Last Trip to Ocean Park

In the middle of June our season passes to Ocean Park expired. We hadn't gone since last summer and decided we should go one last time. When we bought them, Keely wasn't three yet so she was free. We were lucky though on the day we went a guest with a season pass holder got in at a really great price.

Keely had been talking about the dolphin show for a week and so of course we headed to the dolphin show first. And just like Keely remembered the last time, we had our lunch while we waited for the show to start. Since Jordan is almost a year older this time, she enjoyed it much more. She was only slightly impressed with the dolphins but was very excited about the seals in the show. Because of that we headed over to the sea lion area where it was almost feeding time. When we bought our season passed we got a book of coupons. When I glanced through it a few months ago I thought most of them expired and almost threw it away. The night before we left Jacob glanced through it and found a coupon for sea lion food. I didn't think the girls would do it but both of them wanted to through fish at the sea lions.

Jordan watching the sea lions while others fed them.

Keely watching the sea lions

Keely with her fish

Jordan with her fish

It was very hot that day and there isn't a lot of shade there! Keely wanted to ride in the stroller and Jordan stood on the buggy board. Then we got out the umbrella to protect Jordan and keep her cooler! (you can barely see her back there but she is back there)

We were all extremely hot by this point and got coke slushies.

Keely drinking her slushy.

We then rode the gondola back down to the other part of the park and went to see the pandas. Keely wasn't too impressed, but Jordan LOVED them! We were lucky enough to be there during feeding time and Jordan was so amazed by him eating. She told me for a week that the panda was eating a leaf.

We had a really fun day that day. Unfortunately Keely was wanting to ride the hot air balloon again and it was too windy. The bus ride to the MTR station was over an hour and should have been 20 minutes! The girls were troopers though! It was a packed bus with people standing and we miraculously survived!

Makes Me Smile

Calling All Decorators...PLEASE HELP AGAIN!

It's almost late for this post, but I've had it almost ready for awhile and hate to do all that work for nothing! And we haven't moved gotten to Taiwan yet let alone move in so I can still use ideas! So if you have any ideas on decorating Jordan's room let me know.

Jordan's bedspread

Jordan's room
(Is there any way to make a breaker box look prettier?)

My inspiration
(all pictures have links to their original posts)

What I'm thinking is turquoise walls, brown curtains with bright pink bows. I also picked up some bright green ribbon at the ribbon store too. But I changed my mind on the wall color last time so if you have better ideas please do share! I have also been carrying around a J and a K for awhile so thinking about using them possibly on the doors like the above example too. May put Jordan's above her bed...or I may have to get another one for the door too!

Moving Update

We truly are still around...we have just been in the middle of boxes, packing paper, bubble wrap and tape that we haven't been able to find the computers! We finally got most things packed and finished up last night around 7pm and left with bags we will take on the plane to the guest flat we are staying in a few days. Jacob went back to the flat early this morning to finish up a few things before the moving company came to finish packing and readying everything for the container. The container will hopefully arrive tomorrow morning for packing. Hopefully it won't take all day so Jacob can tie up some loose ends in the afternoon. THEN on Thursday we are off to Disney for a couple days of much needed family time. We have been going, going, going since the last week in June and you can tell by the looks of all of us! Then Saturday after breakfast with the characters we will head on over to the airport, maybe have some time to play in the play area there and then head on over to our new country of residence! It's really hard to fully comprehend that this is the second time we have done this in 14 months. If our next move comes this fast I'm really considering not taking very many of our belongings and starting over. But maybe I'll be thinking differently when that day comes however soon it may come! :-) (If you haven't been around us lately this is our new joke -- about moving frequently the rest of our lives! It hopefully is just a joke!)

That is what is going on with us right now. The girls haven't been big fans of not seeing Daddy much this month. Jordan especially wasn't a fan of not seeing Daddy for more than 45 minutes today and being in a new place. She normally refuses to eat when she's upset about him being gone, but today she decided to eat but not sleep. She moaned half the day for Daddy.

Now that I don't have anything to pack I will try to work on my long list of blog drafts! So hopefully the next couple weeks here on the blog will be catch-up!

View From Our Home

As we are nearing our last days in Hong Kong, I have been trying to do things that will help me remember the WONDERFUL year that we have in the first place overseas (it's been 8 years!) that has truly ever felt like home. I feel so ALIVE in this city, am excited about the work I do, and honestly feel a sense of coming home every time I fly or bus back into Hong Kong. I will truly miss this place, the friends we have made, and the work that was taking place and would be in the future. Here is the view I have enjoyed most evenings from the couch in our living room. I hope you get a sense of how amazing it is from the photos.

