Random thoughts about Hong Kong and our the last couple of months

Random thoughts about Hong Kong and our the last couple of months

People like to drink their coffee out of little stir stick straws.

There are many places to sit in a mall when waiting for someone – No benches or those nice massage chairs.

People care more about being up to date on clothing styles than in the US. I'm not sure how fashionable this is though.

 

I found a store that sells Abercrombie stuff. They are selling a pair of jeans there for $850HKD. Remember that the exchange rate is about $1USD = $7.75HKD. This would make these pants around US$110. I don’t think so.

I have found that single people don’t like to take the train or mini bus. The want a cab, even if it takes longer than just getting on a train and going 4 stops.

I think that all cab drivers drive with two feet here. There is no easing off the gas pedal; it is either full on or breaking. I should be cured of any kind of motion sickness I had by the time we come back.

I have not seen orange hair here. They have perfected the coloring of dark hair, I even have seen a few blond Asian’s.

Jonathan thinks he’s Asian. He of course is still white and tall … but has been complimented on for the use of his chopstick skills.

 

The girls and I went to the Western Market.

 

I have posted this picture on Facebook, but it was so good, I had to do it again.
This is a lizard of some kind. It is cut open and made to look like a kite.

 

Shoes still don’t come in my size here. You would have thought that after 20 years (the last time I tried to buy a pair of shoes in Taiwan) they would have gotten a couple of pairs of bigger sizes in.

We have tried to make the most of our opportunities here. We finally figured out that we live about 10-20 minutes from the beach (depending on traffic). We started going to the beach either on Saturday or Sunday mornings and staying for a couple of hours. This was one of the things that the girls really thought would be cool about living here when we first talked about moving. They still get excited about going and just playing in the water and sand. It is really great. I think that currently, our beach of choice is Deep Water Bay. It is close, you don’t have to go around so many turns that it makes you sick in the cab, and there is plenty of shade to sit and read and still enjoy the time outside.

 

This is at Stanley Beach.

 

Jonathan has reduced the amount of stuff he has taken on. Family, working, running, CMA studying, Canto class, Kanji writing, and sleeping have taken a toll on him. I have finally managed to beat him into submission and he has taken away the canto class at the Y, but still studies a bit by himself. The Kanji writing has stopped. I love that he loves to learn and integrate himself into this culture, but some things had to give and the first 4 were NOT! Jonathan has always had a “I’m going to prove you wrong” attitude. If someone tells him he can’t do it, by God, he is going to show it CAN be done. Not this time. I know that he will learn more Canto and Kanji at a later time.

We are now in our 6th week of school. It is going as well as I thought it would. Hannah is doing a fantastic job. She seems to be “getting” it more and more every day. Her Math (not her strongest subject) is going well for her. We are using a “teaching textbook” for the both of them. They do their lessons on their computer with a cartoon professor. Much of what they are learning now is review, but this is what they would be doing at traditional school right now too.


Gabby has had a bit of an awakening. For most of Gabby’s schooling, it was very easy for her to just breeze through her work. I don’t know if I expect more from her, if her textbooks are for older kids (grade 5-7) or because the answers are not written in bold type for her. She has had a couple of temper tantrums, and because I have (after 9 years) started to realize the signs, have redirected her and had her take a break and then restart it again later or a different day. This has started to work well.

We are getting together with a homeschooling grouping here every week. It is really great. It is a great group

 

We have made plans for our first major trip while here. We are going to go to Beijing and Xi’an in October. While Jonathan and I talked about where we thought we might want to go, we also talked about how we wanted to do the trip. We decided to backpack it. We didn’t want a lot of extra “stuff”to lug with us. We wanted to see everything … without the fluff. We are staying at a family hostel in both places. I think that one night, we are supposed to be camping on the Great Wall of China. How many people can say they did that? We will also be taking an overnight train to Xi’an to see the Terracotta Soldiers and the other sites near there. We were going to go to Sanya, but decided to take that out because we couldn’t get the logistics down.

