Botanical Gardens and the Monkeys I saw!!!

ON Thursday my 4 middle schoolers in Jackson dorm had no school because of parent teacher interviews so I had them home with me. It was a great chance to spend time with them in a small group and just have more of those moments to feel special than they would get in a group of 16. It was a pretty incredible day together. We started off with them all getting up the same time as the rest of the dorm for breakfast - now I saw no logic in that but evidently the boys had been waiting all week for my special eggs and couldn't wait to get up!

The girls both have an older sister who had to go to school and though they tried they couldn't sleep through that.

I definately slept in if I could on days off even when I was in gr. 7 and 8.

A flower floating down the river on the water.

There were beautiful flowers and trees everywhere in the Botanical Gardens. It was very rainforest'ish and Brandi and Kyra were with us... or we were with them! Brandi texted me to say they were going and asked if I wanted to come.

I said "SURE! if I can bring my 4 kids along".

We had the best time with these four...

This is a Frangapanni. They are very common here and often have pink in them also. This was one that had fallen from the tree it was on. My kids were having so much fun running all over the grassed hills and hanging out. We had a frisbee and football and they just were enjoying being out and free. I told them to stay together and within Whistle shot... :) Brandi was amazed at how much like real brothers and sisters they were. That is the cool thing about our family style dorms. They have boys and girls of all ages in each dorm to encourage the family atmosphere and it works marvelously (most of the time!) .

The Botanical gardens are quite famous for the 'wreched monkeys' - lots of people carry a stick which discourages them from approaching. You shouldn't bring food and its a big no no to feed them though we saw a guy doing it and thus I captured a few good close-ups.
They look cute but will scratch you for food.

There are a lot of kinds of monkeys in the park too - we saw ones much bigger than these but they were a long ways off. Overall - is crazy to me to walk in jungle rainforest areas and see wild monkeys wandering about.
I always say to myself "Dorthy, you are not in Kansas anymore!"


And these are the real monkeys! There was a waterfall that ran down into a river that was as deep as past the knees in places - well - being a responsible adult, I suggested that we all get in! I am sure that will not come as a big surprise to most of you!
I took pictures and so I wasn't in on the waterfights... next time!
Brandi and Kyra, myself and the kids played in the water for a long time.

The girls and their Aunt Lana!

These are some of the beautiful kids that I get to love on every week!
Where else in the world would I be spending time with an American (who grew up in Africa and Cambodia), a Tanzanian, A Korean and a Cambodian student in one day. This is a picture of my life at Dalat and there is no where I'd have picked to be rather than with these 4 that day.

After we finished we stopped for Slurpees on Aunt Lana!

What a great joy my job is - If you are jealous right now - you should be!