DB Playdate

After one cancellation for illness and one cancellation because of the Typhoon, Katy was thrilled to finally welcome  Imogen and Lola over from Central for a playdate in DB.  We've always hosted lots of playdates in the past, but with Katy's life now centred on school on the other side (Hong Kong Island), we tend to have more playdates at friends' houses over there.  Katy is a little upset that she doesn't get to host.

First order of business apparently was Katy putting make-up on the girls.  And apparently, this was the most exciting activity all day, as it was the first thing the twins told me when I met them on the ferry on HK side.

Then, they all had a snack and played with the electronic games.  5 going on 15!!!

Katy told me they played family and she was the Mother and the twins were the babies!

The girls are very affectionate!

Katy doesn't get much of a chance to play with Lola and Imogen, so it was lovely that they had a whole day together to play.  Mila said they played really well and independently together and wanted to play by themselves, No Adults Allowed!

Katy Cake

Another unique creation from the ovens of the Katy Rose For-Profit Bakery.  Katy insists she is practicing for her cupcake stall!  This was a heavily sprinkled peanut butter concoction with the texture of Nian Gao or Mooncake.  Dada pronounced it a very yummy "Halloween Christmas Mooncake"!

At the Bank

Katy loves to be busy and important, so she was very pleased to find this cheque deposit box at the bank.  She was very busy filling in her check forms in accordance with the printed instructions.

Tennis Anyone?

The Summer holidays look like a great opportunity to try some new things.  We were washed out last week with Typhoon Vicente, but finally had a chance to try out tennis on Monday.  Katy was a bit apprehensive.  She hasn't had a lot of sports classes yet, and when she tried soccer at two, she didn't like it.  But a couple of months of Multisports classes have helped her confidence a lot, even though her worried that she wouldn't be able to hit the ball, because she hadn't been able to when they tried at Multisports.

It was a scorcher!

Katy's swing improved a lot - although she still does like to include a ballet move and spin around at the end sometimes!

She really started to get the hang of it when they learned how to volley.  Getting in a couple of good hits really made her want to hit more balls and started turning her into a tennis fan!

At the end of the lesson Coach Stevo played a game of crocodile with the tennis balls.

Katy loved the lesson and wanted to continue, but we decided the lessons were way too disorganised and the coaches were not really suitable for little kids.  So Katy is looking forward to continuing tennis in Minnesota, when it won't be so darn hot!

Know Your Ballet Music!

Mama and Katy attended a special Hong Kong Sinfonietta production to introduce ballet music to kids.  Katy was a little young as you were supposed to be six, but I wasn't the only one to make an exception it seemed.  At first, Katy was super excited.  She really wanted to see the conductor - and this is her impression of what the conductor does.

This is her impression of how ballerinas dance...

As the concert hall filled, she Katy got more and more excited...

...and we enjoyed checking out all the instruments in the orchestra as they warmed up.

However, once the show started, Katy got really nervous and agitated.  She really is worried that shows are going to be scary, especially as the Conductor started talking about Cinderella and The Nutcracker.  Katy absolutely does not like watching evil witches and wars between mean rats and the Nutcracker.  So Katy insisted on wearing Mama's earphones to block out anything scary.

However, as the show went on and she realised there was a lot of comedy involved, and it was mostly music and not graphic scenes of fighting or mean behavious, Katy relaxed and really enjoyed the show.  She even abandoned the earphones!

The music was beautiful, and we really enjoyed hearing more about the harp.  Katy loved the cymbals and the percussion instruments, especially the keyboard that sounded like a bell. 

By the end, she was a little fidgety as the show was quite long, but I could also see the 8, 9 and 10 year olds get a little fidgety too.  After the show, our special treat was a meet and greet with the Conductor, Director and dancers.  Katy asked the Conductor and Ballerina for an autograph, and she shook the Conductor's hand.

Making Music

Katy still loves to play tambourine with the 8am choir, and as always, it brings a smile to everyone's faces when the kids join in for the Recessional Hymn.  Katy is very excited to get more involved with Mass. 

