It seems just yesterday that I was dropping Kyle off for his first day of preschool.  Now, we are getting ready for first grade!  And, Hannah will become a preschooler.  It's hard to get my head around some days, that here I am in Taiwan, sending my kids to local school (getting even more "local" in September when we move to the cottage fulltime so they can attend the school out here), where they get a Taiwan education and I have to help them with homework written in Chinese.  Facebook has made it even more strange to me, as many of my Taiwanese friends have moved abroad and their children are being raised to attend English-language-education schools.  The world really is an interesting place these days.

We started our summer vacation early, with Kyle's school closing because two kids in his class had the entereovirus.  It is very contagious, and the more serious strains can be life-threatening, so they are pretty cautious.  This threw my "plans" into turmoil, but we are still having some fun.  I have been driving the two kids around, trying out different places like the Science Museum, Riverside Park Children's Festival in Ilan, Happy Bear's gymnastic classes, and a number of different swimming pools.  Fitting my business around the kids is kind of exhausting and it's hard to focus, but last week I met someone who is going to change my life forever - a drop shipping company!  So, come September I hope to be doing minimal shipping myself, offering a better service, and focusing on developing markets and retail sales.  And of course, spending more time caring for and educating my kids. Exercising. Making exotic coffees... well, one can dream, maybe I will even mop the floors!

We did manage to enjoy Kyle's graduation ceremony.  In Taiwan, graduating students get a fancy book of photos, which you pay about about 30USD for.  Here are a few pictures - two from the book and two from the day:

Hannah is of course her gorgeous, color-coordinated self.  She seems to have my sister's flair for fashion.  A couple of pictures of the girl:

I look at Hannah and ask myself, "What did I do to get such a gorgeous little girl?"

She is seriously funny, creating songs all day long that keep the whole family laughing. 

Hannah and Kyle have been roleplaying lots of boy-girl situations recently.  For example, they "went to a party" where there were a lot of girls.  Hannah sent all the girls home, as nobody could be prettier than her.  Prince Kyle chased them all out to make sure they wouldn't come back and Hannah had the choice of boys at the party!  I guess I read Cinderella to them once too often.

Kyle has bronchitis.  I took him to the doctor today.  I think I have a bit of it myself, tonight.  The kids got up at 6:30 this morning, and Richard had been out, so I did the kid duty for the morning.  I was feeling a bit feverish myself earlier this evening and was almost asleep, but Richard woke me up.  Now, everyone is asleep and it's getting close to midnight.  It seems to be fairly common that the husband gets to sleep and the wife doesn't.  I guess we have a lot of things we have to organise and remember, and it's just harder to shut our brains down.  And, we tend to think of the husband more and let them sleep, keeping the kids quiet.  From discussions with friends, it seems a pretty cross-cultural thing, were the men will wake up the women just to have them help find something or to ask a question, whereas the women will try their best to solve any problems themselves, and keep the kids quiet, too.  Anyway, I won't be surprised if I wake up with a bit of a cough in the morning, having had looked after Kyle through his coughing last night.

On that note, I should try to get to sleep before witching hour!