Kindy Schedule 10-14 March

Term 2 Week 10 – Easter
Focus activities: Humpty Dumpty. Eggs. Revise alphabet – no new sound this week.
Shape of the week – oval
Egg decorating and egg rolling race – discuss concept of 1st, 2nd and 3rd
Problemsolving – can you make a safe, strong wall for Humpty Dumpty – How can we make him balance?
Making and decorating an Easter tree – discuss concept of new life – eggs hatching…



As you can see, next week at school is all about Easter. This is the last week before the Easter Holidays.

The Tuesday Assembly is going to be about Easter, and they will bake some Easter nests on Wednesday.
Friday after swimming, there will be an Easter egg hunt! Exciting!

Beautiful sky

Late this afternoon while driving to the supermarket, I saw the most beautiful sky ever!
It was raining, so the light was crisp and wet but the sun was still shining out from behind a cloud. It had a really, really strong light, almost like a huge lamp. It's rays were going in all directions.
I've never seen a sky quite like it, with that strong yellow light.
I took this photo (from the car), but I'm not quite sure if it makes it justice:



It was absolutely beautiful!

Sporty Spice

We are starting more and more to look like one of the families from the card game Löjliga familjen (=Happy Families) - Mr Sporty, Mrs Sporty, Master Sporty, and here we present:

Miss Sporty



She is wearing Lucas' new football boots (he should have started this afternoon, but it seems to be raining away today unfortunately), and Nathans new tennis sweatbands (I got some too, a necessity in this clima, even though it makes us look a bit over the top).
It is almost silly how much sports gear we have bought since we have been here, but then again - we hardly owned any (or did any sport!) in the UK, so there we go!
We all really enjoy this new lifestyle for sure, being able to enjoy so much sport is one of the best things with being here.

License to drive

Another box ticked, we have now got our drivers licenses. F i n a l l y.
(Well, we couldn't get them until we had our ICs and as you know we couldn't get them until Nathan had his work visa, and that took forever etc...) It's all a vicious circle but we are getting closer and closer to being fully integrated!

The Bruneian drivers licenses are pretty basic. Just a small piece of paper, not laminated or anything; no picture on it - just your address (?) and passport number.
Ah well, at least now we are driving legally; and have to be more careful with our speeding, cause now we can get fined! :)

What to wear?

Check out what I received today:



"The Ambassador of Sweden to Brunei
Mr Pär Ahlberger

requests the pleasure of the company of

Mrs. Boel Watson & Spouse

to a Barbeque Buffet
on the occasion of the Swedish Business Delegation Visit to Brunei

Sunday, 9 March 2008"

Luckily the calendar was free ;)! Nathan has standby, but hopefully he wont get called out, so I will get accompanied to this fancy dinner on Sunday!
What to wear?!?

There is apparently a big delegation coming over to Brunei for 3 days; the list of guests include the GM's of Handelsbanken, Nordea Bank and Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken; the CEO of the Royal Falcon Fleet, the VP's of SAAB and Ericsson; all the Embassy staff from Singapore, the Consul here in Brunei - and many more.

Ooo, I'm already really, really excited!

Tuesday Theme - Fritid

Today's Tuesday Theme is fritid (=free time/spare time).

Obviously, with young kids, there isn't too much of that; but every now and then while they are playing nicely or watching a movie, I sit down here, at my scrap table:



I love my scrapping! I don't have a proper scrap-corner (there is no room for that in this house), it's all a bit temporary, but I do enjoy having a little bit of my own space, even if it's just a desk.

You know you are tired when...

... you fall asleep while playing your favourite game on the Wii!
Must have been hard getting back to school after having been home sick on the sofa for so many days...

