They Call It Work?

School was great this week! I had some major break-throughs with my kids discipline-wise cause I’ve refused to yell at them and in my 5^th week I finally started seeing positive results! Here is most of our wonderful Room 21, aren’t they a handsome bunch? FYI I was crouching down, I am in actuality significantly taller than 5 and 6 year olds, I just wanted to fit in, ok?

It was a particularly fun week because we had some fun with the kids outside of the classroom. On Tuesday we had a teacher vs students (seniors only) softball game during morning tea, which was legit! It was so fun with all of the younger kids watching and cheering us on, and my cool level sky-rocketed with the boys in my class once they saw me with a big hit (even though it was caught so I got out). Plus, who doesn’t love a reason for a casual Tuesday.

On Wednesday we got to go with the swim team (11 kids yrs 6-8) to an away meet to be timers, and that’s basically what we did all day was time but it was a lot of fun getting to hang out with the older kids cause they think we’re the coolest (don’t tell them our secret about how we’re actually not). It was also nice to have a whole day off but still get to spend it with kiddies.

Friday was a cruzy day of swimming, walks, homework, grape vine trimming, Christchurch earthquake memorial service on TV, and a sleepover with all the girls that night. These grapes are SO good, despite the seeds.

We went to the skytower for lunch on Saturday! It was so much more exciting than I had expected- first of all the view is, naturally, amazing, but then we had lunch in a revolving resturant with 4 courses at $55 a person and we were all dressed up so we felt quite fancy! We loved the revolving feature: there was a little ledge on the outside of the ring that stayed still so we would put notes or different things on it (or just stand) and wait for it to reach the table behind us, so it was an eventful 3 hour meal. Here I am with Diana, Katie, and Rebecca J After all that food we went and took a nap on a beach in town.

We went to a rugby game and guess who was there! Alyssa Isidoridy! Alyssa lived directly across the street from me all through elementary and middle school, and I hadn’t seen her since high school, but she is here on a study abroad too! We noticed each other’s New Zealand pictures on facebook so we switched numbers and decided to meet up at the game. It was so fun catching up and talking about making grilled cheese on snow days!

The Lord’s took us to Yum Cha (pronounced Yum Chow, oddly enough, which is coincidentally a very appropriate name for it as well) which is a type of Chinese restaurant where they bring the food around on trolleys and you say “yes please” and they mark it on your ticket and everyone just dives in and is eating so fast (except for me, those darn chop sticks got so sticky cause I kept having to compensate with my hands, but then grab my chop sticks again, snowball effect). What’s that you ask? Are you eating French fries? Why no, that’s actually a chicken foot. What’s that? Was it tasty? Why no, it reminded me too much of a cold, clammy, bony, wrinkly finger marinated in one of the Asian sauces that I dislike. But how exotic am I? Check a chicken’s foot off of my list of foods to try- done and done.

Here we are after eating with the whole family! From left to right: Raewyn (Sheryl’s mom who lives in an attached house, she watches the kids all day), Heidi, me, Sheryl, Alexis, Kodie, and Kerry. Love them!