You Can Never Be To Glam To Play Basket Ball

In typical Maddy style you can never be too dressed up for anything. Here she is in heeled plastic dressing up shoes playing basket ball. Not sure how we have avoided A&E. Oh and yes it was warm enough for a strappy top today!

We Wish You A Merry Christmas

Happy Christmas everyone. We have failed miserably with cards due to a shortage of stamps and no trip back to England. For those who didn't receive cards we promise to be more organised next year, however, it really is difficult to get into the Christmas spirit over here.

Happy Christmas and all the best for 2012

Love

Vania, Rich, Isy and Maddy xxx

Love the determination in this photo!

More Cross-Country Success - Well Done Isy

What an amazing day, Isy woke before 6 excited about today's big cross-country race. It was pretty warm today and many of the girls she was racing she didn't know. Isy had a great start and led for most of the race with another girl right on her heels, she was overtaken in the last 200m and took 2nd place. The 2 of them ran a fast race well ahead of the rest of the field and Isy ran 1225m in 4 mins 41 secs which is brilliant. She was gutted she was 2nd but is so pleased with her time. Even better Rich made it to support, think he will be grinning from ear to ear all day.

A few people have suggested Isy goes to the athletic trials at main site school so we may look into that.

We are all incredibly proud and impressed and a little worried that she is faster than us. I asked Isy last night what she thought about when she ran, did she have music in her head or anything she replied "I just think about winning Mummy".

Well done Isy you should be extremely proud of yourself!

Baking Nightmare

As someone who enjoys baking and finds it quite therapeutic the last few months have been quite interesting.
Vanilla extract is not available here(alcohol).
Brown sugar comes in a solid lump (assume this is a heat thing) and you have to bash it with a rolling pin but it still has lumps in it or blitz it in the food processor. See the photo above of the sugar after lots of bashing with the rolling pin.
I can only find wax paper and have had to get Rich to bring baking paper from the UK. When I baked cookies on this paper, which says it can be used for this on the packet, when I opened the oven door it was smoking. If used on cakes I can never get them off the paper.
Eggs are a strange size so you have to add extra and hope you have the right amount in.
I cannot even start to explain the oven!
Oh and if you can figure out the cream, mainly whipping cream here, good luck as it must take days to whip.

Alas, things are getting better with practice but the lemon almond and polenta cake leaves a great deal to be desired, this one has never sunk before. Guess I will not be trying to do "The Great British Bake Off" from here.

Isy's Cross Country

Today the school ran cross country trials in which each KS2 year group boys and girls raced each other. Isy's race was over 1225m and all the children have been training for the last few weeks, I suspected Isy might do quite well but she was amazing and won by a massive distance. We are all incredibly proud of her. I was a little concerned without any of the boys in front of her she would struggle to pace herself, however she just ran and kept going.

Afterwards they children received medals and certificates and it was a great event. Isy is so pleased and now is running against the children from the Main Site British International School on Wednesday. Go Isy!

One extremely proud Mummy xx

Maddy's Year 2 Sports Day

Unfortunately, due to heavy rain Maddy's class were unable to travel to the main British International School for Year 2 Sports Day, instead the 2 classes from Salwa ran their own sports day here. The children had a great time as did the competitive parents who also dressed in house colours and actively supported the event.