Sunday Lunch

Yesterday we went to "the other" Yacht Club (there are two here, but "the other" one - in Kota Batu - doesn't accept children in the evenings, and you can't swim there so no reason going daytime.)
But every Sunday they put on Sunday Lunch buffet for the whole family, with roast chicken, lamb, beef and pork with all the trimmings. Yum!
It was all very nice, especially the pork; and the lamb which was full of garlic, just like Nathan normally makes his.
It was our first Sunday Lunch there and we will go again for sure! It was scrumptious!



Then we made the kids happy and took them to the Jungle Gym for a couple of hours in the afternoon. Not a good idea on a Sunday when half of Brunei is there... But the kids had fun!

Kad Pengenalan

Today we got our ICs (=identification cards). F i n a l l y .
Well, to be fair, once the right person got hold of our papers it didn't take long at all, but it has taken about six months to get the papers to the right person...

This is how they look like, you see the front of Nathan's card and the back of mine. On the back of the card, it states the occupation. Mine is, if anyone was in doubt: house wife.



(For those of you who knows what I think about Swedish shop assistants and their eagerness to ask for ID all the time, I am so looking forward to id myself with this!)

Kindy Schedule 3-7 March

(Since most weeks actually look the same at Kindy, with ICT (computing) & PE (sports) on Tuesdays; Mandarin on Wednesdays and Thursdays; library on Thursdays and swimming & Fresh fruit on Fridays - I have decided to just tell you about the special things for each week in my future Kindy posts.)

Term 2 Week 9 – Storytelling and friendship – Letter Tt
Focus activities:
Story –Three Billy Goats Gruff – Dramatising and retelling
Shape of the week – Triangle
Number 8 - spiders
Problem solving – designing bridges to cross a pretend river – small and large scale



Today they were going to Bukit Shabandar (a forest park) to act out the story of Three Billy Goats Gruff on a bridge there, and have a picnic. (Keep an eye out on the Kindy homepage for photos!)

On Thursday it's "Casual Clothes Day", for charity. Kids get to wear their own clothes, and each pay $1 to go to the school's Animal Conservation/Adoption project.

This week we also have parent-teacher interviews. We get to come on Wednesday afternoon, to hear all about Lucas progress. Exciting!

Hydration

In a hot climat like ours it is of course extra important to keep hydrated. You shouldn't drink the water straight out of the tap here, and there are different solutions to that.
We do three things:

* We have a water purifier (that filters the water) connected to the tap in the kitchen. We use that water for all our cooking, rinsing vegetables etc and for the water boiler and coffee machine.



* We have a water dispenser with Sehat water. As we (read: I) didn't want to keep lugging bottled water home from the supermarket, we chose this (also cheaper) option. They deliver these bottles to you. We have a couple of them, and when they are all empty we just call, and they come within a few hours to replace them for us.



* We have a well stocked drinks fridge!
We have any soft drink available, loads of different kinds of juice and of course keep the beer and wine collection as full as we can as well!
"Going for drinks/cocktails" at peoples houses is a big thing here, since you can't meet up in bars or drink out. You generally bring your own alcohol and mixers for this, so it's a good thing to keep a good supply.

Square eyes

Poor Lucas, he is well on his way to get square eyes.
He has been home from school for three days, and done nothing but watch tv, *sigh*, because he has been "så schuuuk" (=so sick).
He has had a fever, and been really lethargic. Friday we thought he was ok, he seemed perky and had no temperature, so we took him to school - only to have to come and pick him up a couple of hours later because he was weak and sluggish.
(I wasn't too sure if he was actually putting it on at that stage, to get to stay at home and watch tv, they are clever like that, the little creatures!)



But today the nose is running too, and he has got a cough. Poor thing.
Nathan hasn't felt well either, so the two of them have been lying on each their sofa feeling sorry for themselves.

Linnea have been to Melissa's, to playgroup and we have had two playdates; but I think today we will have to stay at home all of us. Nathan is at work, so someone needs to keep Lucas company... on the sofa...

"A drinking club with a running problem"

So, today I did my first hash!

