Boricua en la Lima

...for end of year parties and Christmas productions and most importantly Christmas and Summer! Here´s Sebas´ Christmas show from school this morning...

We're on our way back to the train station from Machu Picchu and I am so happy that I've gotten to enjoy a well deserved couple of days off as well as seeing the kids enjoy themselves in Cuzco so much when I get am email from the school administration that a kid in pre-kinder has passed away. No name, no explanation, just a note saying that they have rallied all the counseling support they can to deal with this thing on Monday morning when the kids go back to school. First thing I wonder is if the kid was in my kid's classroom, were they friends? How will they explain this to my kid, how will I explain this to my kid? Will all the kids react as if it was a non-event or will their little worlds be shattered? Obviously this is nothing compared to Newton but I find myself at a loss here too, not understanding how God can let something so tragic and sad happen. It's Father's Day tomorrow and I feel so horrible for the parents of this kid, what they must be going throu...

Since I might start working soon (hopefully!) and not able to go to the kids' school's activities too frequently I am trying to go to anything I can now before that happens.  So when the class mom asked for volunteers for Gabi's school trip yesterday I gladly accepted.  Seems like the kids have grown up/matured a little bit vs. the last time I took kids that school age to a field trip which was probably back in June in Geneva.  The boys seemed better behaved and all kids in general seemed to follow instructions better.  But maybe that's a Geneva vs. Peru phenomenon? In any case, this field trip I think was more of a treat for me than it was for the kids and I enjoyed every single moment of it!  I haven't been to a proper animal farm in so long.  They had so many cows and all kinds of chickens from varieties I hadn't even heard about.  We saw the chickens and the geese and ducks taking care of their eggs, we saw cuy which is the local "guinea pig" th...

Last weekend of full blown kids' activities (thank goodness!). This weekend was Gabi's ballet recital and while it's been a little tough on her this year not understanding too much French, I'm still really proud of how she did on her recital.  Only problem was the unbearable heat in the theatre (why won't Swiss people turn on their A/C's???) and having to sit through a whole 90 minutes of dances (two days in a row!) when Gabi's was the very first dance.  But at least after the recital on Sunday Gabi was able to go to a friend's birthday party (even though she missed saying goodbye to her ballet friends because we had to run for the door during an opportune moment!).  She also had to say goodbye to her best friend Alessia who left for Russia today.  I'm starting to get bummed out about all the goodbyes coming but I guess I'm glad the move is happening during the summer so that once school breaks it doesn't feel like you're ripping the band...

This is the month of never-ending school activities -- birthday parties to make up for the summer birthdays when the kids won't see each other, school plays, field trips and sports days (field days for those of you in the US).  And to top that off we're trying to take advantage of every single sunny day because it's been raining so much in Geneva we don't know if we can count on the weather staying nice!  I've therefore been working on perfecting my iMovie skills (I'm not doing so bad except it takes me forever to upload a movie to YouTube once I've created it and if I make a mistake like I did today it's "double the pleasure, double the fun".  Anyway, here are two videos, once for Gabi's sports day which was last week and one for Sebas' sports day which was today.

This is a long one (17 min.) but I couldn't stop myself because Sebas was just doing such a good job during his school show! I hope one day he'll be glad that I recorded all 17 minutes.  Maybe when he's a famous soccer player or Formula1 racer.  :)  Although at some points you can see he's tired and at some points you can also see him sucking his thumb and wanting to pick his nose (I'll have to edit that out when he's famous). However,  I think sitting still for 17 min. for a group of 4-year olds is quite an accomplishment.  I am so proud of my little Spiderman! It took me like 24 hours to upload this video onto YouTube, I don't think I had ever uploaded such a big file (not to mention that our WiFi at home is not the speediest of WiFi's).