The newest Rose-bud

May seems to be a good month this year for baby additions. May I present the latest little Rose-bud, Ashley Rose, born on the 8th of May, in Japan. Note the adorable baby kimono outfit!

Oliver and Luca are now both very proud big brothers, and Misuzu finally got her little baby girl!

The three Chinese characters Misuzu picked to write her name in Japanese means: apricot (for the cuteness), pearl (to relate to the ocean, like for the boys' names) and bell (same as Misuzu's). I particularly like the apricot part, I imagine her little cheeks look just like round apricots!
I do hope we get to meet her very soon! Congratulations on your little princess!

One off the "Bucket List"

I've always wanted to go to Bali.
I think it's ever since I worked as an air hostess, and we did a service to Bali - but I never got on it! (Reason being I was one of the few who got left on the DC10 and did Phuket after Phuket after Phuket... a whole winter season; when the others started flying Airbus 330, and got to discover tons of fabulous destinations. The Bali trip was especially nice, since there was only one flight a week - so you had a whole week off down there!)

Anyway, we had booked a Bali trip five years ago, when Granddad had his big bike accident and we had to change all plans and head-over-heels get to NZ instead; and after that RBA canceled the direct Bali flights so we never got around to planning another trip - until now! Yay!

I've been counting down for months already, ever since we booked it; but now it's only one week left until we will find ourselves lounging by this pool, living in this gorgeous villa!

Not only is it absolutely stunning, it comes staffed with a security guard, a gardener and two maids - with cooking skills! :)
Obviously the pool is private, there is a jacuzzi too, and the view is breathtaking... Jealous much? 

But, the best bit with this vacation is that we are not taking it on our own!
Our Danish friends, the Dehlis, are coming out from Dubai to share the villa with us! We haven't told the kids that yet, we can't wait to see the look on their faces when we meet the Dehlis at KL airport..! We have been on holiday together before, so I know it'll be a fantastic week! I can't wait!

Half way through

This Tuesday was the Mid-Year Run at the Hash. I can't believe we've already made it half way through the hash year! It's nearly about time we start thinking about Founders Day..! Anyway, it was a Committee Run, which meant a little bit extra oumpfh was put into this week's hash.

The hares had chosen Tungku Beach and the hens got to enjoy a different, but lovely 7k beach run:

Nearly the best thing with having the hash at the beach, is getting to experience the magnificent sunset:

The tent was decorated with over 250 glow sticks, since the theme was 'Glow in the Dark'. Once it became dark, it looked really, really cool!

All the hens also got a glow stick bracelet each, and many of them had also brought their own glow in the dark accessories:
 

All the members got a new t-shirt to wear:

The back, love the slogan!

The 'Hash Fairies' turned up, because it was time for some Hash christenings!

These four girls got their Hash Handles (=nick names) this week. Meet Wonder Woman, Twinkletoes, Mother Nurture and Mighty Maple!

Instead of organizing food, everybody had been asked to bring a plate. We could nearly not fit it all in on the table - look at all the lovely food we had, mmm!
It was such a fab evening, another great Tuesday night at the Hash!

(Thank you to Hash Flash for most of these photos!)

The colours of the rainbow

I work out at least five days a week. Currently I work out twice on Tuesdays and THREE times on Wednesdays (Zumba, Zumba, Zumbaaa!) - and occasionally I even squeeze a workout in on the weekend too.
I never used to be a sporty person. I have tried in the past, but always failed to persist, or maybe never found anything that I enjoyed enough. Since moving to Brunei, I've tried many things new to me: kickboxing, swimming, tennis, yoga, netball, hashing, mountain climbing, hiking, CrossFit, Zumba... you name it. Some things were more or less a one-off or a fad, but some have really stuck with me.

One thing I've realized through all the different types of training is - it's all about the look! ;)

Here you can see my CrossFit shoes, some Zumba shoes, my Hash shoes and more Zumba shoes! Happy feet!

Who needs a stairmaster anyway?

I think the one thing I'll miss the most when we one day leave this place, will be the jungle. I really do love the Hash, and doing jungle hikes around the different recreational parks here.
My favourite has always been Bukit Shabandar, especially doing the classic 9 hill loop. Here's a look up the last hill - these stairs are just the beginning... there are many, many more around the corner up there... it's the never-ending hill...

Kim and I did the 9 hills this morning, but we got hindered for a while by a big troupe of monkeys who sat ON the trail, in the middle of the jungle. Usually they hang about at the parking lot area, where the food (=rubbish) is, only occasionally do we see them along the trails. Today they literally stopped us from going anywhere, until some nice men came along and walked through with us.

