Hi from Thailand

This is my view as I'm writing this blog:

We're in Thailand, hurrah! So you might wonder what the flipping heck I'm doing online. Good question ;) well you see, I just had a very leisurely shower and Izzie is still napping now. Haiwen and Lexie are off playing somewhere, I think in the sea. Lexie ran off as quickly as her little legs could carry her at the mention of the word 'nap'.

Daddy and Lexie at breakfast. 

XiYangYang joined us by iPad. Can you tell Lexie goes to Chinese kindergarten? ;)

Playing with Izzie at the poolside. 

The first two nights we stayed at an inland resort. We took a cab to the beach and found a very nice place to relax and play:

Lexie threw water all over her shirt but luckily somebody helped us to blow it dry again. It was of course the only time that we didn't bring a back up shirt. Don't tell grandma, hahaha. 

Last night we went out for dinner on the beach. Due to not enough napping both girls were NOT in a good mood. We wolfed down some food and hurried back to the hotel where they both calmed down fast. 

It is great to be on non-blocked internet. It is so much more fun to use my phone here. No messing around with a VPN and stuff simply works. Very nice. I am however more focussed on the sea and the blue skies ;)

Haiwen treated me to a massage at the spa yesterday. It was very good and the surrounding amazing! The reception is in the middle of a pond and the treatment rooms are in a secret garden type of set up. I wanna go again ;)

It is very nice to just be by ourselves. I don't think this has ever happened before! It is more tough parenting wise but also easier since Haiwen and I are mostly on the same page. 

OKlaaaa, time to go enjoy the beautiful surroundings here, xoxo 

First blog of 2014

Wow, January 6th already! The new year is off to a flying start for sure.

Poor Lexie fell ill twice in a row. The first time was right after Christmas; she had a fever and wasn't feeling well. She recovered for about a day before she started saying "mondje auw auw" (my mouth hurts). We kept checking her but couldn't figure out what was wrong. Poor thing. She went to school last Tuesday but she got a slight fever when she was there. The grandparents picked her up and took her to the hospital for a check up. We don't have general practitioners here. The hospital near school was already full for the day so they used their guanxi (chinese connection) at another hospital. Luckily it was easy to get to as a new metro line has opened up last week. Lexie got some medicine and stayed home.

Izzie enjoying a teething rusk

She was still getting worse and her gums and lips got very swollen. All of a sudden she had a HUGE blister in her mouth. She had stopped eating for a few days before that. Off to the hospital again but this time near school with the help of the cousin (who is a pediatrician) of a teacher from the kindergarten. The teacher and the head mistress went with Lexie and grandma to see the doc. Isn't that awesome? They were done within half an hour. Otherwise it would have taken all afternoon. It turned out to be a bacterial infection. She got new meds and started to recover slowly. Her first tentative smile came on Thursday night when the head mistress stopped by to see her. That was when the plan hatched to go see the doctor on Friday. The first dance and jumping session took place on Saturday, much to our relief! She ate a few spoonfuls of yoghurt and a few nibbles of soft cake on Saturday. Yesterday she finally ate some more. Phew.......  She slept OK last night and went back to the kindergarten.

My introduction in Chinese

Since January 1th Qiang, Haiwen and I have our own small music school!!! We took over a place that is already up and running. We are going to "bling" the place up a bit as it is very "Chinese" in a not so good way. Qiang's friend is helping us to design the reception area. The piano rooms are fine as they are. Some new lights here and there, no more messy pics on the window and it will start to look really good!

At the music school

We will also sell coffee and cookies from Hommy's. The coffee is mostly important for Haiwen, I think, hehehe. The lady that works the reception is very nice and hands on. I've met some of the teachers and they seem to be nice too. We're in touch on Wechat, how modern!

Clean!

This week there is not much happening at the music school since term finals are up at school. Once they are over it will be busy again. These few weeks I also don't need to teach in HuangPu, but come January 13th I'll be there six times in nine days.
  

Haircut by mommy! Bangs too short for my taste but too long for Chinese taste. Gotta love to compromise!

Lexie's bangs were getting to long according to the teachers. They even texted mom in law about them.... Ahem.... I thought they were super pretty and still about two weeks away from a cut. I noticed that the hairdressers here have no idea what to do with a toddler so I took matters into my own hands.

I looked up a video on Youtube and let Lexie see it as well. "Look Lexie, 姐姐 (big sis, a name for all girls older than Lexie) is getting a hair cut. Look at how calm she is sitting there. Isn't she cool?" And yes, Lexie sat down without a peep, watched her cartoon and let me cut her bangs. Yay mommy! I trimmed the back as well so she's good to go. It was surprisingly easy. Yes, yes.... I did a good job and kept it even :P

My home gym

I've been keeping busy being a mommy and working out. Tony and Lynell helped me to get a pink sandbag from America. My equalizers are here and so are the weights. I found the equalizers on Taobao after searching for a very long time. They are 6 times cheaper than the ones advertised on American websites, teehee! I tried to find the sandbag as well. They did have it but probably ordered it in from the same company I got mine from. As you can imagine that was more expensive then having Tony bring one over. Work outs are going well and I'm starting to get rid of the mommy tummy :)