Baby woodpeckers

There's a woodpecker nest at my parent's house. I think they are red-belled woodpeckers but may also be downy. I managed to get a picture. You can see the red top just starting. There's more than one chick, but it's hard to take a picture down their nest!

Outdoor relaxing on a Fall day

Fall is such a lovely season in Florida, we hang out outside and I try to practice ukulele. Usually she likes to take it from me and strum a little too. I have quail I hatched from eggs I bought off ebay. They are coturnix quail and very cute. They give us a bunch of little eggs.

Dust Bathing

Rescued a turtle!

I saw this turtle trying to cross a busy road, so I had to stop and get it. We moved it to the bank of the canal and took some pictures before letting it go.

Play based learning

I found a wonderful program for my daughter. She's old enough now to enroll in Kindergarden, but I didn't want to limit her to the local schools. She's already reading now, so I'm not concerned so much about academics yet. The program is called Seedlings from Sunflower Creative Arts.

Vietnamese preschool curriculum

So while I was in vietnam I bought a bunch of books. These are the workbooks. They were all very cute, and very cheap, only about 6,000d (basically ~37 cents). I didn't really look that closely while I was in the bookstore, so it ended up that a lot are duplicate material. 

This is a series of books that have a story, pictures to color and letters to practice. The 3-4 year old books practice strokes, while the older ages 4-5 and 5-6 practice letters.

Inside Sample from 3-4 yo book

If you notice, the font used for the story is the same cursive that is taught for writing, so the kids are practicing reading cursive at the same time they learn to write.

3-4 Year Old books

4-5 year old books

5-6 year old books

These two are actually the same material, just presented by different publishers.

Inside of the two books from different publishers.

Visiting Family

Once Tet is started, people spend the first couple of days visiting family and friends. We took a bus to 

Rạch Giá, which was where my mom grew up. And went to visit several different spots where she grew up and people she knew. Here is the kitchen of a house of a neighbor.

These are the water storage jugs, covered to keep mosquitoes out!

 This is the family of one of moms cousins, and the sides of the house is tin. There's a hammock in the bedroom, it's actually a pretty small room.

We went to a temple where my moms grandparents are interred.

Moms Grandparents

In front of the main temple steps

Being tourists! Although the temple is doing well, there's a big addition being built.

She loves the mopeds!

 After the trip to the temple we went back to mom's cousins house for dinner. The concrete floor is a recent addition, it used to be a pond where they'd keep their own fish.

Charcoal braziers

No tables needed around here!

Dinner involved grilled seafood. We had bought some fresh shrimp and fish.

The old red roof part is a bit of moms old house. It's been taken over by newer buildings. I find it bizarre how people just add on there.

Tết is here!

Getting a drink

Stairs

 Today everything is closed and people spend the day at home or visiting family or close friends. So the traffic is much lighter than usual. These are pics of the house, the moped is an electric one I'm borrowing from my uncle. It's pretty fun.

This is the way to the place we're staying. I keep thinking alleyway, since it'd fit one car width, but since no one has cars, it's not a big deal. This really shows how light the traffic is, since normally you get at least several moped in a pic.

Tết  Foods : a pickle plate with dried shrimp, thousand year eggs, pickled shallots. Ban Bao, Thit Kho, rice and noodles.

Li xi: good luck money for the kids.