Pretty Sam

Halloween at Child's World

We dressed Sam to school today to celebrate Halloween together with her classmates. She has her butterfly costume and looked very, very cute. It was crazy morning and we were all running a tad late. I took the back way of the mountain thinking it was closer and hoping to get there on time. We live all the way up in the mountain top and Sam felt very sick all the way down through the winding road. She managed to hold her self up until we parked.
And then she threw up.

She was so upset that her clothes were a mess and stinky. She took off her skirt and walked in to her classroom. Within 15 minutes, she took off her wings. Thank goodness she kept her clothes on. Momma sorry, Sam!

Less is more

Sam was struggling on her first 4 days at the new school. She goes to school complete with the screaming, tears, the tantrums and all the wonderful-sweetness-(almost) a 3 year old has. But on the 5th day, it was like a button we forgot to push, it was suddenly come together. It was so weird, she suddenly decided to stop screaming. With a pure joy of her teacher and the thrilled of her assistant teacher, she was cheered by them and the Principal each morning. She LOVES it.

Now, the new adventure begins: riding the bus. Ah yes, for the past month school has been a fun place to go for her and she is actually looking forward to it. I thought I really don't want to jinx it by sending her to school by bus. But no, she is anxious to ride the bus and doesn't want to do anything else in the morning but sit on the porch waiting for her bus. She doesn't even want me to walk her to our gate to ride her bus.

As parents as I'm sure you are all feel the same whether your kids have enough food at school. So, I have this habit to feed my girl some snacks after school or get her new things to make her feel better. I know, I have a horribly sensitive guilt button that works even before anybody is 'thinking' about pushing. But come on! She left at 8.30 and isn't coming home until 3.15 p.m!

And then she said it. "No, mama. Enough!" She doesn't want anymore stickers I have for her. It was like a wake up call for me from my sweet girl.

To make long story short, I strangely started to think about how (almost) empty our new house is and I kinda like it. And the more I ponder, the more how grateful I will be if State Department accidentally loose our stuff from Medan somewhere in the sea. I don't know where to put them all because we have such a limited space here.

It is not that having more is bad or wrong, its just the desire to have more and more and more is insatiable. And as long as you think more is better, you will never be happy. I think.

Rambling in Sunday morning

I love writing. I especially love writing about kids, not just mine I love to write about others as well. I love to tell the world about weird and exciting personal experience we have, since we moved every 2 to 3 years to such exciting places, thanks to State Department. Cross cultures and ancient traditions from other countries made us truly humble to see our difficulties from the other person's perspective.

But it comes to the point when I think I should protect my kids' privacy and as much as I want to "brag" (don't we all?) about how silly and such a belly ticklers our kids are, I am thinking to stop blogging. For good. Perhaps making it more private, I don't know...

Happy Birthday, Grandma!

Bear Lake

Cennecot Copper Mine

San Diego

Legoland

Ogden River

Lagoon

Salt Lake City Zoo

The Fish Farm

Luau Party at the Steins

July 4th with street kids ...

Medan's awesome crew. Happy 4th of July, Medan!

Today is July 5th. Never mind that we had celebrated the official ceremony yesterday and lasted until midnight, we woke up at 9 the following morning and celebrated July 4th with about 60 street kids.

We played all kinds of game, from what we called "Jeruk Bali" (greased passion fruits stabbed with play coins where the kids had to removed the coins with their teeth ~ with their hands tight), 3 leg race, balloon race (the kids had to race with a balloon between their legs) and snow ball fight (my favorite game, the winning team had the privileged to hit a pinata) and other silly fun games. I wish you were here to see how excited these kids were and be touched by their honest~grateful attitude).

Last birds get the worms ^^

The kids had so much fun, it's hard to break them and send them home (besides, I have a garage sale to run ^^). But it was also a good thing because I forgot all about the cake I brought home last night. Last night party was so formal, everyone was busy chatting and had fun as well, nobody bother to eat THE cake. I don't want to see it gone wasted, I brought the cake home thinking we could share the cake with the kids. They have never seen any cake so big and so delicious and they get to eat it, too! The whole time I was cutting the cake, the kids kept reminded me that "they would love to have some". Even though I told them in advance that we have the cake for "everybody" so no need to rush.

Sam, however, running from one place to another like a busy committee and wear all the paraphernalia we had. What a day!