Tonight we are going to see High School Musical Live on Stage. The girls are super excited. Next week KPMG is having an afternoon at Disney Land HK. This should be fun for everyone.

I have some random thoughts. Many of you will just think that it just a normal conversation with me.

Here are some pictures of the apartment:

 

 

 

This is a picture of the outside of the building and the road around us:

 

 

 

 

Trash Can
I wanted a trash can that was small and silver with a step pedal that opened it up. You wouldn’t have thought that this was a problem to find. It was. When I finally found the one that I wanted, it was over US$100 for a small 20L can. I said no, and then found one that looks just like the expensive one for US$20. Much Better!

Running/Hiking
Here are some pictures from Jonathan’s runs. He was telling me how great the run was. There were beautiful views of Central and the Harbor from where he was running. The only problem was it was over the top of a mountain, and one wrong step and you were a goner off the mountain. Ummm … No thanks.

 

 

 

 

I have started to run again. Holy crap, GA almost looks like the middle of Kansas compared to Hong Kong. The humidity is really not like anything I’ve dealt with before. Hot, Humid and Hilly (Jonathan’s 3 H’s)


Apartment Living
Apartment living has been good for the 3 weeks we’ve been here. The walls are made of concrete and we have not heard anything around us. We live in a great little complex that has a total of 11 apartments. What is really nice is that the whole building is owned by one person. This really keeps things pretty nice and uniform for everyone. We have a guard on duty here. (Almost all the buildings around us have them). They really aren’t guarding anything, but really are more like building maintenance and are there if you need help. So, while we are talking about “needing help”, here is a little story. I was in need of a bit of “alone” time, so I told the girls to stay in the apt, and don’t do anything bad. How hard is that? While I was out, my phone rang, but I didn’t hear it. I checked in with the girls around 15 minutes later and they had told me that an alarm went off in the apt and Mr. Peter, the guard, came to the door. The girls were instructed to not let anyone in, but they knew him and let him in. It seems that somehow, this button was pushed. No one has yet to claim responsibility for it yet. This button is a panic button that is next to our bed and it alerts the guard who then comes to check on you to see if you need him to call the police. BTW, the police station is right across the street and if I really needed them, I cold just yell out my window to get them.

 

We have these really nice big windows in the living room/Dining room. When you sit on the couch, you can look down into other apartments that have their curtains open. No big deal, except when someone in the other apt complex has his “Hulk” gloves sitting in the window. I still laugh at it.

 

Cantonese vs. Mandarin … the saga continues
Jonathan is taking Cantonese classes at the Y on Tuesday nights. He has really been pretty open to learning this language and has started teaching the girls some lines. One of the lines that he taught Gabby was, “What kind of beer would you like?”. She “practiced this line with Jonathan while they were walking up the street. A local heard what she said, and whipped his head around. So either she said it quite well and he understood her or she butchered it and said that Jonathan has 3 goat heads.

I did try to sign the girls up for Cantonese classes, but they didn’t have any classes for kids. When I went to sign them up for Mandarin classes, we found that they were taught from a base of Cantonese. Damn …

I just ordered Rosetta stone in Mandarin for us to do while we home school. Jonathan is still against us learning Mandarin, but what are you going to do? I am a hard headed, stubborn person, and I’m really going to do what I want. (Shocked?) I really think that the girls will benefit more from knowing Mandarin in their lives.

Home School
My mom sent all the girls books two weeks ago and we got them last week. We have started spelling and zoology. I am slowly getting this started. I think that we will start adding more subjects on 1 August. The girls seem to be enjoying it. (We are only on day 2)

Trips
We planned our first trip for the upcoming weekend to Macau. Jonathan is really looking forward to being outside. We have been inside for so long, it will be nice to have a drink by a pool or coffee on the balcony in the morning. We are also planning on a fall trip. I think that Korea may be in the plans for 4-5 days. I also think that we are going to go to Phuket, Thailand for Christmas. We are not going to fly home, and no one is coming here, so we are going some place with palm trees.

