Can you believe that in one of the world’s major cities you can find flamingos, ducks, streams and ponds, and beautiful Spanish and English gardens – all on a rooftop?! This magnificent place is called the Kensington Roof Gardens in London. The gardens cover 1.5 acres of land on top of the former Derry and Toms department store building in central London.

Check in with us all week to see more spectacular gardens from Michael’s and my travels!

The post Garden Week! appeared first on Molly and the Magic Suitcase.

Lots of people like the adventure Michael and I had in Rio. A place called Surprise Ride put our book in an activity box! A lot of kids already have it. Everything in it is about Brazil and the summer games.

It’s so fun to think about! We had a great time in Rio and we’re glad we get to share it with so many other kids. We have a picture of it!

You can see it at their web site, too!

The post Curious About Our Rio Adventure appeared first on Molly and the Magic Suitcase.

The post More About Rio appeared first on Molly and the Magic Suitcase.

Michael and I just got back from a beautiful city called Rio de Janiero. It’s a gorgeous oceanside city in Brazil, in South America — and the home of the 2016 Summer Olympics! Our favorite part of Rio was the music. They have instruments there we’ve never seen before. There was one that looked like a fishing rod to us. It’s called a berimbau. It has a single string and you play it by hitting the string with a bow. It sounds like a bass guitar, but you also use a shaker with it called a caxixi. ‘Berimbau’ is also the title of an old, well-known song.

There was also a pandeiro. It looks like a tambourine, but it’s different. The jingles have a different noise and the drum itself is used more often than with a tambourine. We also saw a large drum, called an atabaque. It is often made with special wood from a jacaranda tree.

One way they use all these special instruments is to play music along with a form of dance and a martial art called capoeira. You can see videos online – it is amazing!

Rio was an awesome city. There’s so much to explore everywhere we go!

The post Awesome Music in Rio de Janeiro appeared first on Molly and the Magic Suitcase.

Michael and I were so lucky to get to visit the island of Puerto Rico. It has such fun water activities. We played volleyball on the beach, went snorkeling, and went to an awesome water park. We also got to visit the rain forest. They have an amazing number of animals there, and beautiful waterfalls, and ziplines. Puerto Rico is actually an American territory, and it’s flag is similar to the US flag.

The post Trip to Puerto Rico appeared first on Molly and the Magic Suitcase.

The post Music! appeared first on Molly and the Magic Suitcase.

The post Thai Fruit Carving appeared first on Molly and the Magic Suitcase.