Finley's Food Festival

Last week I got to go to Finley's school to help out with the Food Festival. The kids were in charge of cooking something to represent where they are from, and then they got to try each other's foods. Finley and his friends Jake and Macy made English muffin pizza. Now some could argue that pizza is actually Italian and English muffins, well, English...but it was fun and the pizzas were easy and a hit, so who really cares? Just goes to show what a melting pot America is, I guess!

Finley may or may not have sneaked about 10 pinches of shredded cheese into his mouth while we were cooking.

Waiting for them to cook....

Receiving certificates as Junior Chefs, because people give certificates for everything here. (The woman on the right is the principal.)

Still My Baby

She may be 14 months old now, but she's still my baby. Poor thing woke up crying hysterically (teething) and had to be rocked back to sleep. But I'll be honest-- it's a nice thing to get to hold this sweet girl as she sleeps once in a while. Now let's just hope big brother doesn't wake up for a bit longer...

O (Tiny) Christmas Tree

Here's our Hong Kong-sized Christmas tree. Our living and dining room are just so cramped that this is all we could squeeze in (without getting rid of the couch). Please note objects in this photo may be smaller than they appear. 

A Very Ferrero Christmas

This is what every grocery store, pharmacy, etc looks like at Christmas here in HK. HUGE Ferrero Rocher, Lindt, and Almond Rocha displays every year.  You can't see it in the photo, but this one even has blinking lights!

Nate's Birthday

Happy birthday Nate!! We love you!

Fall Fun

It's fall in HK and the weather is gorgeous!  Time for some photo catch-up from the past few weeks.

Let's start at Ocean Park.  The park is so huge there are plenty of parts we still haven't even been to yet!  When we went a couple of weeks ago, we got to see the rainforest exhibit, including this crazy looking iguana below.

We also saw the "sea jellies".  Beautiful, but also my own personal nightmare.  The tanks were lit with lights that changed colors with the music.

And we rode the cable cars, which afforded amazing views of the Southside, ocean, and nearby islands.

These are just some quick photos I snapped one day while Nate was gone on his trip to Bangkok.  The kids were having fun talking on their play phones.

Love this face.  This is what Elise does if she gets hurt/angry/frustrated.

Yesterday we enjoyed a gorgeous morning at the beach.  Elise is really becoming interested in playing in the sand/shells/rocks now.

Halloween

I'm a little behind on this post, so forgive me. It's been very busy around here with Nate in Bangkok last week and everyone (except Nate) sick the past two weeks. Let's catch up first with the school's annual Pumpkin Fest. This is a chaotic event full of food, games, entertainment, pumpkins flown in from the States, and lots of overstimulated children! Ha! But it's a nice start to the fall season, even if it is still 85 degrees out. 

While Daddy was at his conference, I brought my little firefighter and pumpkin to a potluck and trick-or-treating on Halloween. We played, ate, and trick-or-treated at the Lower Primary apartments like last year. We had a great time and Finley learned the term "collect", as in "collect candy".  (Seriously, he said the word about 15 times during the course of the evening.) Fortunately he's still young enough that he had practically forgotten about the candy by the next day!