The Millenium fever

The Millenium fever has reached Brunei in full force! That is the "Stieg-Larsson-trilogy-Millenium-fever". Everybody is reading them, and our friends here in Brunei are not alone! Apparently the books have sold in more than 22 million copies worldwide!
The first two books in this trilogy, are in 3rd and 4th place over the best-selling books in the world for 2009 - beaten only by the two 'Twilight'-books. (They were in top three last year as well, beaten then only by 'The Kiterunner'!)
Not bad!

Us Swedes are very proud of this phenomenon, and I'm using the books are the "perfect gift" every time I have a grown-up present to give. Everybody loves them!
Some of our friends have also seen the first movie; subtitled in swedish of course. Some have found it a bit weird, to watch a "foreign language-movie", and did wonder "doesn't it come in english?". Ha ha!
Well, good news - Hollywood is in final discussions about the rights to do their version (and George Cloony is apparently keen on playing Blomqvist!). So watch this space!

TGIF

Fridays have a slightly different meaning to us down here. Yes, of course, it's normally the last day of the school week and a lovely weekend is next - but it's also a day that is perfect for doing errands around town. Especially at around 1-1.30 pm, when there is practically no traffic or nobody around.

Reason being, Fridays just after lunchtime is the time for the congregational prayer (Jumu'ah) for the Muslims, so they are all at the Mosques. Town feels very deserted at this time.
Perfect timing for the rest of us to get out and around quickly with no traffic, and be a bit efficient!
I like Fridays.

Santa Lucia

On Sunday (the 13th) it was Lucia-day in Sweden, a very important day in the gearing-up until Christmas. It gets celebrated in every Kindergarten, every school, every hospital and official buildning in Sweden. We celebrated it last year when we were down in NZ, but this year the kids didn't want to dress up (*sob, sob*).

On the Swedish television they air the 'national' Lucia performance every year at 07 am, so that you can listen to the beautiful singing for breakfast.
This year it was a very traditional Lucia concert with a huge choir, from the cathedral in Växjö. You can see it here, if you are interested. Linnea and I watched it together over the internet yesterday. Me with tears in my eyes because it was really moving, and she with tons of questions - "why are they having funny hats?", "why does she have candles in her hair?", "why do the boys have dresses on?", "why are they waving stars?"...etc... She did seem to think it was very special though. Next year, I'm planning on watching a Lucia concert in Sweden!

Christmas baking

The other day the kids got some new Christmas cookie cutters in their calendars, so of course we had to try them out straight away!
Since I hadn't prepared the gingerbread dough, we made some shortbread instead. Since Matt & Misuzu came over for dinner, they got involved in finishing up the baking as well!





We did aeroplanes, moose, kiwi birds, julbockar, stars, hearts and many other things!



Today I'm going to get some saffron so that we can make the traditional lucia bread, and also set the gingerbread dough. I tried it for the first time last year, and it wasn't as hard as I thought, so will try it again this year!

Christmas thoughts

It really isn't easy to get into the Christmas spirit out here... I struggle a lot with missing the snowy, chilly Scandinavian Christmases and cherishing lovely memories of my childhood Christmases, which of course in my mind - all were perfect!
I miss the lights, the cold, the goodies and that Christmas feeling you have all of December back home. It's a difficult time of year to be an expat and be away from family.

At the same time, it's important to remember that this is what my kids knows as Christmas. To them, it's normal to have no sign of Christmas anywhere else than in other expat's houses, and to celebrate Christmas with friends rather than family. It's normal that it's the same hot, sticky temperature at Christmas as on any other day of the year and it's normal to have a plastic tree and fake snow on the windows...

It saddens me that my children wont have the same experiences or feelings about Christmas as I do (especially since I'm such a Christmas geek myself). They will never walk in a Lucia procession, or sing Christmas carols ('Jingle Bells' doesn't count!) at school. There is no Santa's Grotto around here to visit, nor do they play Christmas music in the shops. There is no snow to build snowmen and snowball lanterns out of and we can't make Christmas goodies or leave the gingerbread house out, because the ants will attack it straight away.

