School Days...

As the end of the school year approaches the activities are in full swing. I feel like I've been at the school all the time lately!

First was Brady's Activity Day. Anyone who knows Brady knows that this is what the kid lives for! Competition and sports= HEAVEN! It was very cute to see him jumping up and down cheering on his team :)

Rilynn's class did a performance showing off their character 'enthusiam'. Really had no idea what was going on during the skit, but at least I understood Rilynn! LOL

Rilynn with her BFF Madelaine from England

Last Saturday their school held their annual Global Child Day. It's a pretty cool event where each country represented in the school sets up their own booth about their country. They had a total of 24 different countries set up. This is one of the best things about living here.. The kids have made friends from all over the world!! Most kids her age only think about Minnesota, maybe the United States.. However, Rilynn knows that .... is from Spain, and that .... is from Japan. It's wonderful to see them experience that!

Rilynn's class did a German dance at the event.

 Pin the hat on the cat

 US booth was Dr. Seuss themed

 Playing some cricket at the India booth

 Learing what Brady looks likes in Korean

Killing some germs at the France booth

Working kids..

Being a foreigner here makes for some easy modeling jobs for the kids. They both have made a nice little stash in their savings account from it. However, my favorite part is seeing the final product.

Well, here is one of Brady's ads up in the mall by our house. Our agent has seen it at another mall, so he seems to be all over where this store is. It was pretty cool to see a big picture of my little Brady up :) His pictures are also playing on the TV in the store and also on ad's within the store.

And here's the latest one of Rilynn's. She looks so grown up in these pics!!

We made it to the Great Wall!

We finally made our way to go visit The Great Wall of China in Beijing. We went for the weekend and stay 2 nights at the Commune by the Great Wall Resort. Some friends of ours had recommended this unique place to us and we weren't disappointed! It was about an 1 1/2 hour taxi drive from the airport. The main reason we stayed here was the location. We could see The Great Wall right from our bedroom window!!

The resort was a number of very modern type villas all spaced apart. They had a minivan shuttle to get us around.

Our bed with Great Wall view

Hallway in our room with bathroom on right and kids' bedroom at the end

Looking down into the community living room from the upstairs

The patio overlooking the Wall

The best kids club I've ever seen!! 2 floors of activities, including a library, kitchen, TV room, art room, dress up room, and tons of toys! We took advantage of sending the kids for a half day while we chilled by the pool :)

The kids' kitchen. They made chocolate cookies while they were there

Rilynn was in art/craft heaven!!!!!

Library

Our villa- It had 4 'hotel' private type rooms. Then a shared living room, sitting room, office, kitchen, patio, and dining room. There was only one other couple staying so we pretty much had the whole house to ourselves :)

Patio view of the Wall

We hiked all the way from here to the top of the mountain on the right to the Wall!

Another amazing perk of this resort was that they provided a guide and led you to their own private part to an unrestored part of The Wall. Normally when you go to the public entrances it's extremely crowded. However, we had the Wall all to ourselves!! Since it was unrestored, it also meant that it wasn't the easiest path to get around. The kids were amazing... I was the one complaining and stopping for breaks :) LOL

View from the Wall of where we came from. You can see the red villa in the far background. The closest building was having a wedding on the roof that day.

Hiking up

Don't look back!!!

I totally meant to take a video of the kids up on the Wall, but of course forgot. And I was not about to climb up it again!! So I decided to do a recap one instead :)

Sunday morning we checked out and headed to the city. Our first stop was dropping our luggage off at Chad's hotel where he had a conference and would be staying until Tuesday. Then off to Forbidden City. It was a completely different atmosphere. We had just come from blue skies, fresh air, quiet, no people and then in Beijing everything was opposite. We then we were reminded that we were still in China! The resort had been so wonderful letting us escape the city life for a few days.

Outside Forbidden City

Inside

Our transportation from the Forbidden City to Tiananmen Square. A little scary and definitely not going to win any parenting awards, but we made it! :)

Tiananmen Square

Forbidden City in the far background

And last, but not least... What we call here, The Man-kini!!!! LOL

We flew out on Mother's Day. Chad had to stay in Beijing for work, but got us checked in at the airport and then went back to his hotel. We got to the airport early (3:00pm) as he needed to get back to the hotel. Our flight didn't leave until 7:30pm so I had a lot of entertaining to do in the airport. And of course being in a Chinese airport there is absolutely no selection of food! Well, we made it and got to our gate only to find out at boarding time it was delayed. Then it turned into all the flights were delayed! Had no idea what was going on as I didn't want to lose our seats or leave the kids alone.. So, we waited, and Waited, and WAITED!! The kids fell asleep around 9. Thankfully there were a nice American family a couple rows from us who volunteered to watch the kids so I could go to the bathroom! Finally around 12:00am the family came back up to me and told me they switched the gates and they could help carry the kids for me. SO NICE!! Finally, around 1am we boarded the plane and made it back home around 4am! Needless to say, no school or work the next day and definitely a mother's day I'll never forget!!