Happy Birthday Poppie!

Happy 64th Birthday Poppie - Love from China

Another School Year starts

Yes, it has been two months since I wrote that joyous post proclaiming to have caught up on my blog posts *sigh*.  Of course, there's been a whole lot of living done since then, complete with photos.  So now that the school year has started here in Xiamen, I will spend some time catching up, once again.  I am crossing my fingers that I can get Sebastien into a preschool soon (his enrolment at Alex's school was denied - story to follow later) but we're going the Chinese route and bringing out the "guanxi" (connections) to see if we can still make it happen.

Anyway, look forward to a few more posts soon.

Three Cheers for Catching up on Blog Posts!

Hip - hip - hooray!
Hip - hip - hooray!

Finally I am up to date - well, except for Alex and Sebastien's latest birthday and half-birthday stats posts...oh, and I also have two other drafts ready to go except for the photos.

So we'll call it even.

Sleepover!

Alex and Emma have been keen for a sleepover for a while - but Alex is a year older and Emma has never been on a sleepover. So Alex went first - to show Emma just how much fun it can be!

Mummy and Sebastien dropped her off in the afternoon - Sebastien was very disappointed to be leaving and didn't quite understand why Alex got to stay. He loves playing with Emma just as much as Alex.

We were sent photographic evidence of the shenanigans (the exclamations are to approximate Alex's enthusiastic re-telling).

Dinner was followed by chocolate yogurt. Then a couple of Dora shows with popcorn!!!
Then bed in the study!!!!  Do you think they were a little excited? 
Apparently they still managed to fall asleep around 9.30pm and wake Emma's daddy up nice and early (but still after they had had their breakfast of cornflakes).

They even did some dragon craft tracing their hands for parts! Alex was very happy to bring home her glasses.We're now waiting a week or so before Emma gets invited over for a sleepover at Alex's house...stay tuned!

World Cup

Oh how fast has time flown! It seems like only yesterday that Brett and I were discussing the possibility of leaving Alex with "someone" to babysit while we went to see the World Cup in South Africa...

...and here's the reality:Kids are in bed asleep (games were 7.30pm, 10.30pm and 2.30am our time) and here we are on the couch trying to find an English stream to have commentary for the game.

Oh well. We're now looking ahead to Brazil in 2014...might mix in visiting our many Brazilian friends while we are there.

Now you be the princess and I'll be the...

...princess.

Alex had two "beautiful gowns" bought on a recent shopping spree with Grandie - and who would deny Sebastien a turn at "spinning 'round" in a dress that floats? Alex had new princess rain boots that she could wear in the house as she hadn't yet worn them outside - Sebastien was itching to get his Thomas the Tank engine boots...

Grandie and Poppie visit!

Hooray! At last Grandie and Poppie arrive in Xiamen.This will be the first of a couple of posts - but Mummy is waiting for Poppie to send her some photos so she can complete them.
But the least you should know is we loved having them visit!

Jigsaw-loving family

Puzzles are getting bigger and more complicated - Sebastien is fast catching up to Alex. He really enjoys doing all of our 24 piece puzzles - though the next step up to 45 is a little too much for him yet. Alex also enjoys helping with new acquisitions - Mummy insists on a number on the back of each piece so that at cleanup time, you know instantly that this piece belongs to puzzle number 3.Aunty Chelle, look out!! Your puzzles will be raided when we next visit!!

A run in with the law...

When you're in another country, you usually go out of your way to avoid unnecessary contact with the authorities. When you're in China, you especially go out of your way to do that. After all, it's so much harder when you don't speak the language.

We had all of our passport, visas and resident permits synchronised - everyone's expired at the same time, be it passport or permit. This was meant to make it easy to remember to renew such things.

Until Alex was turning five...and her US passport (containing said visa and permit) was to expire as well. So we organized to get a new one (good for another five years) while in Australia last. All was good, only her residency permit expired a couple of months earlier than ours...and all good intentions aside, she was in the country illegally.

Not.a.good.idea.

Thankfully Brett had one of the university staff go with him to the official interview that he had at the entry/exit bureau to discuss his transgressions (on Alex's behalf). I'm hoping that he'll chime in with a comment or two on this to provide details. But the first I knew of it was when he arrived home - with a red thumb!
Apparently when you "confess" to breaking the law, you sign your confession with your thumbprint - and in China, red ink is the appropriate colour for all "signatures" - be they chops or thumbprints. In the end he had two interviews - paid a fine that wasn't the maximum - and Alex had a new residency permit. Now he can smile about it...
It helped our cause that hers was the only expired one - and currently all of them (except hers) are being renewed.

Time to crawl back under our rock.

Seafood restaurants are great entertainment

When you go to a seafood restaurant in China, they like you to know just how fresh your food is. So it was that Daddy and the two kiddos, along with friend Emma and her parents, ended up at the "basketball restaurant" - a small Chinese restaurant around from the beach that has a basketball court just outside. The kids were entertained for ages just checking out the "aquarium"...

On the countdown for Grandie and Poppie's visit

So there are eight days to go - and it's time to make a chain! We've found that any chain longer than about a week just spins out the suspense for too long. So Alex got down to draw on some paper, cut it into strips, and tape them together into a chain. She's still a little short to reach up to the nail on the stool so she had help - but check out that grin! The countdown has begun!

