Who am I?

This is from our first Open House at school. 

In case you can't read the fabulous French cursive, here's what he says:

Who am I?

My favorite colore is purple.

My favorite singer is Bon Jovi

In my spare time I (like?) playinge on the ipade.

I'm really food at math.

I want to get better at ignoring things.

My favorit type of ice kreem is Shark Bait.

A girl and her vespa

This is how she waits for the bus in the morning :)

First day at TASOK

Fourth and fifth grades already! And our first year in the American system (since pre-school). 

AND our first year ever taking the bus. Crazy bigness.

Kinshasa's first mall!

There were malls all over Jakarta, huge and amazing.. bigger and snazzier than anything we saw in the US.  

And now we are in Kinshasa.. and we just got our first mall!! Brace yourself. Here it is:

And here is Lizzy at the entrance

A sampling of the merchandise..

The view from the restaurant on the roof is nice, but stick with drinks. Yup.

Happy 9th Birthday, Eben!

Eben turned NINE!! 

Our gardner Maker brought him a bouquet from the garden :)

The night before, we went to dinner at A Casa Mia, our favorite restau, 

and got some good Italian desserts.

Then, on THE BIG DAY I made him a crepe cake, per his request. 

25+ crepes, in between them hazelnut cream.. and caramel-dipped hazelnuts on top!

It was sooooo rich and sweet, and the birthday boy was HAPPY :D

A black orchid

Look at what greeted us when we got home! 

Our neighbor, Christophe, gave it to us because he liked his so much. 

Zeric and Christophe are gardening buds.

Two weeks of stayca

We were so happy to be home, and soooo happy to see Blu and the pigs.  The kids had two more weeks of vacation to go! Lucky ducks. They did a great job of keeping themselves busy :) They had their instrument lessons and we ate lunch at all of our favorite places together. They also really got into their toys. Each different part of the house was set up with a different scenario. It was fantastic!