Book lovers

Ashley was very happy spending some time on Dennis's lap this morning, listening to the stories.

She was also interested in this kind of reading (IKEA newsletter) too!!

Flying visit

Merryn and Dennis arrived last night from NZ.

Merryn texted me the other day asking if we are planning to come over to NZ during the term break in March. I would love to take the kids over to NZ but to be honest I am still recovering from all the traveling we did over the last 3 months or so. So I told her we wont be coming over. The next text from her was "all right, we will come to you instead! Next week if it's ok with you!" It is so good they are such experienced travelers and can just hop on a plane anytime! This time they are only here till next Wednesday tho so literally a "flying visit" as Merryn says.

Today we had a very productive day. In the morning they took Oliver and Luca to the kindy with Ashley in the buggy. We collected them together and hopped on a bus to Parkway Parade for an early lunch.

The kids were very lucky to have McDonald's with their grandparents.

Just in case you were wondering, YES we went for a little bit of shopping after lunch. Merryn had a few things on her list. We managed to find some of the things she wanted very quickly and were home in 2 hours just in time to watch the first rugby game of the season. Matthew also got back from his flight when the game started so he could enjoy watching the whole game with Dennis. 

After the rugby we took the kids for a walk, bike ride and a bit of rugby practice. Oliver was inspired by the players on TV and wanted to run around and practice passing and running. We are taking him for a trial rugby lesson tomorrow so it was good practice for him.

I was too lazy to organise our dinner at home tonight. When you don't have food? Go to the food court and enjoy nice Indian! Yum yum yum!

I am very glad M&D are here. The kids see them often enough and are very comfortable around them now. We will be doing IKEA (of course!) and also Holland Village in the next few days. 

Big brother

I always wanted a big brother myself (as you know I have two sisters, one older and one younger).  I am very jealous Ashley has two! And they are so different :)

Morning exercises

We have great access to all these facilities in our condo but we tend to forget. The other day the boys were out with Matthew to play some tennis and golf. It was quite a hot day so they didn't stay long. Even so they had a great time.



 

We really should plan our day better. We can do so much without leaving our condo.

Chopsticks

Look at my Japanese boy, very confident in using chopsticks! Whenever we go out shopping the boys ask for Sushi for lunch or dinner. It is easy you don't have to think about which restaurant to go and I know they eat very well. I mean really well. Oliver normally eats 4 plates, that is 8 pieces of sushi and Luca eats 21/2. 

 

 

I wonder when Ashley can start eating like her brothers... maybe not too far off.

Extreme weather

Singapore has been so dry since we got back from Japan. It only rained once and everything is getting very brown. We are enjoying the very cool temperature in the mornings tho (I am not sure why it is so cool and so dry).

Japan is also experiencing extreme weather. There were some unusual snowstorms over the last two weeks with a crazy amount of snow in the areas in where the snow doesn't stay on the ground normally. In some areas it is getting quite chaotic. The road closures are causing lots of households to be isolated etc.

In South Osaka where I am from we rarely get snow, if it snows it won't stay on the ground. I can only remember playing in the snow once when we were kids, maybe I was 10 or so.

But these are the photos my family sent to me last week:

 

At our Japanese house:







I am so annoyed we are not there at the moment. NO I don't like the cold but having snow on the ground and playing with the kids would be so much fun. Oliver especially was very disappointed we didn't get any snow to play in while we were there. He can sort of understand the seasons, and different countries having different climates etc now.

Anyway I just remembered I haven't blogged about this snow park we went to in Japan so I am going to show you some of the photos here.

I researched how to get to ski fields, or somewhere cold enough to take the boys for snow play, but it was quite hard without a car and with a little baby. So in the end we took the boys to this place my friend told me about. It was not all natural but at least the boys got to play in the snow!

We took trains to central Osaka. I think the whole journey took just over 2 hours. Hirakata Park is an old amusement park but I have never been there before. We bought some twilight tickets (entering the park after 3pm) hoping we wouldn't be frozen by the time the sun goes down.

They brought so much snow from somewhere... and made a play area and sleigh and tube ride areas.
The boys just had a ball!



And you can tell the parents had a great time too:





 

     



Luca the snow bee:



    





We explored the rest of the park after they closed the snow play area. We treated the kids with some rides.

 

 



Once the sun went down completely it got even colder. We were worried about Ashley but she was just happy as - giggling away :)



Before we left we went through some light displays - very pretty!





Japan is expecting some more snow this weekend. I really hope we can catch the real snow next time we visit.

Social spot

I am making more effort to take the kids to the pool in the evening so that we can catch up with our friends and the kids can play with their friends.

The weather has been fantastic for this. No rain and warm water :)

I even go down when Matthew is working now, I know someone will give me a hand. 

The other day the boys were drinking in the pool for Matthew who was in freezing Osaka!

When I was chatting to Nicola we saw this amazing sunset? rainbow? It didn't really capture the real light we were seeing through our sunnies but pretty cool ha!?

 

It puts our dinner time slightly later but it doesn't matter much, the kids are exhausted and sleep so well!