A week and 3 Days

If you ever feel like heading off to Vietnam with friends for a week just let us know. If we can't join you on your adventure we will at least watch your kids. That's right, we watch kids...all different sizes of kids too.

We have some friends that went to Vietnam but weren't planning on taking their kids and asked us to watch them. It would only be for a week and the youngest one is in 2nd grade. She made up a schedule for every day, had meals planned and everything. Let me just tell you this family is amazing to start. They are happy, fun loving people, and all very well behaved. We were thrilled to help these great people.

Because most of the time was during the week, we couldn't really do much. Kiddos got home at 2:30 and 4:30 and bed time was scheduled for 7:15. They each went to their rooms at that time but were allowed to read until their respective lights-out times. I'm telling you, these kids could not have been easier. Even the youngest would come home from school and pack her lunch for the next day. I just had to make a half a sandwich in the morning. Yup, she had the exact same lunch every day; down to her half a peanut butter and raspberry jelly sandwich. :)

We stayed up late and played Settlers of Catan one night and Saturday we went out. We took public transit to 2 different bookstores and looked around.  We passed some vendors in our wanderings and looked at their weird offerings. Don't get the dried kiwi...it is not at all pleasant to the tongue. We figured, pineapple is delicious and dried pineapple is tasty, kiwi is delicious and dried kiwi is...nasty! We had to go get ice cream to set our our tongues right. It was a nice day out and we think the kids had fun.

It was weird having to lay down the law though. Tell them to practice piano when they tried to sneak out of it, or that it was lights out. My favorite was waking up the oldest, the two youngest got up on their own, but she took some coaxing. And then seeing her eat her standard Hot Pocket for breakfast every morning; till she ran out and switched to hot dogs... these kids are weirdos. On the last night before their parents came back I got them to clean their rooms. The youngest was amazing. I went in once and asked her to address the mound on her desk. A good, long, while later she called me in to inspect. O.O it was gone! When I asked if she had just crammed it in her closet or under her bed, she proudly opened all her closet doors to show that everything was put neatly in its place. She is in 2nd grade. She is quiet and odd (eating her cereal without milk), but she is amazingly happy and obedient.

I am sure they get it from their parents. They are some of the happiest people I know. And so loving. They set up a small gift every other day for us to give to the kids with a note about it and to remind them they were being thought of. Little notebooks to write their adventures with us in. Cute socks that match each kids' likes. Even mechanical pencils in their favorite colors because they know how much their kids like pencils. Weird! It was so adorable and I loved it. Their whole family was a great example to us and we got great ideas and things that we want to have in our family.

I am so glad we were able to watch these three Days and that Mom and Dad had a great time in Vietnam. It was a wonderful learning experience for me and we had fun doing it.