There was a national holiday right before the Easter holiday so we had an extra long holiday, yay! We took the girls to an amusement park one afternoon for a few hours and they certainly enjoyed themselves.
Time to fly our plane:
Now an elephant:
One of the joys of Laura's life: rides that go round and round.
A yummy dish of cod that Mother prepared for our Easter dinner. Too much goodness!
Messy, happy monkey after filling her belly with her grandma's good food:
Easter Sunday: Alina reading the first clue of the treasure-hunt I prepared for them.
With more clues and the little chocolate eggs she found along the way:
Uncle Rafa being his bothersome self:
Still at it:
At last the treasure was found (behind the leaves):
And what a treasure it was!
Laura with her treasured chocolate eggs and a small puzzle book of the Easter story:
Guarding her chocolate from mean uncle Rafa:
She was probably telling him to bugger off ... in her own special language.
Patiently waiting for the guests to arrive for our Easter brunch:
The delicacies Grandma prepared for everyone:
One of the days we took the girls to the movies to watch Rio, but alas, even though we did arrive more than an hour earlier, there weren't any more tickets. Bummer! We had stood in lines for over an hour (me with the girls to buy the tickets and use the bathroom and Daddy in the supermarket) only to find out that we wouldn't be able to watch the movie after all. Thankfully, there was another kid movie showing (Hop) which we were able to watch so our outing wasn't wasted.
Oh yes, and I was able to study quite a bit and amazingly enough, I completed one of the papers I have to turn in next month in one day. That was a relief because up until then my mind was blank, aside from a few abstract ideas that floated around in my head without going anywhere.
Having accomplished that was better than all the chocolate and yummy-ness that was to be had during the holiday! And that's saying a lot ... for me.
If you have small children and a full-time job, I don't recommend enrolling in an university. Maybe it's just me, but this is a sure recipe for chronic exhaustion and less time with your family.
The studying part is just great. It's finding the time to study, think, and study some more that's quite difficult.
Currently, the time I have to study is from 6:30 - 8:45 a.m. while at the same time giving breakfast to Laura, making beds, tidying the rooms, getting ready for work, and getting Laura ready for her day. Later I have from 8:00 - 10:00 p.m. which is after the girls are in bed, the dishes are washed, and I've taken a shower. And then of course, I have the weekends. And holidays, such as this one.
Exercise is non-existent. "Making time for it" doesn't exist in my world. A day has only so many hours and my body needs a certain amount of hours of sleep which it hasn't gotten in a VERY long time. Continuous lack of sleep, working in front of a computer all day, and studying in front of a computer when I have the time, all contribute to my exhausted state of being.
Last week Alina innocently asked me during lunch: "Why do you put that black stuff under your eyes?" She was referring to the dark circles under my eyes which I guess were extremely dark that day. AND I was using concealer.
I informed her that I don't "put it on", it's dark because I'm tired. To which she replied, "Yeah, it's all purple and ugly". Sweet child. What she hasn't discovered yet is that it's hereditary. My mom did tell her to go look in the mirror.
She didn't get the point.
I wasn't familiar with it because I skipped it when I was a child, but my almost-7-and-a-half-year-old monkey has gone through -- and thankfully already left -- the phase of disliking and wanting to change her name.
It didn't bother me much that all of a sudden she was dissatisfied with her name. What bothered me were the alternatives she came up with, i.e. Caren and Sharin. The spelling was all her idea as well.
I'm glad this phase was short-lived. She has gone back to being indifferent about her name.
And life goes on.
