Random thoughts

Very peaceful moment here. Brynn just woke up from a two and a half hour nap. Pippa is having guitar lessons with Leny and Tasha is learning Mandarin with Laoshi Ding. I even managed a half hour nap myself, now I'm feeling refreshed and ready for a swim once all the lessons are over.

Loving the homeschooling 'classical music appreciation' time. Today it's Mozarts Allegro vivace horn concerto.

Awesome to see our church on the heritage map at the city gallery today. They've revamped the whole exhibit, it's even more brilliant thanks it was. Very interactive and engaging. Perfect for teaching about 'our island home' in line with the year 2 British curriculum.

Happy sisters loom banding together. Definitely the latest craze in our house. The plaster on Pippa's chin is from a water play injury on the balcony yesterday afternoon.just a bit of glue needed at the hospital to stick the wound together.

We had a lovely three days in Melaka. We walked and saw sights, we ate and drank, and we swam. Much fun was had by all. Most interesting was seeing how much the place has changed in the eight years since we were last there. It's really cleaned up and modernised. The boat trip on the last morning showed us just how much growth and building is going on. Well done Melaka!

A couple of families are getting together to weed, plant, then maintain the vegetable garden at church. Fun Saturday morning activity.

Pips has been doing a Lego robotics course the last two weeks and she's now completed module 1,ready to join the homeschooling group on module 2 on Monday mornings. She's picked it up really quickly and loves it. Engineering, basic programming and understanding mechanisms all included - this is one of the many perks of homeschooling, time to try out (and master) new skills. Happy days.

Pippa spotted this beautiful building from the Esplanade rooftop so we walked over and took a tour then spent some time drawing it. We're doing architecture as a topic at the moment. The visitor centre even had a guide for kids where they could identify things within the church and put stickers on a map. That went down a treat. Next stop Malacca in Malaysia for a weekend break, lots of beautiful Dutch architecture there.

Hot walk this morning with the homeschooling group for our nature hike. The kids found a shallow stream with lots of rocks and LOTS of mud. Great fun was had by all and we've made some new friends that live close to us! This was followed by showers all round and some mandarin lessons, but they still managed to squeeze in a bit of reading.

I've finally taken over the 6.30am dog walk and I'm loving it. I can hear frogs, kingfishers, cicadas and lots of other bird song. Such a lovely time of day to be out. Half an hour of peace and quiet.

Chilling on the beach listening to good live music.