End of summer

After we got back to Hong Kong, we had about a month before school started.  After our trip to Legoland, Tommy had a renewed interest in his legos.  He likes building things with his imagination, but gets frustrated when he builds things with directions because it takes him so long to find the right pieces.  We decided to take the time to sort his legos to make it easier.  We spent many hours this summer working on legos.

The weather was HOT, so we spent a lot of time inside or at the pool.  The kids had fun at the pool, especially at Splash Night.  They love swimming and have both improved greatly.  Charlotte still isn't to the point where she can swim on her own without an adult within arm's reach.  Hopefully, after swim lessons at school and more trips on the weekends, she will be swimming on her own soon.

Having fun at the pool

We also made a trip to Disneyland.  I was hoping the crowds would be light if we went during the week.  Unfortunately, there were a lot of tourists there from Asia, especially mainland China, visiting while the kids were out of school.  That should change when the new Disneyland in Shanghai opens next year.

We were excited to go to the new Frozen Village.  Well, actually, Charlotte was excited.  Tommy was not excited, but agreed to go.  We had to wait awhile, but luckily most of the wait was in the air-conditioning.  Then we sat in a small auditorium.  Two hosts came out, speaking Cantonese (with English subtitles on screens).  Then Anna came out, speaking English.  The basic premise of the show was Anna was throwing a surprise party for Elsa and had hired a choir, but they had been snowed in and couldn't make it.  She asked the audience to sing instead.  Then they played clips from the film with the words along the bottom for us to sing along with.  They also had actors dressed up like Elsa and Kristoff.  When the show was over, you went out into the village which had fake snow.  You could line up to sled down a small hill, but the line was very long and we wanted to ride other rides, so we decided to skip it.  The best part about the Frozen Village is it was nice and cold.  It felt good as it was really hot outside.

Waiting in line

With Sven on the fake snow

We also made trips to a few museums, including the Maritime Museum, which we hadn't been to before.  It overlooks the harbour so you can watch the real boats as you learn about boats.  The kids enjoyed it and we met Tom for lunch afterwards which made it even better.

I still haven't gotten used to other people trying to take pictures of my kids.  There was a fake freight  car with a video game inside where you had to try to load the cargo ship.  My kids were watching a Chinese boy playing the game.  The boy's mom started taking pictures of her child, so I had my kids move out of the way so they wouldn't ruin her picture.  I had them come out next to a display so I could get their picture in the meantime.  I was surprised when the mom stopped taking pictures of her kid and came over to get a picture of my kids posed in front of the display.  Then, when they went back to watch the video game, she tried to get Tommy and Charlotte to pose with their son.  We just said "no, thank you" and moved on.

Tommy and Charlotte trying to load the cargo ship

Posing for a picture

Overall, the last month of summer went relatively quickly and we coped with the heat much better than last summer.   We had a good time.  By the end of August, we were all ready for the kids to start school.