I have lots and lots of different memories from Bukit Shabandar. "Team Sweden" used to go around here 2-3 times a week when we were training for the Mount Kinabalu climb, sometimes we did it twice in one go! Here you can read about when we did it with extra cargo.
You can also read about my very first experience at Bukit Shabandar here; about one of my many exercise lows here; about Lucas' school trip there when Mormor came along here and about when I was on an exercise roll here.

The Brunei 7-9 Swimming Championship 2013

While Nathan participated in a bike race, and Lucas was looked after at a friends house, Linnea and I traveled back down to Mumong (KB) early yesterday morning. It was time again for the Brunei 7-9 Swimming Championship that was supposed to take part back in April, but got canceled because of the very heavy rain.

Linnea herself actually wasn't fussed either way about going to this competition, but I really wanted her to come. I wanted her to have a good experience, since her first competition experience last year got the better of her.

The JIS Team competed against 12 other teams from Brunei and Miri (in Malaysia) and came 2nd with a total medal tally of 6 gold, 2 silver and 5 bronze.
Not really thanks to Linnea though, bless her... she never really stood a chance at any medals. Competition was not only tough, but there was 12 girls in each of her races. She was also the only girl in her year group that had to swim with the 8 year olds - since the children gets split into events according to calendar year, and she was the only one turning 8 this year.

Here Linnea is waiting her turn for the first race, backstroke. She is on the chair at the far right, in an orange swim cap:

More waiting, nearly time to race:

- "On your marks"...

 

All swimmers are thrown into combined heats during these competitions, only divided by gender - which made it hard to explain why her friend in the lane next to her placed and got a medal in one of the events, even though Linnea beat her in that particular race... Ah well, luckily Linnea is not a girl that dwells on such things for long.

Getting ready for 25m breaststroke. Second from the right in an orange cap:

We did celebrate her own personal wins though. In two of her races she improved on her own times: the 25m freestyle improved by 1 second and the 25m backstroke improved by 8 seconds! Getting a PB and "beating yourself" is important too!

Here she is setting off for the 25m freestyle:

She is doing swimming as an ASA this term, and really seems to enjoy it, so maybe with some more practice, she will even get that medal in the next competition!

Another baby celebration

It's certainly baby boom amongst our friends at the moment! This afternoon I was invited to yet another Baby Shower, for my friend Claire. She has three weeks to go until due date, and still rocks the tight dress and the super high heels!

We were a bunch of girls who enjoyed some lovely food and a bit of a chat; but we also played a few Baby Shower games. Here we had guessed how many pieces of toilet paper roll it would take to go around Claire's belly. Guess what - I won!

Then we wrote down our best advice for her, and it was rather interesting to see what people came up with. It ranged from 'Have an enema before the delivery', through 'Enjoy the ride and don't sweat the small stuff', to 'Trust your instincts', 'Sleep train the baby early' and 'Keep a well stocked wine rack' to mention a few.

It was quite entertaining when she read them all out and had to guess who had come up with which!

Finally it was time for her to open her gifts. Gift bag after gift bag with tiny little clothes, toys and other baby essentials... ooohh... you forget how small all those little tiny pieces are...!

I gave her a Swedish baby classic, a Brio rattle, something every Swedish child has played with, for generations and generations!

Mothers Day 2013

Not only did I get beautiful "flowers" today for Mothers Day, I also got these lovely cards and a gold charm from Pandora.

Lucky me! Love my family! ♥

Mother's Day flowers

It's a bit tricky in school for the teachers to highlight some of the special celebrations, since they don't fall on the same dates in different countries...
Today it's 'Mother's Day' in Australia, NZ, Canada, USA - and also here in Brunei. (In the UK it's in March, and in Sweden it doesn't fall until later this month.)

Linnea made these beautiful flowers for me the other day in Care Club, aren't they lovely?

When Harry met Linnea

Last night Anna, Linnea and I went to JPMC to meet a brand new little baby - Harry Robert Edward, only a day old! Despite endless walking up and down the stairs to their penthouse apartment and many curries the last week, Tamsin and her hubby ended up having to wait for over a week after due date for their precious little prince.
Now he had finally arrived, and he was so very, very cute!





We were honoured to be the very first visitors, and were surprised to see Tamsin already up, being dressed and looking great! Of course we also all got to have nice cuddles with little Harry, welcome to the world gorgeous boy!

I scream, you scream

It's lovely walking around school this time of the year when all the displays are full of student art. Here's one from Lucas' class. His ice cream is the green one in the bottom row:

The All Blacks bags

Linnea had spotted the posters plastered all over school advertising the next 'Penan Basket Sale', and she asked me the other day if I could go there and buy her an All Blacks bag?

First I quite didn't get it, so she had to explain... and yes, obviously this is what she wanted:

A small one for Linnea and a big one for Mummy!