What are you grateful for today?
*My husband - we have far more good days than hard days, thanks to him.
*My kids - yes all 4 of them, because on any one day it's usually only one or two I want to toss through a window.
*Our home - it's far from my dream home, I wouldn't even know what my dream home looked like, but it's home, it's safe, it's clean (uh...), it's comfortable.
*Ian's job - he has always been a step ahead of layoffs and now has a secure position no matter the economy. Truly a relief and a blessing.
*Our "garden" - the plants in pots on our deck lovingly called the pot garden (actually tomatoes and peppers) are actually growing nicely. I staked a couple that were starting to topple.
*Technological advances - I'm pulled kicking and screaming into each new advance, but they really are worth it. Take my birthday present Kindle I now call "Blue" because of the awesome cover Ian chose that matches my handbag. Refer to my first grateful entry...
*My weight - I can complain about the numbers all I want, but in reality I'm very glad that the number is too big due to plentiful food rather than too small because of an inability to feed the family.
*Living near family - it's rare to be so close to family, we're lucky my parents have stayed in this area and never considered moving to Iowa. Or Nebraska. Or Trinidad.
*Options - What do you want to eat? Where do you want to go? Which movie? What game? What country? Which school? What kind of cereal? Options, what a gift.
And speaking of options, in our county we have options on which middle and high schools the kids attend if they wish to participate in a specialty program. For this reason Katherine won't attend our home school but instead will go to Gar-Field for the IB program. I'm currently researching (preliminary only, we'll get our list next month some time) schools in places we think we'd like to go. Of the six schools I've begun studying, two are at the top of my list, but both lack something that is extremely important to the family.
*Hong Kong would be amazing. But there's no IB program and we'd really like all 4 kids to do IB. It would be a challenge to get this post.
*Sao Paulo would be achievable, and the school has an IB program, but no swimming pool. I know it seems trivial, but our kids are in to swimming.
Some quick data:
Singapore: Singapore American School: uniforms (white polo top, navy bottoms, Land's End account): 3819
students: 25 minutes from downtown: not IB:
Sports/Activities for 10/11: VB goes to Bangkok, Swimming to KL, Tennis to Singapore, Badminton to Manila, MUN in
Singapore, arts convention to Jakarta and KL
Clubs: French, Photo, Thespians, Climbing, Dive, Tennis, Absolute Art Magazine, Habitat for Hummanity, Make-up for Theater, Children's Home, Dance Club
Seoul: Seoul Foreign School: 1500 students: IB program: beautiful campus and theater: no uniform: snow
Sports/Activities: (website down due to summer break/updates)
Lima: ColegioRoosevelt: 1425 students: uniforms (white polo, blue bottoms): IB program:
Sports/Activities: swim team, drama
Bucharest(timing off): American International School Bucharest: 703 students: IB Program: no uniforms: snow
Sports/Activities: 09/10 tennis to Latvia, swim to Budapest, HS volleyball to Warsaw, chorus to Prague
Sao Paulo: Graded School American School Sao Paulo: 1195 students: IB program: MS Class Without Walls: suburb of Morumbi,
Sports/Activities: a/s MS chorus, MS Destination Imagination (Od of Mind), MS theater, no swim, HS volleyball, MUN, HS "The Talon" magazine,
Hong Kong: Hong Kong International School: No IB: 2640 students:
Sports/Activities: swim team, tennis, climbing wall, jazz dance, HS Musical Theater club, MUN, Chamber choir, MS In-step, MS sailing, HS Interim (HS international week w/out walls), PEAK (MS China week w/out walls), Camp (3 days/2 nights elem trip)
Plenty of time to ponder yet, and I'm sure everything will change once we have a real list in our hands. But the researching and planning are 1/2 the fun.
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