Kindy schedule 8-12 October

Term 1 week 7
Shapes & Colours - Focus activites:
Letter of the week Ff – please send items beginning with Ff
Focus story: The Monsters Party – colour mixing jelly
Primary colour mixing – cellophane paddles / ice blocks / play dough
Comparative mathematical language – tall / short /taller / shorter
Measuring on the wall chart.
2 little dicky birds – making birds with feathers
Life cycle of a frog



Monday
Sound of the week Ff, please bring something beginning with Ff for sharing time.
Music.

Tuesday
Assembly – 8.00 – 9.30
ICT – Interactive whiteboard activities
PE.

Wednesday
Malay and Mandarin (1)
Coin drop for charity – please send in a bag of spare coins that the children will roll down a large chute
Music and Singing Assembly

Thursday
Malay & Mandarin (2)
Library
Pirate ship play

Friday
Swimming 10.00 – 10.30 .
FRESH FRUIT FRIDAY – PLEASE SEND A PIECE OF FRUIT TO MAKE INTO A FRUIT SALAD

A day at the office

Nathan had to work for his money today. Look here what happened to the flight deck windshield at 35000 ft above Indonesia:

"Slight technical issue" - that's what the poor passengers were told, who already were halfway to their destination Darwin.

Nathan and his F/O Andy, turned around and with no further excitement (apart from the thunderstorms they had to dodge since they had descended to their level) they got the airplane back to Brunei - and the good thing was, he got home 3 hours early!
Always look at the bright side!

Cool chick!

We haven't got around to get sunscreens for the car yet (it's on our to-do-list), but we don't need to worry about Linnea. She will ask us for her "glasaögon" (=sunglasses, kind of) when she gets troubled by the sun. Then when you ask her if she is ok, she does this:

... and says:
-"Cool"!

BYOB

Brunei is a dry country. This means that there is no alcohol for sale anywhere in the shops, and you can't order alcohol in the bars or restaurants.

As a non-muslim you are allowed to bring in 12 cans of beer and 2 bottles of wine or spirits every time you enter the country though (remember that when you come to see us!!!). As long as it's 48 hours since last time. So when the guys go flying, the can bring some home.
If you don't have any flights that allows you the extra time to go shopping on turnaround, you have to do the "border-run" to stock up.
This means driving about 40 min to the border, park there, walk over to a little shop on the other side, buy your allowance and walk back again. Of course, you also take the opportunity to have a drink while you there!

What you are allowed to do though, in most restaurants, is bring your own (booze), known as BYOB. It is kind of funny, everybody arrives with their little cooler bags, full of beer and wine. Here I am yesterday on our way out for dinner, with our very chic bottle tote:

Pretty packaging

The other night we went up to the Turners, to have some take away together. The boys went off to get the food, and we were a little bit wondering when they came back with these little packages:

What a pretty packaging for rice!
The rest of the meal looked a bit like this:

It was very yummy!!

We are all the winners!

The best (and almost only) way of getting Lucas to do things at the moment, is to race him, or make him race Linnea. It works every time!
"Who's getting into their pyjamas first?" "Who will finish their dinner first?" "Who gets to the toilet first?" etc - and off he goes with incredible speed!

Same goes for in the morning, when he "just-wants-to-finish-this-or-this-on-tv" before we go to school - all I have to do is to remind him that Abbie, Bon or Hannah (the other kids in his Kindy class who lives in Rimba) will get there first, and he is out in the car in a flash.

-"Jag vinner"" (=I'm winning) is a very common phrase in our house at the moment.

While waiting

While waiting for our new car (will get it next week, as soon as we get our Bruneian drivers licences sorted) I thought I'd tell you a little bit about the traffic here:

Traffic here is far from the mad, hectic rushed traffic we used to experience in the UK. We have the occasional pile-up and queues, during rush hours, just like everywhere else - but nowhere to the extent of what it was like in the UK.

Apart from the occasional exotic sighting of lizards (see below) or maybe some monkeys, there are not much to get excited about in the traffic here.

You have to be quite wary though while driving, cause although there are of course traffic rules here, people don't seem to know them - or they just don't care!
For example, it is more a rule than exception that when they are in the outside lane of a roundabout, they intend to go all the way around...
Another thing with roundabouts is when they approach a roundabout, with the intention to go a whole lap and go back the way they came - most people just drive the wrong way along the roundabout instead!

You will be lucky to see anyone who uses their indicator. Mostly people just change lanes or turn off, as they please - so you have to be a bit of a mind reader.

