Oh, mid-semester...

I'm blogging more on my named site now, but still wanted to update family pictures here. Things are going along--time always accelerates as we hid the middle of the semester. I've felt a little shell-shocked lately with efforts to finish out the spring semester, plan the summer, and prep for fall transitions. Emily's been a good listener and we're still working on possibilities. I feel like there are good ways to make it all work, but when I look up definitions of burn-out, they usually fit me too (jobs you can't complete, little feedback, poor work/life separation, etc.). It's not that I'm not making progress--I definitely am--it just sort of feels like I'm running a marathon where someone keeps moving the finish line farther into the distance.

On the flip side, the kids are mostly gleeful and are at a really fun stage now. Eva was dancing to the Dorothy the Dinosaur dvd tonight, Eli's started drawing, and Sam does artistic pasterpieces. I get to go to the zoo with Sam's group on Thursday. They're pretty excellent park goers also. Emily took them to the huge park recently, where they played with friends they see there. They all have pretty good language. Last night I heard Eva talking about the four tastes in local language, so she's really making rapid progress. Sam does more formal translation, and his vocab is also more complex. Eli moved to the big class at church, which takes him out of mom's English class and puts him with 8 or 10 kids his own age. He liked the drawing/cake combo in the class, and so I may take Eva up next week too. They definitely are moving on to new things. This summer should be a lot of fun, since Sam will be at an age he can do camp-type stuff. The three do "pretty well" together, but it's also nice to get them some solo time.

Here are pictures from a recent trip up the mountain to some botanical gardens.