Colour in between the lines

Sebastien is now at the age where he wants to do everything that his sister is doing...whatever it may be. For a while now his idea of "colouring" was to hand the crayon to Mummy or Daddy and ask them to draw one of the trains from the Thomas stories. No longer. Mummy and Daddy made a stand and told him colouring was for him to do...with the result:We need some practice with holding the crayon - unlike Alex who always held it the right way from the very beginning. (Not sure why she's bending down so close - eyes have been checked and are fine.) But at least he's now having fun with it!And yes, he's a lefty and she's a righty - interesting times ahead :)

You're a Princess Mummy

It's mosquito season. Actually, for us it is mosquito season about 9 months of the year here. Maybe not for Daddy - mosquitoes seem to give him a wide berth.

And so we erected all the mosquito nets again...only Mummy and Daddy's was broken which necessitated another purchase.

Only this time, they didn't have what we're used to with the zip-up sides...instead we now have:

The four poster bed.
Complete with "pretty lace and ribbons and swathes of extra netting" - just what every man and woman desires in their boudoir...not! I am seriously considering developing netting that has polkadots of bold colours on it, or squiggles of primary colours, or is just...netting *gasp*.

Alex is enthralled - she thinks the bed is now the most beautiful bed ever and that we now sleep "like a prince and princess"...*gag*.

Days at the beach

Mummy is not a beach person. Basically she burns to a crisp within twenty minutes of being on the sand - unless she reapplies sunscreen every half an hour. Alex and Sebastien are big fans - especially of swimming. Daddy is a fan too.

Since we live where we live, we try to get out to the beach as early as we can in the morning (which is usually around 9am on the sand) and stay until around 11am then head back to the cave. Or we go the other way and head to the beach after Sebastien's nap (usually around 3.3pm) and stay until it gets too cold or windy. Inevitably it seems that we end up there on weekends - when everyone else is too. Not usually a problem elsewhere, but as Xiamen is a destination for domestic tourism we have many mainland Chinese who haven't seen a beach...and then haven't seen a little foreign girl or boy, especially ones with blond hair and blue eyes...or who get around in a real actual swimsuit! Of course, there are always others - such as this dog who has had his ears and tail dyed. This is not the first time I've seen this here in China.
Currently we've been hitting "Calligraphy Beach" so named because of the stones with Chinese hanzi on them that are embedded in the sand near the road. This is mainly because it is a (relatively) easy half hour cycle from home and is close to where some of our friends live. Here's Alex checking out a street-seller's wares (after playing hopscotch on the stones in the background).
We usually take lots of sand toys to keep everyone amused. Polly Pocket is not amused - she didn't sign up for quicksand!Inevitably on weekends the beach is crowded - with brides and grooms! The Chinese tradition is to have an entire day devoted to photos in various scenes, in many different outfits - particularly because there is no actual "ceremony" to getting married here. An entire industry has grown up around it and it's big business. It's not unusual to see at least five sets of brides and grooms having photos taken on the beach at any time of the weekend. This particular day saw only four a the same time. You'll recall that Alex has trouble keeping her clothes on - or wearing long sleeves/pants in winter - as she is such a warm person. She loves nothing more than stripping to her swimsuit so she can prance around in the water's edge. We're still trying to find a cleaner beach. It never fails to attract the attention of just about everyone wandering past - many cameras and phones come out to take her photo because everyone else is in long pants and a jumper/sweater usually. One problem with this is that people walk through or on the castles and bridges we're building so as to get close enough to be in a photo with her or Sebastien. Highly annoying as they don't seem to have any care or concern after they've knocked things down. Mummy's working on some not-so-polite sentences for next time.

Alex has taken to building sandcastles and decorating them recently with her beach finds. Sebastien, on the other hand, enjoys tunnels and bridges in the sand. It didn't take long until Alex was converted.

Getting creative

Sebastien has discovered that he has all kinds of "additions to his train set- note the "Fat Controller" standing at the end of the bridge and the animals in the fields watching.Not a day passes that Sebastien doesn't play with his trains. Although he is ready for school, I think that (after the language) having no Thomas trains there will be the biggest shock.

A contest?

Alex had been asked to be in a performance - and Brett too! Alex had been hard at work (apparently) learning a performance with children from different classes. This had necessitated practices at different times. Originally Brett had agreed to be involved in the performance (he had to "give away" his daughter) as it was to be on a Sunday, however that changed at some stage to a Saturday and he couldn't do it as he was teaching. So he had said no, only to have the performance moved to the Sunday again...he was disappointed as he really wanted to be involved.

And so it was that Mummy and Alex headed to the school on Sunday afternoon to prepare for this performance. Mummy is sure that many hours of labour went into organizing and making the costumes for this performance - and felt a little left out really as she wasn't able to jump in and help with anything. Realistically, Mummy knows she hasn't an artistic bone in her body so perhaps it was for the best - these costumes are pretty impressive!

The children are from different classes so Mummy isn't really sure how children were chosen for this. There was never a "do you want your child to participate" note home. Here are some photos of the "getting ready at school" part - note the traditional "dot" in the middle of the forehead.Then we jumped onto a bus to get to the performance venue. There was a new shopping mall opening and they were conducting a contest for school children to use recycled materials and to enact a story (I believe most were traditional stories). It looked pretty serious - security was standing behind the judges.Daddy and Sebastien joined us here. Here are the children getting dressed in the middle of the Mall forecourt. You'll notice that every other child has their (winter) clothes on underneath their costume. Not Alex - who has her own little inbuilt heater!Here is Alex with her veil over her head - as the new bride.And on stage performing:And the obligatory photo with the teachers.
And according to the Kindergarten's website (and translated poorly through Google translate): "Xiamen City Bureau of Education launched the South China Mall special "Family Green Fashion Show" competition, a total of 32 kindergartens participated in the contest... we won second prize."