Elementary Fun

Even though the kids are at the same school, the elementary and middle schools function completely separately inside the same campus.  Alex had two days of student-led conferences, which means that the kids were in charge of most of the conference with the parents and teachers.  They had to set goals for the year and plan specific steps to work towards those goals and Matt and I thoroughly enjoyed the time we spent in our conference listening to Alex tell us how he aims to grow this year.  Aside from that hour, he had two days off of school while Ben was still going, so Alex and I went looking for some fun activities.  Our first plan was to check out the waterpark nearby, but the rainy season started with a downpour first thing in the morning, so we had to pick an indoor option instead.

I'd heard about Kidzania at Pacific Place mall and we decided to check it out, although we had second thoughts when we got in line behind a huge local field trip. Alex was easy to find among the group, though!

 

The place is a tiny city where the kids do certain jobs to earn money and can spend their money at other places.  These little cuties were doing a celebratory parade down the street.

Alex was pretty excited to do the flight simulator and I watched on CCTV from downstairs (he's the top right corner)

Kids could spend their money on tiny taxi rides!

We spent (real) money to buy pizza makings and Alex earned some Kidzania bucks working in the pizza parlor to make our lunch.

Nice job!  We enjoyed every bite.

Afterward, he went to work in the cookie bakery, although I'm pretty sure he chose it just to eat the finished product.

 Overall, it was a really cool place but a lot of stuff was in Bahasa and many people spoke minimal English, so Alex got tired of being singled out as the only kid who didn't know what the adults were saying or what was on the videos they showed.  Except for a few other kids, all of the others there were part of field trips so I applauded his effort at enjoying himself someplace that felt pretty foreign.

 

Donuts to go on the way out didn't hurt, either! 

On day 2, the rain kept us indoors again and we checked out a different mall.  Notice a pattern?  When I want to explore something new, I always seem to end up at a mall.  I was surprised to see Halloween decorations everywhere.

We found a pretty fun arcade and had the entire place to ourselves so it was a couple of hours of good fun.

Alex enjoyed the sky-bikes, too, and I'm pretty sure he got to ride extra long since no one else was there. It was fun getting to hang out with just my baby!

 The following week, 4th grade had their overnight retreat at Lido Lakes.  It was a little hard to say goodbye and send him someplace I've never seen, but I knew he would have a great time.  Unfortunately, the buses ran into traffic and their 2-hour drive turned into a 4 1/2-hour drive so they had to cut out a few activities, but Alex had a wonderful time and was happy to be home the next evening.