What the Swiss are Hiding

It's chocolate.

Did you really think I was going to talk about politics? That, like riding motorcycles without a helmet, and eating bleu cheese in the evening, are strictly prohibited.

By my husband. But he is away.

But I will be good.

Back to the Swiss: a dear friend here (who happens to be Swiss) invited the kids and me for dinner tonight. It was delicious. Those of you who know my dislike of long conversations will be surprised that I can talk with this woman for hours. I don't even know what we talk about. I just know I enjoy her company immensely. Her husband is a missionary pilot who is sleeping in the bush somewhere tonight, so we felt an immediate kinship since my husband is sleeping in a nice hotel somewhere tonight. But I'm not bitter about that.

Anyway, it was a lovely evening. Looking in her refrigerator as we prepared dinner, I noticed a slightly orange glow coming from the top drawer. Where most people keep yogurt, or leftover salami. But don't keep them together, or the salami will make the yogurt taste dodgy.

Much to my delight, the glow was caused by the chocolate pictured above. When I asked to take a photo of it, she covered up some other chocolate that was not Swiss. "Someone sent it to us" she apologized for the lesser cacao delight. I found the whole experience hilarious, and made a note to include eating Swiss chocolate in my "things to do the next time I'm a place where Swiss chocolate is available."

In other news:

The kids and I were in the banda this morning, reading and playing Dolch word bingo (if you've never played Dolch word bingo, you're missing out! It's never too late to start.) and playing a few rounds of Rory's Story Cubes.

After a few minutes, we saw this bee:

Although we just studied insects after finding another dead bee, we took a moment to study this one.

I flipped it over with my finger after a few minutes, to show the kids its wings.

And to our dismay, it started crawling around, and flew away. I kid you not. It's a miracle!

Our friend Esther came to play in the last week; she and Henry had fun feeding our rabbit. His name is Flopsy Hopsy and we inherited him from some friends who left recently.

We call him Flops, or just Flop, most of the time. We are all about syllabic conservation here.

One of my favorite things we brought with us was this hammock. It's made in a village in Mexico, where they grow cotton and make amazing hammocks from long, thin cotton threads. Pay no attention to the grammatical errors on their website. You may not fully understand this until you live in a country where you have the language of a two year-old. The hammock is amazing. And strong. All four of us can fit in it, and the kids enjoy cocooning in it while I swing them to and fro.

Henry picked some fruit from one of our trees. I can't remember the name of it (see language deficiency reference above), but it is safe, and tastes kind of citrus-y. Here he is washing the fruit before we gobble it up.

We've been following the Bible curriculum of The Gospel Project. We recently talked about Adam and Eve, and sin, and repentance (what parent of a five year-old doesn't talk about this weekly?). Here is Ruby's interpretation of the moment Adam and Eve realized their sin in the garden. At the bottom, Adam and Eve are in heaven. It is very important to Ruby that stories have a happy ending. I love that girl.

In the Meantime....

Pirates!

I wonder if they realize how many children around the world dress up like them and pretend to be them on a regular basis? What is the draw for children, anyway? We just finished reading through Peter Pan together and the kids couldn't get enough of Hook and his minions. Henry noted the other day that Somalia is a good place for pirates to live because it has so much coastline. Perhaps Neverland is closer than I realized.

I acknowledge that I get too serious sometimes during election years. To be fair, the House and Senate election years are more exciting than the off years. But that every-fourth-year rush of the Presidential race - it intrigues me. I don't like the negative ads, but I am fascinated by the strategy, work and resources that go into this cycle.

So fascinated, in fact, that I sometimes forget to update you, the reader, about what real-life things are going on in the lives of the people I am supposed to be writing about. Lest you fear I've completely abandoned the children to memorize the electoral college map, let me share with you some of my favorite moments with the fam and friends here lately.

Good news! Homeschool continues to be a great fit for both students and teacher. We recently studied insects, including a giant bumblebee we found dead (perfect for showing body and leg segments!) and I gave the kids an assignment to go outside one morning and photograph insects they found. Henry found this cool mass of ants eating a dead worm-ish creature. It took several dozen ants about 20 minutes to make it completely disappear.

The kids have plenty of playdates, usually involving dress-up, theatre, action-adventure, or all of the above.

Please pardon my mixed use of photo treatments in this post. The kids earned enough money to get camera+ on their ipods and we're all having too much fun with the fx settings.

Ruby continues to thrive in all things academic and artistic. Henry is in the early stages of reading short books and has recently begun to care about handwriting, much to my relief. Like their father and me, both enjoy math very much.

There must be a million-dollar market in monkey shirts for little boys. These two were both Ironman with their gold masks on. Well, more like geriatric Ironmen, since the masks are opaque and they couldn't see a thing.

It turns out Henry is quite a tree climber, and Ruby has ventured up in a few, although she prefers to stay on the ground and tell Henry to be careful. We have a lot of 'who's the Mommy?' talks, Ruby and me.

That's Ruby and Len walking along the shore as we waited for our food at a local restaurant. The ocean makes everything better. Perspective + Beauty as far as you can imagine.

An Irish friend has been hanging out with us lately, and she is a natural director, dramaturg and actress, organizing everyone into a full production whenever there's a chance. This is The Birthday Fish; Henry is Marigold/dream pony and Ruby is the little girl; Nicola is narrating and directing with the lake at her feet.

Ruby and Henry enjoy swimming; we try to get them in the water at least once a week. They're each swimming without assistance and today they practiced snorkeling in the pool.

There you have it, proof that GDP does proportionately impact voter turnout...proof that there really is fun to be had in the midst of this busy season, and more importantly, that we're having it. Fact check that.

Chalkboard Today

I think the kids may be a little homesick.