We have also been talking about some of our other trips that we want to do while we are here. I think that we originally thought JC would do the Great Wall of China marathon next year, but we started to look at the cost of it. It looks like it would cost of somewhere close to 8K for the 4 of us to go for 11 days. Instead, we talked about staying at family hostels and do a back packing things through parts of China. I have found that I don’t need the highest quality hotel; I just need someplace clean to sleep.

 

Typhoon Season
Typhoon season is upon us. Today is our second time we have been at a T1 warning. This just means that there are some winds in our area. Here is a link to the whole warning system. http://www.hko.gov.hk/informtc/tcsignal.htm

When the warning went up last week, there were some BIG winds. Interesting to watch, not much fun to be in it.

In and (Getting)Settled

It has been a couple of weeks since I last blogged. Some big things have happened since then. We have finally moved into our new apt. We have been here just over a week and we love it! The apartment is not very big, but it seems to be just what we need.

Moving Day
We moved on Tuesday June 29th. This in itself was a big deal. I had to get 9 bags, 8 extra bags, 2 kids and myself moved. It was pretty funny watching me get the bags in the elevator down from the 17th floor to the ground floor … it was quite a sight. We got to the apt at around 315 and with the help of the guard, the driver and the kids, we managed to get all the bags up to our 4th floor apartment. It was nuts.

Jonathan got home from work around 6 that night (EARLY) and then Gabby and I left to go and pick up a few more things from IKEA. We had unpacked a suitcase and brought that with us to carry all the stuff we were buying back home. Jonathan called around 730 and let me know that IKEA was actually there delivering all the other stuff we bought. We had decided to pay for assembly. I think that the $1200HK saved our marriage. I don’t think that putting together tables, chairs, 3 beds, entertainment center, and a couch would be good for any marriage. It took 3 men around 2 hours to get it all done. It was crazy watching these guys work!

After they left we went and had dinner down the street. What an experience this was. We walked in and were told to sit at a certain table. When we did, we started to get yelled at by the woman working there. I’m not sure if she was really “yelling” at us, or just talking loudly to us thinking that if she talked louder, we would understand her. (Much like we do in the States). Nothing was in English and there weren’t many pictures available. Luckily there was a nice couple next to us who was eating things that looked pretty good. We just said that we wanted the same thing that they were having. Thankfully, it was good! We left there and went home exhausted and ready for bed.

So, in the week that we have been here, we have been to IKEA at least 5 more times trying to get the final things for our apt. The only thing that we are missing is a garbage can. I’m sure that they have them here … I just want a certain one that I can’t find.

Happy Valley (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Valley,_Hong_Kong)

We have been exploring our area. We have found a lot of different places, which has been great. We walked to Victoria Park and the central library last week. (That was probably a total of 4 miles).

Girls

The girls are at a weird age right now. We have found some playgrounds for them, but many of them are just too young for them. We have made the most of them and still enjoy going to them and make the most of our time while we are there. They are also now at the age where they are experiencing some fluctuations in emotions quite easily. If nothing else comes from this trip, I should have an abundant amount of patience when I come back.

Here is our address:

The Collins Family
Flat A 4/F
73 Sing Woo Road
Happy Valley, Hong Kong

Jonathan’s cell: 011-852-9868-4406
Jamie’s cell: 011-852-9858-1523

We don’t have home phones.

Good Friends

Good Friends

This past week has been great! Rob was here in Hong Kong on a work trip, but thankfully left some time open in his schedule to spend the day with us on Sunday (and part of Saturday night too). It was wonderful to see a familiar face … even if we don’t see that face enough!

We went to see the light show over the harbor. It was a beautiful night. There was a breeze right over the convention center where we watched from. I think Rob got some great pictures. We did not take many pictures from this past weekend, because, when he’s around, we have a professional photographer with us. His pictures will be about a billion times better than anything we could do.

