Playgroup Fun this Year!

I have been so lucky to meet a great group of great friends here in Taipei and we have enjoyed lots of fun play dates together.  Our group meets up once a week and Elli looks forward to it each week!  I haven't been posting these much, but since it's the end of the year I will do a recap of this year's playgroups.  They are in no particular order since I don't have all the dates right on them, but you can tell by Sienna which ones were done earlier in the year.

Candy Exhibit.  All items made from candy.  

A little difficult for toddlers to keep hands off, but still lots of fun!! 

Xue Xue Fun Learning Center in Da-Zhi.  This center has several rooms with different things for kids to do in each one. 

Video Star room-  Complete with Gangnam style music video you can perform with.

Magnetic shapes to explore and create on the Magnetic Wall

Light Room- Wall reacts to hand touches by making balloons of different sizes the longer your hand is there.  You can pop balloons by hitting the wall.  They have animals and other light shows too.  

Water Balloon Fun Day

Kidsburg Play Center and Puppet Show

Taiwan really knows how to do indoor play areas.  They are super fun and really popular!!! 

Elli LOVED the big slide above.  She couldn't do it enough!

Ball shooter

This puppet and kid show was really fun and my girls (not too hard to miss in the crowd below) sat so well and watched with amazement.  The only weird part was when the sun acted out having really painful bowel movements (complete with farting sounds) and she pooped out some eggs (which turned out to be women).  Really wierd and inappropriately gross.  Apparently its an old chinese folk tale?

 Elli's good friend Makayla! Makayla moved back to America but Elli still talks about her.  We just got a surprise Christmas package from Makayla for Christmas and Elli was thrilled!

Fun at the zoo: Many outings here! 

                                                                Butterflies!

Old Pig- so many wrinkles, really wierd looking

                                                                    Pigmy Hippos- too cute

                                                      Monkeys

waiting for the zoo train to arrive

Lemurs

Playing with a water pump

Free Kids Play Center-

Taiwan made a bunch of these across the city to "relieve the burden of parenting" and encourage people to have kids.  Really makes you want to have more kids when they put it that way, huh.  Also was funny that when they first opened you had to have one parent per kid, so I couldn't go alone with my girls-- really helping promote more kids.  Later they changed it and now you can have 1 parent per 2 kids.

Elli is really good at the rock wall!!

Peek a boo!

 Puppet Museum
We had a great time one day in the small but kid friendly puppet museum next to the Living Mall.  They kids had a great time exploring the world of strings, watching an animated puppet show, and then making their own shadow puppet show. Then we went and played on the playground after!

 Can't. get. out. what. is. this.

 Playground and Park off Wende MRT with Raleigh and Teresa

 This pic reminds me of how much Sienna has grown since we got here

Nearby with Julienne, who has since moved to South Korea.

4th of July Independence Day Party Playgroup:

Although only a few are Americans are in our playgroup, everyone was invited to enjoy some traditional American fun. We had a story about Independence day, crafts, and a "real" fireworks show!

 We even let our Canadian friends get creative with the craft leaving off the blue strip! Good job Cathy.

Fireworks q-tips and popsicle American flags. Great friends to share with! 

 Ballet Night: A night out with Mommy to the Ballet joined by playgroup friend's Ciarra and Isabelle.

Reacting dramatically to the "scary" low drum music in the beginning.  So funny.

 Dancing in the lobby during intermission.

 Playgroup at the ACC: American Community Club with Raleigh, Cole (in US now headed to Tokyo), and Sophie (upstairs neighbors)

 Miniature Museum: complete with a Nazi Museum curator that kept pushing signs saying be quiet into our kids faces.  This despite the fact that the museum had kid friendly stamping stations and nobody else in the museum.  She was unbelievably rude so I just told Elli to be loud anyway.  What is she going to do?  kick me out?  The museum wasn't that large, so I would be done anyway.  This is not the first taiwan museum worker that has told my kids to be quiet in a kids area (when we weren't even very loud), and it won't be the last.  It also won't be the last time that I argue with them or simply ignore them and make it even worse.  That's my style.

Luckily we got to play on a playground and eat lunch nearby. 

Cute Lily and Maddie!

Some Taiwan school kids were all too thrilled to help our cute kiddos on this teeter totter.

Very important conversation occurring here.

Friends

Kids area at the Science Museum.  Also a very frequented place.  Love it for kids of all ages. We have gone here a lot but I really only took pictures the first time we went, thus the baby Sienna! 

 I am not always as good at taking pictures as I was when we first arrived, so I am sorry to say some of our more recent additions to our playgroup are not featured here.  I really am very appreciative for this group of people and for all the fun we have had together with our children.  It has made exploring the city and getting out of our little apartment so much more enjoyable for me. THANKS SO MUCH GOOD FRIENDS!  Looking forward to more fun outings with you this year with you (especially when this rain lets up).