Dear Friends,

Hi! Happy New Years a little late! How are you? I hope you had a good Christmas! For Christmas, my friend Jenny got a new bike. Her sister Christy had a bike, but she didn't, so she was getting left out when we went bike riding. Now, we can all go bike riding together. We like to ride up to the soccer field and also down a hill by my house. My friend Jenny likes to climb poles. It is one of her favorite things to do at my house. That is what she sometimes does when Christy and I go bike riding by ourselves.

What did you get for Christmas? Mommy & Daddy made me a Barbie doll house with couches, a little stove, a fridge, a bed and other furniture. They used my Barbie doll bunkbed in it. The house also came with a mirror and a clock. I like playing in it now. My friend Christy, who did not like Barbies before, now likes playing in my Barbie doll house everyday. Now, she asks me all the time if we can play in it even though she's almost nine.

Now I am 6 3/4. I still have green eyes and blonde, curly hair. Last night I had a sleepover with Jenny and Christy. I like having sleepovers because I get to go see Laura their little sister, and Kenneth their little brother. We don't go to bed early at sleepovers. We get to talk an hour past our bedtime. 8:00 is our bedtime and we get to talk to 9:00. We still don't fall asleep at 9:00, but we do have to stop talking then.

How is winter this year? We don't have winter here - we have dry season. Dry season is when it is really dry. In the rainy season, we have lots of rain (but no snow). In dry season, we don't have much rain, so it gets really dusty and our feet get really dirty.

Now, I'd like to answer some of the questions some of you wrote me:

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I did a treasure hunt to find all the pieces of my Barbie house. The last clue made me run all the way to Scotts' house and when I got there, they gave me a clue that said I had to run back to my own house. When I got back, I found the Barbie doll house all set up!

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In school, I am learning about people in the old times, like Joan of Arc. Joan of Arc is one of my favorites. I like doing Reading for Understanding too. I finished that book. Now I am starting a book called Inferences. It sounds like "In France's". It is going to be reading stories and answering questions about them. In math, I am learning about times and dividing and also fractions. I haven't got to long dividing yet. Jenny & Christy are on that.

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No, I don't do school on vacation. Only on regular school days. Saturdays are vacation days for me.

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We went to Kribi where there is a big beach. We went swimming and saw crabs. When we got tired of swimming, we went inside and we played a game called "Exile" on the computer. It was really fun, but had some scary music too. It was like a mystery we had to solve. We also went to a waterfall. One of the only ones that flows into the ocean at high tide. Except we went at low tide so there wouldn't be any waves.

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Pharoah (my dog) and Tinkerbelle (my cat) are doing fine. Tinkerbelle had kittens while we were on vacation. She had quadruplets. She had her quadruplets inside one of my clothes drawers. We named the four kitties Snowflake, Prince, Bandit, and Tiger. Tiger is the runt. She is the smallest but also the cutest of the batch. Now they are getting much bigger and we've given away a few already. The problem is that two of them keep running back to our house, because we gave Bandit to our neighbors next door and Snowflake is in the house after that.

Oh, I hear Bandit at the door right now. I have to take him back, so I guess I'll see you later!

Love,

Rachel