Face painting

Here are some photos from Friday and the face painting activities. It was Year 1 who was doing this to raise their part of the money for the Fund Raising. They had a little face painting "studio" set up in one of their class rooms, and kids from all the Junior School year groups could come and get their faces decorated.



Here's Linnea getting "girly things" on her face, by Mr Jolly - Lucas' teacher:





And here's Lucas, we caught up with him during his break time:



The kids did really, really well - all through last week they manage to raise in total $2800, for the children with Special Needs!

We're off!

So, we are now off to Singapore for a girlie weekend. Yes, and for the race too, it's a small part of the weekend - IKEA is actually the main part, for me at least! ;)

I have decided not to take the computer, yes, it's true.
So don't expect any updates until I'm back in the Abode again after the weekend.

So long!

Oh happy day!

Finally today, Nathan could go and pick up his brand new truck, a Nissan Navara. Happy day!

Some other firsts

Here are some other first birthdays.
Lucas 1 year old - Jan 2005:



And Linnea 1 year old, October 2006:



It definitely feels longer than just a few years ago... How time flies!

E-i-e-i-o!!

Our youngest neighbour, Oliver, celebrated his 1st birthday today. It was done in style, with a huge party in "Old McDonald"-theme, really well planned by his parents.
There was a paddling pool with ducks in it, soft cows and horses to play with, a ball tent shaped like a cow and the most amazing balloons in different farm models, especially ordered from Singapore; amongst many other things! Everything was farm-themed, it was really cool.

The kids were asked to come in dress-up, of course, considering Oliver is the "King-of-dress-ups" around here! Oliver himself was dressed as a - duck!



Neighbour big brother Lucas had promised to help Oliver blow out the candle, and he stood by his promise, of course:



It was a great party!
Happy First Birthday Oliver!

The chop

Those of you who know me in real life, know that I'm not very adventurous with my hairstyle. I've kind of had the same length, style and colour to my hair, for the last 25 years! Just blond, straight down and longish (only with some strange colouring experiments in my late teens...).
It's just a few times I've actually tried something different, and I mean FEW times:

* I had a short bob once - 13 years ago.
* I had it layered a bit, with a side-swipe fringe - 7 years ago.
* I had it toned dark brown for a very short period - 5 years ago.

So, maybe it was well due time, for this:



Truth is, I've been wanting to cut it off and create some sort of style for quite a while. Probably for nearly a year, at least! But every time I've been to see Jacky, my hairdresser, I've wimped out and asked her "just take a little bit off the ends, please"... Today was the day though, and it feels so good!

This was before:




And here is some more after:

Ta-daa...!

This:



... is what I've been up to this morning!

Busy week in school

You would think they would wind down a bit this last week of school before the holidays, but no! Instead it's a really hectic one for the kids. There are so many things going on!
Lucas is studying a "Day & Night"-theme at the moment, and to initiate that, he was back at school on Tuesday afternoon between 17.20-18.45. They were having a "Midnight Feast" in a room they had made all dark, watch the sunset together outside, and listen to ghost stories. They were to bring flashlights, and it seemed like they had all had a great time!

Linnea is studying "Transport" at the moment, and they have been talking about different ways to get around in her class. They had a bus in the classroom last week, that magically transformed into a space ship for this week! And on Friday all the Kindy kids are bringing their bicycles to school, to ride around on for a bit on the school grounds.

Also, the school has chosen this week to be this terms Fundraising Week. Every now and then they perform different activities at school in order to raise more money for the children with Special Needs here in Brunei. With the money raised this time, they will be able to present some children with equipment to help them with their learning.
During this week, each of the Junior School year groups are working together to raise money for this cause. They all do different things, and us parents are then supposed to support the cause with a few dollars here and there.

Linnea and her Kindy friends had breakfast at school this morning, and all came dressed in their PJs for the occasion! Even the teachers - great fun!



Lucas' year group is doing face painting; and there has also been a bake sale and an ice cream sale, one year group is having "bad-taste-dress-day" and another one "punk-rock-dress-day"..! Plus tomorrow, Reception is organizing a disco to raise their money - and all the other year groups are invited!

And if all this was not enough, today is our little neighbour Oliver's 1st birthday and this afternoon he is having a big party. Something which has been eagerly anticipated for a very long time in our house..!
Busy, busy, busy!

Our simpang hash!

Today was the day, ALL our hard efforts were going to pay off! Today was the day of our simpang hash!
We went out in the scorching midday sun to lay it earlier, and it took us over 2 hours... It was hard work in that heat, and I'm glad Nicole had remembered to bring a 100plus, because I really needed that halfway through. It was so hot!

Here's our run, the red marker is our simpang and we laid the hash on the other side of our big road, Jln Muara. It actually started and finished at the same spot, the green marker.


It felt so good when it was laid, finally - and then, we could just wait...
While we set up the tent and got everything ready for the on-on, the rain came and our thoughts went to all the poor hashers who had set off and were now trekking through the jungle in this thunderstorm... Luckily it stopped nearly as quickly as it started, and when they got out of the jungle, it was dry again.

It took the front runners an hour, just as we had estimated, and the last people were out after about 1h40, so we were pleased! No one got lost, and no one got hurt!



