Happy Halloween!

I knew today was going to be at least a little bit stressful. I made muffins and cookies for Henri's class Halloween brunch - I had to do a second batch of muffins first thing this morning when the first batch turned out too doughy. Then I made the mistake of trying to give Henri "anti-gravity hair" to go along with his astronaut costume which caused both of us much grief. The class party was great - we did pumpkin bowling, digging for bugs, and a few crafts before having our potluck brunch. Henri gets a bit overwhelmed when there are strangers about so he wasn't quite himself. Fast forward to trick or treating in the rain and then getting home only to have a pretty jolting earthquake (6.3) and I think my stress levels have pretty much reached if not an all time high than at least a highly ranking high. Good to be a few minutes away from bedtime. I thought I'd go ahead and post a few pictures from our day.



The astronaut and the pumpkin fairy about to head to school

Circle Time

Digging for bugs

A picture of the class moms but no group shot of the kids :-(

Hen with Ms Trista, the Teacher's Assistant

Our posse: Jacie, Tristyn, Paris, Rylie, Georgia and Henri

The best part about trick or treating from diplomats! Candy from back home!

Routine...

I have become really quite awful at keeping this blog up to date. I guess that life is so routine right now that I feel that I have little to report.

Right now I am consumed with walking 5 miles a day 5 days a week (I finally did a Google map calculation and found that I walk 2 KM each way to school, times 4 equals about 4.96 miles).  Plus I’m playing tennis 3-4 days a week.  I have recently started a bible study that meets once a week with five days of homework on the Book of Daniel. I have also started taking guitar lessons! Both of these things are very new ventures for me. I am REALLY enjoying both.  All of this activity is finished before I pick up Henri at 11:45 a.m. Then the real work (and fun) begins!

Henri seems to really like school. His Teacher Ms. Megan writes really nice things in his communication book about his enthusiasm over… the construction they can see from the playground,… the book about the five little monkeys (which he enjoys reciting as he jumps on the bed – totally ignoring the “NO MORE MONKEYS JUMPING ON THE BED” line)…. They are gearing up for Halloween festivities so I’m sure I will post pictures of that soon enough.

We are looking forward to having visitors soon – Maxime’s friend Thibaud is visiting next weekend and then two weeks later we will have Vanessa! So happy! We are also looking forward to having Vanessa and Colin for Christmas and somewhere along the way we plan to visit Maxime’s family in France/England. So the rest of this year is looking pretty interesting, indeed.   Of course next year will bring change for us but I’m still trying to live in a peaceful state of denial until… Well until I can’t anymore.

Petit Chou

This summer Henri and his best buddy Jacie were in a modeling shoot together. The final product is an accordion style mailer piece and I love it because it's just the two of them. This was the shoot that took place in an antique store. It was cramped and full of items that could get a toddler in a lot of trouble but the end result is great. I like that we have something that has these two featured together. It's a great keepsake from our time here.