We had a great time with Colleen in Hong Kong. I tried to convince her to take a teaching job and move here. I don't know if she'll make the move to Asia but she is considering living abroad in Ireland. That would be very exciting!
She came to visit during one of the hottest months of the year so as I mentioned our sightseeing was spaced out with lots of stops for food or drinks. We weren't even hungry a few times but just wanted to sit in the air conditioning. :-)
Chi Lin Nunnery and Gardens
Heading to visit the Big Buddha
We almost literally melted at Ocean Park. Can you spot us in the photo? Why did I wear pants?
Venetian Macau
Beer on a stick!
Cool exhibits at the Science Museum
In addition to checking out the sights of Hong Kong during the day, we had some fun and crazy nights on the town. It was here in Hong Kong Colleen was introduced to the Flaming Lamborghini. If you haven't had one of these yet, boy are you missing out. The glass is filled with some crazy alcohol concoction and a giant bottle is placed on top of the glass and doused with liquor. The top is lit on fire and you have to drink up what's in the glass before the fire reaches the bottom. She obviously really enjoyed it!
We hope she'll come back to visit soon. What a fun two weeks they were! :-)
Happy new year! And boy has it been some year so far. This morning we went to make some coffee and what do you know? There was a giant bug behind the coffee maker just waiting for us. Maybe he also wanted to wish us a new year? Maybe, but unfortunately I didn't wait to find out. Using my quick reflexes I was able to get myself out of harms way by jumping back 3 feet and calling for Kelly. I was safe, but for how long? We needed to make coffee because I was still half asleep. Yes, it was 3 in the afternoon and yes we've slept for at least 9 or 10 hours the last few nights, but we were slumbered. One of our special abilities as humans with abilities (HWAs) is that we can sleep for hours on end. I think we missed a weekend once because we went to sleep on a Friday night and didn't wake up until Monday. That really screwed us up though. I think that's one of the problem with having an ability, it's not easy to just switch it off. Many people would give anything for an ability such as this one, but they don't realize how difficult it really is to have one. I really feel like Five for Fighting is talking directly to me when they sing :
Even Heroes have the right to dream It's not easy to be me
If it wasn't for the coffee, then I think the bug would also have got us going. It looked kind of like a baneling which is a little bug that contains a bag of acid in its body- dealing massive damage to anything near it when it explodes.
When Kelly came to see why I had jumped, the bug was gone. We didn't know where it was but we figured that it was probably in one of the pots or pans which was in the drying rack in the area. Kelly was brave enough to look though each one, one by one, until we found it. Kelly "the cat" knew exactly what to do next. She threw the pot at the wall. I'm not sure specifically why she did this, but there are so many good reasons to throw a a pot with a bug in it at the wall that knowing exactly why she did this is irrelevant. Like an elephant.
In our tag-team effort, it was now my responsibility to make sure the bug would never find its way back into our apartment. The bug had now crawled out of the pot and fallen on our floor. I had to kill it. I had no choice. I took a mop and proceeded to spear the bug with the handle end. Unfortunately I missed the bug and he crawled into a small opening under our stove. In the end, we made our coffee and it was delicious.
You may have noticed that I am wishing you a happy 5771 AND '72. As you may have realized we don't update our blog that often. There's a real chance that a) we may not update our blog again for 2 years or b) you might not check our blog again for two years since you know that it may not be updated until then (unless you're Jodi, in which case you check our blog every day.) Either way, I want you to know that 71 or 72, we're hoping it's a happy one for you.
Until next time, blogfully yours, Daniel
PS Are you a HWA? If so, let us know what your ability is below!
So it has been quite awhile since our last blog post!
In July I finished my job at Greenville and I led my kids in a performance of "I Just Called to Say I Love You" at their graduation ceremony. In my humble opinion, it is one of the cutest things ever. Only a few kids actually remembered the words and actions I taught them, but with two year olds performing on stage you can't go wrong! I had a great experience teaching and watching the kids grow throughout the school year. Most importantly, all of the parents expressed how much their kids enjoyed coming to school.
After wrapping up the school year at Greenville, I made a very big step in my career and started a new job as a Teaching Assistant at the Hong Kong International School. I am so lucky to be working with a very experienced group of teachers at the Kindergarten level in the Lower Primary school. I am learning so much from my colleagues and I'm loving my new work environment. I couldn't be happier with my new job!
I had about two weeks off for my "summer vacation" and what better way to spend it than with my amazing sister? She came to stay with us for two weeks and we had a great time. It was close to 100 degrees and humid every day so we had to space out our sightseeing with lots of meals and coffees inside air conditioned restaurants.
After a busy and exciting summer, the weather is finally starting to cool (meaning 85 degrees instead of 100) and we are settling into new routines. We have a visit to the USA coming up in just a few weeks. We'll be visiting Washington D.C. for Courtney and Chris' wedding weekend and South Carolina to celebrate with Lara and John. In between, we'll be doing some sightseeing in Chicago with Mom and Dad A and Colleen. Yay!
