FINALLY!

The 12 hour journey was not the nightmare expected,we survived relatively unscathed, unwounded and untraumatised. Pretty good considering we had 2 seats for 4 bums.
 
Malaysia is always: warm and food and family (and shopping- we tag-teamed: me first 6 hours intensive credit card action in the Twin Towers KLCC, took a taxi back home, and handed the cab to douwe who promptly jumped in and returned to the point of origin...). Our welcome was complete with sinful chocolate mousse cake. Even though there were 12 kids under the age of 10 present, it was pretty calm and quiet in the house!
 
This year saw a baby boom: here showing 5 of the 6 babies born in the past year: clockwise Zach, Alex, Ethan ([bottom right]eten by whom??!), Nelson and Ryan.
 
And yes................the food photos. Why are there not that many? Not that we didn't eat that much, surely not (the first day we had 4 meals). I ate too fast to take photos. Seriously. Check out kaemon's Giant Paper Dhose (bottom right) at our airport food court breakfast (one cannot waste any meal opportunity in malaysia)
 

Halloweeeeeeeeeeeeeen!

We were rather stretched to find 'costumes' for Halloween Party at Playgroup...Here's kaemon being a Japanese Boy "Hajimemashite" and Nelson a Jersey Cow "Moooooooooo"
 
 

October

October is usually a month I have a mild aversion to, nothing much happens, beginning of winter, all what has not yet been achieved seem to loom ominously when you realise the year's nearly over. BUT! This year was totally different- it sped by with many things happened, very busy with work and lots of visits from many delightful friends, lots of happenings and food, yes food. Kaemon discovered mussels, we had sashimi (first time in what seems like years of being pregnant). And lots of promise of wunderbar happenings to come............STAY TUNED, NOVEMBER is going to ROCK!!!
 

The Return of the Whitesides

This time for a final fling before they head home...
 
 
 
 

Kaemon learns the meaning of FREE GIFT!

At First Friends in voorhout, a great international playgroup for toddlers it was Birthday Day- and the pinata came out and instead of violently bashing it to pieces, the kids all took a string and neatly pulled out its guts to shower pressies on all the little ones!
 
 
Kaemon scored 2 little cars. Happy Man.

Daily Chaos

Kaemon practising his best newsreader's pose.

Semantically unpredictable sentences as a measure of functional speech intelligibility

...congratulations to Renee for her masters in language and speech pathology, completed in a language she's known for 3 years. Apart from the obvious kudos, I also just wanted to quote the title. It's trippy.

Kaemon JUST started saying MAMA!!! That boy sure knows how to string us along. For the record, his first words were (in order of appearance):

Tractor (the followed by a host of vehicular-themed words), giraffe, bobthebuilder, Papa, plane, Mama.

Nelson is a cheeky boy who likes to hang out with his mum. LOves hanging out at the milkbar.

The richest people in the world!

 

Happy anniversary to us! Teething kids and midnight snacking babies kind of had us wondering whether it was 3 or 30 years...but luckily it's engraved on the inside of our rings. (along with each other's names, all important information to survive an anniversary!).  

All things good must come to an end

For two weeks I had eating company, we had laptop parties and watched movies 10 minutes at a time (tired parents can only handle so much). Now they've gone...but not far!!! lovelove
 
 

Dorien and Joris!

The last wedding of the season.... It was sooooo lovely. A perfectly planned day, the bride was gorgeous and radiant, the groom too (grooms don't get much attention at these digs), and I have to admit, we were doublejointing it on the dancefloor. Ouch, it's been a long time.
 

it's been one of those months where the universe gives me a hug. THat is, all goes well- take for example this day: sufern and hanoi visiting, joep taking us on his boat through amsterdam (however we did ram a tour boat- scissors beats paper, paper beats rock, steel beats fibreglass...yay we won!), sun shining, lunch in chinatown, lovely!
 
 
 
 

saucisse coupée et sauces mélangée

Just to show that it's not all caviar and champagne, this is what we served up to our very special guests Renee and Martijn. What can I say?... it's a compliment when you're comfortable enough with someone to serve them cut up sausage and three (not just one, no) sauces. Melange of sauces, that does sound fancy doesn't it. french makes everything fancy.

 
 
 
 

summer = discovering playgrounds. We three up in the air....douwe down on the ground!
 
 
 

Thanks for the poo

Simone visited, brought gifts, her company, entertained us, and we thanked her by pooing on her. Nelson needs to learn that that's not an accepted method of payment.

Good night Irene

It all happened so suddenly, one night douwe came back with her, he said a burgundy limited tokyo edition daihatsu- my first reaction was, em, it's PINK. But we grew to love her, pimped her (with bubble wrap, wooden beaded seat cushion, boom boxes, rubber nobs for antislip storage etc) and she was loyal, reliable and suprisingly roomy. Then her upkeep exceeded her worth and we weighed up the factors and they came out in her disfavour. So Good night irene- just like a dog you put to sleep, Let's say goodnight, not good bye... Apparently she's going to Ghana where she'll probably transport a family of 12. I think she'll like it, but I do feel a little pang in my heart thinking of the bumpy roads and heavy loads there.
 

PS we did get a new car, I do know that it's silver but further than that I don't know. It may be new, shiny and not have green stuff growing in the window rubbers, but it's got a long way to go before replacing the Tokyo Limited Edition in our hearts.