Sorry, time gets away from me - a quick update, photos later since I've heard you haven't always received them through the group email but have to click on the Blogger site instead.

Kids have school routine down pat. Received mid-term progress reports. Alex decided to join the trampoline class as well.

Trying to raise money for the new school building - the latest event is the Fall Fair and Walkathon on Oct 21. If you would like to sponsor the kids, please let me know soon. I'll pay first and collect later. Thanks for your support!

More info: The school has been in rented buildings and split into two campuses, Elementary and Secondary. The government awarded some land and a grant to build a basic school building, but we would like to have nicer than 'basic' facilities so are raising funds. Included in the upgrade is a second gymnasium (so we'll have one for Elementary and one for Secondary), performing arts hall and practice rooms (for the community to use as well), chapel, swimming pool and central air conditioning.

Went to Disneyland again to use our free second visit promo. Lots of people on the Sunday we went, so we had to wait in lines. Enjoyed the new ride - Autopia. Didn't stay in the park so long this time.

Went to Taipei for a couple of nights on a 3D/2N package when the kids had a couple extra days off school. Saw some relatives and ate lots of yummy food. Even though breakfast was included in our package, we still went out to eat breakfast on the streets. Favorites include glutinous rice rolls with shredded dried pork, pickled vegetables and 'yo-tiao' (like a crunchy doughnut) inside and egg with onion pancake... Lunch was beef stew noodles at Paul's two favorite places... Afternoon snacks included egg-shaped cakes, a type of gelatin with lemon syrup called 'ai-yu' and more noodles. For dinner we had all you can eat hotpot one night and the second dinner at another favorite place - dumplings, fried rice, clam soup, fried pork chop, beef with spring onion... We also hit the bookstore, local park/playground and walked around window shopping... Brought some snacks home - cookies, dried pork jerky, apple soda. Looking forward to another trip!

That's all for now.

Yesterday was the evening before Mid-Autumn Festival and after a lovely evening gazing at the moon, eating BBQ - just carousing with friends and their families, we headed home for the night... Sometime in the middle of the night after nature's call, I went to wash my hands and - huh? NO water... Hmmm, usually the management company puts up notices about water supply interruption but since it was the middle of the night I just used a wet wipe and went back to bed. Life with kids - always have wet wipes around for multitude of uses.

OK, morning now and after going to the kitchen to make coffee, alas, still no water; I gazed out the window and saw hubbub below - people with containers of all sorts. This was definitely not a temporary problem.














I brought an empty 18 liter water dispenser bottle down to the line and found out a water truck would arrive shortly so I went home. Indeed, after a while, we heard a ruckus and rumble as the truck pulled up to the curb. I grabbed my digital camera to document the details. There were a couple of newspaper and TV news people with cameras around. Too bad I don't speak Cantonese - I could have had a moment of fame!

It was all fairly efficient and I went to collect my water with the luggage cart I brought along. I thought of those poor countries where people have to do this every day and also of times of drought during my childhood in Northern California where we also had to collect water...





Ah, 18 liters of water - I washed my hair and rinsed - but ooh - chilly! Still plenty left to cook noodles for breakfast and wash the dishes. Will wait on the clothes. Saturday morning excitement...