Christmas break

I'm finally coming up for air!  The kids had 3.5 weeks off of school for the holidays and just went back to school on Tuesday, so I went back to work as well.  I'm exhausted!  It's funny because when we had the ambassador over for dinner a month ago, she said that putting a family of 5 in our apartment was like us living on a boat.  So keeping with that theme, this past month, I deemed myself "Cruise director" of our family ship, trying to keep the kids happily engaged in somewhat quiet activities in our apartment without stifling their natural creativity.  It's not an easy thing for one's sanity to be cooped up in apartment with three active, noisy children, with wall to wall tile and concrete that echoes, and neighbors down below to worry about.  But with embassy families traveling out of the country or just unavailable to play, we were kind of on our own.  It's the middle of summer here with uncomfortable levels of humidity and heat, so the thought of going outside to the marginal (the one area of grass and a "playground" besides the embassy), was not appealing to the kids.  We never made it to the beach either because I didn't feel comfortable taking the kids alone. 

 We got out of the house and went swimming at the embassy:

 Thomas was allowed to join in on a 123Design class being taught at the embassy.  They used a software program to design something and then print it with a 3D printer.  He of course picked blue thread.  The only thing wrong with it, as he pointed out, is that it twists "righty loosy, lefty tighty" instead of the other way around.  :)

The kids built forts, trains, etc.:

I splurged and bought an expensive Christmas Lego kit, something I've never done "just for fun."  But looking at the price of available gingerbread houses online and the thought of shipping them here led me to think that maybe I should just invest in a Lego set (one of the kids' favorite things to play with each other and dad) that could be rebuilt every year and had a feeling similar to creating gingerbread houses.  No I didn't feel up to attempting to bake our own houses nor try to find ingredients to make frosting. :)  This particular set was "Expert" so it was definitely a challenge and took them the whole morning to build.

 The kids did some baking which they loved as you can tell by Rhea's face as she licked the bowl and spoon saying, "Mmmmmmm!"

 And of course we resorted to our wonderful Kiwi and Tinker Crates for hands on activities.  The girls' box focused on shapes and bubbles, so we went out on our patio to make the mess while Thomas stayed inside and tinkered with his electrical constellation he made.  The girls also made some animal masks and zipper tags.

 Every day the kids had races down the hall on their Ripsticks.  They would ride down the hall into Savannah's room where they would turn around and come back.  I'm really hoping the guy downstairs was at work!

 One day we were able to get together with a few embassy friends to see a memorial celebrating the first Angolan President, Agostinho Neto.  He became president after the Angolans gained their independence from Portugal in 1975.  They have his body at the memorial, but they only allow showings of it in September, the month in which he was born and died.  It was a simple memorial with a few things on the wall to read, but we love looking at the outside.  Apparently Agostinho loved space, so they built a memorial that directs your focus upward to space and the stars.  Just a little side story—somehow we got an adult Angolan tag-along to our tour.  At first, I thought he was appointed to help translate for us, but then saw that was not the case.  Apparently he was interested in one of Holly’s teenage daughters, 14 years old, and really wanted to get her phone number.  He hung around the entire tour and then told her how sweet she was (they barely talked) and asked her for her information so he could call her and facebook her.  I heard all of this, and knowing that he was much older, 25 to be exact, let him know nicely that she was 14.  He said, “Oh it’s okay.  I’m married.  I have two kids.  I just want to be friends.”  Holly became aware of the situation and let him know that her daughter would take his information and contact him but they would not be giving her daughter’s information.   I bring this up because it is not uncommon for men here to have multiple wives/women.  There are many Christian people here that are against that and believe it is wrong, along with Angolan law.  However nothing is ever enforced and they really can’t punish people if they’re just “living together.”  Clearly, in this man’s mind, as is the case with many men here, it is not wrong to be married and have other relationships.  Briant encounters this a lot at the visa window—one year a man applies for a visa claiming one wife, and another time he applies again with another woman.  Anyway, after visiting the memorial we went and had lunch at Holly's house and let the kids play for a few hours.  She’s got a yard with a trampoline and places to ride scooters, etc.  The kids appreciated that!

With two weeks off of school before Christmas, the kids spent time working on their homemade gifts for each other as well.  We also spent a lot of time reading Christmas books along with "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe," watching Christmas movies (a new one this year that the kids loved was "Christmas Oranges"),  doing puzzles, playing games, and painting nativity scenes.   I of course scheduled some of our morning time to be academic.  I wanted to catch the kids up on phonics and math.  They don't do phonics at school (how could they when everyone has a different accent when speaking English), but they still need it to help their reading.  And with math, they focus on mental math at school.  As a result, my kids are weak in the written math calculation processes of multi-digit multiplication and division.   I also had them start a writing project called an "Alpha-biography."  They write something about themselves that corresponds to each letter of the alphabet.  A fun project that they could work on a little every day.  It's a work still in progress.