How did we welcome the new year in a foreign land? Well, it was a quiet affair in our neighborhood except for the fireworks display that can be seen in our house. Most of our neighbors are from the province so, the all went back to their provinces. So, it was just us and a couple of neighbors in our neighborhood.
So, to welcome the new year, our family had our own worship and praying thanking God for the past year and new year. Then, we ended the celebration by letting our kids play with the sparklers. Oh, they had fun!
Then, that afternoon, we all went to the beach and enjoyed ourselves.
The kids enjoying the sparklers.. see, their eyes seem to sparkle too!
Though we enjoyed our time with family in Taiping but we have to leave to do our visa in Penang and go back home for the New Year.
Praise God that getting our Thai visa has been easier for us after all these years. I don’t know why we feel stressed whenever it’s time for us to renew our visas. But it must because of the fact that Thai rules and regulations change a lot and sometimes we are at the mercy of the officers. We’ve heard a lot of stories from our friends about getting denied and stuff. But we’re thankful that we don’t encounter much problems.
So, we got our one year visa and that means we are allowed to stay in the country for another year. Yipee!
We are having a blessed Christmas holidays here in Taiping. Our kids are really enjoying their time with their cousin. They have even met cousins whom they have met for the first time.
Days are being spent, going around the shops to buy gifts and spending a lot of time with family members. We have yet to go to the Zoo and Museum. Going to these places can help our kids to learn a lot about animals and a little bit of history lessons for Taiping.
Remember I posted a week back about bringing our homeschool materials and doing a bit of homeschool for our girl? Well, I brought the materials. It was all in a medium sized bag that’s so heavy to carry. But unfortunately, we were not able to do any homeschool. Oh, they’re just having so much of fun ( and so is the teacher ) that it’s a pity to isolate our child and let her do work.
So, it’s a holiday and we’ll have to wait until we get back home to do ‘serious’ homeschool.
Our kids with their cousins..they met some of them here for the first time.
We watched Rapuzel..oh, that was a great movie..everyone enjoyed it
The kids are excited. We are preparing for our trip to Taiping ( Malaysia) to spend our Christmas there. It has been a long time since our kids have seen their cousins in Malaysia.
All the gifts have been packed and clothes have been sorted. I just need to double check our stuff and put them inside our bags.
It’s officially a ‘homeschool holiday’ though it seems we’ve been on a break from homeschool for a long time since we haven’t been very regular with it. But anyways, we’ll just enjoy this holiday and sort out our schedule and be serious with homeschool once we come back.
My little girl has learned to appreciate books as early as 2 years old since we’ve been reading to her since she was still a baby. But now that she has learned to read, she and her books are just inseparable. She has become a real bookworm and has loved reading her homeschool materials.
When we went to Vietnam, I brought a couple of her books so that she has something to do during our ‘waiting times’. And true enough she enjoyed browsing and reading her books on the train and at the airport.
Here she is, seriously reading Dr. Do Little on the Train on the way to Bangkok
Our girl and her Encyclopedia.. still on the train
and she also did her maths at Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok!:)