Jacob's Kindergarten Graduation

If we were back in the states and Jacob were in school, today would be his Kindergarten graduation.  Let me tell you a few things that our "kindergartner" has accomplished this year.  Jacob is now reading the last book (book 7) - The Last Battle - in the Chronicles of Narnia series.  He finished level 3 spelling in the All About Spelling program, which is about half way through grade 3 spelling.  He passed grade 3A (half-way through 3rd grade) math with a 96%.  That covers all the multiplication tables, multiplication of tens, hundreds, and thousands, as well as long division.  He has memorized all the states and capitals of the U.S., as well as all the provinces of PNG.  He has memorized an entire book full of Mother Goose rhymes.  He has most recently memorized the poem, Invictus, by William Ernest Henley.  He plays the piano and is progressing well with that.  He goes running 3 times a week, and has run a mile (on a hilly couse) in 9:47, 1.5 miles in 15:09, and 2 miles in 19:39.  Lest you think we are working this kid to death, all his housework, school work, piano, and running, is all done by 12pm everyday, and then he spends the entire rest of the day playing with our neighbors - also homeschoolers - and the rest of the neighbor kids when they get home from school.  He is always exploring, bike riding, playing at the park, painting, building Legos, swimming, climbing trees, jumping on the trampoline, swinging on swings, selling things, playing made up games, playing card or board games, having berry wars, etc., etc.  We think he is quite well-rounded and we are so proud of him!!

Take Two...

On Saturday we finally found another green Eclectus parrot for sale.  There is a roundabout here where people will hang out and sell animals of all types.  Ever since Chipper died, every time I have gone out I have made sure to drive past that spot to see if there were any more parrots for sale.  It has been 4 long months of waiting, but finally we found one!!  He smelled pretty stinky when we first got him, so we gave him a nice long bath right off.  He started squaking in the bath at a regular interval for about 30 minutes straight - it was like a car alarm going off.  We couldn't figure out how to turn him off!!  But finally he stopped.  He is quiet most of the time now, but he can be quite verbal when he wants to.  We were trying to figure out a good name, and Jacob kept wanting something similar to Chipper, like Chopper, Chomper, Cheeper, etc.  Yesterday he said to me, "He was cheaper than Chipper, and he cheeps a lot." He was vying for the name Cheeper.  But we decided to call him "Sir Cheeps-a-lot," or "Sir Cheeps" for short.  He is younger than Chipper was, and can barely walk around and support himself.  Looking online we guess he is somewhere between 4-5 weeks old.  He is so young we actually have to spoon feed him.  I make up a little mash of chick peas, green peas, rice, bananas, and water and drop spoonfuls right down his throat.  He just tilts his head back and opens up his throat and it all goes straight down.  He is a super cute little guy and we are so happy to have him join our family.  Now we have as many pets as people in our family, and coincidentally there are 3 boys and 1 girl for both people and pets!  Dicey has treated Sir Cheeps just like she did Chipper - nasty, nasty!  But this time around we have locked him in his cage so Eli (the other scary monster) doesn't have access without our knowledge.  Hopefully Sir Cheeps will learn to bite and defend himself soon so we won't have to worry about Eli.  Dicey does a great job of keeping the Eli monster at bay!  Anyway here are some pictures.  You can see he's mostly baby feathers at this point.  He's just barely starting to sprout his green feathers.

Annual POMIS UN Concert

The international High School here is called POMIS (Port Moresby International School).  Every year the grade 12 students put on a huge production called the UN Concert.  They have dances from all over the world, some with professional or national dancers, and some with the students themselves dancing.  We went last year and I loved it, so I was excited to go again this year.  We went early to get good "seats."  The crowd really fills up by the end.  We went with our neighbors and took along a picnic dinner.

To start off, they do a flag parade of all the countries of the kids attending the school.  Then they display the flags of all the different provinces in PNG.  It was really beautiful!

As the night progressed, it started sprinkling on us, then raining harder and harder, and at one point the stage was so drenched I think they were about to close down the concert.  They announced there would be one more dance, but by the end of that dance the rain had stopped, so the concert continued.  There were about 25 different dances, and everyone did a great job!!  I was so glad we went, and look forward to next year!

Taurama Beach

Last Saturday we had a fun adventure going out to a private surf club on Taurama Beach.  Our neighbor's brother is heavily into surfing, and while he lived here this was the club he belonged to.  They know our neighbors well, so we were allowed to tag along.  The beach is extremely shallow for a very long way out, and it was a perfect place for little creatures to hang out - like tide pools.

Here is a sample of some of the creatures we found, including a 4 legged starfish, sea anemone, sea urchins, sea cucumbers (or slugs or whatever they are!), crabs, other starfish, etc.

Jacob had fun climbing some trees.

Eli collecting glass - an obsession of his.

The kids had fun playing in the sand.

This was a little pavilion where we ate our lunch - we had to beware of the rotting boards underfoot!!

We played frisbee, bocce ball, volleyball, and the kids dug a couple of pits that turned into water wells.

Definitely a fun adventure and a nice way to spend the afternoon.

Mother's Day at Maternity Ward

No, unfortunately I was not at the maternity ward for myself!  Our neighbors have a friend who works for the Malaysian high commission office, and she asked if we would be willing to help out giving gift baskets to all the moms in the maternity ward here at the general hospital on Mother's Day.  It was quite an experience!  Just getting to the maternity ward was an adventure.  It is near the hospital, but to get to it you have to go on a very bumpy dirt road up a steep little hill.  No one that goes to that hospital has cars anyway, so it's not really a big deal for them.  We didn't get to see the labor ward, but we saw the maternity ward where the moms come after delivery.  It is in a completely different building, and the moms just walk on over carrying their babies as soon as they have delivered!  The ladies only stay for a day usually, so all the ladies there had just given birth within the last few hours to a day.  The building looked like a huge warehouse.  It had a long hallway with rooms off to the sides.  Each room had about 10 beds lined up - 5 on each side - with curtains to separate them.  When we got there they had the moms all lined up outside their rooms in the hallway, ready to get their gifts.  A couple moms couldn't get out of their beds, though.  There was one mom who was in really bad shape, shaking, and obviously having great difficulties breathing.  She had an oxygen mask, but it didn't seem to be helping much.  Her husband was sitting next to her just rubbing her arms and trying to comfort her.  It was really sad that they don't have better facilities for her.  There was another mom who had just had a c-section with twins.  They had both babies in the bassinet tub they provide for the moms.  They were only 4 hours old - so cute!  It was a fun experience, not something I'd be able to see everyday, so I was very grateful for the opportunity to have this experience.