Ghouls and Goblins!

Happy Halloween!!

This year the goodie bags have been filled to the brim. The girls had fun trick or treatin' in the residence where we live.
It was good fun and everyone we went to had made an extra effort to decorate the outside of their doors.
The kids were thrilled and lets just say there wasn't any tricking!!

They've been on 'sugar overload ' since Saturday, so I been pumping fruit and veg into them whenever I can.

After an hour and a half of treating, we headed down to the halloween party. We spotted zombies, pirates, witches and ghouls of every sort.

Mathilde was a little scared and said she'd had enough of Halloween and wanted Santa to come now!! Now thats my girl!!

Birthdays

From the month of September, our family is in birthday mode with a birthday each month ending in a big bang for christmas.

October is my husbands birthday and this year its a big one......40!!!!

I still can't believe it! I think I'm taking it harder than him. Luckily we both still feel years younger than what we are.
Its just creeped up on us.

I look at him and I'm ever so grateful for all this time we've shared and been together. We have two gorgeous little girls. And are just plain happy.

Sure I have my days where I've taken all I can take and I erupt like mount Etna. Holding nothing back! But  all couples go through this. We just have to stay true to ourselves and our partners. And I think after all the years spent together, we have to take and make the time for each other. With kids, life and work all getting in the way its so easy to just say I'm tired and not even bother, but it doesn't take much and it does the world of good for the two of you.

I planned a few days away to Macau for the family. Some well deserved family time.

We took the Cotai jet from Hong Kong which is a comfortable one hour ride.

 Stayed at a lavish 5 star hotel.  I had planned to visit quite  a few of the sites but gave in after a brief visit to the ruins of St Pauls as no one was interested.  The only thing that kept them quiet was a Hagen Das ice-cream and even that done more harm than good after five minutes under the Macau sun.  Sweet , sticky drops were dripping all down Mathildes arm and face. They were hot , tired and just wanted to sample the hotel pool that we'd been speaking about since a few weeks.

These almond cookies are found all over Macau. On the Street that leads to St Pauls, shops are packed with dried meats and these cookies. All you hear as you walk is the clicking of the tongs.

Again I was reminded about how your vacations are different when you have small kids. Luckily, mine are, most of the time , happy go lucky little girls. But then again, sometimes not!


Macau was a Portuguese colony and reminders of this past are scattered all over the city. It was beautiful to see the old, colonial style buildings - makes a refreshing change from all the Hong Kong sky scrapers.

Macau is known as the Las Vegas of the East. Gambling is allowed as the portuguese government at the time legalised it.  There's no shortage of casinos and because Chinese people like to gamble and its not authorised in China, there's no shortage of Chinese people. The hotels are packed!!

Here in Hong Kong, I have the occasional stare and question about my little Mathildes hair ' Is it natural  the curls and colour?'  They go completely gaga over her and her hair.
And it started in the ferry, one women was completely besides herself. She couldn't walk past Mathilde without telling her how beautiful she was. And that was just the beginning.
At our hotel, she was an attraction in herself. At first she was all shy but in the end she was posing , looking slightly fed up and even doing the odd 'peace' with her two fingers  just like them.
There was a jester doing magic tricks, who in turn also succumbed to Mathildes charm. Not only was she bringing him a crowd, the people were asking her to pose with them and the jester.
The so called jester who in turn finally couldn't help himself and took out his phone and posed for photo with Mathilde.

We ate , way too much, played , had cocktails and just enjoyed the time together as a family. The girls didn't want to leave and to be honest, neither did I.

Hubby and myself have now decided to do a little break like this atleast once a month. No more putting things off.  Life is way to short so we should take advantage and live life to the fullest!!

School holidays

Yes, once again school holidays are upon us. Last week, Mathilde was off for a whole week and this week its Olivias turn.
Its good having them on holiday at different times, that way I get a bit of one on one with each of them and they don't drive me up the wall!!
This week they get to play, nag and bug each other in the mornings as Mathilde goes to school in the afternoon and the afternoons, I get to spend with my little, big girl Olivia.

Last week, we made some play dough and its still keeping the two of them busy. Amazing what a bit of flour, oil, salt, cream of tartar and food colouring can do - peace for a good half an hour!
This is the same recipe I've been using since Olivia was 2 years old. Its foolproof and ever so easy. The hardest part is keeping them patient while it cools.

Foolproof play dough


1 cup flour
2 tbsp cream of tartar
1/4 cup of salt
tsp food colouring
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 cup water


Mix the flour, salt and cream of tartar in a medium pan.
Add water, food colouring and oil. Cook on medium heat , add food colouring and keep stirring until mixture comes away from the sides of the pan and forms a ball - just like a choux pastry. Don't worry if its a lumpy mess, it will tun out fine, just keep mixing. All this happens really quick. 

Remove from pan, knead until smooth and place in a zip lock bag and in the fridge to cool.

Busy hands = quiet mouths!!!

Shek O

Wednesday was public holiday so like any good parents we hauled the brood off to the beach. We decided to take a ride to Shek O which is a seaside village on the south eastern part of Hong Kong Island. Shek O literally means 'rocky bay'.

Its quite a drive to get there but its because of this that the tiny village has a quaint and traditional feel to it. But you need to get there early to find parking. 

Getting there takes you past Tai Tam Reservoir. Here you feel like you've been transported to another country. No buildings. No noise.  Beautiful bridges that you can see were built many moons ago and just green open spaces. 

We spent a relaxing afternoon on the beach. Grandma and granddad joined us. They spotted crabs in rock pools, jumped in the waves, played naughts and crosses in the sand, looked for shells and of course built a few sand castles. 

 It was a bit chilly, so I let Mathilde keep her dress on for a while and I stayed fully dressed. Thats one good thing about the people here, they don't look at you as if you're some kind of weirdo if you stay fully dressed on the beach. They do it all the time and when we lived in China and went on holidays, we were quite often the only ones in swim suites and they would be in with their clothes on. So no qualms there about being fully dressed and maybe even sporting a jumper because temperature falls below 26 degrees. I know, heaven help us when we go back to Europe and live with real autumn and winter temperatures.  

The time came to go home, so it was wash off in the shower and thats when Olivia remembered why she didn't like the beach..... because there's too much sand!! Got to love that girl!

Her and her sister went on to say that it would be better if the beach was made of sweeties oh, Mathilde seconded that and added that she wished the sand was tiny M & M's.  Ah, a girl can dream no??