猴年：初一

We started off the morning in a typical frenzy. This year, our days are also peppered with study time that the husband has had to put aside to accomplish his assignments. Bad timing/clash of work + play, but as with life, we just gotta roll with it, and make the best we can. So after a bout of disciplined work-time in the morning, we all got dressed and ready.

 

The first thing, is to have the children pay their respects. The first time we did it was last year, and we definitely wish to continue this tradition.

 

Paying respects

 

Seah family, 2016

 

Our first stop out of our home was to my mom's place. There, we had some yummy home-cooked food and a round of well-wishing and angbao exchanges too. Then, yet another tradition where we take a family picture on our family couch... this set of pictures has been taken for many years and I hope that we continue this always. It's amazing to see the past and present, to make comparisons and smile at how silly we are, and how much the kids have grown and how different we may look.

 

My family.

Monkeying around

 

After Mom's house, we did a dash between the MIL's home, my Grandma's home and an Uncle's place. All in a span of 2 hours. It was slightly hectic. Though if it is a form of tradition, this dash from one to another seems to be the case as everyone seems to be hosting lunch and we can only pretty much fulfill as much within a lunch window period!

Cousins

 

I am always reminder how family is important, especially during Chinese New Year. The sharing of family ties, the time spent together... so I recognise the irony of dashing from one place to another which really defies that. However, at the same time, I'm balancing reality of what the kids should remember.. and hopefully, it is not the dashing about, or the grumpy outcome as they suffer from lack of rest, or how 'boring' it is because they much prefer to play with electronic devices. Rather, I hope they remember the festivities, the bustle whilst visiting and the time they spend playing with family (cousins) and how happy we are because we are blood.

 

Growing up together

The girl tribe

As always, as another form of tradition, dinner on this first day of CNY is hosted by my amazing mother and it's a standard evening of eat-until-you-burst, of food, games and drinks.

HUAT AH

So that ends our first day of CNY. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, that time really passes so quickly... and with such festivities, I am thankful that my family are well to spend this lovely day together in love and happiness!

CNY bug

We have been bitten by what I call the Chinese New Year bug. It's flu season this time of the year, and I recall that last CNY, both kids were sick from the first day of CNY. This time round, K was hit first three days ago. It's CNY soon, but not just yet. She's been absent from school for days (today is day 3) and she is one upset little bumble bee. She wants to go to school, and is fretting about missing school, and missing her first gymnastics class, as well as the CNY celebrations at school. As much as I adore her enthusiasm for school, we cannot allow her to go spread her germs and she is genuinely unwell so we've had to manage her grumpiness and keep her home.

 

Her fever is more contained after 3 days but still spikes slightly to 38 degrees celcius, and her body is purging out an enormous amount of phlegm to rid the bad stuff within. She's also losing her voice and croaking.

 

The boy is holding up with no fever, but is hacking away with a ton of phlegm too.

 

The husband is not physically sick with the same strain of CNY bug, but has been extremely - and I mean extremely - busy. He has work, school and absolutely no time for me us. I'm hoping that he tides through this weekend so that we can launch into CNY celebrations. The feeling has been slightly mild (not too festive yet) but hey. we should still try to get into it because after all, it is the year of the Monkey!

 

Here's looking forward to bug-free CNY and may we all be able to sleep well like babies.

 

Envy is seeing how well they sleep when they do sleep

Morning madness - version January 2016

Today is the 1 February and Lunar New Year is one week away. How quickly time has flown by!

 

January went by in a whizz because I was out of town for 2 out of 4 weeks in that month, throw in the multiple needs of adjustments in terms of weather (Korea was cold, Billund was colder), time (Korea was +1 hour, Billund was -7 hours) not to mention the whole household routine being updated with the children both going to school at different timings compared to last year.

 

For the first two weeks, our morning schedule looked like this:

 

5.15am: K wakes up. 

5.40am: K goes down to take the school bus. Our original pick-up point was 3 blocks away and the bus was always waiting by the time we headed down and it was slightly stressful to hurry towards the bus.

5.45am: I used the time I had to run/workout/do yoga.

6.05am: Jake wakes up

6.30am: I'm done with my exercise

6.40am: I bring Jake down to take the school bus.