Sunday was a whirl-wind tour of HK. We started with breakfast. We were walking down one of the streets of Causeway Bay. One of my little rules is, if no one is in the restaurant we are not stopping to eat there. We passed several and then I saw one with food in the window that I liked and people in it. We made a bee line for it, when I opened the door; I immediately knew that we had eaten here the first week. Jonathan had wanted beef noodles, and this place had them just the way he liked it. I ordered breakfast for all of us, by pointing to what we liked and telling them how many of each thing we would like.


After breakfast, we got on the MTR to go to the Peak which overlooks the whole city. I wished it had been a clear day, but there was some fog/mist/rain at the very top. We walked through Hong Kong Park and then up to the tram. (We saw a sign that said, “sub way”. Jonathan told me that this did NOT mean underground railroad, what it meant here was, an under the road walkway. ) We bought the tickets and took a rail car up to the top of the peak. Think of going up a roller coaster with no seat belt. It was that steep.

We got off, walked through all the trinket shops to get to the Peak. It was foggy, but you could still how beautiful the city was. While walking down a path, we found this:

So I took the picture because the Bennett’s, Jonathan and I were discussing Gabby getting a job here running with a rickshaw. It was perfect.

After walking around, having a nice little brunch and dessert, we road the railcar back down. It is still steep as ever, except, you are facing up the mountain, and now going down backwards. It was a bit odd, but it works.

We took a bus to Central to take the Star Ferry over to the Kowloon side. It was just quick enough that I couldn’t really think about getting boat sick. After we got off, we back to the MTR to take it Mon Kok. This is where the Ladies Market and the vendor’s are. When you think of the hustle and bustle and bargining, this is the area that you think of. After walking around this area, and sweating buckets, we left and took the MTR back to Kowloon and the Avenue of the Stars. This is where the famous Actors and Actresses put their hands in concrete. We did get to see Jet Li’s hand and a statue of Bruce Lee. At this point, I was cooked, and ready to be done for the day. It was around 7 pm. The last thing we wanted to show Rob was where our apt was. We took a cab to Happy Valley, found some place to eat and then showed him our apt building.

We had a lot of great conversations over the course of the time we got to spend together. As a former expat himself, he commented that it looked like we were happy and embracing this experience. Coming from him, this was a complete compliment.

As we (Jonathan and I) have reflected on our first international experience 10 years ago, we tried to think about why we weren’t that happy with it, and why it didn’t go as planned. There were many factors, but these were the big ones.

• We were young. I was 24, JC 28 and had a 5 month old. We really only had been married for 3 year and still were figuring things out.
• We had a baby and the people who we were friends with were not married, let alone have a family. They all could go out at night and do what they wanted on a whim on the weekends
• We only really met other American’s and didn’t get integrated into the company in Melbourne or meet any other Australians
• I was pregnant and pretty much insane

This is a picture from 10 years ago:


I tell people these things because we want to be positive about this whole experience. This expedition will teach us many things about ourselves and what we can and can’t handle. More importantly it show us how to deal with these obstacles as a family and overcome them. Jonathan has run into a couple of expats from different countries that really just hate it here. They really haven’t embraced anything about this being different. I feel bad for them, and so does JC. The funny thing is, when he talked to them, they said that they wanted to do a rotation in the States … Good luck with that Buddy!


The time with Rob was too short, but it reminded us how important friendships are ... even from half way around the world. Both Rob and Kelly's friendships mean the world to Jonathan and I. We both so lucky to have them in our lives!

The Good and the Ugly

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The Good and the Ugly

Tomorrow is officially 3 weeks here. I had a great post written out last week, but trying to upload to the blogger site has been difficult because it is in Chinese. So needless to say, I lost it. I am going to try to re-create it …

The Ugly

Opening a bank account (at the 2^nd bank):

There are so many pieces of paper that you need to get this done, it’s crazy. Jonathan needed to show his employment letter, which he thankfully had, but needed to modify, because they couldn’t accept a hotel address on it. When she asked me for my employment letter, I told her that I wasn’t working and that I was a dependent. Well, guess who can’t be on the account now! Not a huge deal until she says, “If you come back the next day, we will be able to add you to the account. Does this make sense? Not to me either. After the company faxed the letter, we could finally open the account – most likely the next day. She then says to me, “Mrs. Collins, you don’t need to come back”. Jonathan just shook his head at me, because he could see that this was not going to be good. Thankfully, I kept calm and didn’t cause and international incident.