The on-on was a roaring success! We got complimented for our Japanese style outfits we had had made, for the yummy punch we served, for the chopsticks in our hair and last, but not least, for the food we put on: Japanese Buffet.
Of course, Misuzu had organized most of it, but at least Nicole and I could take credit for some of the cakes... :)

Here we are getting our down-down, as hares:



On your head!



We had sushi, both salmon and vegetarian; gyozas, both pork and vegetarian; chicken birds nests, spring rolls, Japanese curry, chocolate cake, carrot cake and Hello Kitty shortbread! A true feast!





Great job girls! We rock!

Fun for small, lush for mummy!

Linnea had a fun playdate yesterday with one of her little class mates.
The kids had an absolute ball, playing on the climbing frame and the seesaw, playing with the huge stuffed animals, being creative with the drawing books, zooming around on the ride-ons and exploring all the other toys in the house; just running around crazily like the energy filled little four-year olds they are!

-"Peek-a-boo!"



While they were busy playing in one end of the balcony, this mummy enjoyed a fish pedicure in the other end!





Hi hi, it's such a weird sensation! It tickles a lot when they nibble away, but in a nice way if you understand what I mean? These Doctor Fish eat the dead skin off your feet to leave them soft and smooth. I guess my feet had a bit to feast on!

It's starting now...

So, one of the hardest time of the year as an expat Swede is starting for me now. This time of the year, together with the run-up to Christmas, are the two toughest times to be away from home, I think. I've discussed this a lot with my fellow expat friends I have (in my online network around the world), and at least I'm not alone with all these feelings.

I guess in a country like Sweden, where the winters are so long and so cold (especially this one they've just had!), you just appreciate those first warm, sunny days so much more... They've been lucky now at the end of May, that summer seems to have arrived, just as they've had their two extended weekends (Ascension and Whitsun) to enjoy the lovely weather too. Facebook and blogs are overfull with gorgeous descriptions of yummy summer days and fab weather... Good for them, but it's a hard read, I'm getting so envious...

School is nearly out in Sweden in just a week or two, and that too is such a lovely time of the year... Not to talk about Midsommar (=Midsummer)... *Sigh*. The homesickness hits hard right now.

This year everything sucks just that little bit extra as well as we still are not able to plan our summer holidays! The company is just not telling Nathan when he will be able to be off, so we can't finalize travel and visiting plans etc. Previous years we have done that a lot earlier! It's really, really, really starting to get on my nerves - with only six weeks left until school is out, we kind of would like to know!!!

Wimps! ;)

On Saturday the largest annual running competition in Sweden took place, the Göteborgsvarvet - a half marathon running competition in the city of Gothenburg. This year 58 122 runners had signed up!
(It's name is a play with words; the Swedish word "varv" has a double meaning and can mean both lap and shipyard, and Gothenburg has a history as a city of shipyards.)

This year it was a bit of a shocker since summer decided to arrive on Saturday with temperatures up to 26 degrees on the race afternoon. Over a hundred runners had to attended to by the medical staff along the route, apparently about 60 of them were actually even admitted to hospital - mostly due to dehydration or heat stroke...

In the newspapers today, there were all the excuses like "well, the winter has been so long, no one has been able to train in the right temperature" and "the humidity was so bad" etc etc.
Wimps! ;)
When I ran at 5 o'clock in the morning in Hong Kong, we started at 24 degrees (and it just got hotter with each kilometer!) and the humidity was at 88-94%!
Usually when we train here, it's 30 plus degrees, and who knows what humidity...

I gotta give them this though in Göteborg - it really looks like amazing fun! This specific running event is known for it's great atmosphere, and the few, short movie clips I've seen from the weekend's race sure look great!
I wish the timing were better so I could participate one day, but May is not the month to go back to Sweden for us unfortunately.

On your head!

Today was a special hash for the kids, it was goblet time!
Today was their 18th run, hence time for their first award - an inscribed pewter mug.

It was a hot one today, and even though we went on the shortest of the three offered runs, it was still quite a hike for the little ones (1,4k - compared to 400m a few months back..!). Lucas really likes it and could probably go on even further, Linnea moans a bit but still walks it all by herself, up and down the hills and in and out of the jungle.

Today they tried something new for the on-on, and had brought in the Kasbah wagon! Normally we get offered mushy hot dogs for $1, which is ok for the kids, but not so substantial for the hungry parents. Today we could eat both fish&chips or kebabs, yum!



Definitely an improvement, and this way we don't have to organize dinner when we come home, bonus!

So at the time for the on-on, the kids got to stand up in front of everyone and in true hash tradition get a down-down. Here's Lucas when he has just discovered the inscription on the mug:



The cute pewter mugs were filled with 7up and we counted for the kids while they drank:
-"One, two, three, four, five..."



"...six, seven, eight, nine, ten..."



..."on your heeeaaad!!"



The mug is from Royal Selangor, really pretty. Guess the kids will have all their drinks in these from now on!

This one... or that one..?

Nathan has a big decision to make.
I think he has already made it though.
Now he's just trying his best to justify it...

