Eight is great!

Recently, Tori celebrated her eighth birthday with a few close friends and a “mystery” party. While the girls ran around the apartment looking for fingerprints and clues, Phil and I tried to figure out how Tori was already turning eight! It really is a mystery how little baby Tori in Romania became a second grader in Hong Kong. Despite our disbelief, she is all about eight- reading, writing, swimming, and climbing. She is non-stop energy these days playing all her sports and playing with her friends and of course with her biggest fans, her brother and sister.

This year’s mystery party was based on Tori’s love for reading mysteries (the non-scary kind only!). She is constantly writing secret codes and maps, typically to elude the prying of Adam and Royce. In addition to the mystery part of the party, we also had our very first sleep-over at this house. Though one little girl opted out, two girls spent the night in Tori’s room with Tori and Royce. We were not really sure what to expect but all the girls got into bed and laughed and talked until they fell asleep mid-sentence just before ten pm. All in all, it was pretty easy and fun and a good little step for us into a new world of big kid things.

Going forward the next big kid decision for Tori is whether or not to she should go into a 3rd and 4th grade combination classroom or into a straight third grade classroom next year. The kids’ school offers both options and despite their efforts to educate the parents to the differences, these differences appear subtle and a bit lost on a transient student body. We do plan to be here for all of Tori’s third grade year but beyond that is more unclear. In the meantime, we are happy to enjoy what we have got; an excited eight year old with a whole new year of adventures ahead of her.