Basically, a hash is a run through the jungle. Kind of. (Read more here.)
It's more to it than just the running, there are loads of rules and traditions surrounding hashing. The Womens Hash here in Brunei was the world's first women's hash, founded in 1966. One of the co-founders - Glamour (all the hens have different code names) - is still running! She is 75+ something old, still going strong.

Today the run was at a site called Diplo. It is on different locations every week, and every week two "hens" are chosen to be "hares" and lay the trail the rest of us will follow.
The more seasoned "hens" were all equipped accordingly, with "waterbackpacks", whistles and flashlights (in case you get stuck or lost, when it goes dark). At least I had proper hash-shoes, which basically are football shoes made out of material, but with big rubber pegs on them, to get a good grip in the jungle.

Everybody signs in (and when they get back out they sign out so everybody is accounted for):



Your first time, you have to go "with" someone who is already a member. I got signed in by my friend Amanda, and she was also responsible for me all throughout the hash today. She had to walk with me, never let me out of her sight, and make sure I made it all the way around.



17.15 the horn went off, and we set off out into the jungle - exciting!
(And no, we didn't see any scary animals - they don't hang around when 40-50 loud, laughing, talking women power on through..!)

To know where to go, you have to follow the paper trail. It's a bit like orienteering. (Well, you can also just follow the people in front of you, but do stick to the paper as well, you might not go by the same pace, and all of a sudden those people might be gone faster than you.)
People keep calling out throughout the jungle "on on" which means they are still on track, "head" if there is f.e a branch really low, or "trip" if there are loads of branches or other things on the ground.
Along the trail there are 3-4 checkpoints, the forerunners will find them first, and call out "check ahead". Sometimes they have a hard time finding where the trail continues after the checkpoint, then you will hear "checking checking", until they find it - and go "on on paper".



I took a moment to pose on a log, crossing a stream. Grateful this was a dry crossing, as I had heard a few horror stories.



"In the jungle, the mightly jungle"... *Singing*



Taking a pit stop after having climbed a huge hill. We had to stop up to drink water, otherwise we would have tripped over. Not really a clean path we were walking on, no, quite the opposite. I'm really getting into it though, see my red face?



Here we are, trekking away. Up and down the hills...



Another piece of paper. Actually there were laid out with about only 2-3 meters in between, so no chance of missing any. The "hares" had taken three hours the other day "rekking" for the trail, and another 2 hours today laying it. Hard work.



I'm sorry this next picture is a bit blurry, but I just had to put it in anyway. It shows Amanda going through the deepest stream of the run. She is slightly shorter than I am, so she had to get in quite deep - I just got the water up to just over my knees luckily. Still made my shoes go all "slurp, slurp, slurp" afterwards, when doing the very last part of the trail... Yuck.



YES! Here I am - on my way out of the jungle, after having climbed the last high hill, in soggy shoes... It took us 1h15 to get around, which was pretty good. Really good exercise with all this climbing up and down huge hills, over and under trees and branches, over stock and stone etc. I'm so proud of myself for finishing! Now I just have to get fitter, so I can pick up the pace!



After the hash itself, there is always a shout-up.
Today I got introduced and rewarded with a down-down (a Tiger beer and a special song) being a guest and first-timer. I have to do two more times as a guest, before I can become a member, and be trusted to go about it on my own.
There was some singing and some speeches and also delicious food and drink - all quite sociable and nice. It's a good mix of different people that I normally don't meet, so I'm looking forward to next hash already!

Look at him!

As I have said earlier, both kids are gaining enormous amounts of confidence in the water down here. (Would be strange if they didn't of course, with us going swimming several times a week! But it's still amazing to see!)

Lucas favourite game is to jump into the pool from the side, over and over again. Even though he can't touch the bottom, he still launches himself in with full force.
Here he is on Nathans shoulders, another favourite - about to jump off. He is so cool!

Another birthday party

Today the kids were invited to yet another birthday party, they come close this time of year! It was arranged at the Yacht Club, and the fact that it was raining didn't stop everybody from having a good time or the kids from swimming and playing in the pool.





