On growing

This morning I took the remote to the air purifier and tried to turn Lucy off from growing.  She thought this was hilarious.  It morphed into my trying to turbo charge her into walking faster to school, etc.  This was a fun game but it probably stems from a lot of thinking recently about what is next for Lucy.  

1. We started reading chapter books to her, which she loves.  I was under the impression she was looking at the pictures all this time, but now I know she is comprehending by listening. 

2. We found a 1/4 size violin yesterday for 9$ (what a steal!). And last week we interviewed a violin teacher who seems like he will be a good fit.  She is so excited for this. 

3. Lucy is pretty self motivated.  She pulls up a chair to her art table and practices writing and letters all the time.   The other night we proposed to Lucy that we do some homework like we will do when we are homeschooling her on the boat.  This was the first time she was able to go through the entire alphabet without getting bored. She even sat though doing numbers too.  

4. A goal we have always had for our kids was to teach them a second language.  This is easier said than done when neither of us are fluent in Spanish.  This is going to be a work in progress.  For now, we borrow kids Spanish books from the library,  watch youtube videos, mixing what we can say into our conversations and get together with Spanish speaking friends.  

Lucy y Ana

Catching up

I guess we need to do a little catching up...
Duke and Maria arrived on March 18th. We had two great days of touring around Delhi with them, hitting some of the local attractions.

Old Delhi tour

Colors for the Holi festival

That Friday, Amie and I rushed home from work to head to the airport and we all boarded a flight to Sri Lanka soon after. A few hours and one episode of projectile vomiting (Scout) later, we arrived in Colombo and hopped in a van for the three hour drive to Hikkaduwa. Despite our worries that the entire villa rental we had booked was a scam, everything worked out well and our three bedroom house, steps from the beach, far exceeded our expectations. At $40 a night, we were worried it was going to have some major issues, but it turned out to be almost new.

Setting up a slack line

Bathing Scout in a stir-fry pan to improve her rash.

The next morning we loaded our surfboards onto a tuk-tuk and headed about 2km down the road to the main reef break. The break, named A-Frame, is a point break that has both a left and right wave. The conditions were good and it was not too crowded. We found a nice shaded spot on the beach right infront of the break and it became our home for the next 8 days.

Scout sporting Lucy's t-shirt.

Baby turtles were the highlight of the trip for Lucy

We really can't say enough good things about Sri Lanka. The people were incredibly friendly. The water was warm and clean, the beach was beautiful, the bugs were not bad and the surf was really good. After the first day, we woke up every morning at around 5 and we were the first ones in the water at 5:45. We would watch the sunrise every morning while surfing, and we had the break to ourselves until at least 6:30. By then we would be joined by a few others but we would be exhausted and head home for breakfast. We would return to the beach for another session around 8:30 and stay until lunch time. After lunch at the house we went on a variety of excursions that included the turtle hatchery, the historic town of Galle, Unawatuna, some temples and walks through the back roads. We made all of our meals at the house (accept for our last dinner) and we were impressed with both the selection of imported foods at the local grocery store and the low cost of produce at the roadside stands. We never once had to bicker over a tuk-tuk fare, deal with unwanted soliciting, or any other unpleasantries that we often face in Delhi. We feel we saw only a tiny sliver of Sri Lanka, but we were so impressed and can't believe such a jewel exists so close to home.

After returning to Delhi, we bid farewell to Duke and Maria, who, by now, are settled into their new lakeside apartment in Queenstown, NZ (sigh).

We are in the homestretch now, just 6.5 weeks away from boarding our flight back to the States. The temps are hitting triple digits again and we have been spending quite a bit of time at the pool.

Below are some more shots from our trip to Sri Lanka:

Sunrise Surf

"Amie, can I play in the rain?"  Absolutely!

We released the 3 day old turtles.