Postcard from Bangkok

I will be reveling in the memories from our weekend in Bangkok for quite a while. A perfect little getaway actually, and as I said in my previous post - it's truly amazing how much you can get done in such a short space of time! It was only 48 hours!

We managed to squeeze in quite a substantial amount of shopping, both in the many malls and amongst the gadgets and copy stuff in the MBK market stalls; we enjoyed some great meals both for lunch and dinners, yummy ice-cream breaks; we did visit some of the attractions - and we went on a lot of trains! Something that in itself is quite an adventure in Bangkok!

After these two trips I've now done here, I've started to like Bangkok, a lot! I've decided that for our next shopping trip Anna and I will be going to Bangkok instead of to Singapore; without husbands or kids though! They really can't hack it when it comes to shopping! :)
Anyway, here's some photos from our trip!

Always special flying with Daddy and get to visit the flight deck before take-off:





Waiting for transport at the hotel:



First stop - ice-cream at Häagen-Dagz! Mmm! Linnea just wanted a cone, but Lucas decided to go all in and order a big sundae!







Lucas: -"Mummy, take a photo of us!" ... Can you see him..?



We visited Madame Tussauds and met a lot of famous people. The kids thought this was pretty cool, we've never visited a wax museum before.
We stepped into the Royal Room and met Queen Elizabeth II:



Linnea got to make some phone calls from the Oval Office:



The kids challenged a few sporting heroes, here Linnea is doing a slam dunk with the Chinese basket ball player Yao Ming, the tallest player (228,6cm) in NBA:



Lucas gave Tiger Woods some advice:



The kids and Nathan had a chat with some of the Liverpool footballers, Gerard and Ronaldo:



After that they got on stage with some of their favourite pop stars.



Lucas reluctantly posed with Justin Bieber, because he said he's not that into him anymore... ha ha.



He was much more keen to see Michael Jackson:





Then we mingled a bit with the A-listers on the red carpet. We saw Beyoncé, Madonna, Anthony Hopkins, Brad Pitt, Lady Gaga, Angelina Jolie, Nicole Kidman and many more.
Here's the kids with Johnny Depp:



And here with Jim Carrey, a new favourite of Lucas':



I had coffee with (a not so look-a-like) George Clooney:



Nathan did an "Armstrong" at Oprah's:



And finally the kids received their Oscars, with Jackie Chan:



We had dinner at Lucas' favourite place ever, Tony Romas. In the very fancy mall 'Terminal 21'. Such a cool place!









Terminal 21 is nine floors of shopping, about 600 shops! It's built like an airport, and the theme continues all throughout the mall. There are airport floor signs that signal the arrivals in particular cities, a crisscrossing network of escalators, electronic display boards that bring to mind flight information displays at an airport terminal etc.
The basement level has a Caribbean theme, the lower ground floor brings you to Rome. Then it's Paris, Tokyo and London. The 3rd floor is Istanbul and even further up you have San Fransisco. It's very authentic, and very, very cool!







Here in Rome:



We took lots of trains to get around this time. Traffic is crazy and the taxi drivers fearless, so trains seemed like the best option!



In MBK, shopping for iPad covers and other gadgets!



Lucas at a bike shop, found a road bike just his size! If only we could have taken it on the plane...

Mini-holidays rock!

We are in Bangkok.
On a mini-holiday! Yay!
Well, Nathan is working, and the kids and I have tagged along. It's amazing how much you can get done in only a day and a half!

We left the hotel about 2pm local time for today's adventures, after arriving on the mid-morning flight and having swiftly changed out of our airplane clothes to something more comfy. Took a cab into town, walked around a few of the big malls, did some jobs on the list, had Häagen-Dazs ice cream, went to Madame Tussaud's, looked a bit more in the malls, ate ribs at 'Tony Romas' (guess at who's request...) looked a bit more in the malls, bought me a birthday present and then took the MRT, train and taxi back to the hotel.
And that was just our half day! Tomorrow we have a whole day more!

Gotta love mini-holidays!

Week 2

We have finished week 2 of Term 2, a term luckily shorter than Term 1, it's only 10 weeks until the next big holidays.

It's pretty much business as usual around here. The After-School-Activities aren't kicking in next week, but homework already has been sent home for both kids.
We have a new rule, nothing else happens - until homework is done! So far, so good:



Linnea is doing Fun Drawing for ASA this term, and Gymnastics! I failed to sign her up for Gymnastics last term so the pressure was on - and as it sold out in 23 seconds (!) we felt very lucky she got in!
Lucas wanted to continue his Football and Tennis but unfortunately they'd canceled Tennis this term, so instead he is going to join Chess! He's pretty excited about that actually. He is also going to participate in the Junior School production 'Africa Rock', scheduled to be performed in May.

It looks like it's going to be another busy term. For now I feel super organized and on top of things. For now..! :)

Cosy

I love finding her like this. It looks so cosy, all the little teddies have been properly tucked in as well! Very caring.

Spot the mistake!