The price of American Products:

I found that the purse that I had been carrying around for about a week was just too small for what I needed. I really wanted a new Coach purse and after moving to the temporary apts, found that the outlet mall near us (a 10 min walk) has one! SCORE! After doing some research, I knew that I wanted a large tote or the Diaper bag. I know this sounds weird, but I would really be great with all its holders and compartments. I found the one that I wanted, but it was close to $800 US. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? This was at the outlet. No go. I went to another outlet and found an $11 purse that seems to be doing quite well. (UPDATE: I went back to the outlets yesterday and now it is 40% off. I may ask JC if I can get it now. At $400, I don’t think I could get it here cheaper after shipping).

Hallmark Cards: $8 US … not going to happen

Apartment Hunting: Apartment hunting here is much like buying a house in the US. We wanted a 3 bedroom 2 bath apt with a washer and an oven. We originally looked in Discovery Bay on Lantau Island. When we toured it, it didn’t have the feel that I wanted to get from HK. It didn’t have any wet markets or even Chinese restaurants near by. It felt more like a combination of Panama City beach and Disney World. We looked at some apts in Happy Valley, and almost instantly, decided that is the place we wanted to be. We found an apt that we wanted, put an offer in that was $HK2000 less than what they wanted. They ended up rejecting our offer for one that was $HK2000 over the asking price of the apartment. I didn’t want to get into a bidding war, so we just moved onto our second choice. This had everything we wanted except the oven. They have accepted our offer and even are giving us a new washing machine. Everything happens for a reason.

Transferring Money from the US:

Total debacle. Next time we will find out how much cash we can bring into a country and travel with that. This was a time consuming and gut wrenching process. We had to get my parents involved along with Western Union. Just as an FYI, Western Union is the way to go if you ever need to send money internationally. (Make sure you have the name spelled correctly and include their full name as it appears on their passport. This is a bit of info that they passed along to us, not one that we got to experience first hand … thankfully.)

The Good:

This place is CLEAN: I have seen a ton of people cleaning around here. You don’t see trash in the street, cigarette butts anywhere (you can get fined here), or graffiti anywhere.

Public Transportation:

What an awesome thing. We take the MTR everywhere. When we move to Happy Valley we will be taking a mini-bus (seats 16 people), tram and bus along with the MTR.

Cabs:

Super cheap. Jonathan will be able to take a cab from Central to our apt for about $HK40 (about $6US) when he comes home late.

Food:

Awesome! We have been going to restaurants that are more commercial along with the Mom and Pop shops. The Mom and Pop ones are the best. They don’t always have English menu’s or pictures, so we either point to someone’s food that looks good, or I know just enough to get us stuff that we will like.

People:

Patience. The people here have the patience of Saints. I think that you have to knowing that a gazillion people all want to get to the same place around the same time. For example, when a full MTR gets off at a stop, there are only so many escalators to go around. People merge together nicely; no one’s pride is hurt if someone cuts in front of someone else. The only time that this has really been a problem is when I have been separated from the girls and can’t see them.

Money:

Other than the cost of apartments, (which really depends on where you want to live) things are not much more expensive here.

Grocery:

They have wet markets that sell fresh seafood, veggies and meat. These are great places, and the girls and I usually go to them 3 times a week. The regular grocery is nice too. They have many items from the US. The only thing that we haven’t found that we are looking for is Syrup. (I did make my own the other day with brown sugar and water).

And we begin ….

