2012

Finley's friends Austin and Megan had been wanting to try a sleepover, and once they saw Fin's bed tent they decided it needed to be at our home.  So here they are before it all headed south.

Story time with Dave....followed by Austin asking to go home (8:15pm) and Megan asking to go home (8:45 pm).  At least they live in our complex, so it was easy for Huw and Hels to come pick them up! 

The next day, we decided to get out of town and head as far from Tai Tam as you can while still remaining in HK.....so we spent the morning in Sai Kung, a fishing village close to the China border.  It was interesting to see, but made me realize that living in Tai Tam, we're in this little community with tons of western people and the American Club and lots of other conveniences that we take for granted.  Whereas here in Sai Kung, we barely saw any other expats and everyone was speaking Cantonese or Mandarin.  It felt much more like China than our 'hood does, though apparently some expats are migrating up that way because you can get a lot more for your money.

They had lots of waterfront restaurants with fresh seafood.  See below - it doesn't get fresher than this.  Unfortunately, our kids don't eat fish and it's REALLY hard to order when there's different names for different kinds of fish, a massive language barrier and no way to explain how you want your fish cooked.  So we opted for western food in the town square.

Playing at the Manhattan playground (the building across the street from our home). 

Bath time!

Yesterday we took the kids to the Hong Kong Botanical and Zoological Gardens to see the monkeys, lemurs, gorillas and other primates.  They loved it and made really loud monkey noises the entire time we were there. 

Love that they have the same sort of mannerism here.

A rare occasion - I handed off the camera to Dave!  (Sidenote, this is post-haircut for Nolan.  He looks so old to me without frizzy curls everywhere.)

Each time we come here (which we have been doing since February 2010), I have Fin take a picture with King George.  No reason, but he's in the middle of the park and it's interesting to see how she grows and changes with each visit. 

(Here she is in the same spot nearly two years ago.)