The Pool Has Opened!

There was not one minute wasted getting into the pool as it opened yesterday. The kids had a half day of school leading into Spring Break week here and the pool at our apartment building officially opened at 10am on April 1. It isn't exactly hot here yet, but that doesn't stop our "Minnesota kids" from getting in the pool. And so it begins. I'm fairly certain the only days they weren't in the pool last year were when they were not allowed due to lightning or typhoon warnings. This is one of the up-sides of apartment living.

Trey's Basketball Championship

For the first time ever, Hong Kong International School was able to put together a "traveling basketball team" for the Under 12 age group. The school has what is referred to as a "C-Grade" team that is mainly for 7th & 8th graders. Sixth graders are allowed to try out but even if they make the team, are not guaranteed playing time. So, HKIS created "D-Grade" team targeted at this group of kids. Since Trey (who's in 5th grade) played with the 6th-8th graders for the in-house basketball, we had him try out to play on this team as well. As it turns out, Craig was able to coach his team. They played in a few tournaments and ended up winning the Championship. For the season, their record was 23-0...not too bad for the school's first D-grade team.

Grandparents Visit

PHOTOS: 1) Craig's parents at The Peak looking over the city 2) Of course, we went out to our favorite Mexican place with our good friends, The Mitchells 3) Grandma and Grandpa with the grandkids 4) On a junkboat ride to see the city lights.

We have been so blessed for the past couple of weeks to have Craig's parents visiting us here in Hong Kong. His brother, Damon, was also here for the first week. It was hard to have them leave this morning. They got their fill of kids' activities and hopefully got a good taste of Hong Kong while they were here. I'm just posting a few photos of their visit here.

Kyra's Field Trip to Jumbo Restaurant

I recently went on a field trip with Kyra's class to one of the street markets here and then to lunch at the famous "floating" Jumbo restaurant. I thought I'd share some photos. The teachers gave the children a list of food items to find and check off on their list as we went through the market to make them look a little harder at their surroundings. Once they found everything, they could then have a bit of time to shop with their $30 HKD ($3.87 USD) limit. Among the things they had to find were a cow's head, pig's feet, dried whole fish, etc. As we were looking for these items, along with a long list of fresh vegetables, we were lucky enough to have found the intestines of some animal also available for sale. Kyra said she will NEVER forget that image! Needless to say, it was an experience.

We then had lunch at the Jumbo restaurant which is an extremely large boat in the water, although I'm told it is not actually "floating" anymore (not sure if it ever did), but you need to take a ferry boat to get to the restaurant. Since most everything served had shrimp in it, my dear little peanut did not eat much for lunch! Even the fried rice had shrimp in it, but I did manage to scoop around it for her so that she would eat SOMETHING. I am realizing more and more every day that she is very much like her mother :) You just gotta love her!!

PHOTOS: 1)Kyra & the other girls that were in my "group" for the field trip 2) The Jumbo Restaurant 3) Kyra's class

Baseball Update

PHOTOS: 1) Trey pitching 2&3) Outs at First Base! 4) Trey sliding into home with the winning run 5) Victory celebrated by the team

Trey's baseball season is nearly over and to say the competition was stiff may be an understatement. Except for one other "U.S." team, the Chinese and Japanese teams are more like year-round teams. But, our boys gave it their all each time they got on the field. Although there weren't many games in the win column, I'm sharing a couple photos from a recent victory with Trey sliding into home for the winning run (as well as a couple other photos). It was tense, but very exciting. It has been a long season and they have one make-up game left for a game that was rained out last week. Go Red Sox!