All Saints Dance Festival 2010

The children's school does a 3 year rotation of Dance Festival, Music Festival, and Art Festival. This year was the Dance festival. Every class works on a type of dance and then performs it at the festival. The teachers/staff usually join together and hire the after school dance instructor to teach them a dance. They work very hard and it's a real hit with the students and parents. The school also has a dance company come in to do a small performance as well.It is a lovely event.

This year the Nursery Class performed a 'Funny Bones' dance. One of the teachers with the help of a few parents painted the costumes and all the teachers took part in the dance. Even one who is carrying twins! She's not hard to spot - and a real good sport for joining in like she did! You will be able to spot Aleah - she's the little skeleton on the right hand side that stops to wave at you!



Samuel's class (Year 4) put together a Scottish Dance. A few of the boys, and their teacher managed to get their hands on some kilts as well! Sam's class only has about 8 or 9 boys so Mr Martin had to do quite a bit of convincing to get them to dance with the girls! They did a great job and really seemed to enjoy it too!



Abigail's class (Year 6) choreographed their own Street Dance. They did a really good job of it. Some of the boys/girls did a bit of break dancing and the girls put together their skills learned from their years of taking jazz dance after school. Their teacher did not take part in this dance but she did an amazing job with 'The Charleston' dance the staff did - proper costumes as well! (We were not allowed to take flash photography so I only have video clips of the kids' dances.)

Grrr - Camera/Computer glitches!

Sorry all, I know it has been a LONG time since I updated! I have quite a few things that I want to share it's just that I've run into a few glitches! I'm hoping to have it all sorted out by the end of this week and be able to post some fun things that we've been up to. As you may well know, a family with 4 kids means that there is always something going on!
Here's what you can look forward to -
*Nursery Cafe
*All Saints Dance Festival 2010
*Dryden Family Camping
*Half Term Fun

Hope to share with you all soon.

Love, Kris

Pictures!

Here are a few pictures from my trip!

Mom has a once a month 'hymn sing' with some friends. We sang songs in English and Chinese!


Having dinner with some very special Chinese student teachers.


Posing with some friends at Ancient Culture Street.


Climbing the Great Wall.


Enjoying a lovely dinner at a very nice 'hot pot' restaurant. (yes, we are wearing aprons/bibs!)


Anyone want a snack?


Yummy!

Sorry!

Okay, okay, okay! I know many of you are waiting for pictures, unfortunately I don't think I'll be able to post any while in China. :( Sad, I know. I didn't bring my cord to download them and none of the computers here have the right slot for my memory card.

So if everyone will have a little patience..."have patience, have patience, don't be in such a hurry"...I will post them as soon as I can.

Been hanging out at the school. Visited the early years center and was able to observe a 4/5year old class. Very interesting time. What an amazing facility they have here!

Went out to dinner with some Chinese students last night, again ate with chopsticks. I'm getting better!

Tonight we are going out for 'hot pot' with some other Chinese friends. Get to practice my chopstick skills again!!

Bright and sunny day here today. Have a great day everyone!

China

Hi everyone! I have arrived in China to visit my Mom!

I arrived in Beijing on Friday - after all the Volcanic Ash Cloud fiasco!
I have seen some amazing things (THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA) and eaten some amazing things with chopsticks! I got off the plane and my mom and her friend met me, took me to the hotel to drop off my things, and then we headed straight for lunch - Peking Duck!

I am now in Tianjin where mom lives and works. I woke up at 5:30 this morning so that I could go in to work with her at Tianjin International School. It is an amazing school! It's also nice to be here because everyone here speaks English - after spending the last 3 days not understanding a word it is nice to hear my own language!!

I hope to post some pictures later today - back at Mom's apartment. Keep checking back!

Easter fun!

The Lord is Risen - Christ has risen indeed! We try and focus the children on the meaning and purpose of Easter, as well as have a little 'fun' on the side. Abigail made an Easter card for us encouraging us to remember the real reason for Easter - but as she stated in her card 'she likes to fill her gob with chocolate too!' Oh, the honesty of an 11yr old! After the events of the weekend we didn't have much time together as a family so we were quite happy to hang out together today. We had a good clearing out session of the kids rooms this morning. I had promised the kids an egg hunt so that's what we did. The kids hunted for boiled/dyed eggs, plastic eggs with coupons inside, and an Easter basket each. I was quite surprised when my chocoholic daughter said she thought the coupons were better than getting eggs with chocolate inside them. In case your wondering, I put slips of paper inside the eggs that read things like: -get out of one chore free -good for 1 glass of diet coke -my choice for dinner (from our kitchen) -breakfast in bed -good for a wrestling session with daddy (when he's available) -DVD watching of my choice -Game of my choice The kids all had a great time, and next year Levi will not be content to just observe!

Levi in hospital

Levi spent from Thursday - Sunday in the hospital. Doc's put it down to a viral induced wheeze. Started with a cold on Wednesday, saw our GP on Thursday morning and be was reluctant to give Antibiotics because Levi's had them just about every other week for 6 weeks. After his afternoon nap he woke coughing and his lips started turning blue - Dean took him straight away to A&E. There they discovered his SATS dangerously low and started treatment immediately. Was put on inhalers every 2 hours initially, and on Friday night they had to put him on Oxygen because his levels weren't staying high enough. By Sunday morning he was off Oxygen and down to 3 hourly inhalers. By about noon Sunday they stretched him to 4 hourly inhalers and we were finally allowed to go home about 4pm on Sunday.



These pictures were taken on Friday a few hours before he was put on Oxygen. The doctors had put a line in his hand when he arrived at the hospital - they thought they might need it for medication. Levi was very angry on Friday night and ripped it out himself in the middle of the night!



Apologies to friends and family that are just finding out about this now, as you can imagine balancing life with 1 child in the hospital and 3 at home is pretty tricky. We are so very thankful to our friends and family who provided all kinds of help during this time. We are also reminded of how blessed we are to have healthy children that do not require regular intensive medical attention.