the kids were THRILLED to wake up and find miss jeanette there to greet them at breakfast time on saturday. both kids have taken music classes with jeanette, and our families have been friends for a few years now. since we've been in hong kong, we have enjoyed skyping with jeanette and her family a couple times a week. the kids were THRILLED to see the real, live miss jeanette in our house...so much more fun than on the computer screen :-)
perhaps because he is a boy, quinn is usually the least active in our skyping sessions. he'll pop over to show off a toy or make funny faces with his friends, but he generally doesn't make a big fuss out of skyping. we knew he had been taking note of all our skype time with jeanette, though, when we realized he'd developed his own version of her name.
quinn's language has absolutely exploded in the 7 months we have been here, and most of what he says is understood well and is very close to the correct pronunciation....except that he calls miss jeanette "minette," and he calls our friend, lan, "milan" :-) both of these nicknames are just too cute to put a stop to. we still refer to our friends by their correct names, but we do not correct quinn when he addresses them in his own way.
i could ramble on for HOURS about our week of fun with minette, but it'd be more fun and less painful to give a quick recap and LOTS of pictures.
saturday : the kids had a birthday party at a playground at the peak late on saturday morning, so while josh was off supervising the partygoers, jeanette and i did some shopping, sight seeing, and eating at the mall that is at the peak. after our fun at the peak, we got quinn and minette down for a nap. in the evening, jeanette and i headed out to check out the wet markets and to get some toiletries. we ended up staying out and grabbing some dinner...we had a fantastic meal at a country italian restaurant near the escalators.
sunday : we kept sunday a little bit quiet during the day...our big adventure was a trip to our beloved O cafe and then back into the wet markets to get flowers for livie's hair for her flamenco performance. we also made a stop at our favorite frozen yogurt place. after a quiet afternoon, we headed out to the flamenco performance...it turned out to be very poorly organized and very, very short (and not displayed well). livie still had a good time, though. after the performance, we headed over to the flying pan to have a brinner.
monday : josh had worked on chung ming (public holiday) so that he could take a day with us while jeanette was here, so on monday, we kept livie out of school, and we all hopped on the MTR and headed out to visit the giant budha. unfortunately, a tropical storm was whipping up in the china sea, and the weather was pretty terrible. we still had a really good time, though. there is a ton of shopping and activities around the giant budha, so there was lots to see and do in between rain storms. the adventures made for a super long day, so we all crashed pretty early after a delicious and nutritious dinner of grilled cheese and tomatoe soup. do i know how to roll out the red carpet or what?
tuesday : on tuesday, livie went to school like usual, and q, jeanette, and i had some small adventures in the morning. we rode the shuttle into central to check out a couple stores, and then we took jeanette to our favorite burger place for lunch. tuesday afternoon, we headed out to some really cool jewelry shops in central and then met up with josh for dinner at a very popular japanese chain restaurant. after dinner, josh got the kids home while jeanette and i looked around some more.
wednesday : on wednesday, jetlag started catching up with jeanette, so q and i mostly kept to ourselves and did stuff in the house for the morning. in the early afternoon, we took jeanette to check out a nearby stationary store. in the late afternoon, we took livie to flamenco class and then headed out for a delicious dinner at a thai place. after dinner, we headed to the temple street markets. the weather was still really, really bad, but this worked in our favor since the markets were virtually empty.
thursday : on thursday, we took quinn to the playtown candyland and then out to lunch in the morning/early afternoon. after nap, jeanette, olivia, and i all got out for a girls' night while josh and q had some male bonding time. we started off with a foot massage and then moved on to some shopping and then we finished with another delicious brinner at the flying pan (livie's choice). when we got home, i got surprise birthday cupcakes and singing before bed time.
friday : on friday, we got q to his lego class in the morning, and then did some shopping and had a nice lunch at pizza express. after nap, the kids and i made a chocolate cake and mocha frosting so that we could have a little birthday party for q while his beloved minette was here. to say that the kids enjoyed jeanette's visit would be a GROSS understatement. q, especially, enjoyed having jeanette here. livie was pretty sad to have to go to school all week and miss out on adventures, but she enjoyed the time she got with jeanette.
this morning, jeanette and i headed out to the airport by taxi and dealt with the look-a-shiny-new-expat tax (in the form of a GIGANTIC and probably illegal upcharge by our taxi driver). other than that little adventure, getting jeanette checked in and settled was a breeze, and we even had time for a coffee and chat before she needed to board. we did lots of people watching while we chatted, and the most interesting thing we saw was guards armed with machine guns. yes. machine guns. the hong kong airport is much more relaxed when it comes to security if you are going through the lines...you don't have to disrobe or be scrutinized like you have a shady past, but the armed guards kinda remove that feeling of less security. we saw at least a half dozen guards, and the ones that weren't holding machine guns had hand guns strapped to their belts. YIKES!
we so thoroughly enjoyed having jeanette visit us. unfortunately, the weather was truly atrocious, so there were several things i had planned for us to do that we simply could not do without getting soaked to the skin. i wish we'd had another couple weeks with her, but we were thrilled to get the time with her that we did!
just for fun, here's the rundown of food we consumed this week...surprisingly, we had NO chinese food. in china. heh.
italian
vietnamese
thai
american
japanese
I completely misted up with joy reading your post. I felt like I was there enjoying the adventures with you guys. love you girls (and quin-nado)!! xoxo milan
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