It's January and soon time for another couple of birthdays in our house!
This year we decided not to do Lucas' birthday party at home, but at one of the Bowling Centers in town. First bowling, then pizza! Awesome!

Once we had finalized the guest list the other night, I quickly put an invite together in Photoshop. A little bit too quickly apparently...:



Oups!
Lucas' friends had a ball teasing me when they received their invites. Well hey, a little glitch, could happen to anyone! :)

Another Christmas

My Mum and Dad posted our Christmas parcel from Sweden on the 7th of December and were promised it'll take 5 days to get here. Well, ha ha ha ha ha! Swedish post shouldn't promise anything they can't keep..! :)
I honestly don't know which black hole letters and parcels apparently always pass through to actually get to us, but it rarely takes anything less than a month. Yesterday, we picked the parcel up at the post office! (Well, should be happy it got here at all I guess, as quite a few things have gone "missing" over the years too...)

Anyway, it was like Christmas all over again, as it was full of goodies for all of us!

Decorations, Santas and Christmas tree decorations, for both the kids and I; Christmas themed magazines for me; Lego, Swedish Christmas sweets and other toys and presents for the kids; a Pandora charm for me; photos from the wedding, cool Swedish PJs, Christmas ties for Nathan, souvenirs from Rome, a new wall calendar and much, much more:

Daddy also got this electrical mini massage tool that got put to good use straight away!

Thank you very much, and Merry Christmas!

Bad biking mojo

It has been a bad week for Nathan and his bikes this week. He and Lucas took their mountain bikes out for a spin with some friends yesterday, and after a while I got a call and had to dispatch rescue patrol - for the second time this week! (On Monday he was out riding his road bike, when the chain snapped! Had to go and pick him up from the side of the road then too.)

Well, back to yesterday. While riding back home after some muddy adventuring off road, his rear derailer suddenly "exploded"! The hanger was completely broken and the derailer twisted and broken too. Bummer.

Luckily though, no one else than the bike was hurt. I always answer my phone with dread if Nathan's name pops up on the display when I know he's out riding. At least once I hear his voice I know he's ok and not lying on the road unconscious somewhere.

Apart from the end result of the broken bike, it seemed like they had had lots of fun though! Both them and the bikes were muddy, muddy, muddy!

Washing the bikes took nearly as long as the ride!

And then washing the shoes...

Girl's day

It was girl's day at the Box this morning (well, ha ha, until Mike turned up last minute!) - just four of us girls, and Emily as the coach today! Go the girls!

Before the WOD we did a skills exercise targeted to improve our push-up position, planks - but on our hands rather than the elbows.
It was an exercise in three steps: first 1 minute just on our hands, then 1 minute with a 25lbs plate on our back, and then - 1 minute (or some did even longer than that!) with a 45lbs plate! Here's Anna and Pippa with the big plate:

You know what - I did it!
I never thought I would manage, those plates are heavy, and I was surprised already when I could handle the 25lbs. Then, I thought I'd give the 45lbs at least a try, as Pip said, it would just be like holding the plank with Linnea on my back! I was shaking in the end, but I did it!
Such a good feeling when you actually surprise yourself doing more than you think you can. Go me!

Our New Years Dinner 2012

After the big week of Christmas celebrations, not much was happening on New Years Eve. We had made our own plans quite early, since Nathan was on stand by this morning from 7am.
We just wanted to be home. I wanted to take the opportunity to celebrate with the kids. They are big enough now to stay up to see in the new year.

We started in the late afternoon by team working to pack away Christmas. Having help meant it all was done really fast, yay. Everything went, decorations, Santas, Christmas towels etc, the Christmas tree - all of it! It felt so good!
Usually I miss the decorations, and the lights above all, but this year it actually felt super nice to have everything back to normal so quickly. Like we were starting the new year all fresh!

We had planned to cook fondue for dinner. This is a tradition I bring with me from my childhood. In our family we always had fondue on New Years Eve - well, my parents still do!
It took us most of the day to source the fuel for it though... In the end we found some 'fire gel' which ended up working perfectly.

We dressed up nicely, Linnea thought the girls should have tiaras to make it extra special, so ok!

The kids had never tried fondue before and they were hooked from the first piece of meat! They thought this was the best dinner ever! Lucas just kept repeating in between each piece of meat:
-"This is a really nice dinner!"

It was a really nice dinner! A huge success all around. It was great to see that the kids could actually sit and enjoy their food for more than 5 minutes.

After dinner it was time for dessert. A Pavlova looking thing and some nice chocolate:

We then passed the time with some Monopoly playing before we settled in with some goodies to watch a movie. We had planned to watch the very suitable "New Years Eve", but when it started and it was in german *duh*, we had to go for plan B - "The 12 dogs of Christmas - Great puppy rescue".
The movie finished exactly 5 minutes before midnight, which just gave us time to fill our glasses and take our places on the sofas. Yes ON the sofas... - we did the big countdown together and then jumped into the New Year, as per tradition!

As there's not really any fireworks displays going on here in Brunei, we were then all in bed by 00.10! A great New Year Eve, one of my best for sure!