Olympics Excitement and a busy week

Well, the long awaited day, the start of the Olympics, has come and gone! I thought the opening ceremony last night was interesting and impressive and hope that many of you got a chance to see some of it. (Though I'm still slightly shocked at the immense cost of a one time only, never to be repeated show! I heard the price tag was approximately $100 million USD! Oh My!)

This week has flown by for us here in Hong Kong. John has been busy with our visa stuff but we've had some time to do family stuff, too. A typhoon hit nearby and so there were several days of rain and wind here in the city. But today dawned bright and sunny so we decided it was a good day for an outing.

We took the bus to Kowloon Park where there is a beautiful public swimming pool as well as a gigantic stone pillar with a digital display counting down the days, hours, minutes and seconds until the start of the Olympics. All of the displays read "0" today! The pool was about to close for a noon break by the time we finally got there (did I mention before how long it takes to get anywhere in HK?!), so we had to punt. There is a very nice playground in the park as well, so we headed there first, then ate a quick lunch at McDonald's before going into the pool.

Today was one of those days where I had pretty low expectations for the day, and was happily surprised by how it turned out! The pool had lots of shallow areas perfect for my girls, and Christin fell asleep in the stroller almost upon arrival, which was lovely. She slept and we played, and played, and played! Chloe is doing so much better in the water; she's much braver than she used to be, jumping in by herself and floating with just her arm floaties on instead of desperately clinging to John or me. Clara Anne is making some progress in learning swimming skills, as well. Midway through the afternoon I thought we might need to go because Christin wasn't wanting to eat but needed to, but then she finally latched on so we were good to go for another few hours. We just kept on swimming and floating and relaxing in the warm water, finally leaving at 5pm! Wow! Swimming fun times were had by all!

All three girls were sleeping on the bus ride home--Christin in the Baby Bjorn, Chloe in the stroller, and Clara Anne on John's back in the Ergo. They did wake up for a bit of supper and watching some Olympic swimming tonight, but I think everyone is going to sleep well tonight.

But I'm not going to get any sleep unless I stop typing and get to bed! Good Night!