it was SOOO funny to see how many men were lined up to have their pics taken with the princesses or characters, so Brad decided to pose with Minney Mouse!

Peter's favorite thing was a Buzz Lightyear Ride. It was really fun because you have guns and get to help Buzz shoot the bad guy. I think he rode that 3 or 4 times!

Alex's favorite was Space Mountain. After watching the intro video, Savannah decided not to ride it, but the boys wanted to. Peter went with me and Alex went with Brad. At the end of the ride, I asked the boys what they thought... Peter said it was too scary, but Alex wanted to do it again! He loved it! I'm really thankful we didn't push Savannah to do it. It was definitely longer, darker, and scarier than I expected -- I loved it!

One of my favorite things was getting to watch a 4D movie (you watch a 3D movie, but also have wind blowing or water spraying on you, etc.) Alex and Savannah thought it was great, too. Peter wasn't too excited about it.

It was a really, super fun day! The park was just the right size for us. We were able to do everything we wanted to, then go back and re-do favorites. Needless to say, our kids were exhausted when we got back to our hotel/flat, but that's OK. We took it easy the next day!