At this Mass, our family and Uncle Scotty also presented the Offertory Gifts.  Katy's a pro now, a much calmer and confident walk down the aisle compared to our first few attempts, when Katy's grip on the Ciborium was a little wobbly and it would teeter precariously, with the whole congregation holding its breath for the seemingly long walk down the aisle!

When we congratulated her on a good offertory, she smiled and said "but I really want to do the collection!" 

Big salmon!

We had Peter and Alice Phillips and Steve Keneally over for the first of our "farewell DB" lunches.  They had been housebound in Stanley Peninsula since Typhoon Vicente, as the one road out was blocked with fallen trees.  They were very impressed with the Minnesota stuffed salmon!  Uncle Bert came over too, but Gabriel was too busy playing to pose for the photo.  Uncle Bert worked for Peter in Sydney when Uncle Bert was at Sydney Uni.  Steve and Peter went to school together in Adelaide,  We've been family friends every since, and now all the boys, including Dada, go out several times a year for a good ol' boys night!

Dada On The Roof

Typhoon Vicente blew out our pilot light for our hot water heater.  Dada had to get up on the roof to fix it, and to weed out the trees that block the drains up there.  It was a whole family project and Katy was super excited.  She is itching to get out there with Dada one day!  She had to content herself with calling instructions through the windows, and handing Dada his tools.

Playtime in the City

We rarely get to play with Natalia and Scarlett, so the Summer school holidays were a great opportunity to catch up.  It's hard to find a good venue for playtime in the City.  They live in Shek O, as south as you can go in HK, and we live in DB, pretty far North-West, so we had to find something in the middle.  The Bookazine in IFC was a perfect little meeting spot, and the girls loved it when Marianne read them a Pinkalicious book.

Like Katy though, the twins get a little annoyed when the adults try to turn story time into "learn to read" time. "Just get on with the story already!" Katy always says.

Oh Boy!

Callum, Keira, Jonah and Matilda had a playdate last week!  They all still fit on the whale seesaw that Uncle Bert gave Katy for her first birthday! 

Although there's a great deal more pushing, shoving and violent seesawing these days!  It's funny how the boy and girl playdates play out...

Tea for Two

Dada thinks Mama buys Katy too many presents.  But even Dada couldn't resist getting Katy a gorgeous new Chinese tea set.

Typhoon Vicente

Katy experienced her first Typhoon 10, the first since 1998.  She slept through it all!  

I discovered that I do have a phobia after all...although I don't remember much about Cyclone Tracy other than family lore, and I don't have any issues thinking about or talking about Cyclone Tracy, it seems there must be some residual anxiety, as I was very uneasy throughout the night and hardly slept a wink worrying about the flower pots smashing the glass sliding doors!  Dada enjoyed watching the storm whip the trees about, but I couldn't bring myself to get out of bed to look!

The winds battered the doors and howled while we researched cyclones on Google and wikipediaed Cyclone Tracy.  Typhoon Vicente's wind speeds were comparable, but I guess building quality has improved, because there was not much damage relatively speaking in Hong Kong afterwards.  I mean, Typhoon Vicente did uproot a few trees and send them toppling on a few houses, but Cyclone Tracy flattened 85% of Darwin and whipped cars up into trees...

The next day, Katy and Mama headed out to investigate and explore, after Dada had called up excitedly to let us know there were trees toppled down by the beach.

In front of our house, there were only branches down, and lots of wet leaves and puddles.

Down closer to the beach, one of Katy's beloved pine trees was toppled.  But of course, frustratingly, none of the trees blocking our views were damaged at all!!  They remain upright and tall and block our sea and city views!

One of the shade trees on the beach went over.

And the sand was washed all the way up over the wide beach promenade.

Several houses looked like they had near misses from the toppled Casuarina trees along the beach.  If any of those branches had gone through the windows, it would have been quite alarming for the sleeping occupants!

Ava Yi Yi Ava Yi Yi

Uncle Pete and Auntie Ava came to stay from Shanghai following a romantic trip through Italy, complete with proposal.  Katy loved playing with Ava Yi Yi.  She's been chanting her name ever since!