Sleepover bliss

Both kids had friends over last night for a sleepover. A good night was had by all; it included movies (yes, movie..s - a different one for the boys and for the girls, lucky we have two TVs!), sweeties, popcorn and lots of giggles at bedtime.

Amazingly we didn't hear a thing from either camp until past 7 o'clock this morning! Bliss.

In the jungle, the mighty jungle...

The girls and I have had a busy, busy week. With one week to go to the Singapore 10k we have spent every free afternoon training for the run - NOT!!! We've actually spent every afternoon in the jungle, doing rekkie for our hash on Tuesday!

We started out with weeks to go, and did our first rekkie. As you might remember, we had trouble finding the out-trail and had to turn back the same way we came in.

On Monday we got help from some far more experienced hashers who took us around the trail to show us the way out. Only problem was at the end of the trail there is a huge water reservoir you have to pass somehow. Normally you can cross it without getting wet at all, the water is rarely very high. But considering we are in the middle of a rain period there was quite a bit of water, and not many choices on how to get across... Hardcore hashers as we are, we chose to go through it, of course, who's bothered about getting a bit wet?
It was all well and good for a few meters of knee-deep water, until suddently we fell down into water so deep we couldn't touch the bottom! We had to swim across for a little bit, to get over to the other side! Oh dear... We could just see this go wrong in every way for our ladies on Tuesday if we were going to lead them through there...

Now we were starting to get a bit stressed, especially since as I said we are in a rainy period, so it pours down (and when I say pours, I mean pours-so-much-the-roads-get-flooded-and-disappear-and-the-drains-get-overfull...) every afternoon. We just had to get out there and rekkie again, come rain or shine, to find another out-trail. So on Thursday afternoon we did, in full on lightning and thunder and worst thundershower you could imagine... Well, you gotta do what you gotta do...
We had been told there was a way to bypass the water reservoir by going on the side of it. We cleverly thought we should go in on reverse to find it, as we knew more or less where it was, but we had to admit defeat. The rain was just too heavy and we could neither see or do anything that afternoon.

So, take four: yesterday morning Nicole and I tried again. The men had done their hash around the same area this week, and we thought their paper were going to help us... In fact it just confused us even more as of course we managed to stumble upon one of their checks without knowing it, and got totally lost... Failure, again.

Finally yesterday afternoon, we managed to get it all right! It took us a fair while, and we felt rather disheartened at many stages when we had trouble finding the right trail, stumbling back and forth in the jungle. It felt like a proper jungle expedition - thank god for the GPS (on my Garmin watch) though!

But, we got it, and it's going to be a great hash on Tuesday! (*Phew*)
On on!

Never quiet

I guess anyone who has kids our kids' age will agree, it's rarely quiet when they are at home.
Lately though, our house has been more noisy than usual, as Lucas has acquired two new talents: to click his fingers, and to whistle!
Preferably, he'll practice them simultaneously, but of course without any form of melody... From the moment he gets home from school to the moment he falls asleep, he will walk around the house whistling along to everything he does and every now and then click his fingers to jazz it up a bit..!

It's nearly like torture, but he is so, so proud of himself so I can't make myself tell him to stop!

You know you're an expat...

... when you don't flinch over chili sauce being part of the regular condiments kit, even in the fast food restaurants!

Back on track?

It's been over 10 weeks since the HK race, and my injury. For a very long time, as you know, I couldn't do anything. For the last couple of weeks, I've finally started to be able to enjoy walks, hashes and being able to do the 9-hill hike at Bukit Shabandar.

I've been quite reluctant to try out running again, even though I've hardly been able to wait at the same time - I've really, really missed it! But, I knew trying my leg could go two ways:
Either it would just be sore and uncomfortable, or it would increasingly go worse and worse again which each step and I might ruin my chances on continuing with the exercise I actually can do.

Today was the day though. I decided to go for it: a slow jog, conscious every step about how the leg felt.



Misuzu, Nicole and I took on our dear old track (I'd actually missed it!) this afternoon and completed a 5k run. Not in any great speed, but it went ok, I think..?
I could feel the muscle, like a dull pain - or not really pain, more just discomfort. But, it didn't get any more painful neither during the run or now afterward; which I take as a good sign!

Our Singapore Sundown race is in a mere 16 days... so of course, I'm not planning on breaking any records or achieving any great results; but it doesn't matter. They have a very generous 3-hour time limit on the race (yes, you could ask why?), so we're good. Even if I have to walk the whole thing, I'll be able to finish it! :)

The cranes

When Mum and I went on the Art exhibition journey in Sweden at Easter, I bought this art print from one of the most famous artists from around where I come from - Leiif Holgersson. He paints mostly nature images, and lots of cranes, which I thought was quite nice. The crane is a bit of a symbol for my part of the country.

I had it framed the same way I'd seen another painting being framed in his gallery, a bit differen with a big white space - and I like it a lot. It turned out just like I wanted it.
Today, I even got Nathan to put it on the wall for me! We put it in the corner by the dining table, next to our colourful Bengt Elde painting.
Looks nice, no?




And as you might notice, I've finally put a photo in the white photo frame I got for my birthday back in January too..! Progress!