A Bookation

Saturday afternoon I took a quick trip to a nearby shopping center. We have a free shuttle from our street to the shopping center. I went to two stationary stores and an accessory store that were all the size of our bathroom! I couldn't believe that 40 minutes had passed by in those 3 stores when I glanced at my watch and realized I was about to miss my bus!! I did make it and Jacob was able to leave on time to take our baby gates to a family who were buying them. I took a book with me that I had started a couple months ago. Reading and shopping in stationary stores made the most relaxing hour out ever! Of course now I can't put the book down! But after our crazy week of 6 doctor appointments, a trip to the library, trip to the licensing office, 3 trips to Ikea (in one day), 2 trips to the office, a trip to buy a new transformer (because I manged to blow one up), a trip to try to get our bread machine fixed (that I guess I tried to blow up too?), a trip to Disneyland, a trip to the pool, a dinner with some friends, 2 trips to deliver things people have bought and a very long and late trip to the airport to pick up 2 students with Keely I think reading during nap time is an ok way to to start this week. In celebration of relaxing with a book I leave you with pictures of Keely one day reading on a stool that she uses to turn the light on to the bathroom in the hallway. It made me smile when I found her there!

Activity Stations and Raising Rock Stars Preschool

Since Keely was in school all last year every day, she is not accustomed to our cleaning and getting things done routines. I think Keely thinks when she is home it is Mom and Sister's job to entertain. And I do love playing with her and do have fun things planned the next 2 1/2 weeks or so before the hurried packing begins and then we gather ourselves onto a plan to a new place of residence! However, I do need to clean the bathroom, sweep the floor, clean out 10 drawers and 3 closets, and start the process of packing 50 boxes! I know there are people that say it is good for children to get bored, and I agree. However, I don't need whining while I'm trying to get something done in the middle of our harried days! The other day on the train to the dentist and as I was waiting, I prepared a list of activities to put in stations for the girls to do while I spent a mere hour or so doing something that needs to get done. Most of the activities need little preparation besides having all of the materials in each box. I have 6 little boxes, so I came up with 6 activities for each day. They are also things that I can give a 3 second explanation as to what they are. We did so much running around this week that we only used these twice this week, and I only got pictures once. (I don't know about you but if I show my face during independent play it is no longer independent play!)

Both girls working on matching the lettered bottle caps to the names. (The idea came from here at 1+1+1=1)

You can see in the background the other boxes/stations

We also continued to do Raising Rock Stars Preschool as well. Below are the highlights of our Letter H week.

Gluing number family numbers (found here.)

Erasing the dry erase markers after tracing.

Cutting Letter H vocabulary cards

Doing letter H activities (found here)

More letter H activities

Cutting out a train from the Kumon Cutting Book

Taping the train together
(Jacob was excited about the train because it looked a lot like the one we took at Chinese New Year)

Practicing writing H's from the Kumon Uppercase Book

Gluing the Mother and Father craft together

Keely is 46 months old
Jordan is 25 months old

Thumb Print Cards

It looks like I have found myself on an unintentional blogging and photo editing hiatus. This week has been so crazy that when I finally get on the computer it's late and I am too tired to do what I need to do. And then I have ah ha moments like right now... I really should be making name tags for the orientation group that comes in Monday. We have been running around like crazy people to get our physicals done for our visa and for going to the States in November, buying things for the move and running errands for our orientation and debriefing groups that will be here soon. Basically once students start arriving Sunday night, help from Jacob will vanish for around 17 days. The girls and I will still have a doctor's errand and some visa errands, but things like my physical needed to get down while Jacob was around. (I was there close to 3 hours...don't think the girls would have enjoyed that!)

On to what I wanted to share! (No wonder I don't get any sleep--I'm too long winded!) I found this idea for thumb print cards over at Teach Mama. I bought the thumb print animals book she talked about on her post.

When all of my supplies arrived, I started inking the girls thumbs!

And then placed their thumb prints just so.

Little Jordan didn't like to move her thumb in the way I wanted...but we made it work!

Then I added some marking with my little black pen.

We then had some cute little bunnies.

and frogs

and pigs!

My idea was to make thumb print cards for Keely's teachers to give to them the last day of school. After this trial day, I decided to go one step further...make the pictures have some meaning. The last unit Keely's class studied was numbers. For each number they learned a nursery rhyme or song to go along with it and did lots of activities and a craft.

1. Hickory Hickory Dock (The clock struck one.)
2. A rhyme about two birds Peter and Paul
3. Ba Ba Black Sheep (3 bags of wool)
4. 4 Little Speckled Frogs
5. A song about 5 little monkeys and a crocodile

On one note card we had 1 mouse. On another 2 birds. Another was a sheep with 3 bags of wool. Another was 4 frogs. And the last was 5 monkeys. As you can see we didn't get any pictures of the final gift, but they did turn out! By the end the girls got tired of me placing their thumbs all over card stock (each monkey took 1 thumb print and 4 finger prints!), but maybe I'll be able to get them to let me do a few more for gifts!