You Make the Whole World Smile

Isn't she just the cutest?! I think she could make the whole world smile by singing this song :)

MATH! Today was our first day of math. All day. 8-3:30 with a 45 minute lunch break. I think we were all dreading it a little bit, but guess what? It really was not bad at all. Helen Walters is teaching it, and she is fabulous. She used to teach school (every grade except for 4^th), and then she taught at the University of Auckland, and recently she has been a math consultant for schools all over Auckland. She is extremely knowledgeable about making math fun, and I love it! We played tons of different math games with cards, dice, numbers, and monkeys, and she said we’ll play even more tomorrow! Maybe this week full of math won’t be so bad after all.

RAIN! Today was also our first day of rain. It started sprinkling as we ate lunch outside, and then the skies opened and it poured all afternoon. Luckily Phyllis came and drove us home so that we didn’t have to walk home. If we had walked home, we would have been soaked in just a few minutes—thank you, Phyllis! The unfortunate thing about the rain, however, was that it cancelled our big host family picnic at the park. JJ decided that it would be better to postpone it until next week when we’ll be able to enjoy the picnic outside—hopefully!

LAMB CHOPS! Because we didn’t have the picnic, Kerry grilled us some delicious lamb chops. They were seasoned with Moroccan spices, and as they say here, it was YUM.

PIXIE CARAMEL! Sheryl bought us a pixie caramel candy to try—known for the longest lasting chew. She told us all about the advert (commercial) for it where they was a guy about to be killed by a firing squad. They ask him, “Any last requests?” He replies, “Yes, a Pixie Caramel!” They bring him a Pixie Caramel, he begins eating it and chewing the longest lasting caramel. Apparently it takes him so long to eat it that the entire firing squad falls asleep and the guy is able to escape. My experience trying a Pixie Caramel was not nearly as exciting, but maybe someday it’ll come in handy…

NEMO! Kodie’s favorite movie is Finding Nemo. It is quite common for him to watch it every day, multiple times. I sat down and watched some of it with him today and was reminded what a great movie it is. So, my advice today is, just keep swimming. Life isn’t easy, and we’re going to be faced with tough decisions and situations; we gotta keep our heads up and just keep swimming :)