Linnea's 7th Birthday morning

As per tradition we woke Linnea up with beautiful singing and all her presents in bed. Thanks to the late celebrations, and also the birthday party itself of course, of the day before - she was actually still asleep at 06.30 when we came in!

She got so many lovely presents, and she was very happy about all of them. Amongst other things there was a new tell-the-time watch, a silver charm bracelet, Smiggles stuff, Barbie clothes, alphabet beads, handkerchieves, Lego, Sketcher shoes, a nail dryer and a Baby Alive.















On our way down for breakfast, she found yet another present on the stairs - a new bike helmet..?



Oaw!! A new bike!!
Linnea has been due a bigger bike for a while, but it proved a bit tricky trying to find one the right size (that Nathan would approve..!), so she ended up with the same one as Lucas, just smaller. She was very happy, cause it's a cool mountain bike!





Of course we had to get it outside to test drive it straight away!





She then proceeded to open the all the presents from her little friends. There had been no time at the party, plus I always prefer to do it a bit more in peace - so that every gift can be appreciated properly. She got so much cool stuff!





One happy Birthday Girl!

The 'Under the Sea' Birthday Party

So, we had Linnea's birthday party on Saturday. I like doing themed parties as it makes it easier to know what you are looking for. This year we decided on doing an 'Under The Sea'-theme, with mermaids.
As always, I went a bit over the top and this last week has been crazy busy getting everything ready... but I love it! Especially at this age when the birthdays still are so magical and special, Linnea has been counting down ever since we got back from summer holidays!

We had 30 meters of blue netting stapled (yes..!) to the ceiling to create that "under the sea"-feeling, lots of blue balloons, foiled fish balloons, sea shells everywhere and sea weed and fish in the windows. The colour theme on the whole was blue, green and purple.

Linnea and I had had mermaid costumes made and they turned out great if I may say so myself! Glittery hair clips, a bit of colour hair spray and the mermaid look was complete.

I had prepared sea themed decorations, crafts and party games and of course all the food was themed too! (Nathan was in charge of the sushi order and somehow he got lost in translation - and ended up with SIX times as much sushi as we needed..! :) Oups.)

There was only 12 girls, and 2 boys, and it seemed like they all had a good time. At least I hope so..!
When the party was over they each went home with either a mermaid chapter book or a mermaid drawing book, and a Curly Wurly, classic English chocolate bar. They were all very happy!

Ok, so here's the promised slideshow, enjoy!

Happy 7th Birthday Linnea!

It's our little girl's 7th birthday today! A long awaited day!

We were up early to celebrate her, and she got to open all her presents in bed as usual. The rest of the day has been all planned by her: lunch at Capers (a pizza place), Jungle Gym and then afternoon treat at Dairy Queen; with Lucas and her friends Hannah and Ben.

Yesterday we had her birthday party for all her little friends, this year with an "Under the Sea"-theme. I will post a slide show a little bit later, for now I leave you with this photo of the beautiful mermaid birthday girl!

It is fantastic

'Book Week' has come to an end and the kids have had an amazing time. Here's Linnea's take on Ms Batt, I must say the drawing is spot on!

It's starting...

And so the birthday weekend kicked off today with Linnea getting to bring a box off 'Greet & Treats' cookies to school today to share with her friends, pretty seahorses:

Animal spotting

It was a somewhat exciting day yesterday, first Nathan spotted this beautiful thing flying around by the tennis courts at school:



It looked like a cockatiel, very pretty. Soon all the kids had spotted it as well, but even though it started to attract a big crowd, it didn't seem scared.
Cockatiels are not at all native here on Borneo, they are parrots endemic only to Australia. This one must have been an escaped household pet.



Later on, at Hash, when walking along the trail we saw hens ahead waving, signalling and calling out something strange, that we normally don't hear at the hash:

-"Snake!"

And yes, when we got closer we could admire this thin, greenish snake who wasn't very shy either..! He kind of looked at us the way we looked at him, with curiousity! He didn't move at all, but we all did eventually after we'd had a good look.

Exciting day exotic animal spotting in the Abode!

Party preparations...

The things you do for your children...

Book Week kick-off!

This morning the children of Junior School had their first encounter with their visiting author for the week, Ms Tanya Batt. A special Assembly was held at the Arts Center, and us parents were invited to take part too.
I was very excited, as you know, I take every opportunity to participate at all these happenings at school! Plus, the 'Book Week' authors usually are very animated and impress the kids so much, that it's nice to know what the kids are buzzing about when they come home from school; nice to have got to meet the author too.

Tanya Batt surely didn't disappoint!
She took the big stage and the big auditorium on, and spell-bound all the children within minutes. She told us two different stories, one traditional story and one of her own stories - and the kids got to participate and interact throughout the whole thing. They just loved it!



Such a quirky, cool lady! Here she is with my friend Isabel:



Book Week also kicked off with a themed dress-up day. The children were invited to come to school dressed as a favourite book character, in the themes of fantasy, stories and fairy tales.
Here's Linnea and her friend Mallory:



I'm sure it'll be a fantastic and exciting week ahead for the kids!

