There was no rain this week and the locals made the most of it.

Look closely and you'll see the swimsuit clad folks out on the lawn in the park.

 Thursday, I picked up Grace from school an hour early so we could have some solo time.

Super swinger

On the walk home from school, we walked through this group of teenagers who were launching kites they had built.  They were awesome and huge.  There was one kite the shape of a tetrahedron that was at least 10 feet tall.

Sam took this picture of a crew carrying their space shuttle kite up the hill for launching.  Sam forgot his homework at school, so he had to walk back, and he got to see the shuttle in flight.

Katie is super proud of herself for finding her way home from school by herself twice this week.  It still feels odd to see little kids out on the street walking by themselves, but it is commonplace here.

Dave ran his first orienteering race.  He came home covered in mud (and with his map in hand).  He had a good race, except he thought he was more clever than others and took a "short cut" to the second check point and got lost.  That added 20 minutes onto his race time.

In this picture you can see another goofy thing about the geography of where we are living - the TV satellite dishes point DOWN!