Saturday afternoon downtown

Our weekend started early with an overnight get-away at a hotel while my parents watched the kids.  (this is pretty much the optimal way to begin a weekend!)

Matt and I spent most of Friday morning working on renewing our local drivers licenses.  In the past three weeks I've done paperwork to renew my ND drivers license, my local drivers license, and passports for both of the girls.  In other words, I'm just about done with filling out forms and waiting in lines and chasing random papers and all sorts of other frustrations that come with the territory.  My new ND license is good for 6 years and my local license for 10 years (woohoo!) and the girls get another 5 years with their new passports.  So I seriously bought myself some time this past week.  [Of course with five children and minor passports only valid for five years.... well, we renew a lot of passports.]

It feels good to have a few of those 'biggies' behind me.  Life as an expat adds all sorts of layers and levels of complications to life :)

This morning Matt and I arrived home to a house full of smiling children.  After we snuggled and hugged and heard the recounting of the previous 24 hours we headed out on our Saturday adventure.  First stop, the subway line.  Destination: downtown.

[Lydia and John Paul were buddy partners all day long.]

In the mall area of a subway stop we saw this store selling all sorts of creative dressers.  One had license plates covering the drawer fronts.  From NC of all places!  

Then it was off to the science museum.  The children and I are somewhat frequent visitors but it was Matt's first trip.  Confirmed what I've known all along - he is the perfect science museum daddy.  

As we left the science museum the familiar "I need a snack" chorus started up.  The alleyway was lined with fruit sellers who were happy to oblige.  Pineapple for everyone.  

We crossed over to the big square right on top of the subway stop.  This is the very center of downtown where the major east-west artery crosses the major north-south artery.  

There's the Chairman (facing south) presiding over the citizens.  Behind him is the science museum.  Directly in front of him is a beautiful plaza, complete with fountains and foreign children dancing in the spray :)  

It seemed most appropriate to take a few more pictures.  

Boredom is not a problem around here :)