Blessings

A few months ago when we visited the Catholic Centre to buy gifts for some friends, Katy begged and begged me for this beautiful angel.  She promised me black and blue that she would diligently say her prayers every night seriously, as she had been a little blase and cheeky about her prayers recently...on this basis, I finally agreed to buy her the angel, who now occupies pride of place next to Katy's bed.

Katy suddenly remembered to bring her angel to Mass to be blessed.  She was so excited for it to happen, and had been really disappointed on previous Sundays when we didn't have time to wrap angel properly for the trip to Mass.  

Fr Henry was very accommodating and encouraging, bestowing a beautiful blessing, and urging Katy to find a beautiful name for her angel.

Fr Grimm

Fr Grimm braved the heat and came out to DB for a visit.  We love visits from Fr Grimm.  He'll be heading down to Darwin in a few weeks, and he'll be moving back to New York City in March 2014 when he retires.  We're looking forward to lots of visits with Broadway shows and museum lunches.

Shirley's Art House

Katy and Olivia tried out Shirley's Art House - a two and a half hour Summer Camp class in Mandarin.  They completed two projects, including this portrait of Mama dressed as a Chinese Opera Singer - oil crayons and sandpaper.  Auntie Debbie and Mama were pretty impressed!

School's Out for Summer!

We had a big party for the last day of school.  The parents at K2B really put on a good spread.  It was a bittersweet day though as many of Katy's closest friends (aka English speaking classmates) are moving on to international schools. 

Kiara, Zee Zee and Ava are going to ISF (as are most of the defectors) and Eden is going to Canadian International School.

I'll always remember Ava as one of the first kids in school to befriend Katy and get her up and dancing.

Kiara has been a relatively recent friend, but now they're quite close.

 

Katy adores Liao Laoshi, the head teacher.  Liao Laoshi is very encouraging and friendly, but with 39 kids to take care of, I do feel that sometimes Katy's own individual strengths and weaknesses are not optimally managed.  We've always known that Katy is not a fan of large groups, and she has trouble paying attention in that setting.

 

The younger of the three teachers is Lu Laoshi.

 

The third teacher is Liu Laoshi, who acts and looks a little stricter.  It took a while for Katy to warm up to her, but now it seems that they're good friends.

 

And then of course their English teacher Miss Tabbie.

  

The international school system in Hong Kong is so crazily competitive that parents feel they have to get in at 5 years old or they will never get in.  It's such a shame as most families would love their kids to stay for a few more years of Mandarin.  Even though we think Katy might be better suited temperament wise to an international school setting with smaller classroom classes and more individual attention, we've made a decision to keep her in Mandarin school as this is our priority, especially while she's still young enough to roll with it.  So now the kids are saying their goodbyes.  

For now, Katy doesn't think it's that big a problem because she's been to a new "school" every year since she was two.  First DMK Mandarin Mommy and Me playgroup (15 months to two years old), then DMK Mandarin Playgroup with Sugar n Spice and DB Bugs Montessori playgroups at the same time (two years old), then Green Pastures for K1 (three years old) and now Suzhe for K2 (four years old).  The weird thing for Katy will be returning to the same school in September and reuniting with her old classmates!

Happy Birthday Naan

This is the first year that we've been able to celebrate Julie's birthday with her, as we've been away the last three summers.

We started early with a celebration birthday eve dinner of prime rib hamburgers.

 Julie agreed it was the best burger she'd ever had in her life. 

 Katy and Dada had made Naan a beautiful Valrhona chocolate cake, and Katy was so excited to be iciing the cake after dinner.

 

 

The next day, Katy was super excited to be invited along with Tia and Naan, Naan's friend Tita Juliette and some other friends for a day out.  They went out to Spaghetti House for lunch, which they all loved.

 
It was very touching to see how excited and happy Julie was with her birthday celebrations as she's had her birthday all alone the last few years.  Julie just kept grinning all weekend long!