A few weeks ago, Jonathan had these great plans to pack up the house while he was not working and going into the office. Those plans quickly changed when other things came up for the move, reading and working out. So when we thought that the last days would be spent relaxing, that just wasn’t the case. We did, however, get everything done, on time … and I guess that was the outcome that needed to happen.

Wednesday morning was another story. We spent the night at my mom’s house, which was great for all of us. I was awake by 5:15 with my Dad and then started to wake up everyone around 6 so that we could all shower and eat breakfast. Mom had made French toast and some bacon … two of the girl’s favorite things. We actually left the house around 7:30, which has to be a miracle for 6 people to do all that in 1.5 hours. We got to the Hillbrooke house around 8:15 after a quick stop at Target. We had a few friends stop by to say some tearful goodbyes. I had asked my friend Tammy to help take us to the airport. She took one for the team, and helped out!


When we finally got to the airport, we had to check 9 suitcases, 8 carry on’s and 4 people. It took us around 30 minutes to get it all checked in. I had called Delta 3 days prior to check to see if we could be upgraded. Score.. We could, and it only cost us 25K points, per person. This was well worth it. I told Jonathan that we should keep it as a nice surprise for the girls. We told my parents and a couple of other people, but the girls had NO idea. Jonathan really played up the fact that we were going to be sitting in the back of the plane, near the toilets (which originally wasn’t far from the truth). When we got to the airport, Gabby asked if she could buy a neck pillow because her bags were so heavy and she NEEDED one. I kept telling her no. and then as we were standing in line for boarding, she started to cry. As we boarded, I started up the stairs in the 747 … She immediately knew what that meant … we were in business class. The tears stopped as soon as she saw the pillow, blanket and travel kit.

The flight was not really bad at all. We were flying Atlanta to Tokyo (around 13 hours) and then onto Hong Kong. The first leg of the flight, we had no, I mean ZERO audio. This makes it really interesting when you want to watch a movie. Luckily, the girls had the laptops and the itouch’s. They ended up sleeping for around 5-6 hours each.. They gave us a money voucher for each of our seats to use on our next flight. We got to Tokyo with just about a 2 hour layover. The Delta crown room here is pretty nice. It had showers, food and beer. We boarded the plane again, heading to our new home.

As we touched down in HK, I told the girls … “We’re home”. They gave me a funny look and I think that had I not smiled at them, I would have puked a bit in my mouth.

We got through immigration pretty easily then it was onto grabbing our bags and then going through customs. This, by far, was the easiest custom’s I have EVER been though. We saw a sign that said, “If you have something to declare, enter here” that was it. Everyone else went through the other side, and then we were free to enter. We found out taxi man, packed up the mini-van (which was really pretty nice --- almost even nicer than the Odyssey) and moved into our hotel at around 1AM on Friday. As it goes, most of the time we arrive and need to eat right away. McDonald was right across the street … our first meal in HK! We ate and finally went to bed around 2:30 AM.


We set the alarm for 5:30 so JC could go out for a short run and scope out the area. We had made an apt to get an employment letter from JC’s company and then another apt 11 to get our HK ID card. Now, onto the bank … we opened an account at HSBC … which we later found out was a bank we could NOT bank at because KPMG audit’s them. Damn … 2.5 hours down the drain
Interesting Fact: People in Hong Kong really like to stamp things. They just don’t stamp with a “copy” stamp, but also stamp their names, company names ect. When we opened our account there were no less than 15 stamps on all of our papers.

Interesting Fact: Don’t bring all your money in Amex Travelers checks. Most banks can only cash in $US1000 at a time. This does NOT help if you are opening a bank account.

We made it until 6 that night and then woke up around 2 the next morning. This was not so great.

