Several Thousand Words

Hopefully these pictures are worth the thousand words I'm not typing here! Everything's going well - mostly healthy (runny noses everywhere you look!).

We're all being run a little ragged by the school closures though! Everybody keep your fingers crossed that nobody gets the flu here. I'm afraid that with all the hype in the news I'd probably take them straight to the hospital!

Auntie Sonya arrives on April 1st and Karen, Sonya and I are taking all the kids to the Philippines for a few days of relaxing on the beach. Or as relaxing as it can be with all these darn kids along! ;)

More later - it's 8:30pm here which means bedtime for mom!

OMG!

I forgot that I mean to share this link with all of you back before I took my vacation from blogging!

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2007190295,00.html

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish....Dead Fish :(

We at the Mac-Tak's are bidding a sad adieu to Guppy 3. G3 had taken to laying on the rocks at the bottom of the tank and although Fin hoped that he was just sleepy I knew in my heart of hearts it would only be a matter of days before he was floating on the top of the tank. That day was yesterday. So, goodbye G3 we hope you are happy in the big tank in the sky.

Well, I'm still enjoying my job for the most part BUT.... I had somehow blocked from my memory that part of the corporate world that likes to take what would promise to be a lovely event and turn it into something self-consciously goofy. I received my invitation to the firm dinner event to be held at the Four Seasons. "Oh how nice", I think to myself until I get to the dress code: "Black tie (uh oh - will have to buy new clothes!) with an Olympic theme"!! What the....???? Funnily enough, the woman planning the event tendered her resignation last month to be effective after the dinner. Is this her final revenge? All suggestions for attire are welcome!

While we are on the topic of Olympics - Fin had his first Sports Day, which naturally had to have an Olympic theme. The madness never ends over here! It was actually kind of fun, sort of. Fin was pretty non-plussed by the whole thing. The parents and teachers made themselves hoarse yelling at all the 3 year olds to stay on track and not wander off to look at a rock while they were in the middle of jumping hurdles. Actually, some of the parents kind of scare me. They had a dad's race at the end and the finalists had to race against each other in a totally silly put-on-a-grass-skirt-and-run-around-in-circles-with-your-forehead-on-a-stick type of a race. But some of these guys were so hyper-competitive that one of them actually CHEATED!!! In front of his kids!!! AND accepted first prize with batting an eye! What is the matter with these people anyway??

So here are some pictures from the Sports Day event. Enjoy!

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish....

So it's been another action packed week at the Mac-Tak's! As you can see we have some additions to the family. Guppy 1, Guppy 2, Guppy 3 and Guppy 4 as Finley SO imaginatively named them! They are pretty cute for fish. Fin thinks that when they are swimming they are wagging their tails. "They're wagging their tails, Mommy!!"

The twins are great. Joe is waving now and kind of crawling. Trying really hard with the crawling but not getting all that much return for the effort he's putting in. He has a ways to go before he is an efficient motion machine. Laurel continues to sit contentedly and observe the goings on of the family. Well, contentedly for the most part - like when Joe's not whacking her on the head with whatever's closest to hand.

We have been really enjoying the lovely weather we've been having and spending lots of time out on the grass with all the other kids.

This One's for You, Uncle Oak and Aunti Dani

Joe gets more comfort from his teddy than from any other single thing. When he's snuggling down and you put it in front of him he grabs it and burrows his face into it like he's devouring it. Thanks so much you guys! Your teddy has made naps and nighttime that much easier for us!

All Right, All Right....The Photos!

You guys know all the main players here. So since what you really want is the pictures and not the chit-chat I'll leave this post at that.

So long SAHM!

Hello to anyone out there that still checks this in the mostly unrewarded hope that I'm still updating it.

Well, I've said in my head that I'm turning over yet another new leaf and will try and keep this more up to date. Call it my Chinese New Year's resolution. (Which by the way, was a total disaster for the Mac-Taks! Sickness all around - but more on that later.)

So, how far back shall I take you?? How about to Christmas? Christmas was Canadian this year and full of wonderful Canadians and one American (what is up with that anyway, Dad???). As anyone who reads this surely already knows, we swapped homes with a family in Vancouver for 2 weeks over the holidays. They had an amazing location - right downtown in Vancouver which made visiting with friends so easy for us! We sat back and demanded that they all come to us. Which they so very graciously did!

The flight home was a mixed bag. The twins were so very good, just waking to eat and play for a few minutes before returning to sleep. Fin was super. He's turning into a very pleasant travel companion! However, there was only 1 operational bathroom on the plane which made the entire thing really..... well, 1 bathroom, 200 some odd passengers, 14 hours.... do I really need to say anything more? Over all though, it's pretty hard to complain when we all emerged unscathed despite a month of travel with 3 little ones all under 3 years old!

So back home in Hong Kong... my friend downstairs (also has a toddler and 5 month old twins! there's an epidemic here!) helped arrange an interview for me and I had it 3 days after getting home! Ack! Somehow I managed to pull off an imitation of someone who has it together enough to function in the office and I was hired. Double Ack!! So now I'm working in the Business Development group of a British law firm - Freshfields. The name alone makes it seem like a good place for a new start in the working world. So far it has turned out to be a thoroughly undemanding, low stress job with great hours and a wonderful supervisor. I suppose I'm still in job honeymoon period but it looks good so far.

Also in January - Steve, my high-rollin' gambler, won us a new dining set at a casino in Macau! Well, he actually won money but we went out and spent it the very next day on what promises to be a beautiful dining table made from an old Chinese door and a set of matching chairs. I imagine we'll feel very adult when it arrives and we sit down at a real dining room table!

So that was January - getting over the jet-lag and starting a new job (and winning dining tables!).

February. Oh February. It was so bad I almost don't want to write about it. The cold that had nagged at us all throughout January became a full blown nightmare with a variety of manifestations in February. So just assume that we all (except Karen and Evelyn, who must have constitutions of STEEL, because they never seem to catch our virulent illnesses!) had terrible sore throats, heads so congested they practically pulsated and noses that were veritable fountains of mucous. That's just the backdrop to the real ailments that were to come. every single one of us was hit with conjunctivitis. Three times a day, three sets of baby eyeballs, 2 drops per eye.... needless to say I'm more than thrilled to be through with that! Steve and Laurel REALLY got it bad though. Laurel had it in one eye and looked a bit pirate-ish for a week. But the real horror story were Steve's eyeballs. SO VERY red and swollen. (Yes, he looks great now! Very cute in fact.)

So in the midst of all that comes Chinese New Year and 4 days in a row of stat holidays. No Karen. No Evelyn. For 4 looong days! (I wouldn't be such a baby about it but truly I was sick as well) Anyway, let's skip over that, which basically brings us to last weekend when everybody seemed mostly on the mend. Until......

Sunday night Joe suddenly developed an alarming fever which we could not bring down. We finally wound up being admitted to the hospital, where all the tests and x-rays revealed that the poor little bean had croup AND pneumonia. The only upside to that was that we were put in an isolation room where we at least didn't have to share anyone else's misery. We had plenty of our own, I can assure you. Poor little Joesy-Bear had to have an IV for 3 days, which meant 3 days of being tethered to the 2 feet surrounding his crib. Because he was so unhappy I slept with him...in his crib. Nothing like having to ring the nurse to let you out of bed in the morning to infantalise you!

Now the good news!! Steve's back at work (Yes, he actually took about a week off!! That's just how sick he was!) and the rest of us are also healthy and reasonably happy (Joe's still grumpy).

So there you have it - all the news that's fit to print about the Mac-Taks. Whew!

More soon - and with pictures. (I promise!)