Things are going really well here in Phnom Penh. We are almost finished with the school year and will be heading home for about 6 weeks this summer. The girls have settled in nicely and are really enjoying themselves. As you can see from the photos below they do some wonderful things at their school. Every month they have an assembly where they say hello to new students, goodbye to those who are leaving, have student performances and make general announcements. At this assembly they they had Dragon dancers perform. At one point they let the children "ride" the dragons. Mattie is in the first photo and Emma is in the back peeking around the guy in the second photo.
What happens when other children get a hold of the face painting crayons!
This is just a billboard for Angkor Beer. We always find it amusing as the beer looks like spewing tar.
One of the very exciting things that happened to Emma this year. Alas, no other teeth have come out, to her dismay. She keeps pushing her teeth hoping to loosen a few more. I think she just wants money.
This March we had the awesome pleasure of having one of our best friends, Amy Foster, come to Cambodia for a visit. Of course we had an amazing time. We did all the usual things like visiting Angkor Wat and the other temples and letting the fish eat our feet, but we also went to visit a floating village. This was a first for all of us so quite exciting. The photo below is of a school.
So as we are riding along in our boat we see this really cute little boy off to our left. We think they are just selling drinks. A few minutes before a kid jumped on our boat from another one, sold us some cokes, then jumped back on her boat. You can see her holding her basket of drinks. We are assuming the same thing, and maybe the kid was also selling cokes, but he was also attempting to get us to give him money to pet his snake. Wow. He was probably 4 years old and no more.
This is just someone's house.
This is a woman taking care of her garden, which is on the raft behind her.
Another school
We thought this was really neat as this woman set up a hammock for her child in the boat.
This was (what we assume) a landmine victim. He didn't have a boat and had to use the bowl and paddle it with one arm. It really couldn't have been easy.
There are so many things wrong with the photo below I can't even believe it. I mean really, this child can't be more than 3 and she's using a huge knife on the side of a boat. One wrong move and she's cutting off her finger or is over the side of a boat. Oh, no parent in sight! The kicker is, she can probably already swim like a fish and chop veggies like Emeril. 
Just in case you wanted a little wildlife fix out on the water, just head over to the tourist boat with the crocodiles!
This is the church we went to as we went on a Sunday. It was a little bizarre to be rocking during mass but it was all good. We enjoyed the service. We did get in trouble for not taking our shoes off though.
Here comes the priest!
Here we are with the priest after mass.
Got a little story for ya Ags. Once upon a time in the Kingdom of Cambodia there was an American family who had a visitor. Thinking to show this visitor the unique culture of Cambodia the family took her to the Cambodian Cultural Village in Siem Reap. One of the exciting things one can do is see a local performance. We arrived at the appropriate venue to watch this performance. We really had no idea what it was about but the costumes were pretty so we were prepared to watch. We weren't sure where to sit upon arrival but we managed all right.
We chose to be foreigners not nation. It began with the King and Queen challenging a local warrior to pull the bow from the stone and win the heart of the princess. After many a noble man attempted this seemingly impossible feat the royals decided to look to a foreigner to pull the bow. They had no idea what they were getting when they chose Shawn
The other kind warriors who failed to remove the bow from the stone gave the Noble Shawn much advice.
Shawn watched every move with a determined look in his eye. Determined to win the heart of the princess he followed all advice given to him and then hammed it up even more.
He is alone up here now because Noble Shawn couldn't countenance another warrior sharing the podium with him so he shoved him off 
Alas all the hard work paid off and Noble Shawn was able to retrieve the bow from the stone.
And win the heart of the princess
Off he goes to dress himself in robes of gold and jewels. No man has ever been so lucky.
After what one can only assume was a desperate attempt to turn Noble Foreigner Shawn into a Noble Cambodian the crowned Prince and Princess return to the land to greet their subjects.
Singing and dancing were done in their honor.
Noble Cambodian Shawn ditched his beautiful, perfect American wife, stole their children and moved to a land far far away. The youngest was not happy with this idea so used her magical powers to signal her mother so the girls could be rescued. The mother found her children in the temples of Angkor Wat. She took the mans wig and threw it in a latrine, took his golden bow for pain and suffering and flew with her children back to the land of air conditioning and Sonic. The man quickly realized his mistake and claimed to be under the influence of a cute little puppy (Mattie wrote that part) and begged his wife for mercy. Outcome to be determined. THE END
This was one of the funniest things I have ever seen. Shawn had the crowd roaring with laughter and on the video...I will be happy to make copies for anyone although I've been forbidden to put it on YouTube. Amy and I were howling with laughter the entire time. Shawn hammed it up and was yelling and rolling on the ground and using these exaggerated facial expressions and moving in slow motion. It's a wonder he wasn't an actor. The next day people approached us and told us they saw his performance and thought he was great. He thinks he's famous now.
Amy and I at the top of a temple
Amy and Phoebe thought it was great.
After Amy left (very sadly) we were able to go to a Hollywood/Bollywood night. Bollywood, in case you were unaware is the Indian version of Hollywood. You could dress up in your Hollywood finery, or dress up in your Indian clothes. A very good friend of ours is from India and let us borrow a Sari and clothes for Shawn. She even provided me with a beautiful Bindi ( the dot, although this was not a dot, but a jewel) This was our first turban attempt.
The photo below is of Emma doing a reading during Mass. She did an amazing job and we were so proud of her.
Emma's class at school on a field trip to the National Museum.
The girls and all the gifts they gave me for my birthday!
GRETA
So, I'm almost up to date with the blog. Just need to add a few more things, and of course tell you all about the visit from Hilda and Shawn's cousin Larry who will arrive in Cambodia next week. We can't wait for them to get here! Hope to see everyone soon.
Cheers
