Happy New Year - A whole month went by in a flash! The first two weeks of December was a whirlwind with school concerts, parties and decorating the school (Parent Association duty). I didn't even put up our own tree until the third week of December.



The last week of school was tests, tests, and tests for the kids. I baked loads of cookies, made tarts and fudge for the teachers, friends and entertaining and now that the cookie containers are about empty, Alex is requesting more cookies for his school snack box!






We opened presents Christmas eve then flew to Taipei to attend midnight mass at Paul's old family church.












We only stayed for a short three-night getaway, but among all the other foods, we ate beef stew noodles 5 times at 4 different places! We also had 3 types of ice cream: I-Mei soft serve, Xiao Mei cups from 7-11 (a childhood favorite of Paul's) and Swensen's.







I took mostly food pictures! Paul also hit a night market for noodles, so that made the total 6 for him. We found lemon ai-yu, usually a summer treat and even brought home the seeds to try it ourselves. Maggie restocked her boba supply to make milk tea and we got some Taiwan made 3-in-1 milk tea powder, too!







After we got back we managed to take a family photo and got together with various friends for playdates, bike riding, lunch and dinners. Starting with New Year's eve we had friends over three nights in a row! So the two weeks off for the holidays are finished and school has started again. Whew!





A variety of noodles and other yummy food

The kids had some time off school for parent/teacher conferences, Thanksgiving and an educators conference that was held at their school so we went camping - one night for Maggie and friends at Chong Hing Watersports Centre in Sai Kung Country Park and the second for Alex and friends at Po Leung Kuk Pak Tam Chung Camp. The following videos I did as a trial of One True Media, a site Alex's social studies teacher had him sign up for a project. Looks like I'll be puttering around on this site, too!

Update 2020 Adobe Flash slideshows no longer supported - click link for photos. PLK camp 2008 Chong Hing Watersports Centre camp 2008
 

From Su family

Paul's birthday dinner was at Cafe Deco. We drove up to Victoria Peak just in time to snap a couple of sunset photos before heading to the restaurant for some sharing of various delicious dishes including Kumamoto oysters, foie gras (with mango and avocado) handrolls, lobster bisque, Caesar salad, a pizza and a steak. Alex ordered fish and chips, and a king crab meat handroll as well as some of our food. The bread basket had naan bread baked in their tandoori oven, which I was tempted to order from, but didn't and subsequently bought a tandoori chicken leg from a vendor in Chung King Mansions later in the week. Tandoori reminds me of the Taiwanese street snack "hu jiao bing" which is a black peppery pork bun baked on the side of a similar oven that basically looks like a big oil drum with a fire in the middle. Speaking of Taiwan, maybe we'll go during Christmas break.



After dinner we went downstairs to Haagen Dazs, but we didn't buy a cake, just had cones - so no candles for Paul this year...

Maggie and Tiffany donate their hair to Locks of Love








After much nagging by me to get a haircut (and after cutting 5 inches off this summer), Maggie finally donated the minimum ten inches along with her friend, Tiffany. The girls had an early dismissal day from school and after lunch with their moms, headed off to the salon for a few hours.

Sorry about the lack of posts. We've moved to a new home, and now school, home and the office are within a one kilometer radius. Paul still needs to travel outside this area though. We've purchased a couple of bikes so Maggie can ride to school and so I can accompany Alex to school, too. It takes maybe 6 minutes to ride mostly along a bike trail and about ten to walk. Our apartment building is along the Shing Mun River. There's a nice bike path that hooks up with another one across the river that goes to Tai Po - we've gone there by bike a few times, most recently (click on photo to read post):



Zoom in on the map below to see building names. Our apartment is in the upper left corner - Garden Vista, our office is in a building called Corporation Park and school is unlabeled in the lower right on On Muk Street. Don't know when another satellite photo will be posted with the school name.