But the thing I find most dangerous actually, is that some people just drive sooo slow! Ridiculously slow, like 40 km/hour, on the motorway! So there you are, barrelling down in high speed, and all of a sudden this car seems to appear out of nowhere in front of you - driving with the speed of a lawnmower, which forces you hit the breaks far too hard for the comfort of anyone in your car...

Well, soon I will have my big car, no one will mess with me then!

Off to a good start!

We left Linnea at our friend's playgroup this morning for the first time.
She kissed us both bye-bye and wasn't the slightest worried to see us go. When we came to pick her up after three hours, we were greeted by a very happy little girl, who had had a wonderful time!

We got told that she had been absolutely fantastic, not a tear, not a tantrum; had caused no worries at all.
We know of course, that our daughter is not the worrying kind, neither is she shy or aloof but instead very independent and outgoing; but still, it's nice to hear it from other people!

She had made four little paintings that we brought home to stick on the wall in their "playroom", and she was so proud to show them off to Lucas when he got home from school.

Our big girl!

Exciting meeting

I saw one of these yesterday, driving to town. He was on the other side of the road, just walking by slowly. He was biiiig...



It's a monitor lizard, apparently not very friendly creatures. Let's hope I won't be meeting one any closer than from the car.

Time flies...

Today we have been here a month. It feels more like half a year already!
We have really settled in amazingly quick all of us, and that is great.

Lucas loves school, Nathan enjoys work (and the fact that there is not much of it!), we have made new friends, socialized with old ones; created new and healthier routines for the whole family, with more exercise/sport and healthier meals etc.

Linnea will start tomorrow at a private nursery-group, held by one of our friends, who receives a small group of children twice a week, for three hours at a time, at her home. She keeps them entertained with all sorts of fun play and different activities.
Linnea will be joining on Thursday mornings, it will do her good to make some friends of her own, play somewhere without Mummy and Daddy; and will give me time to do something just for me.

I'm meeting up with a local girl tomorrow, that I have found thanks to the internet. She is a dedicated scrapper, just like me, and is going to take me to her cousin who has a home-based scrap-shop!
I really hope that she is really nice, so that we can get together for scrap-evenings etc in the future! Nice to have someone to scrap with!

There are still a few things on our to-do list. Like finalizing the car deal, getting our credit cards so we can start our memberships in different places and the big one: find a house. It will all happen eventually - maybe by this next month!

A different kind of shoppingcart

Our new amah started yesterday. She is going to be with us full time now, if it all works out and we all get along.
The children already adore her, so that shouldn't be a problem. It's just me who have to get used to not be "allowed" to lift a finger, and have someone around all the time; which in this house, is being a bit weird, cause it is so small.

We sat down yesterday and set the menu for the week. Minda will be doing all the cooking from now on, and today we went together to the supermarket. I wanted to bring her, so she could stock up on the things she uses and will need for her cooking.

That was a different experience!
We came home with so much food (and only have a little fridge...), loads of veggies - most of which I don't know the name of or even less know what I would use it for! It is going to be fun and interesting, to taste her food! She will cook both western, local and Asian food. Tonight we are having sweet-and-sour chicken, yum!

Kindy schedule 1-5 October

Term 1 week 6
Shapes & Colours – Focus activities:
Letter of the week Ee – please send items beginning with Ee
Focus story: Elmer the elephant
Making patterns with shapes
Making Egg omelettes
Primary colour mixing – marble painting
Colour collectors hunt
Following simple repetitive patterns
Collaborative colour and texture collage of Elmer the elephant
-------------------------------------------
Monday
No school - HOLIDAY

Tuesday
ICT – Interactive whiteboard activities
PE – please remember PE uniform and trainers
Sound of the week Ee please bring something beginning with Ee for sharing time.

Wednesday
Malay and Mandarin (1)
Making Egg omelettes – Please send an egg to school

Thursday
Malay & Mandarin (2)
Library
Pirate ship play

Friday
Swimming 10.00 – 10.30.
FRESH FRUIT FRIDAY – PLEASE SEND A PIECE OF FRUIT TO MAKE INTO A FRUIT SALAD

Yes!!!

We have finally made a decision on the car we will get. It will be a white one of these:



A Toyota Fortuner; it is a 7-seater with 4-wheel drive. Cool, huh?
Ever since we had our Landrover in Copenhagen, I have wanted a car where you "sit high" again. For a long time now, I have also dreamed of a car with 7 seats. Makes life so much easier, especially when you have guests. (Hint, hint!)
We will go down to the Toyota dealer on Monday, and since we know they have them in stock - we should have our one already next week!! Yay!