But as I said, I also do try and make every Christmas, wherever we are, the best Christmas for the kids - cause these are their Christmases. Even though it's hard, I can only try my best.
I play Christmas music at home and in the car, we watch Christmas movies and old 'Julkalendrar' on DVD, I light candles every afternoon when it starts to go dark and we enjoy eating the gingerbread snaps I've brought home from IKEA!
And I'm pretty sure that Santa will somehow find us this year again!

På våran gata i staaan...

Or if you prefer, "The social simpang".
There are 6 houses in our simpang (=street), four of them are occupied by fellow RBA-families. We are so lucky to all get along really well, and are very good friends too.
Sometimes it feels like we live in one big hippie-style collective! Dinners around here are more often impromptu than planned; the kids walk or bike freely and by themselves between the houses, have snack here or there. The doors to our house sometimes are like revolving doors - never shut and rarely knocked on, people just tend to come right in!

The other day, three out of the four families (the 4th was away on a trip) went down to the track all of us, husbands, kids and all. The boys took their bikes and the kids on theirs and went for a bit of a ride - and us girls went for a jog.
Nicole, Misuzu and I do the hash on Tuesdays; the boys of course go biking together (even Matt has now bought a bike!); Matt and I play squash every now and then, and of course there is a lot of coffee-drinking and low-key wine nights too.

It's nice to share interests with your neighbours, and not only "live in the same street". It also feels safe to have good people close-by, and we are always there for each other and help each other out with different things all the time, small and big.
I'm really happy we are living where we are, and that I have these lovely people around me!

The twelve days of Christmas

Since we were away for the beginning of December (and honestly, since I had a hard time keeping up with it being Christmas soon, when we left for NZ in the middle in November...) - the Advent Calendars this year got put aside initially. The kids didn't ask for them, so we thought maybe we'd give it a miss this year.

But... a bit of guilt (I always loved this tradition myself as a child) made me then came up with a solution that worked for all. We started the calendars today, and we're calling it 'The twelve days of Christmas'.
Reason being, we only had one Lego-calendar, so now they can open one flap each every day until Christmas.





I also prepared the normal gift-calendars, so they have one gift each until Christmas there too! (Since our Christmas starts on the 24th, you know!)



Very happy kids this morning, and all excited about the rest of the presents! Maybe also, this will stop Linnea's endless questioning too... "Is it Christmas today Mummy?", "Is Santa coming today?"... Now we can count the presents=days together.

An alternative take

Nathan received an email today from the Wattyl Lake Taupo Bike Challenge and amongst other information, there was a section with statistics from the race.
Most of them I've already listed in a previous post, but I found one I thought was worth some extra mentioning:

"Best value for money Solo time": 10.38.55

Well, that's one way of looking at it I guess!

Kindy Xmas Party

Yesterday was the last day of school for this term, and it was also the day of the Kindy Xmas Party. The Kindy classes gathered to sing some Xmas songs together, and then there was a bit of wait, but finally - we could here some bells outside:



Santa showed up, to some very excited children:



"I have something for you Santa", said Linnea. She had made him a pretty drawing.



All the kids:



Some of the little friends:



Linnea getting her present:



And then it was party!





Now we have 3 1/2 weeks of Xmas holiday in front of us!

Lacing up the shoes

With 80 days left until the Hong Kong race, it's time to step it up a bit - or at least start running a little bit more with a thought.
My friend Tash, who is also doing the 10 k, is following the Galloway-method (All us girls have the Galloway book "You can do it", and his method seems to work, so why not?) and today I joined her for one of her runs.

We ran around the little "roads" down where we took the kids biking the other day, not very far from us. It was actually the first time for me to be running outside (as in running purposely, not as in running-at-the-hash) and it was perfect! We set off at 5 pm when there was no more sunshine and a pleasant temperature. It kept getting "cooler" (well, everything is relative, right?) and there was even a beautiful breeze...

