J.A.S.E.

It turned out that the certificate Estelle won at school included several vouchers to restaurants. And as an awards winner, the restaurants were happy to treat her to a free item from the kid’s menu! (Great PR and lots of goodwill created… not to mention good business sense.)

Medal Winner

So, proudly wearing her medal, we walked to the nearby Islands restuarant for dinner with Uncle Andrew. The manager even came to our table personally to congratulate Estelle on her good work.

And for a $5 kid’s meal, the restaurant made $65, plus lots of smiles.

(Thanks Uncle Andrew for the dinner! heh heh.)

It’s been 3 weeks of school and Estelle came home one day with a letter requesting her family to be present on Friday’s Awards Assembly.

Amelie and I turned up at the School Auditorium and watched as Mrs Walters singled out Angelina and Estelle as “responsible” students.

Being praised by Mrs Walters

Mrs Walters also went on to compliment Estelle on her excellent attitude and enthusiasm when it comes to work.

Medal and Certificate

Each class had 2 award winners. This session is for Kindergarten to 2nd Grade.

The other award winners

As the kids were leaving, the teacher asked them to take a bow and as you can see… Estelle is happy to follow instructions. And there’s no stopping her when she’s onstage….

Still taking a bow

The Juarez Medal

After the Assembly, Mrs Walters invited Amelie and I to join their class. It was great fun!

Class

With best pal Ryan

And Amelie enjoyed it too.

Puzzle time

And here are the rest of her classmates doing different activities.

Classmates

The San Diego schools started their new term on Tuesday, September 8, right after the Labor Day holiday. Estelle is attending Juarez Elementary school and Amelie is at Gethsemane Preschool (just 2 days a week).

This is how excited they were.

Can't wait to start!

At the end of the day…

Mom, we had SO MUCH FUN!

We have moved from Florida to San Diego, and we’ve  been busy, busy, busy!

Apologies to all, but I will upload all those photos. But just to get a feel of what’s been going on…

When we first moved in...

Today

Amelie’s planter is the one of the left, and she chose Marigolds (yes… yellow flowers). Estelle’s planter is the one on the right, hers are Zinnia plants (with a variety of different colours).

Heaps have happened in the time between those 2 pictures. More will be revealed!

Estelle: Dad, when I am in the car, I like to look out and look at nature.

Amelie: Mayture?

Estelle: No Amelie, N-Nature, not M-Mayture. Mayture means children pretending to be grown up.

HAHAHAHAHAHA. Took us a while to realise she thought Mature is pronounced Mayture.

Yes Estelle, you cracked it. We are all pretending to be mature.

Thanks to the lovely and generous many Ah Yees, Estelle has a beautiful dollhouse for Christmas when she was… er… about 2.5 years old.

Just a trip down memory lane…

Christmas Morning

Check out baby Amelie

And here she is “playing” with Summer.
See how small and kiddy she was. Gosh, can’t believe she is five, and capable of actually playing with the dollhouse.

Playdate on 27Dec2006

So finally…
this lazy summer, we decided to paint it. And decorate it.

Dollhouse now!

Interior

Closer look

Living Room

Children's room

Parents' room

There has been a heat wave the last couple of days. Going outdoors actually does feel like walking into an oven. It’s HOT.

See what the heat did to our poor plants.

dead plants

Luckily we have aircon.

Here’s the happy letter writer. She so proud of her letter to her best friend Rachel.

I did it!

On its way now

Rachel wrote her an equally lovely letter which we received on Monday. Apparently she posted it about 2 weeks ago.

The card is designed by the super talented multi-tasker Mummy Yifarn.

So sweet

We were out having our last BBQ here at Gables when a visitor dropped by.

He probably saw these tasty morsels…

and thought he could try his luck.

After a while, he gave up and headed back to the water. Phew.

Amelie loves to play with her animals.

And she tries to convince everyone to play with her. But very frequently, you can hear her playing and talking to her animals in her room. She makes up pretty elaborate games for them and the animals have long conversations and personalities.

Today, they are out camping… and sleeping under the stars.