Gone in a flash

Where did the last seven months go? Hard to believe we're fast approaching the end of the year. Before you know it, we'll be bringing out the Christmas tree and decorations again. So what have we been up to since the start of the year?

Going to "school" with little people...

Dress up day

Story time with Ms Kathleen

Celebrating Mother's Day with bread and tomatoes

All ready to go Easter egg hunting

So very pleased with the crown she made

...which sometimes involve field trips like this one to the Aberdeen Country Park.

All rugged up and ready for our nature walk

Busy with her plant worksheet

Hungry little plant lovers

Being parent-volunteer and spectator (together with Daddy) at fun school events at ISF...

Welcome to Mehico ... one of the stops in the "Around the World in 10 Classrooms" project

He Ban Mums-and-Dads cheering squad at Foundation Year Games Day

Project Presentation Day - Under the Sea (Mandarin module)

In space (English module)

Taking the little munchkin to her soccer classes...

And the big munchkin to taekwondo classes...

Plus the weekly playdates...

Working off excess energy

Insect inspectors

Pool + giant floaties = the perfect play date

Ice-cream treat with his ISF friends

Novice ice-skater with his penguin assistant

And on top of all these, there were the swimming lessons, lunch-mum and reading-mum duties at Ryan's school and play dates with Mia's little friends. In-between there were of course many fun weekends and wonderful holidays.

Christmas 2010

How quickly another year is coming to an end. Seems like each year is getting shorter and shorter. We've been in Hong Kong for close to five years now. This was our third Christmas away from family. It's at times like this that I realise just how much I miss being home, surrounded by family. Thankfully, we've made some wonderful friends here in Hong Kong and this year were able to celebrate this festive season with some of them.

Setting up the tree at home

This year we had a second pair of very helpful hands!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas..... (Christmas tree at 1881 Heritage in Tsim Tsa Tsui)

Enjoying the lights from the Avenue of Stars in Tsim Tsa Tsui

Hong Kong skkyline

View of the star ferry terminal from Kowloon

In keeping with my family tradition, we had a lovely Christmas Eve dinner with Alex and Deanna's family and the Arosti family. It was wonderful having everyone over at our home on this special night.

Stand-in grandparents for the night. Ryan "performing" his Mandarin poems for Peter Kung-kung and Fiona Poh-poh

Our Christmas Eve dinner spread

Man-of-the-house carving the big bird

Our family

Italian influenced desserts, thanks to the Arosti family

Boys and their toys

The girls out on their shopping excursion

Enjoying a good laugh with great friends surrounded by good food

Marco and his parents who were visiting from Italy

Mama and Daddy's rule - one present on Christmas Eve so of course he chose the biggest one under the tree!

The little Missy was terrified of the "scawy dinosaur"

Patiently waiting for her turn

Bright and early on Christmas morning - straight for the presents

Look what Santa brought - she loved it!

Fighting robots, just what a 5 year old boy loves

This little boy's dream come through - Ultraman's gun. Daddy and Mama made an exception on our no-guns rule just this once

My first bike

We met up with some of Ryan's ISF classmates on Boxing Day for a barbeque at our place. The weather was just perfect, cold but sunny so the kids had a great time running around in the playground and riding around on their scooters.

ISF friends (Oscar, Toby, Katrina and Kashie) and their little siblings (Ben, Scarlett, Natasha and Mia, Kathleen is missing from this pic)

He Ban Mums, we're also missing one here (Michelle, Ruth and Irene)

Coming down the "up up up up" (slide in Mia-language)

No adult supervision was needed, the kids just settled themselves down and decided to have a drawing session

One's busy drawing, the other busy scribbling!

But there's always time for a cuddle

Playing school

Multi tasking - drawing and reciting their Chinese poems

Never too busy to pose for Daddy

The I-"toys" generation

Totally engrossed

Oh what a feeling...