Anyway, it was really good for me to run with someone. We made a plan of how long we were running for and how we were going to run it, and then we stuck to it. Had I been by myself, I would probably just have given up halfway through, thinking that I wouldn't be able to continue.
So today, we ran 8k, and it was actually not too bad! I felt great, especially afterwards!

Nathan always says "the hardest thing is to lace up the shoes" - and I guess, today I kind of kicked off the training period for this race.
I laced up the shoes, and I completed the plan. I'm proud of myself.

Year 1 Xmas Party

Lucas' year group had their Christmas party today, and as usual all the parents were invited to come along. They sang and danced...





... and had party food...



- and even Santa came to visit, to present the children with some gifts and have a chat about what they would like for Christmas.







They all got a Christmas mug filled with goodies, most of them got eaten already at the party..! Fun had by all!

Around and around... and around

We took the kids down to the empty area on the slip road not very far from us this afternoon. It's a popular area for exercise, especially in the afternoons, because it's full of little roads (with no traffic). Lots of people go down there to jog, or as us - go for a bit of a bike ride:



Ben and Hannah were down there at the same time and the kids had a ball riding around and around on the tracks. Lucas had said that he didn't want to do any more turning (...), so we thought it was time to venture out on some longer "roads".
They both enjoyed it a lot, so I think this will be a new favourite past-time in the afternoons!

And so it's Christmas...

Today the Christmas music has been playing non stop in our house! I've been unpacking the Christmas decorations, and with the blazing sunshine outside I needed as much "Christmas" as I could - to get in the right spirit of it all. Not easy.
I do enjoy my Christmas music though, and I even had some pepparkakor (Swedish ginger snaps). Shame I didn't have any glögg though, will have to make my own.

Nathan took the kids swimming so I could do it all in peace, but I did save the decorating of the tree until they got home. By then it was also just the right time of the day with not so much light, so it turned into a very special moment!

Important to find the right decorations:




What's this?



Team work:





I want to put it all the way up there...



We all helped!



And finally - the star was placed on the top of the tree, aaahhhh!

Just a trim please

We were slightly shocked and rather surprised coming home to this this morning:



It looked like a tornado had been through our garden!

Yes, I had told the gardener and the maintenance guys to trim the trees between our house and the neighbour's while we were gone. Trim - for several reasons: firstly because there was so many dead branches on the bushes and trees, and they didn't look very pretty. Secondly because I didn't want the trees resting on the roof (=rats and other creatures could climb in...) - but mainly because I wanted to let some more light in through our livingroom windows.

I did say 'trim' though. T-r-i-m.
I don't think they got that message... They had completely chopped down all the trees at the side of our house. So now there is kind of no more garden there, no more greenery and certainly no more privacy!
Oups.

He can do it!

He must have got super motivated by our "cycle-holiday" in NZ, our dear Lucas; because near to the first thing he did once we got home today was to bring his bike outside - get on it, and just pedal! Like he had done it forever and ever!

Only thing is, even though the training wheels have been off for a while now, he hasn't really been getting the hang of it when we have tried before. He's rather been just scared and has always jumped off as soon as the bike have started to wobble.
Today he just went and sat on it, totally determined, and started riding!

He then spent the whole afternoon going up and down our simpang, and he was just so proud of himself..!
Here's a little movie clip:

The Wattyl Lake Taupo Cycle Challenge - Some photos

Here we go, as promised, a little slide show from the race day last Saturday:

There were 12 different categories to take part in for the Lake Taupo Cycle Challenge, the solo ride of course but also different relay team challenges, Mountain Bike challenges off road, Tandems, Enduro and Maxi Enduro to mention a few.
John, Linton and Jeremy did the solo 160 km ride and were scheduled to start at 07.15. Since Bruce and Nathan did the Linfox Tarmac Relay, Nathan was bussed over to the halfway point and Bruce started at about 8 am, after all the solo cyclists had gone.

