M...I...A

I can write my name!

Dining with the Fishies

We had a slight change to our schedule this week. Our little man has officially graduated from "Yi Nian Ji" (Grade 1). Yaayy! Summer holidays has started for him but Mama has signed him up for two weeks of summer school (why not since it's free?). So each morning, I ferry these two monkeys to their schools and pick them up at noon. I have to admit that it's nice having Ryan with us during the day, I do miss having him home with us especially during lunch. So today after school, I took them for lunch at Ocean Park as a special treat. Both of them were super excited about eating with the fishies!  

How much fresher can our food be?

Travelling through old Hong Kong

Hanging with JF (James Fin, the shark)

Checking out the new Panda enclosure

Up close and personal with Mr Starfish

To market...to market...

After many days of asking " Mama can you buy me the blue Ariel like Mia Catchpole?", I succumbed and took Mia down to the Wanchai market's toy lane to find this little toy. A little bit of background on this - we'd gone for a playdate at her classmate Mia Catchpole's house (these two little girls are called Mia Ngam and Mia Catchpole by all the teachers and children in their class!) a couple of weeks earlier and Mia spent the whole afternoon playing with a small Ariel figurine. When it was time to leave, she had a meltdown, refusing to let go of it. After 10 minutes of talking calmly, reasoning, bribing unsuccessfully, I finally had to pry it out of her hands and carry her screaming out of the house. Talk about embarrassing!

Trip number 1 was to go and buy the Ariel toy. We spent a long time walking through the toy shop looking for a pink Ariel but all we could find was Ariel in a blue dress. It took a great deal of persuading but in the end I managed to convince her that the sparkly blue dress was much, much prettier.

She was so excited, Ariel was everywhere!

Trip number 2 was to buy an Ariel dress but we could only find the ones with a tail. Mia was very clear in telling us that she wanted the "pink dress" which is the costume Ariel wore towards the end of the Little Mermaid movie when she turned into a princess. After looking at a few stalls, we finally settled for Snow White instead.

Daddy met us for a pre-market lunch

We saw some pretty fishies along the way

and cute little turtles too

And here's our little princess

...complete with her red bow 

Almost 7

We kicked off Ryan's birthday celebration with a dinner with the families of two of his friends in Stanley last night. Jaden is his "oldest" friend in Hong Kong, both boys met when they were just over a year old. Here's a bit of trivia, their mothers met on AsiaXpat, the most popular discussion forum in Hong Kong! Ryan and Samuel spent two years together in the same class at kinder. Another bit of trivia, their mothers met when they were both heavily pregnant waiting to pick up the boys after kinder. Our daughters were born one week apart.

The boys

The girls

The Mums

Unfortunately, there aren't any photos of the Daddies. I will have to remember to take some next time. 

It was a beautiful summer evening, overcast and breezy. After a short play in the playground, the kids were drawn to the live band playing over in the amphitheatre. Mia and Zoe got right up and started their own little dance party! You can see them in action here, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfWFr04uynw&feature=relmfu. 

Dancing queens

plus the obligatory head toss

Super heroes or dancing - I wonder which one is more interesting to the boys?

Clowning around

Dinner was at Mijas, a Spanish restaurant. We've been to this restaurant many times before, and we've always liked the ambiance and food. Tonight we had a lovely table out on the verandah with a view of the ocean. I ordered a bunch of different dishes for everyone to share, but when the food came Shad and I were shocked at the size of the serves. Since we were there nine months ago their portions have shrunk significantly. Shad proceeded to give them some "feedback" after which the manager came back with a new presentation of their lamb dish which was now two ribs bigger for Shad's comments!

So so happy. He didn't expect the cake.

Sweaty but happy kids

Always the clown!

Weekends

How do we spend our weekends? Saturday mornings start off bright and early with Shad taking Ryan for his tennis lesson at 8.30am. Then the rest of the day sees us juggling homework (for Ryan) and "fun". Some days, homework takes up the better half of the day and at times when there's assessments and tests, we find ourselves stuck home all day, sometimes even all weekend :( But Shad and I do make it a point to make sure that we get the kids out of the house once "work" is done.

Going to the beach is always at the top of the list. Ryan is always the first one in the sea, swimming, boogie boarding or just playing in the waves while Mia loves playing in the sand, digging "swimming pools" and sand castles. Most times we head down to Big Wave Bay in Shek O after breakfast for an early day of play.

Enjoying the low tide

Sharing secrets

This time we did something different. We took our bikes onto the ferry to Cheung Chau, rode around part of the island then stopped at the beach to cool down.

Lunch on the run

Jumping beans

Heading home on the ferry

Bike riding is another favourite. We bought a folding bike and have been taking it with us so that either one of us is always riding alongside Ryan who is now extremely quick on two wheels. Mia is still too little to keep up with us on her little trike so we hire a "carriage" to chauffeur this little princess along!

Princess Mia and her body guards

Tree lined path in Tai Po Waterfront Park

Belcher's Bike Wash

Both kids really enjoy going to the movies. Ryan watched his first movie at 18 months, sitting through all of "Finding Nemo". His record is 13 hours alternating between the tv and his Ipod on our flight back from London! Mia on the other hand has never had the same concentration as her brother. She has never shown any interest in watching tv, usually sitting still for five minutes at the most. It was "Tinkerbell" which started it for her, then all of us watched Tinker and only Tinker time after time again until (thank goodness!) she discovered "Little Einsteins".

Mesmerised by "The Lorax"

On those very rare occasions that Mia has Shad and I all to herself, we let her choose what she wants to do. Today, while Ryan was off at a birthday party, Mia wanted to "go for a bike ride and play at the playground". So that's what we did.

Mama (&) Mia

Pasta partners

No matter how old we are, catching bubbles is always a delight

And of course we must not forget Disneyland. The kids never say no to that!

Kids work out which rides they want to go on while Daddy works out the show times

We just MUST have a picture with Tinkerbell