Hot Summer Days

The month of June was very hot in Taipei. The good news was that Craig found time to go to his soccer lessons.

Coach Ian gets quite involved in the sessions.

Craig's passing skills still needed some work.

So he received some close coaching from Ian.

The game that ends the sessions is sometimes a step too far for Craig. He loses concentration and watches the other kids play at times.

On this particular Saturday, after the morning soccer lesson the boys headed up into the hills to Taiwanese Grandma's house. The water in the pool wasn't as cold as last time.

Instead, it was refreshing and lots of fun.

The girls started blowing soap bubbles to distract Craig from his jumping. The ploy worked brilliantly.

After drying off, the kids moved inside to play some other games. Graham insisted on playing with Aunty Jessie.

He only consented to playing with his cousin Soit-Jade if Aunty Jessie stayed nearby.

The next day the boys went to an indoor play centre to escape the heat. This is Craig sliding into plastic balls.

He went down this slide more times than his dad could count.

There's other things to do like climb this pyramid and sit on the top provocatively waiting to get pushed off.

Graham preferred this rather sedate merry-go-round.

Mum also got involved in the sliding.

The slide was a bit big for Graham.

There was a group of kids from the extended family at the play centre. Some of the girls in the group wanted to have their picture taken with Graham but it was hard to get them all looking at the camera at the same time.

Very hard.