A Sri Lankan evening

Anna asked me the other day if I was keen on joining her at school today, to attend this 'Sri Lankan Evening'. A literary evening in conjunction with 'Book Week' centered around the visiting author for the older students, Ashok Ferrey.
I had got the email about this and hadn't really planned to go, but when Anna asked "Why not?" I though to myself - yeah... why not!

It was all held over in the newly built part of the school which only got finished this year. First we got to mingle and have Sri Lankan tea - and pick up our complimentary book by Mr Ferrey. Here I am with one of the school librarians, my friend Angela:



When the guest of honour arrived he received a traditional Sri Lankan welcome by some of the Sri Lankan children:



The JIS Sri Lankan community provided little nibbles and delicious snacks through out this first part of the evening, and made the whole event into quite a cultural trip for us all. Here Mr Ferrey is lightning the oil lamp:



(I'm sorry the pics are a bit dark and blurry, they are all taken just with my iPhone since I forgot the camera.)

This was the first location where he did a short reading for us:



Then we got to move around the facilities for more readings, and we also got treated to a traditional Sri Lankan tea picking (?) dance, by the waterfall:





Our third location for the last reading, was up on the grass roof!
How cool is that, our school has a grass roof top! We all got to kick our shoes off and sit down in the soft grass, and enjoy the last story. How special!









Finally, the Sri Lankan community had provided a huge curry feast. After all the tasty nibbles I wasn't that hungry anymore, but I had to try small pieces of everything anyway as it looked and smelled so good!

Of course we also had our books signed by the author himself, Mr Ferrey:



I liked one particular of the readings so much that I ended up buying that book too!
What a nice evening, I'm so very glad I came along!
I wish more people made efforts in joining in on all this wonderful things that actually are happening in Brunei!

Now I'm looking forward to starting to read my new books!

The Princess and the White Bear King

On Friday it was Lucas' class turn to do their yearly Assembly. As it's 'Book Week' next week they had decided to do something in that theme, and they acted out the story from the book "The Princess and the White Bear King" by the visiting author Tanya Batt.

They did such a great job!
You can really notice that they are growing up and maturing, they all knew their lines and they were speaking up beautifully. There was no fooling around or being silly, they performed really well - and, it is a nice story too.

Here's the Prince, before it all started. He was just a little bit excited, and he had thoroughly throughout the week planned his costume and practised his lines. He did a lovely job, we were very proud of him. Here follows a few scenes from the play/story:

"In the North where the thickly needled pine forests are deep and dark and the snow falls bride white there once lived three Princesses, daughters of the King and Queen (...) One day as she was walking in the forest the youngest Princess came across a great bear with shaggy snow white pelt and huge paddle paws (...)".

 "(...) That night when the Princess heard the tread of the soft paddle paws and the sound of something soft and heavy falling to the ground, she lit the candle to see who was there. To her surprise it was no troll but a handsome young man (...)".

 Cue the giggles at the word 'handsome'..! :)

"(...) Three long years I've searched for you. My gift of cloth I've sold for you. A mountain of glass I climbed for you. Will you not wake and turn to me? (...)"

 "(...) And when her hot tears fell upon his face, the Prince opened his eyes and looked at her (...)"

 "(...) Whoever can clean my stained shirt is my true bride (...)"

"(...) and a wedding feast was held that lasted for seven days and seven nights the likes which had never been seen before and the Prince and the Princess lived happily ever after."

The handsome Prince Lucas and the beautiful Princess Natalia!

Great job Year 4T! We loved your Assembly!

Football Funday... - Fish?

The only downside to today was that in doing the bike event this morning, we missed out on all Lucas' games at the yearly 'Football Funday' at JIS... Boo.
We seriously didn't think the ride was going to take that long, and we should probably not have gone home to offload the bikes first but gone straight to JIS... Hindsight is a wonderful thing, right?

We were so lucky that we had friends who took on the kids last night for sleepovers, and brought them to the 'Football Funday' for us this morning. So at least they didn't miss out on their fun because of our conflicting schedules.
Lucas did have a fun morning, even though his team didn't advance from the group play. He told us their team play wasn't as good as when they were down in Panaga earlier this year.
Linnea had been hanging around the Fun Zone and the stalls in the gym. She had spent all her pocket money by the time we arrived, but hey, it's only 'Football Funday' once a year!

The kids had also scored some fish! Yes... aren't we lucky? :/ Turned out the fish were prices in one of the games. You kind of have to ask - why fish? I'm sure most parents wouldn't be all that thrilled about taking home alive fish..?

Well actually, considering the theme for the big birthday bash coming up - I didn't mind! So we went straight to the pet shop on the way home and got a tiny little fish tank and some fish food. Now we're all set, and the kids are quite excited about our new family additions!

Linnea created a beautiful work of art, to go with it. It says "Memoa" (=Nemo), Brown and Blak (=Black). I think we might have to rename them to something a little bit more imaginative in the morning...