View Larger Map

The first day we got our bikes, Paul and Maggie rode home from the shop and later in the day, Paul and I went to get takeout from a nearby apartment complex called City One. We rode a nice little loop around the area past school and along a nullah (seen in the map) - kind of drainage from the hillsides into the main river before we went to City One. We even went and did a look around a gov't run "Adventure Bike Park" that is a paved trail with hills, bumps, single track, etc inside a park just for bikes. Maggie's PE class has gone during one of their bike outings and Alex has gone to another bike track with his buddy Jeremy in Kowloon City. In fact, I took Alex to this one today after school enroute to City One's McD for a snack after school. You can see the bike park if you hit the down arrow and zoom in on the map. It is along the water and is rectangular in shape with some circular hills and curvy paths.



Here are our new bikes - they're foldable bikes made by Dahon - a 6 speed model made for the China market, but fairly lightweight aluminum frame with Shimano components and a potentially useful rack and fenders that came in handy since we rode to school in a drizzle the other day.

We arrived back in HKG on Sunday 8/10 at 11pm and were up til 4am unpacking, etc. Needless to say, our sleeping schedule was erratic for a few days until we adjusted. School started Wed and just like that, both kids were back to the school routine... Alex has the same teacher Maggie did in 3rd grade, Mrs. Loo.



We moved our office near the kids' school and kept busy setting it up those first weeks of school. Now, I'm back to volunteering in the classroom and around the school as a rep for the parents association. Next up, exercising regularly, ha!

Celebrated Alex's 8th birthday with a cake in the classroom on the actual day

and had a get together with the boys at home over the weekend. The kids all played Wii and NDS games first while Paul and us moms chatted and nibbled. Later it was the adults turn to try out Wii Fit.








Had dim sum with the Siew family - Cadence is a cutie, but takes a bit to warm up...

From Back in HKG

Got a haircut and replaced the spectacles I've had for several years - whaddya think?


Thanks for reading - I'm sending this out via Yahoo groups this time to compare with the Google groups format. Sometimes the photos don't post. You can always have a look at the website to look a photos only:

http://picasaweb.google.com/beckyleesu

Summer 2008 wrap-up
The last of summer photos from Picasaweb



We drove back down the 5 from Marin County with stops in the city to drop things off at Christina's and to see Eddy one more time, Mountain View for milk tea with boba and pizza at Linda's zPizza, and Gilroy for gas and books for the rest of the trip. Haven't been that way (over 152) in a long time and it sure has been developed with a lot of stores and restaurants when in the past it was all farmland. Stopped at a couple of farm stands to check out their fruit, but nothing appealed. Made it home for dessert - Catie waiting for us...

The end of our trip consisted of stocking up at Costco, Target and the like and visiting Kathryn, my cousin Mike and his family, his brother Terry, who drove down to golf with their brother Martin and his wife, Eva, who flew out from NYC for the week. Also stayed with my college friend, Stefania the same weekend she was having a party for her big family so I got to see her mom, sisters, their kids, aunts and uncles. Everyone enjoyed swimming and BBQ. The kids had a nice time getting to know each other and Maggie especially liked Stef's dog Piccolo, a Papillon. So that made it her summer of dogs - there was

Chloe

From Summer 08 #2

Maxwell

From Summer 08 #2

Eddy

From Summer 08 #2

From Summer 08 #2

and Piccolo

From Summer 08 #4

I suppose someday we will have one, too.

We are wrapping up our time in Northern CA - went bowling with some new friends, the grandchildren of my parent's friends mentioned in the last post. Got a chance to upload more photos and a video of Alex trying step aerobics on the Wii Fit. Didn't go outside much due to the smoke from the fires - hard to believe over 2000 fires started by lightning during one storm on June 21 burned over a million acres! (fr CA Dept of Forestry and Fire Protection) Driving back to the Bay area for the weekend, then SoCal on Monday until we head back to HKG.

Click for more photos from Summer album 3!