HKG114: T3 - Not Just a Networking Protocol

today dawned dark and rainy. at times, the rain was moving at a distinctly sideways slant, but i didn't think much of it. i knew that a tropical depression (now storm) called haima was moving into the area and that the weather might get bad, but i was still waiting for it to do so...it seemed pretty mild to me. well guess what? i was of the minority opinion.

the weather was classified as a T3, which refers to the level of typhoon. we are very close to the harbor, but we are protected by the umpteen high rise buildings around us, so the wind we felt wasn't bad. again, it felt like a rather mild storm to me. it seemed like everything shut down, though. livie's school was closed. when we went out to run an errand, we found about 30 to 40% of nearby businesses closed. we found the escalators empty at lunch time, which is typically not the case. oddly enough, livie's flamenco class was still on. q and i tried to have adventures while livie was in dance class, but it was just too much...especially since he kept whipping his poncho off.

i heard, in casual conversation today, that there has been an outbreak of scarlet fever in hong kong. i was told this as i tried, for the third time in a row, to get quinn to stop licking the mirror at dance class (my kid is weird sometimes. okay. a lot of the time. :-). now i have a new worry. my worry list is now comprised of typhoons and scarlet fever. ;-p

i wonder if i should sanitize q's tongue. nah. then he'd act drunk!

q soaking wet after he insisted upon whipping his poncho off. the search for a thomas- or buzz-themed rain jacket is ON.

bug rockin' the lady-bug rain coat baba got for her when she was just under 2. i cannot get over the change in how it fits her. it used to be she'd get lost in there and did so often b/c she loved to play dressup in it.

q woke up at 5:45 this morning. by 9:45 he was cuddled up on this pillow on the floor. i would like to have joined him, but there wasn't room ;-p

HKG113: The Toilet

q is obsessed with the toilets. he is forever throwing things in them and trying to flush whatever he's put in. today, he put in a cup and sissy's toothbrush. it does not matter how many times i tell him not to do it, he is just fascinated with the idea of flushing things away. for the first time ever, he flushed something he was supposed to today! he used the potty! he asked to go on the potty and was pretty excited about his potty success, but i am not sure what this means for potty training. we will see.

other than the toilet obsession, today was a pretty slow day. we kept it really low key for the morning, but got out for some adventures this afternoon. we had another fruitless search for those darn pipe cleaners. part of the issue is that many of the street markets and shops in SOHO close at 6. so, i guess we will have to try again tomorrow. i think this will be my and quinn's mission during dance class tomorrow night.

not that you can tell, but those are livie's knees covered in a blanket and sticking out of the egg chair. she's "hiding."

yes, we do feed quinn. i am not sure why his ribs are sticking out so much...the kid weighs well over 35 pounds and eats us out of house and home. here, skinny q is laying in a pile of toys that he and sissy threw out of her bed. they were playing their own sleepover game of sorts.

HKG112: Panda Mandarin

today was a pretty quiet day. we stayed home for the morning, and then q and i had a couple of quick adventures after we took sissy to her bus. on one of those adventures, we met a poodle puppy (shop dog) and had a great time playing with him. later this afternoon, we took sissy back to that store to meet the puppy, and then we continued on in hopes of finding pipe cleaners for an art project we are working on.

i bought pipe cleaners a month or so ago...and i have misplaced them. the hunt for pipe cleaners was long and fruitless though we did find a paper store that had postcards from the 1970s! along the way, we found a building FULL of kids' activities. i know someone told me about this building when we first moved to the mid-levels, but i had forgotten about it. after looking through several brochures, i think we've decided to send both kids to mandarin playgroups for about 3 hours a week for much of this summer. livie has really started to take off with the mandarin that she's learning at school, and quinn repeats what he hears on ni hao kai-lan flawlessly...we want to capitalize on that.

on our long and fruitless pipe cleaner mission, we also found a pet store where we stopped to look at stuff for la fu. we found stuff. he loves the stuff. see the video ;-p

when i am out with the kids, i often am so concentrated on watching them and looking for what we are trying to find that i don't look around me. today, i looked around me. we were right next to a prison. there was a 50-foot high brick wall next to me...with this sign on it. duly noted. you couldn't pay me to drive here, but if i was crazy enough to drive here, i would be sure not to park here.

some of the english translations here make me batty. i am collecting a folder of images of strangely or badly translated english, but i just couldn't sit on this one. this sign is instructing you to disable the access? or telling you were to access the building if you are disabled? i know, i know...though it's incorrect, it is understandable. it still makes me nuts.

livie has been working hard on her kindergarten workbooks each morning, and la fu insists on being part of the action. actually, anytime livie sits down to draw or work in her books, la fu lays right down in the middle of them, bats all her pens off the table, and then chases them all over the apartment. this makes livie crazy. if la fu could laugh at her frustration, he would...that's the look he gives her ;-p

livie showing us she can count to five in mandarin and sing a song in mandarin

waffle la fu playing with a new toy. quinn named this toy cocoa.

