weekly updates

Hello Everyone.

Sorry, it has been awhile. We are sitting here on Friday night 8/3...Happy BD this week to Sandy/Grandma/Mom - we hope it was great and also to Mary Kleis - I hope it was wonderful - and upcoming wishes to Kelly Smith - Have a wonderful day - OK - it is your a.m....we are now watching some crazy American TV show about an alien invasion - there are 4 channels in English at night (the only time we have tested it...) Anyway - We are doing well. We have been busy this week. It has been a tiring/borderline exhausting week. I will start off with last weekend when we went to Hanoe Village a 500 year old village. We watched a traditional mask dance (it was a little different - adult humor!) and visited the premises. We went to an old school area. We also went out for dinner - it was fantastic. We had barbeque - beef Borgogi - traditional dish - like a beef plate/soup that you eat with rice and wrap in lettuce. It was made with natural beef from the area - this was special - it was really good. I will add pictures. We came home around 8 pm after leaving at 8a.m. It was a long day, but a great cultural experiece. On Sunday, we went to church and then out for lunch - came home around 2 then studied and got ready for the week on Monday. The week was busy. We had Open House on Thursday - last night. I will re-cap last night - We started with running home after school to get all dolled up! We were to get dressed up and ready to present to parents. During the week we worked on creating powerpoints, folders of assessements, putting thins on edline, etc. Anyway - We walked back to high schools - high heels on, sort of crazy on my part....ate dinner on campus, then raced around to all of our kids' events. It was a bit nuts. They each needed 7 stamps in their passports - 7 classes x3. We got to them all (in high heels for me mind you...). At least, they had a couple of the classes in common - namely Korean and also Art. They like school and are doing well. Ail is part of the newsapaper crew now. She is a colomnist, cartoonist and also a survey taker.- hmmm hopefully it won't turn into Mom and Dad's job! She is also having soccer on Fridays. and Tae Kwon Do - We signed up all 3 for that event. It is free and a senior is teaching it. Nice! Anyway, back to my story. After making it to all their classes....had to go to the PTA meeting - then headed to our own Open House. We had 10 minutes per class. I have very small classes - the largest being 9... I had 2-4 parents in each session. It was good. The parents are very nice, very professional - dress up - etc. Andrew had more of a subject area meeting where they co-presented to a grade - he had more parents due to having more students - he too felt it went well. We got home at 9:30. We invited a high school student to watch the kids on campus. The kids were tired. We got home and went to bed - had to come to school today. After school, it was Lukas' touch rugby tourni... another quite interesting sport - We have so many Aussies and New Zealanders...The day was long, but we are home now. We had pizza tonight - it was good. We found pizza for about 6,000Wan - about $5. It is a good deal. we are taking it easy this weekend. Tomorrow we need to buy groceries downtown. That involves a bus trip with the 6 of us. We all can't fit in one taxi - so it is less expensive for us to take the bus. We then shop and may either take the bus back with all our groceries - this is an interesting adventure in its own right...or take a taxi - another adventure...OH BOY - The CHOICES. Anyway, I thought I would write as I'm not quite tired yet. Andrew is conked out on the couch and the kids are finally asleep. Take care and I will add pics from last weekend as soon as I am able. We are having a couple over for dinner tomorrow so trying to cook is part of tomorrow's agenda - wish me luck!.