Thailand

We spent our Easter break with Geoff’s family in Phuket, Thailand. We didn’t do too much other than swim in the pool or laze on the beach. We plan to do the real sightseeing on another trip when Galen can move his own self around because carrying him is back breaking.

The trip provided Arlo with the chance to play with her cousins, who she hasn’t seen in over a year.


And Nannie, of course!
The smallest cousins – Galen and Elsie. Elsie is almost two weeks older than Galen.

Galen with Uncle Paul, in his favourite position to be held.
More beach time

Arlo’s hair did some amazing curling in the humidity. The curls all but vanished as soon as we got back to China.
We were upgraded to a private villa with a pool so when we weren’t at the beach or eating delicious food or spending time with the rest of the family in the main pool, we were usually hanging out in our private pool.

Nannie with all her grandkids.
And now we’re back in China. And right now Galen is crying. I know how he feels…

Changes…

We had pictures taken of Arlo and Galen when Galen was ten days old.



He’s changed a bit since then. I took the last two photos today. Eight weeks, over seven kilograms, and constantly smiling (just not in these photos…).

Arlo is a great big sister. Rarely jealous, and often telling us, “I love Galen,” and, “I like my baby brother.” And it’s already clear that Galen adores her. If she’s in the room, he’s always looking in her direction, and is captivated when she pays him any attention. Hopefully it’s many, many months before the squabbling starts…

Elsie’s quilt

It’s been ages, I mean years, since I posted any pictures of quilts I have done. I’ve done several in the past year or two, but just haven’t photographed them or mentioned them here. Until now.

This is Elsie’s quilt. Elsie is the newest cousin of Arlo and Galen, arriving just ten days (I think) before Galen did. We didn’t know if she’s be a girl or a boy before she arrived, but I knew that the theme in teh nursery was circus, with bright colours. I couldn’t find any circus fabric here, but did manage the bright colours, which I’m told match perfectly.
Not the best picture in the world – unless you want to see a whole lot of floor…

All bagged up with a matching gift card on top.

A month!

It’s already been over a month since our family was made complete. They say that time flies with your last child (they being one friend of mine) and it’s true. The newborn baby cry is fast disappearing, as is the newborn scrawniness. In fact, after five weeks Galen has gained two kilos! He’s still small enough to snuggle into my chest, but I don’t think that will last long. He’s in the 90th percentile for weight, 60th for height and 40th for head circumference. But he doesn’t really look like a pinhead! It kind of bugs me a little that I remembered those stats, as I really don’t care about them – as long as he’s healthy, eating, pooing, sleeping – and he’s doing all of that!

Here, just a few pictures from the past five weeks.

Snow Day!

About a week ago I received a text message out of the blue saying that school would probably be closed the following day because of snow. Closed? The weather had been fabulous. But I wasn’t about to complain – who says no to a snow day??!!

4am: I realised that nobody would be going to school. They don’t do snowplows in this part of China, and nobody knows how to drive in the snow anyway, so we knew school would be closed.

At about 6am we were told that the bus company felt conditions were too bad to drive on the roads. Sadly, our washing machine repairman felt the same so, after waiting over a week for our washing machine to be fixed, we would have to wait a while longer. But that’s another story (in which I thank a friend for using her machine for two weeks, and thank the repairman for FINALLY fixing our machine and now ayi has a helluva lot of ironing to do … The End).


What a difference a couple of years makes!!!! Though Galen is now huge, he does not fit that 6-9mth snowsuit!

It kind of looks like they’re all smiling…

Pingjiang Lu at night

We’ve been aiming to go to Pingjiang Lu at night for ages – since the subway opened up almost a year ago. We finally decided to go a couple of nights ago, taking Geoff’s mum to another something touristy that none of us had seen before.


Yes, baby bottles! I think they contain yoghurt. Seeing teenage girls walking along drinking from a bottle as though they were infants was just – wrong!

It’s hard to find decent places to eat along Pingjiang Lu. These things looked delicious – if only we knew what they were!!

Jiangsu-Taiwan Lantern Festival

Since Geoff’s mum is here for a few weeks and has been here twice before, we decided to show her some things that she (and we) hadn’t seen before. The Jiangsu-Taiwan Lantern Festival is on for one month at Moon Harbour, and we decided to visit before the snow came (it’s snowing here right now).





The lanterns were huge, and reminded us all a bit of our visit to Harbin two years ago. Perhaps not as cold, though…

Of course, when you go somewhere with Nannie, it’s inevitable that you’ll end up with a knick knack of some kind (especially when you’re in China – the land of cheap plastic toys).