HKG111: Father's Day

today, we celebrated father's day with some homemade cards and goodies, a dinner by request, and by dragging josh to our newly favorite train-themed park. he survived the trip, and i think he enjoyed the park...but enjoyed the harbor even more.

we went down to the edge of the harbor to check out some really cool ferries and speed boats and a couple of junks that looked a lot like pirate ships. we then decided to walk toward a pier we could see in the distance thinking it might be the central pier and that we could pick up a ferry to lamma island. it turned out to be the macau pier, so we decided to get some lunch and regroup/plan out the rest of our day. lunch was DELICIOUS if a little hectic with the efforts to keep quinn from breaking anything and/or disturbing other patrons.

after lunch, we decided that it would prolly be best to head home and try to get a nap in for quinn, and then head to a family-oriented pool in kennedy town. this particular pool has sprinklers and slides and a 1-foot-deep area for the kiddies. as it turns out, it was pretty late by the time we got home and got q down because after lunch, we stopped to shop in the western market (HUGE fun). so, instead of the kennedy town pool, josh took the kiddos to our pool before we had dinner. we WILL get to that fabulous pool one of these days!

josh requested enchilada casserole for dinner, which was a nice change of pace...we haven't had that in a couple months.

cool speed boat

q devouring snacks. he had just had a snack at home before we left for the park. i think he's entering another phase of eating constantly.

livie looking adorable next to a fountain in the harbor

cutie bug posing at the park

bug mid-ring with the tongue of concentration

HKG110: Quinnado, Category F5

meet hoover, the newest addition to our fish family. vortex is now sulking in a corner. i guess he wanted all the slime to himself ;-p

today was a crazy day for the quinnado. he got to go to a bday party with daddy and sissy, where he acquired a 2nd degree burn on his hand and some sort of nasty looking abrasion on his leg. the source of the burn is known, the source of the abrasion is not. this afternoon, while coming home from the park with daddy and sissy, quinn took off for the elevators and got in just as one was closing. by himself. destination unknown. somehow, a family we know from the playground ended up with him. the mom heard a baby crying outside her front door and opened it to find quinn. she brought him to our door. i do not yet know how she knew what floor or flat we live in.

everyone has a headache now. except quinn. i got to escape much of the drama b/c i had a couple of social events to attend today: book club this morning, and then a nice dinner out with a friend. the book club event was my first in hong kong, and it was pretty interesting; i met several interesting people and hope to meet up with a couple of them for coffee/chat. while i was in central, i also did some fun shopping for the kids and josh, and i picked up a friend for vortex. the bing residnce now also includes hoover, another sucker fish who will help vortex keep the tank sparkly clean. dinner was great b/c i got to share some delicious thai food with my friend and catch up with her as she just returned to hong kong after a visit home.

it is currently 11:18 p.m. we normally go to sleep around 1 a.m. tonight, i think 11:30 is looking REALLY good. let's all hope that the hurriquinn is recategoried to an F1 tomorrow after today's repeated showings at level F5.

HKG109: Random Pics and Video

today was a pretty good day. we went into kennedy town to check out a children's clothing resale event that benefits a local charity. we didn't find anything that we were looking for, but we stumbled upon a pretty cool playground while we were out there. we got a picnic lunch at the grocery store across from the playground, and then played for about an hour. today was another wet day, but that didn't stop us.

livie did not have school today due to some administrative stuff, so our afternoon was one part quiet and two parts exciting. the first excitement was having a playdate with a school friend. the girls had a blast, and quinn didn't do too much damage. he even got livie's friend's baby sister to play with him a little.

after the playdate, we headed into central to go to toys r us to do some bday party shopping for a friend of the kids' whose bday party is tomorrow. going to toys r us is always fun for kids and almost always headache-inducing for moms. we survived ;-p

livie enjoying some ring-like thingies on a park we stumbled upon today

livie and quinn posing in the pretend ice cream stand at the random park

view of the hills above the random park

quinn let go of buzz long enough for livie to snuggle him this morning

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

random videos of the kids and la fu

olivia's class practicing for "the three little pigs" play they will give on graduation day, which is next week. livie is "mommy pig."

HKG108: Wetures (Wet Adventures)

today dawned dark and rainy with an amber storm warning. i figured with the weather the way it was, we were in for a long day of being cooped up in the apartment, but i was wrong! we got out for some morning errands, but no play time because it was raining very hard. the kids survived all the delays and errands, and we were able to continue on with our afternoon as normal : school for livie and nap for quinn.

after nap, q and i headed out early to meet livie at school so that i could attend a parent-teacher conference while the monkeys played. the conference was great, and the classroom was still standing when i went to get the kids out of it. we waited for eons for a taxi to go home, but never saw one that was empty and on duty. the rain had slowed quite a bit, so we started walking to see if we could find a taxi lower down. we still didn't see any, so we just kept walking until we got to a park where the kids played for quite a while.

as we began walking home from that park, i realized we were very close to our apartment and there was no sense getting a cab, so we just kept hoofin' it. the route we were on took us right by the playground at the zoo, so we stopped in. the kids had a ball. it continued to rain lightly on and off, but by that point, we were already wet and did not care. the only issue was that the grounds at the zoo playground become pretty slippery when wet. i am super clumsy. the combination was not pretty. i wiped out pretty good landing on my bad wrist and my good knee. bleh. we still had a fantastic time looking at birds and lemurs before heading home.

on the way home, we picked up a takeout menu from an italian place near us. everything on the menu looked good, but we were a little wary b/c of previous bad experiences with other italian restaurants. also, the fact that the menu advertised "real italian taste" didn't bode well. we threw caution to the wind and ordered dinner delivery from this place...we were very pleasantly surprised to find that everything we ordered was absolutely DELICIOUS!

big bird at the zoo. he was intrigued with the kids and kept his eye on them the whole time we were standing there admiring him.

cute lemur

pretty flower at the zoo

crappy cell phone camera pic of a stunningly beautiful flower

spike, the plant. the kids insisted this was the scariest plant ever. 15 minutes later, they adopted it. 20 minutes after that, q removed all of those pokey things. he carried them home, stopping at least 3 times to rescue them after he dropped them on the sidewalk. we had to pry them out of his hands so he'd eat dinner, take a bath, and go to bed. i am not sure what these are, but i have seen a version of them in the wet markets...bigger, with red coloring, and just as spikey. the wet market version is some kind of fruit.

bug looking cute

q figuring out how this stepper works

notice my extra knee cap...lovely, isn't it? it has gone down now, but it's still sore. getting old sucks.