First snow arrived today

The first snow arrived tonight as the rain turned to sleet around six thirty pm and then to snow by 8pm. When I arrived at home, Mingyu was waiting to have his ass whupped in a snow fight on the balcony. He scored two direct hits to my head and whereas I could only score glancing blows. Who's whupping who ?

Better get the skiing kit together, could be an early winter !

BONKERS IN BERLIN

How hard could it be to take a few kids on a plane to Berlin for the weekend, a breeze, a doddle you say ?  

We had a 'learning experience'.

The fun really started in the airport at the security section when the stroller had to go through the machine. So we unloaded the babies and held them with the carry on baggage in the other hand and went through the machine. THe alarm sounded when I walked through with Samuel, the guard gave Samuel a scan and patted him down then took me into a booth for the same thing. Fortunately I kept my clothes on, the guard asked me to take my shoes off and put them through the xray before letting us continue. 

We took a lufthansa small plane which means taking the bus from the terminal, Mingyu could not understand it especially when I jokingly told him we were catching the bus to Berlin. 

Onboard we had to change seats around because there was not enough oxygen masks for all of us and the babies in the one row. This will be the same for the big flight to Australia so we will need to be in separate rows.

On the flight the boys got restless and were crying and complaining, there was two colleagues sitting nearby and they got an earful all the way. Afterwards one said we had our hands full with the boys. 

At the berlin airport we picked up the baggage and went to the taxi rank, after waiting for a big cab the driver rejected taking us since he had no baby seats. We then resorted to catching the bus into town and walking up to the hotel. On the way we had a fish and chip break and a dunkin donut break in the space of less than 700m.

The hotel screwed up our booking for two adjoining rooms by leaving another guest in one of the rooms. We had to wait while they sorted it out and after 1 hour we were in a small room with the boys getting sleepier and crankier. I had to go to the conference and Sunny complained to the hotel and requested another rooms. She eventually got a suite and put the bubs to bed. When I arrived at 1130 pm they were all asleep. Around 12 Andrew started to wake and needed lots of attention to get back to sleep. For Sunny it was just a continuous tag team going from Andrew to Samuel and back for most of the night. 

  

Home coming

Last friday night I returned home  from a weeks training in Germany to see Sunny and Mingyu holding sparklers in their hands from the balcony.  They threw them from the eighth floor onto the ground, one nearly missing me by a bees knee. It was a dark night and the sparklers looked pretty cool from where I was standing. 

We celebrated Sunnys birthday last Saturday on the 4th October (real birthday on 6th). There was lots of yummy food and cakes, lots of swiss cakes. There was a chocolate cream birthday cake, a fruit torte and a blueberry yoghurt cake. Twelve people came over for afternoon tea. There was only one coffee served but several glasses of champagne went down before singing happy birthday. I hope you enjoyed it lovey.

Mingyu says he wants a hundred people over for his party !  

Sunday is Pancake day

I like thick pancakes, golden brown, with ice cream, maple syrup and fruit on top. The reaction from the rest of the Family indicates they get a thumbs up from them too.

I think tomorrow morning should be a pancake start to the day. Why not ?

These are pancake shots and after shots. You can see Andrew liked them so much he was pursing his lips for hours afterwards. Even Sunny and Mingyu stopped teasing each other for a post pancake pic on the porch.

Samuel

Samuel is following along behind Andrew especially when it comes to crawling and physical development. Although he still has got the larger body weight he has only advanced to crawling backwards, while Andrew is in fast forward. But he has a great sense of humour and when he starts laughing he either cant stop or he laughs at the smallest thing, especially when Mingyu makes a face. Its a real belly laugh and he goes on laughing and laughing.

 

A few more photos

Here are a few more photos, I did a quick check on the computer and we have 11,405 photos in 292 events. Good thing we have a MAC computer to handles the pics. The Iphoto is great at managing the photos in a easy to find way. It has some basic edit functions too, we mainly use the red eye removal function. Anyway these are obviously daytime shots and no red eyes  so I will stop this rambling on and do a quick blog for samuel.

We got a visitor

Gini called in for a night during her 40 day back packing adventure around Europe. She was in Geneva the night before coming to Cham and then went onto Prague by bus from here. It was nice having her to stay and she did apparently sleep despite the boys waking up every hour on the hour. It was a good excuse to crack a champers and relax for a few hours over dinner. Sunny was happy to see her ex colleague from Johnson and Johnson. I did not envy her, since she had run out of cash already and with Prague and Paris still, left on the schedule did not leave much room for any special treats. Sunny bought her a jacket to keep out the advancing winter and we searched the cheapest transport to prague. A student bus leaving from Zurich with an 11 hour overnight schedule. 

 

Andrew called me Dad

I got back home 930pm last night after an overnight trip to Copenhagen. Sunny and Andrew answered the door with smiles. We sat down in the living room and chatted for a few minutes with the boys on our knees. Then andrew said DAD, twice! Wow would have floored me, except we were already sitting on the floor. He said it and gave me a hug, so cute.

Andrews view of the world

The lads are having a chat in their high chairs. 

Andrew selecting a book from Mingyu's library .

Samuel thinks he is a turtle. 

Boys new Toys

This Saturday we went on an epic journey to Ikea in Spreitenbach near Zurich. We were in the store for over 3 hours including a meal break of meatballs and pomme frittes.  The boys were ok for the first hour after that the crankiness level increased and increased. Then back to home with the kit including new high chairs for the lads, a red play tent , rug, photo frames and other bits and pieces. 

Little Plastic Box

The boys enjoyed time in the little plastic box,  with smooth bottom surface and smooth floor it was a good combination for sliding along, powered by Mingyu. They had their Reilly dog on board to keep them safe and secure. 

Mingyu's First Soccer match

Saturday was mingyu's first soccer game, he proudly scored the first goal too ! It was a tough match against the Aegeri 9 year olds, most of which had those horrid rat tail hair cuts. They brought a secret player onto  the ground in the second half to try and put our team off but the doggy had no impact, except on the goalie who had a few stressfull moments during a kickout. 

Before the game I dropped Mingyu at the clubhouse and went in to talk to the coach and get the roster details. Mingyu got changed and then we walked around the facility and out onto the fields to see the team and coach. We couldn't find them and had almost given up when we saw the coach in the car park with a few other parents and the team. They asked if I was driving to Aegeri (a town 15-20 km away), we had now idea it was an away game so I drove mingyu up to Aegeri and then went back to cham to pickup sunny and the boys. 

We  got back in time for the second half and watched the Cham team finish with their first win for the season score 2-1.