As a safety measure, the start of the solo ride was split into different starting groups based on the cyclists own estimations of how long it would take them to complete the course. All the groups started in "waves", which meant that us supporters had a hard job trying to quickly establish if our boys were in the current "wave" or not.
It was a bit tricky, as they came out of the start in great speed down the first hill, and we had to watch quite a few "waves" before we finally got lucky and were able to snap a few shots as they zoomed by!
The kids were great though! They stood there bravely and shouted "RBA!!! RBA!!!" on and on for each wave that passed us.

The weather wasn't the best on the day, and although we were dressed for it, kind of - as we wanted to show off our white-and-yellow supporter shirts we weren't wearing any jackets - we were so cold after those first few hours in the early morning!
So, having a big breakfast with all the works and some nice hot chocolates really did the trick after having seen our boys off!

We then had time to just quickly go home for a short pit stop, decorate the house with black, yellow and white balloons everywhere - and put on some more clothes. Then back in to town again to catch them as they crossed the finish line! We only had an estimate of when they were going to come in, so we didn't want to be late.

Nicole took Sean and his bike over to the meeting point where Jeremy would pick him up, for Sean to accompany him for the last 5 km into the finish. Unfortunately she didn't then make it back to see them cross it (because of the parking situation in town) - so lucky I got some good photos! Sean had a great ride, and will live on this experience for a long time I would imagine.

The support crew missed Linton unfortunately, he passed by far too quickly for us to notice and didn't get mentioned over the loudspeakers; but so did John, so we got him as he came in, and later also Nathan, Jeremy and Sean.

After the race, we went home for our heroes to shower and change - and back into town yet again, for the aerobatics display and the award ceremony. Not only were there plenty of awards given to special people who had taken part in the race, but there was also some really flash spot prizes randomly awarded amongst all the participants. Unfortunately none of our guys won anything.

We made a quick stop at the pub on the way home from the ceremony, had some pizza for dinner and then I can tell you, it was a very early night for most..!

They were all so pleased though with their efforts - and already planning for next year! Well done guys!

Home

We are back home after a very pleasant trip back from Auckland this time. We all had some sleep on the way over, and are slowly just taking on this Saturday with unpacking, playing with toys, watching tv, mounting bikes, uploading photos etc.

Bruce had to take the trailer last night to be able to bring all of our stuff. Nathan's bike box was mostly the problem, since it's rather bulky. Anyway, we got it all up there - and when we weighed in all of our luggage at check-in, we were just under our limit at 117 kg!
Gosh, with 3 kgs to spare - I could've shopped some more!

Brrrrr!

Our bags are packed, all three suitcases, two bike boxes, two scooter boxes and the hand luggage (and the car seats eventually!)... Vacation is over, we are off!
I feel quite happy to be going back to the sun right now. The last few days have got colder and colder each day, with today only at 11 degrees, windy and rainy.
Brrr! My fingers are cold and my toes are cold. We have just had to lit a fire to keep us warm while we have our last dinner.

I'm leaving you for now, with a little taster of the race. Here's Nathan just having passed the finish line:

Patience

I've uploaded quite a lot of photos from our NZ Cycle Challenge week for you to enjoy, but you won't find any of the race day itself just yet.
We are off back to Brunei tonight and tomorrow once I'm back on my own internet connection, I will upload a slide show for you. Thank you for your patience.

Nathan's reward

Ever since last December, when Nathan first took up the cycling and borrowed his Dad's bike with him back to Brunei; he has said that if he still liked it after a year he would by himself a new bike.
I guess we can establish that he does like the riding! So yesterday he picked up his new bike: an Avanti Quantum. He was a very happy boy:



Then of course it was time for some more photos:





And of course, the first ride:





Next year I'm expecting him to go at least twice around the lake! :)