HKG181: First Day of School!!!

today was livie's first day of school, and it went very well. she had a great day, made some new friends, played on the playground, read a whole bunch of books, and just got settled into her new class. this week will be pretty casual and low-key...next week, the curriculum gets into full swing.

q and i missed olivia quite a bit...the house seemed so empty without her. there were a lot of tears from q when we left sissy and then even MORE tears when we left daddy in the taxi. some chocolate milk and train time made him feel better. after spending the morning playing in his pit crew costume and playing with all of his trains, q asked for an early lunch, which was great b/c it naturally led into my getting him down for an early nap.

while q was down for nap, i was finally able to get in touch with the right person at the bus company and confirm that olivia is set on the bus run, AND there is an afternoon bus. the dropoff time for the afternoon bus is such that i now feel assured that q's naps won't be a mess. while q was down, i also was able to sign him up for a couple trial classes...hopefully, he will have some fun activities of his own lined up soon.

this afternoon, after getting livie changed out of her uniform and giving her some time to chill for a bit, we headed out to mcd's for celebratory ice cream and then to the shake-shake bridge playground. it turns out there's a number of expat kids who play there in the afternoons after school. the kids had a blast and made several new friends.

after the park, we went to my newly favorite grocery store to do the week's shopping. i had not gotten anything substantial for this week b/c josh was supposed to be in the u.s. on business. because of the hurricane that hit the east coast of the u.s., josh's trip was canceled, so i needed to stock up on supplies for this week's dinners. part of the reason this store is my new favorite is that it has carts with seats. it's still SUPER hard to navigate the store b/c the aisles aren't really wide enough for the carts, but it's still helpful to have more space to carry stuff AND to have q contained. well, it turns out that the larger space to carry stuff is a little TOO convenient. i ended up hauling home more groceries than i typically order for delivery...walking all of that home along with managing two kids was a bit of a challenge. my lord that was a long walk home...and the leg home just happens to be going up a hill that is at an approximately 65 to 70-degree angle. we were all tired and sweaty when we got home. being tired and sweaty, though, lent itself to an early bath and an earlier-than-usual bed time...a good thing on this second night of the new be-ready-for-school schedule.

school cutie all ready for her big day. it wasn't until we were in the taxi that i realized her skirt was on backward. i helped her change in the taxi (discretely).

q snuggin' up on sissy while we (endlessly) wait for a taxi. it took us almost 35 minutes to catch a taxi this morning. i am SO glad the bus issue is all worked out!

q and waffle playing trains this morning after we got back from dropping sissy off