An Action-Packed Run-Up to Christmas

The weeks leading up to Christmas were crazy, so I didn't manage to post as much as I wanted!  We had so many weekend activities, full of birthday parties and get togethers, as every one tried to squeeze in their activities before holidays. 

After Lola's birthday party on December 1, the next weekend was no different.  Lola performed with her classmates at the Christmas Fair.  The boys were absolutely enraptured by it.

Then the kids went to the big bouncy slide and enjoyed throwing themselves down that a couple of times.

We then headed to a slime birthday party

followed by wandering around IFC and watching the airport express (the boys could probably do this for hours) and then dinner at the American Club town club. 

Lola has all these pictures because she had Sidney, the class pet gorilla, for the weekend and she kept asking me to take pictures of them together for the journal entries she had to prepare.

That was a busy Saturday.  On Sunday we took it easy with only one birthday party, which was at a surprisingly cool club out in Kowloon Tong, where we rarely ever go. 

During the week following, the boys had their assessment at SIS,  we promised them ice cream as a reward afterwards, because they were so brave.  Michael dropped them off and bid them farewell when they went in and he said they were so cute, holding hands for courage.

After that, was the weekend of my trip to HCMC.  While I was gone, Michael held down the fort well and took the kids to the Ballroom Bees ball, where Lola performed with her dance group and did an amazing job:

Then it was really just the run up to Phuket - finishing school, all the last classes, a parent teacher conference at the boys' school, some final playdates of 2023:

We squeezed in a trip to the theater to catch Madagascar, the Musical, which was mixed / fell pretty flat overall, but the kids still enjoyed the experience which, I consoled myself, is still the point at the end of the day:

then took some fancy pictures at the American Club on Sunday night 

before we were packing and flying out on Monday morning bright and early!