Happy Halloween!

It is Halloween today, and the girls have a party, parade and trick 'r treating at school. Tonight we'll have trick 'r treating in our estate. And street Braai's (BBQ). So when the kids go around the block collecting the candy the parents are in front of their house having a BBQ, a braai as they call it in SA, and of course sipping some delicious pinotage ;-) Not bad, since it is spring here, the weather is just gorgeous! We don't need layers of clothes under the costumes for once, what a nice change! As I told you before the girls are dressed up as vampires today, but first let me show you an overview of the girls costumes over the years:
2002, this was not really at Halloween, but it is their first dress up. We were still living in Thailand and this picture we used for our adoption announcement.

2003, Their first real Halloween. The girls had no clue yet why they had to dress up. It was georgous weather and we had these beautiful pots of mums on the deck. Fall is such a nice season, especially in the North East!

2004, JJ a dragon and Jezz an unicorn. They really start understanding the concept of Halloween by now, and they think it is really fun!


2005, Jezz as a chicken and JJ as a pumpkin. Jezz gives JJ a 'chicken kiss'

2005, since we have more than 1 party to go to, they also wanted a princess outfit!


2006, by now they are 'pros' at the dress-up department and 1 outfit is for sure not enough! Here in traditional Thai Akha style, but it wasn't princess'ish enough so we also had to buy these brides outfits. Since the Xmas tree shop has really cheap outfits, I didn't mind that much...and they look so adorable!


2007, JJ as a witch, Jezz as wonder woman, but same deal as the last years. They used some older outfits this time to go to different parties, one as a bride (JJ) and groom (Jezz)and the other one as 2 witches. They even made this whole witch brew that I had to drink!


And this year, they are both vampires. This picture is taken at school today, they didn't wear their wigs with really long hair. And for once we only have 1 costume, since here in SA we don't have the abundance of choices we used to have in the USA. But they are fine with it, and happy to be a vampire....aarghh!

Jezz on the left, JJ on the right, first time (besides the Thai costumes) that they wanted the same)2008, trying to look really scary! They look so big already, only 6 but in this picture they seem so much older!

Enjoy your Halloween, trick 'r treating, BBQ's or Braais or other Halloween gatherings you are invited to tonight! Don't make it too scary ;-)

Mireille

International Week at school

So the girls had International week at school, and it was so much fun! On Wednesay they had to dress up in their traditional costume and walk in a parade. Each country was represented with their flag and all the kids walked behind their flag. On alphabetical order, can you imagine 72 countries were represented at this parade!!
It was amazing to see all these beautiful dressed up kids proud as can be walking and being cheered by all the parents and other visitors. It brought chills to my bone and tears in my eyes just to see it!!

Juliet's class

Jasmine's class

As you can see in these pictures there is hardly one kid from the same country, Juliet has 17 kids and Jasmine 16 kids in the class, almost all from different backgrounds. Isn't that just amazing??

The parade was held on the football fields of the school, with in the background the skyline of Johannesburg, a sunny day very clear sky, it was just amazing. As the headmaster said...truly a United Nations, we could take an example by these children. Working, playing together, no language barriers...at least if there is, they will work it out by just playing and being friends of each other...the language will follow! It is the greatest lesson in the world to just hang out here at school with all these precious children from so many different backgrounds and cultures, just being themselves and being proud of who they are. I just loved that parade of nations.


Then on Friday they had to represent their country by books, food, photo's of their traditional housing, artifacts from their home country. And then the 1st graders had to explain to the older kids in elementary school what their country was about. Show the older kids what kind of food they eat, what clothing they wear and what is so special about their country. The cutest speeches I heard....it is so great to see all the kids dressed up in their traditional dress standing behind a table with all the goodies from their country telling their fellow students what in our case THAILAND was all about. We of course could choose between Holland or Thailand to represent, since the girls have dual citizenship. But the outfit they had for Thailand is more princess like, so the choice was easy!! And they truly looked like little Thai princess's.
At the end of each presentation we could sample the yummy food each table had made. The Thai chicken sate with peanut sauce was a big hit...everybody loves Thai food, so the 50 chicken on a stick went quickly ;-)

But I enjoyed tasting all the new stuff, like the Korean, Russian, Tunesian food I hadn't had before. What a great idea this was and so well organised, it truly was an international event and experience! ....even for us, who already traveled so much, there are always new countries and cultures to discover. How fun!

Have a good day y'all! (click on the picture to see a bigger size)Mireille