Living the life

Today I went with my good friend Anna, to "her" beauty salon and got a manicure and pedicure, including foot scrub and foot massage. It was absolutely wonderful, sitting there in the big "Joey-chairs" chatting away, getting pampered.

Then we took our now very soft footsies and pretty hands and went for a nice meze-lunch together.
It was a lovely break from looking at houses, test driving cars and running errinds.

I can definetly get used to this life!

First visit to the post office

Today we went to the post office, because we had received a slip about a package that needed to be picked up.

It took (at least) half an hour in the queue to buy stamps for two letters, then we had to go to another queue to get our package - fortunately with only one person before us.
Then, we had to open the package then and there, in front of some customs officer. It was some toys that Mormor and Morfar had sent (thank you!), so we didn't ruin the surprise for the kids, they could still open it, again, when we got home.

So far we are not too impressed with the postal delivering. Mail from Europe has taken weeks to reach us, not sure quite where it all goes wrong though - could also be hung-ups with the redirection in the UK I guess.
We have applied for a post box, so that our mail will arrive there in stead of to the airline. We think eliminating one part of the chain, might get the mail to us quicker.

Mid-Autumn Festival

Today in school, they celebrated Mid-Autumn Festival, or "Mooncake Festival", which is one of the two most important holidays in the Chinese calendar. There are loads of Chinese in Brunei, so therefor today the kids were supposed to bring in mooncakes and dress up in Chinese clothing.
They were all so colourful and cute in their little outfits!



Here he is, our little China-man!



Here is Lucas and Hannah. Note her shoes, the girl knows how to accessorize! (Poor Lucas had to wear his uniform shoes, maybe not really matching but had nothing better...)



And here is Lucas and his mate Gil.

For Thomas

This was Nathans birthdaypresent (yes, Nathans...) from our friend Thomas, who is one of the CEOs at Lego in Denmark (very good friend to have!).
It took most of the day to build it, and now it takes up the whole dining table... Don't quite know where to put it, we need a bigger house, pronto!

The EFIT photo project

I have started doing the EFIT ('Ett foto i timmen' = one photo an hour). It is a Swedish started photo project that I have been interested in for a while, and now I thought it's about time I become a part of it.

Once a month, a lot of people around the globe document their day with one photo each hour, and then they share their days on their blogs or websites. It is kind of cool, and you get to see a lot of different ways a day can be spent!

Here is my first EFIT, hopefully I will keep it up so you will see many more!

EFIT - Tuesday 25.09.2007

06.40 Breakfast time. We have started setting the table the night before, since every minute counts in the morning!



07.20 Time for school run: mandarin folder, lunch bag and change bag.



08.55 We took our Jura coffee machine with us from the UK - still so in love with it!



09.45 Checking news and email, a bit of a quiet time, just me, my coffee and my Mac.



11.30 Doing some shopping. We only had one noodle when we got here, so obviously, we had to get another one - so they will have one each.



12.30 Picking Lucas up from school. Lunch boxes left out so the parents can check what's left and what's gone.



13.00 Lunchtime, my favourite - sushi. Not quite the kids favourite, but they liked the way lunch got served! Choo-choo!



14.00 After school, a bit of Lego-play is always good fun!



15.10 The maintenance guy is mowing our tiny lawn.



16.15 At the supermarket, about to entry "the naughty section", to get some bacon and ham.



17.30 Not much time to cook, got home late from shopping. Lazy dinner, pizza...



18.15 Time for a bit of "Sponge Bob Square pants" before bedtime, and I'm going to upload the photos from today and spend the rest of the evening in front of the tv for a change.

Satu, due, tiga!

I have plenty of personal goals, for my "new life" down here in Brunei.

I was thinking before we came, that moving countries would be the perfect opportunity to get new routines into my life, and the life of our family as a whole. For the family, it is working fine! We have been starting out with quite a few changes and some new and improved rules for the kids to follow. We have managed to break some of the bad habits we had created in the UK already. That is all good!

I also thought that all the extra time I would get on my hands (thanks to the amah!) would be spent doing things I always have wanted to do, but never got around to.

So here we go, some of my goals:
* Starting a blog, and write in it continuously - check! ;)
* Doing some online university studies - check, I have applied to do a course in Photoshop and Digital photo editing, starts in January.
* Learn malay - check, I have started an online course, and do a lesson every evening! 'Satu, due, tiga' means one, two, three!

So far so good! I actually have lots of more things on my list, but will tell you more about them on a later occasion.