6.45am: the house is dead quiet with no kids at all... and I have time to eat my breakfast and wash up

7.45am: I go off to work

After a few weeks of this, the husband and I decided last week that it was ridiculous for J to take the school bus. He starts school at 8.15am so that translates into him being on the roads for more than an hour before he arrives! I know K does too but the distance to her school is way longer.. and that is another set of transportation considerations that we are thinking of.

 

So, since last week, our morning routine is as such:

 

5.15am: K wakes up

5.40am: K goes down. The bus driver had noticed that it is quite a distance from our home to the pick-up point, and we made arrangements for a different pick-up point that is right beside our block. It works out better for everyone

5.45-7am: I get a longer window period of me-time. In the past week, I have worked out once, had breakfast with the husband once, practised yoga twice, and did a 7km run.

7am: J wakes up

7.40am: we are both out of the house together. My dad picks us up, sends me to the train station and J to school

 

It's been working well so far, and I'm glad that we have such an amazing family support unit to help one another out. The afternoon schedule is a bit of a mix because of different knock-off times for K during the week. Our night routine is also still work-in-progress as I try to find a good time and routine that works for us all. I've tried several options last week and pretty much ended up being stressed a lot. I'm working on it all - the routine, my temperament.

 

I'm sure we'll figure something out soon!

 

In the meantime, here's a picture of my firstborn - that's her... with her lopsided toothy grin (that's mine!), messy hair (ah-hem. the sister's), and her very own personality.

 

Silly

Hiding

Reminder to self

Kids will be kids

Cheeky moments with my boy

 

He had food in his mouth and I mimicked his full cheeks

 

Happiness

Saying goodbye to Denmark

20 Jan, Wednesday: enroute to the office at 8.30am

 

Notice the amazing details - brick bushes!

The signature shot with very signature bricks

 

I thought I'd build a snowman and snap a pic for the kids...
that didn't happen because I nearly froze my fingers off just holding the snow!

 

Visited a quaint town for dinner, Vejle which is about 20minutes away

 

Snowy quaint

 

Hearty dinner

Cold. Very cold.

21 January, Thursday: my last breakfast in Billund

After half a day at the office, we were finished with the week at Billund. It'd been an interesting and fun week, truly. To play student again to absorb and learn information, to make new friends from different parts of the world, it felt refreshing. By the time the day ended, it was about 330pm.

Enroute to the airport at 4pm

Billund Airport

 

The short flight departed 10minutes late from Billund, to - thankfully - arrive punctually at Frankfurt. Here, I bade farewell to my fellow friend Jana from the Czech Republic. My transit window period was 1hour 20minutes and I quickly made my way to the connecting flight early, so that there would be no mishaps of any sort.

 

I had about half an hour, which I used to change into a more comfortable set of clothings. I also boarded the plane and held my breath... until the doors were announced shut. And tadah! I had the same seats free on the plane - all to myself again - hooray!

 

My last leg of travel, 3-seater bed all to me!

To have the same seats available was amazing, and it made the long travel a lot more comfortable. I was trying to adjust my body back to Asia time and I pretty much concussed the moment the plane took off. By then, it was midnight BLL time, which meant that I had been awake for 18 hours straight. I snoozed for about 1.5-2 hours, and awakened to feeling hungry. I had a small snack of bread and biscuits, then started to catch a movie... which didn't last long. I then laid down to sleep for about 4 hours. By the time I woke up again, it read 2.30pm on my watch (SG time). I decided to force myself to stay awake because I'd be home at night time and I should be sleeping then, instead of in the present, and so I did. By the time I set foot on ground, it was about 5pm and I felt so glad to be off the plane.

It's been a pretty back-to-back week of activities and it was quite an experience. Before the trip, I couldn't bring myself to feel excited; instead opting for stress and worry because of the unknown. Now that the trip was over, and it was truly quite an enjoyable time, I wonder why I hadn't been more upbeat about it. So a lesson to self : be more accepting of challenges and regard them (my husband's words) as an adventure! There are always different ways of interpreting things and perhaps, I should learn to lighten up and accept them than worry. It's quite a timely reminder to myself, especially being at the start of this new year.

I am now back and the weekend was pretty amazing. I slept, ate and spent time with family and it was very nice. I hope I will get the change to travel long-haul again, as it's really an amazing experience and I know that all the travel experience I gathered this week will stay with me, to equip me better for my next travels.