A Wacky Week with Super Cute Kids

Maximo with his artwork

Handsome boy before the concert

As far as work was concerned, this week was insane.  John traveled to Beijing with the badminton team and I was busy with work with "my normal kookiness"  and two visitors this week at school.

But, as always, this was balanced with amazing kid stuff.

Thursday was absolutely insane.

It started with an Opening Ceremony for the APAC conference our school hosted for high school girls' soccer.  The younger grades acted as "Spirit Clubs" for the visiting schools.  It was Maximo's favorite thing to dress up in blue and red to support SAS - Shanghai American School and then get to ask questions to the team with his classmates.

Later in the day he had his KA concert.

Maximo & his classmates

Here are some highlights:

the day ended with his Swim class.
Actually, we ended it with Happy Meals and ice cream at McDonalds.  Because it was a long day and I was single parenting.  But it was a great, long, FULL day.

Living Things & Earthquakes

Spring is here, and even though we had a bit of a cold snap last week, the weather looks a bit more stable this week.  I hope now that the temperature will continue to rise.

We were shaken awake yesterday by a 6.0 earthquake (epicenter Awaji Island).  This is the first time we've been in this apartment for an earthquake.  The apartment building was built to withstand large quakes, so it is on rollers.  Our 11th floor apartment was rocking and rolling at 5:22 am!  I almost felt sea sick.  The kids slept through it and we're glad there was no major damage and no accompanying tsunami.

At school, Maximo is learning about living things, which has given us some interesting conversations at the dinner table.  We've been talking a lot about life and death and we have been talking about what makes something alive.  Maximo claims that:

"It grows" or
"It has a Mommy" or
"It poops"

Interestingly enough, this criteria actually do identify most things as living or not living.

Here are some pictures from him at school this week:

KA students using iPads at the Tulip Festival on Rokko Island

Maximo's KA Class

It's April!

We have a hectic month starting with O-hanami (picnicking under the cherry blossoms) and ending with Golden Week.  The weeks in between are jam-packed with a tech workshop, an overseas badminton tournament, conferences, Personal Project exhibition that John is leading, Maximo's music recital.

And the best part is, we've started counting down to our visit to the US.  We can't wait to see our families and fix up our new house!

Rokko Island Tulip Festival