Saturday we were set to meet up with the Realtor that KPMG recommended to us. His name is Thomas, and really is a great guy that has helped us tremendously. We started looking in Discovery Bay. After taking the Ferry over from Central, we walked out and it looked and felt like we were at some kind of resort. There were SO many white people, I almost couldn’t believe it. I was shocked. I was told that there were a great number of expats here, but this was really crazy. We sat down in the plaza had some coffee an then walked around for a bit. I have a hard time trying to describe the feeling, but it was kind of like Panama City beach and Disney world combined. We saw around 8 -10 apt and really liked 2 of them. We were ready to put an offer in for one that was close to the pier and close to the plaza. The other realtor told us we needed to do it soon, because the landlord had already received an offer. JC and I discussed it and decided that we weren’t going to rush into anything, and weather this was a ploy or an actual event, we hadn’t seen enough of the areas in HK to make that decision.

On Sunday, Thomas took us in his car to look at some other areas on HK Island. We had already explored Happy Valley earlier in the day and found that we liked the area. It was close enough to Central for Jonathan, but still gave us a little more space and still felt like we were getting the HK experience. We drove through all three Mid-levels, Cyber Point and Aberdeen. We really felt like Happy Valley was the place we wanted to be. We took a look at one apt that day, and asked Thomas if he could find us a 3 bedroom 2 bath apt there … that also had an oven.

We also got cell phones on Sunday. This was quite an adventure. I had to decide if I wanted an I phone or a Blackberry. I chose the I phone. So, we bought that, we also bought the girls cell phones. I would have normally objected to this if we were back in the States, but here, after seeing the amount of people everywhere, I felt it was a necessity. While Jonathan was figuring out all the plans and such, I made my way outside to just stand and watch. (I really love people watching. I think that you can learn so much from it!) I found out Sunday is the day the Ama’s (Nanny’s) get off. Most of them are from Thailand and Philippines and they gather together on their day off. I guess they gather in Causeway Bay because there were gaggles of them in all the stores.

I can’t remember Monday … I’m sure it involved Eating, sleeping and the MTR

Tuesday – We moved to a serviced apt near the airport. This is on Lantau Island, the same island that Discovery Bay is on. During this move and after looking around the area, we thought that being on HK Island was the right choice. (If you look back in the blog, you will see this was one of our first choices when we were researching things in HK). We chose this serviced apt because it was really the only thing in our price range that offered 3 bedrooms. It also has a pool area for the girls and some other rec areas.

The rest of the week has been spent getting one more cell phone for us and then just exploring the area.

Today, Saturday, we are now at the pool and don’t really have much planned for today. Rob is coming here next weekend (on business) and so hopefully we will be able to go and do some things with him next Saturday night and Sunday.

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mothers Day to all my favorite Mom's. It has been a great one around here. The girls both gave me some gifts they had made at school --- I love them! Jonathan got me a new camera. (I just got one a few months ago, but I really hated it. The damn thing never seemed to be in focus!)

So the questions of the week are:
1. Are you ready to go? and
2. Are you excited?

The answer to the first one is simple ... yes. The answer to the second one is a yes too, but with some strings. We still have so much to do and it feels like time is just slipping away. So excited falls into being overwhelmed VERY quickly.

Saturday afternoon, my friend's daughter, Sophie had her first communion party. We couldn't attend because of a different party that we had said we would go to, but stopped by to give Sophie her gift. She put on her earrings, which were some really cute dangling hearts and gave me a huge hug. As I was telling her that I love her (she is my blond child that I won't ever have!) and that I would miss her ... it truely hit me. I was going away and really wasn't ready for it. I am not good at goodbye's. I felt my eyes filling with tears as I was whispering this in her ear ... luckily I blinked them away and no one noticed because I was also wearing my sunglasses. It is really much to early to be saying goodbye and crying about it!!!!

The other party on Saturday night was the complete opposite; at least for me. Jonathan's swimming friends were giving us a "send off party" at Cinco's. Boy ... I'm not sure what to say. He has met some of the coolest people thru this sport. I am so thankful that we have gotten an opportunity to share many parts of our lives with them.

We had some life experiences last week that wills stay with us for a while. They have opened our eyes to the upcoming changes that will happen with our family. But, these are the things that make us appreciate the time that we have NOW with family and friends even more.