Jemilla's schoolmates have been learning about the Fruit of the Spirit in chapel this term. This week the theme has been "Gentleness". As a project, each child was given a raw egg and told to look after it carefully, bring it to school every day, have the teachers sign it, and to try to last a week without breaking it. This activity was intended to teach the students how to show gentleness to one another. Anyway, Jemilla found a box that was just the right size and cushioned it carefully with scraps of fabric and at least half a roll of toilet paper. She carried her egg in this box all week and was proud that her egg remained intact. However, Evil Renée swapped Jemilla's egg overnight for one of our left-over chocolate Easter eggs. To my surprise, my daughter who usually LOVES sweets and chocolates regardless of the occasion was not impressed at all. She insisted I put her original egg back so that she could take it in to school today and get the credit for showing gentleness to her egg all week.
My apologies to those readers who are on my mailing list and received a strange email from me yesterday. No, I am not into sexy high heels or fetish shoes. Please delete and ignore the email, as someone has hacked my email account.
Some of you have been asking how my mother is enjoying her stay in Hong Kong. While I can't comment about her feelings, I do know that when she is not looking after our children and household, she has been exploring far-off corners of Hong Kong that we have yet to see. She easily hops on and off the train or rides her bike where she wants to go. She has also visited several Chinese churches to try to get a feel for how their culture meshes with their Christianity.
On May 23rd, Manou joined with over 20,000 believers in Hong Kong stadium in a time of prayer and singing. Mum said it was encouraging to see so many Chinese Christians actively showing their allegiance to Jesus. She especially enjoyed doing a Mexican wave.
Manou often travels on the Star Ferry between Central and Tsim Sha Tsui.
She especially likes the fact that the trip is free for pensioners.
Today Manou visited the Home of Loving Faithfulness, a Christian residential home for children and adults with intellectual and/or physical disabilities. As you can imagine in Hong Kong where academic excellence is of highest importance, people with disabilities are generally shunned. The Home is such a loving environment, Mum reported. She was impressed at how well-resourced it is, pleasing to all the senses, clean, stimulating, and catering for all the clients' needs. They always need more nursing staff and volunteers, so if you want to learn more you can look up their website information here.
Manou learned about Hong Kong's Home of Loving Faithfulness from reading a book called Secret Riches which I picked up at the church fête a few weeks ago. In the book, Linda Ball recounts the first 40 years of the Home, a place of "hope, joy and belonging" for over 60 special needs children and adults.
Keegan LOVES cricket. But if for some reason when he's a grown-up he can't play for Australia in the Ashes series, he thinks he'll turn to baseball as a back-up sport. I found the hat for $2 at a Hong Kong Salvation Army store today.
We currently attend Shatin Anglican Church where things are done a bit differently from previous churches to which we have belonged. Today they had an infant baptism with full immersion. Amazingly, the little baby didn't cry at all in protest at being suddenly submerged in cold water.
Following the baptism service, there was a buffet lunch for the whole congregation to enjoy.
This morning a friend from the kids' school came by our apartment with a bike her son had outgrown. Tirzah has really been enjoying it! You can see in the photo that Manou is using a broom to push the back as Tirzah is still learning to pedal. When we left Perth, we got rid of our bikes and all of our outside toys as we didn't know what sort of apartment we would be living in.
We've been making plans to go to Hong Kong Disneyland on my niece's birthday when my sister's family visit us next month. However, last weekend I attended an autism conference where all the delegates were given a free ticket to Disneyland to be used within the week. A colleague also gave me her unwanted ticket, so it was too good an opportunity to pass up. We loved the way our friends the Sweeneys surprised their children with the outing, so we kept the tickets a secret from our kids and simply told them we were taking the train out near the airport. When we got closer, Jemilla begged to be allowed to at least look inside the special train that carries passengers to the resort, so we agreed. Once inside we showed them the tickets and enjoyed their excitement.
Look at the cute Mickey Mouse hand straps!
Here we are at the entry gates. We had such a fantastic day! The weather was fine, and the crowds were down, so we hardly had to wait at all for turns on the rides. Friends had warned us that people might try to push in front of us in line, but I didn't notice any of that. We were also prepared for a majority of the program to be in Chinese. It goes without saying that the whole amusement park is propaganda for Disney merchandise, but our three children loved it all.
Sleeping Beauty Castle.
Cinderella Carousel
Dumbo the Flying Elephant
Mad Hatter Tea Cups
This was a great ride showing children around the world and various Disney characters. We did this ride twice.
North Pole
Jungle Book
Africa
Toy Story
Australia (supposedly)
Aladdin
Holland
The Little Mermaid
China
New Zealand
We missed out on doing a few activities due to time constraints, such as Winnie the Pooh's storybook journey.
Keegan thought that this park section was called Tomorrowland because you have to come back tomorrow to get in.
Space Mountain was a big roller coaster which Keegan vows he will never go on as long as he lives. He was absolutely petrified.
This, on the other hand, was Keegans' favourite ride. He did it three times.
Buzz Lightyear explained the mission....
...which involved shooting lots of laser beams. Bowen and Flynn will love this ride!
Where are our two space explorers?
This Autopia ride had a 45 minute queue, so we didn't bother doing it.
Orbitron
The children weren't really keen to line up to meet Mickey, Goofy, Donald and Winnie the Pooh (thank goodness!) If we had seen Cinderella or Buzz Lightyear it would have been another story.
Every afternoon there is a Disney parade with music and dancing and floats.
Yummy fairy floss (a first for Tirzah)
This was Jemilla's favourite experience at Disneyland. Known as "The Golden Mickeys", it's a musical celebration of many famous Disney movies.
No flash photography was allowed, hence the blurry images. I tried in vain to get a good photo of Ariel for you, Craig Lupton. You'll just have to come and see Disneyland for yourself.
Here's Jemilla with the streamers that fell down at the end of the show.
We took a little ride on the Disneyland railway.
View from the train
Keegan enjoyed the bongo drums in Adventureland.
We stayed until the fireworks display at 8 pm.
Tirzah was not scared of the fireworks at all, unlike Keegan at this age. If you can be bothered watching the fireworks video above, you can hear her at the very end asking for more.
Of course there are numerous stores in Disneyland in which to purchase their merchandise. We allowed the children to each choose one item as a souvenir. Tirzah had a great time trying everything.
Keep dreaming, Jemilla.
Keegan liked all the Buzz Lightyear and Mickey soccer products.
In the end, Keegan decided on a Disney drink bottle, Tirzah bought a pair of mouse ears, and Jemilla chose a Disney Princess frame for a friend's photo. Thank you, Hong Kong Disneyland, for a fantastic day!
