Grade One!

  My beautiful grade one daughter

 We all walked to school together on this early Monday morning to see her off. 

 A good-bye kiss for her sister

 And then Leila and I were able to hop on the shuttle bus and visit the new campus and attend the parent assembly (otherwise we would have taxied it over there anyway). They were having fun singing "wheels on the bus". 

 Sitting in the assembly. The girl on her left is a familiar face from kindergarten. 

The row of grade one teachers and EA's. Annika's is second from the right, Mr N. He is from Northern Ireland, and apparently he's "really nice". :) There are actually quite a few men in the lower primary- two of the grade one teachers and two of the grade two, unlike upper primary which Mike is completely outnumbered as the only male. Fortunately Annie doesn't seem to mind even though she expected a lady. It sounds like her day went well. Such an answer to prayer! 

Winter Photo Shoot

This is Leila when she was awake for the Nicholas & Bears photoshoot. 
But when you ask a jet-lagged child to spend an entire day posing for pictures, there's no guarantee that she won't just fall fast asleep before it's over. 
Which is what happened... fast asleep with her up-do and in her pink boots and winter coat. Some other poor and likely tired little girl had to step in and model Leila's last two outfits. 
As she told my mom in summer, it was "hard work". 
Oh, and it was about 35 degrees outside, but they did have the A/C cranked inside for the little models. 
We survived... and I can't wait to see the catalogue. But I think this will be Leila's last shot at fame. At least while she's four. :)

summer highlights

 Well, our Alberta summer has come and gone and it couldn't have been better!

We traveled throughout Alberta visited many of Alberta's national and provincial parks and Lakes- Waterton, Kananaskis, Elk Island, Park Lake and Sylvain Lake

 The girls had an amazing time bonding with their cousins- they took swimming lessons together the first two weeks of July and had lots of time to play together at Grandma and Grandpa's.

We supported Alberta tourism with visits to Fort Edmonton Park, the Calgary Zoo, the Provincial Museum, the John Janzen Nature Centre, the Lethbridge Nature centre. 

 Annika learned to ride a bike! 

We spent a day at the Calgary Stampede including the evening chuck wagons and Grandstand show

 We got re-aquainted with these long-lost great friends and also got to spend many evenings hanging out with friends and leaving the girls with their grandparents.

the girls had some pretty great play-dates with their long lost buddies (and I had some great coffee times with their moms!)

We easily conquered jet lag and it somehow it shifted the girls' clocks so that their average wake-time was 8:00 (as opposed to six during these school year). It was heaven!

Auntie Rita and Uncle Steve took the girls for a night and put us up in a hotel. THANK-YOU!!! THAT WAS AWESOME!

We enjoyed the hospitality (mooched?!) off of many and slept in lots of different beds over the summer (Edmonton, Strathmore, Lethbridge, Calgary & High River)

The girls loved the cotton candy at the zoo, but we loved so many delicious BBQ'ed burgers and steaks! I was looking forward to summer BBQ's and it didn't disappoint! I think I may have gained a few pounds...

We were humbled and blessed by the hospitality and times we spent with our family and friends. It made it that much hard to say good-bye. We feel loved and are so thankful to have such special people in our lives! 

Uncle Linc visits HK

I thought I'd post a few photos of Linc's time here. We didn't take too many. I just lent him our little camera to take with us when we went out. Maybe he's already shown them from his computer, but in any case... a bit of documentation that Linc was in Hong Kong!

 We aren't sure why Leila calls this ride at Disneyland "Pops and Parachutes" (probably because it pops into the air and parachutes down), but it has stuck. Leila doesn't like it but Annie does and definitely wanted to ride on it with Uncle Linc. 

 telling Tinkerbell something very important, I'm sure. Actually it was very exciting that we stumbled upon her in Pixie Hollow and there was NO LINE-UP! 

 Waiting in line for the Golden Mickey's. 

 On the cable car up to the big Buddha. It wasn't raining which was good, but so cloudy that the view wasn't as spectacular as it could have been.

 A random cow at the top of Wisdom Path. 

 Reading stories after bath/before bed. 

A rainy day at Cheung Chau Island 

 It could have been so much better (like we could have actually enjoyed the beach) if it hadn't been so RAINY! Oh well... we still tried to stick with our plans at made the most of it. The weather this week was not rainy at all. 

 Linc only ever experienced a grey skyline of Hong Kong. But we still had fun! 

These little goofs loved spending time with their uncle! Good thing we'll see him again soon! A week from this moment and we'll be in the plane!!!

Annie's grad

 I will post pictures of the fun we're having with Uncle Linc, but first I wanted to put up pictures of Annika's kindergarten graduation ceremony. It is so hard to believe that she is done school. Wow, that was a fast year! At this rate, grade 12 will be here before I know it!

 Annika and her lovely teacher Mrs. Ganbaatar. 

 Annie's friend Miyu. 

 Annika told me she had to read a verse, but she made it seem like it was with a group of kids. It was a group who did the readings, but her part was reading together with Ashley Psalm 139:13. They both were loud and clear. What a great little surprise!

 The class then sang "Yesterday's Dream" which we've been hearing her sing for weeks. Funny story: at one point Annika wanted us to find it on the computer, and I told her that we didn't have it, thinking that they were probably learning from a CD at school. She said "Oh no, Mom. Mrs. Kong says it's really easy to find on YouTube." haha... what do you say after that?! So we've watched many versions on Youtube and heard her sing it so many times that I've heard Leila singing it to herself. But it was still great to hear the whole class. 

 And then they danced a little number to a Hillsong kid's worship song. 

 After that, "prestigious" awards were given out. First for perfect attendance, which no one in P3G had, and then a music award, a Mandarin award, and the "Good Samaritan" award. Finally an award was given for the student who had shown the most improvement academically and socially throughout the year. And look who's name was called! I love Ruby cheering her on behind shell-shocked Annie. She deserves it though- it is mind-blowing her far she has come- both socially and academically- since she she started kindergarten!

Mike was able to get his classes covered so he could come (it was in the morning). That was nice!

 Linc took these pictures and I meant to get one with him in it too, but we must have gotten distracted. It was pretty special that he could be there too!

 Annie and her best pal, Brigitta. 

(Brigitta was the proud recipient of the Mandarin award) 

Way to go, class of 2012! Catch ya again in 2024...