Mind you, it was a little bit cold I think...

The birthday boy had requested a football cake, and one of their friends had made it for him - it was looking absolutely fantastic! Almost too nice to eat! (But it tasted good too I can report!)



Since it was a half-Swedish little birthday boy, there was a Fiskdamm (=fish pond) where the kids could go fishing for their party bags. Lucas though, got a shoe at first (to his great amusement!) before he got a bag on the hook.



Linnea was very concentrated on her task too.

Kindy Schedule 25-29 February

Term 2 Week 8 – Storytelling and friendship, Letter Ss
Focus activities:
Story – Three Billy Goats Gruff – Dramatising and retelling
Shape of the week: square
Number of the week: 7
Problem solving, designing bridges, small and large scale
Role play, Doctors Surgery, caring for eachother
Co-operative play and activities



Monday
NO SCHOOL in lieu of National Day

Tuesday
08.00 Assembly with Mrs Moran: Keeping school tidy
PE with Mrs Carter
ICT with Mrs Harris

Wednesday
Mandarin

Thursday
Library
Mandarin

Friday
Swimming
Fresh fruit Friday

THE party

So, yesterday we went to THE party! The party that people have been looking forward to for weeks. It was my friend Anna, and two other guys, who had gone together to celebrate their 40th birthdays - and invited about 100 people to a huge cocktail bash.
I wore a stunning dress my friend Linda once gave me, and some new glam earrings. I had made an effort to put my hair up in a do (took a can of hairspray and serious amounts of patience...) and I felt really pretty!
Me and the birthday girl:



The party was held at the Empire Hotel & Country Club's Marine Center. They had chosen an absolutely gorgeous setting. The venue had been decorated beautifully with loads of white, flowy material, fresh flowers and lit candles everywhere.
While sipping on some Pimm's upon arriving we got to admire the sunset over the South China sea - fabulous!



There was a lot of mingling going on, "everybody" was there. They had a guy entertaining with some soft jazz and chilled out music while the buffet was on; and after we had had some yummy cake, the DJ got people dancing all through the night.

The theme for the night was "cool and colonial", and while the ladies were mostly sporting lush dresses, almost all the guys were wearing nice linen outfits and all looked very cool.
Even Nathan made it very late in the evening after returning from Hong Kong. This is Andrew, John and Nathan:

Independence Day

Tomorrow Brunei is celebrating it's 24th National Day, in commemoration of their independence, won 1st of January 1984. (Before that they were a British protectorate.)

I've been trying without any luck so far, to find information about what is going to happen tomorrow. Usually schoolchildren and private sector representatives work together with flash card displays and other colourful crowd formations, and there is supposed to be a big parade and celebrations all over Bandar (the capital). It would be nice to go and see it all so I will try and find out more today.

All of Brunei have been decorated for the occasion though. Almost every lamppost has been equipped with a flag, and nearly every car is driving around with flags as well. (Just like they did in they UK for the big sports events!) It looks rather festive!



Lucas is off school on Monday, in lieu of tomorrow - so we are looking forward to a long weekend!

Operation dry initiated

It's time.
Not that she really shows any signs, or is particularly interested, but it's time. Peculiar enough, she is more into doing nr 2 on the potty than nr 1 at the moment. We just go with it and hope she will catch on to what to do fairly quickly.

The to-do-list

Today we ticked off another thing of the endless to-do-list; we went to submit our applications for the IC cards (identity cards). We have had to wait this long, because we couldn't do it until Nathan had his work permit, and all of us our visas; and that has taken forever because... yeah, neverending story...

Today anyway, we went to not only take our pictures but to have our fingers fingerprinted! They are thorough here!

So once we have picked the IC cards up in a couple of weeks, we can go ahead and apply for national drivers licenses. Another thing on the to-do-list.
Then we only need a house. Only.