First Day, Last Day

Our crew this morning... it's the first day of 2nd grade for Gwen, first day of 6th grade for Madelyn, first day of high school for Seth, and the last first day of high school for our senior, Caleb. It's also the last first day of school all of our kids will have at Concordia International School Shanghai.

How many other "last firsts" are left?

Sponges, I Hope

As we were all riding our bikes through the streets of a local area yesterday, I found myself silently willing first Gwen, then all the children, to "soak up China." I often wonder how much of this whole China experience each of them will carry with them through their lives... I hope they are absorbing much that will become a part of who they are.

A Mystery

Why is it that although my girls both like to eat raisins plain out of the box, they do not like them in raisin bread? Why must they insist upon picking the raisins out of the raisin bread, or nibbling around the raisins, leaving large crumbs with raisins poking out of them on their plates? It doesn't make sense to me. I remind them how much they both like raisins, I even show them the raisin box and explain that this is the same thing that is in their bread... no luck.

It's kind of like explaining to one of my boys that I put the same sauce on homemade pizza that I do on spaghetti... and why does he not like the spaghetti sauce but he does like the sauce on the pizza?