How one waits for a taxi.....

It really has been a grey, dismal week and a bit.  We haven't seen the sun for nearly 10 days and I'm so over the grey !!!  There was a glimmer of sunlight the other day - nothing to get excited about as it didn't last long - but at least I know summer's coming.....eventually !!!  The girls are asking why is summer so slow to get here as they just don't like being cold !!  I can't say I blame them !! 

After school on Monday Victoria and I went to get a taxi to go home.  She didn't want to wait with me and hail a cab but decided to sit down.....

Celebration Day

Today was Celebration Day for the Year Two's.  We were invited up to spend some time with the children and to watch a little show.  There are 4 Year 2 classes at Hannah's school so each class did a different celebration.  Hannah's class had been looking at Birthdays so she got to wear "party" clothes to school - she was really excited about that.  She also had to take traditional birthday food from her country.  We decided that we would make piklets - pavlova was just too tricky and the way the weather has been just wouldn't work successfully. 

Waiting for the school bus

Paul thought we would be one of the first to arrive at school but we weren't.  There were alot of eager parents waiting for their children to appear.  We arrived as Hannah's class was coming down to the Hall so had to wait for them to pass us - she knew we had arrived!!!  We watched the classes get into position.  Hannah is sitting at the back.

The first bit was an introduction to the parents in all the different languages that are at the school.  In Hannah's class (including English) 8 languages are spoken!  Then there was a song.



When the song had finished all the children went back to their classrooms apart from Hannah's class - we used the Hall.  Hannah was involved in the dance group and had to perform a little dance.  She'd been practicing it at home so I could sing along with it too.





We spent some time with Hannah talking about birthdays and how different (the same) they are, regardless of where you come from.  Before we went up to the classroom to partake in their party they had a small disco which we got to join in with.  Hannah thought it was great fun to dance with her dad.....on his feet!!!

They had spent alot of time decorating party hats and doing a party mat.  This is Hannah's work.  For some reason it's gone on it's side.

It was wonderful to spend time up at school and especially to go into the classroom as got to see the work that they had done. 

Sports Day

While Hannah was being fancy for school, Victoria was being sporty.  It was Woodlands Happy Valley Sports Day today and she was rather excited about it.  On our way down she wondered if there would be any water on the road (last year when Paul was taking her one of the pipes had burst so the roads were flooding on this post) - talk about a great memory !!!!   This there was no water and all was under control.

She was on the Blue team !!  And we had a blue T-shirt.  If you think the top looks familiar you'd be right - it as the top that Hannah wore on her very first Sports day for Woodlands !!  Great that it got another wear out of it !! 

Showing the sports attire

Warming up......

Playing parachute

Running races....



Running with the sponge.....

Egg & spoon....

Making sure the egg doesn't fall off.!

Hurdles...she was on the higher ones...

Obstacle course.....

Ball throwing....

The Medal !

I do have some videos to upload so will do that shortly !!

And for the Dad's race guess who won !!!!



Fancy for School

Friday saw the end of Book Week.  From all accounts Hannah had a great week as they did alot of fun things at school.  It was also the end of the Read-a-thon.  What a great idea to encourage the love of reading AND to raise money for the school.  Hannah read 27 books over the month - many of which were chapter books - and didn't include her daily readers either !!  

Friday was Dress up as your favourite word and Hannah went as Fancy.  Other words that she used were Glamourous and Posh.  One of her friends said she was a Moviestar !!!

She wasn't that happy with me in the morning as I was meant to wake her up at 6am so that we could spend time on getting her hair right !!!  I woke her up at 6.30 instead and managed to get it done.  She was more than happy with it - 2 side French plaits worked into one !!  Plus of course the fancy band and hair clips completed the ensemble. 

The feather boa didn't look quite like this on it's return home.  Hannah commented that everyone knew where she'd been as there was a feather trail following her!

Reading to the Barn Owls

When Hannah has a day off school and Victoria doesn't she always asked if she can go read a book to the Barn Owls.  And this day was no different.  I knew that Victoria's class were talking about wild animals so we looked through our books to find if we had one that fit.....which of course we did !!!  Tiger !!!  A very cute, adorable story !!

Victoria does enjoy Hannah coming into read - not sure if it's because it's her sister doing it or she gets to sit in front of the class !! 

Hannah did a wonderful job reading the story and encouraged the children to ask questions AND to answer the questions she had for them.  It's fantastic to see that she has the confidence to do this.

Puppet Land

Hannah was lucky enough to have a couple of extra days off school for Chinese New Year.  I had a few errands to run in Central so we headed there.  I had heard about this Puppet display in the Landmark (& surrounding buildings) and had hoped to get to see it.  It was even better that I had one of the girls with me.  It was amazing how well the displays had been put together.  Hannah was just so delighted with it all.  And for the displays to have a French feel to it with the dragon there - was just brilliant!

Love the knitting puppets !

Being Fancy !!

This week for Hannah at her school it's Book Week.  There's lots of fun activities each day to encourage the love of reading and writing.  They're having Sarah Brennan come to the school (she's a brilliant HK author and writes the BEST books about the Chinese Zodiac - we just LOVE them!).  There's a book fair (of which I'm going to suggest to Hannah to get some Mandarin books), the Read-a-thon ends and of course on Friday is Dress Up. 

Last year it was go to school as your favourite character and I thought it was the same as this year (obviously didn't read the email correctly).  I was however corrected by Hannah to say they had to dress up as their favourite WORD !!  So today we spent abit of time thinking about words and what we could come up with. 

One of her words was Blue - easy to do as just dress up in Blue, another one was Purple and so we carried on.  I spoke with a friend and she had the BEST suggestion and of course we could pull it off.  The word suggested was FANCY !!!!  Well, talk about brilliant and the quickest outfit put together EVER !!  It was just a practice run and of course there are a few 'extra' things that I might go find.  Plus have to think about the hair !!  Here are a few snaps.....

Think she got the poses down don't you think......