The deep blue

Kelly and Nik showed us a museum in a park that we offen go to but had no idea that there was a museum there too. There was a cool excibition on about the deep blue sea. So we went and it was way cool. Lots of photos taken at the ocean bed, and some formaldihided fish in boxes..that was not very nice but the photos were amazing. i've lived in the city three years and didn't have a clue that there was this little science museum right there. I suspect i will be going again as it cost just 20nt to get in...that's less 40 pence. It was however overly airconed but the kids didn't seem to care. they had fun running about looking at bright luminated pictures of strange animals.

Air con...not Con Air!

So Essie asks if it's getting hot here...well yes you could say that.
Last week i buckled under the heat and finally gave in and put on the evil Air con (AC i think you call it in the USA?).
I hate air con really i don't like it and avoid it if i can. many people put it way to high (that should be low surely), that it's a big change from outside and you find yourself putting a cardie on to go inside. not the best. The other thing that happens a lot is that i get headaches from the air con (OK no scientific study was done but there is a correlation i tell you!). The BIG thing i hate it for is that its such a massive waist of electricity that my heart sinks to think how much green house gas is cause by people wanting to sleep with a big duvet and thus put the air con on full blast...this happens, and it's incredible selfish. It drives me bananas when i get on a bus in the middle of summer, therefor wearing summer clothes, and the bus driver has the bus air con set at 16 C!! seriously this really happens, OK rare but none the less how mental is that! often it's at 19c which is just as crazy really. So i sit on a bus freezing my arse off when its 38 C outside. It does however remind me of my many trips in England on freezing buses ...but at least i was wearing the correct clothing!
SO needless to say it was a big stretch for me to put the air con on. Sarah was hot and sweaty and she insists on wearing her Knees as she calls them (shorts/or trousers). So i put it on, i set it to the low hights of 30 C. Then guilt set in and i up'd it to 31. like that makes much different. I have to say it really is amazing how much cooler it is with the air con on, i just don't know why people set it to 25C when 30 is quite cool really...maybe my termostate is broken, but i doubt it as its a brand new and never been used air con...well until last week and again three times this week. I put it on a timer so its not on all night long but i still feel guity like i need to go out there and plant some trees...maybe i will do that and just OFF SET my carbon foot print...
Here's some photos from our day out to the botanical gardens in Taipei...which i never new about but are very beutiful, and the water lillys are all in bloom. so nice. Nik got into the water and had some serious fun splashing about..can you see what Sarah thought about all that!

Yoda

Yoda served me in the supermarket today...not sure i'd ever get that living in England, and there i was as a 10 year old crying because he died, i shouldn't have worried he was just working in the supermarket all this time!

swimming at the pool...

so went to the pool today, tom got the day off work and i skipped a class so i could have the whole moring there. it was great and the kids loved it.
I have to say i love living in a hot place, even if it means i melt some days, today was so nice. Sarah and Nykolas still manage to get really cold so have to keep popping out and warming up, like little lizards. They are both way too skinny!
I can't belive Heather will leave us in two weeks,well less than that. i've been trying hard not to think about it but i am starting to and it doesn't feel good. Darn it!

melting

so its hot hot today, i am kind of melting away...
Even inside is hot, which is strange as normally at work (and everywhere else) the air con is blowing so hard that you have to put a cardy on to go inside. however today it would seem that they are saving energy, which i am all for but wow i didn't expect it and thus am not wearing the correct attire, i wish i could spell as thats a great word.
Went to the hospital to get the normal perscription, like a hundred and one pills to take over the course of a month. Sarah was eating a cucmber stick and again some kind man gave her two lolly pops, i said no thank you in Chinese (aren't you amazed at my abilty to speak Chinese?? well don't be i am rubbish after 31/2 years you'd think i could carry off a converstaion, i can't). Anyway he takes them away and then give her one...right in her hand. what am i meant to do with that, so i just give it too her. I have a feeling that she gets sweets from her nanny as yesterday when i picked her up she smelled like candy floss (cotton candy i think you call it). I asked her if Ei Ee gave it to her(aunt in chinese...there i go again showing off my wonderfull chinese!), she said no, who did? Bar Bar (dad). So not only did the husband give her candy but she's calling him dad. great right.So now she calls Chad (Heathers husband) daddy and this guy Bar Bar...she has two dads. However i don't think she understand what it means and is just copying what the other kids call him. fair enough. As for the sweets, i am happy for her to have sweets sometimes but not often seriously this girl has already had tooth deacay i really don't need her eating tons of sweets..plus she has enough problems getting to sleep, and calming down as it is..
So i had to tell her no more sweets please...plus who knows what's in those sweets, milk, eggs, gelatin (pigs bones...) so much for a vegan baby!

Washing

Washing
I've noticed that what ever the season is there is always tons of washing to do. In the winter it is colder, and of course there is way more clothes to be warn and thus to be washed. In the summer we may well wear less clothes, but they stink up pretty darn quickly, so even if you are just wearing a little top and short you have to change them everyday if not twice a day, thus creating more washing. The other thing that happens in the summer is you go out swimming or to the beach (which i hope to be doing more of this year no i know that there is a beach close by) and that creates a load of washing on its own. I guess spring and Autumn aren't too bad, but seriously God has to love watching us do washing as it would seem that He has conspired to make it a never ending process...
Tom would say to me "More laundry? You just did a load last week" This might be true but as long as we keep wearing clothes we are going to have to keep washing the darn things, over and over again. I am just totally grateful to my new apartment that has a washing machine and has a covered porch so i don't have to lug them to a laundrette (which is what tom use to help me do) and i don't have to use a tumble drier which is way nicer(ok so I've not been there in the winter yet so things may well change on that front). As it stand I'm well happy with the situation, take last night, i put the washing in when i got home hung it up to dry before i went to bed and hey presto it was dry when i woke up and i could wear the same clothes again..but clean.
Got to love living in a hot place!

Many thanks to Essie

Many Many thanks to Essie for sending me some lovely clothes for Sarah, they are hand-me-downs but i am sure it cost a lot to send them to me and i thank you. They are great, and adorable. We don't have second hand shops here in Taiwan (Goodness only know why) so i get most of my clothes from my good friend Heather. She is leaving Taiwan soon (next month right?) and Sarah and i will be gutted. not only for the very cute hand-me-downs that she hands up to us (Lili is 5 days older than Sarah but a tad bigger) but for the endless things that she had done and give to us. I will write more another time as i don't want to wish away the time i have with her now.
So i am sending Essie a parcel for her little girls, and Sarah rates everything that's gone in there (she wants it all) however has been very good at saying this is for Genea, this is for Teena very cute. I just hope that they like them as much as she does. After all she is only 2 and they are 4 and 6...but Sarah's a girly girl and loves anything shiny!
Before i was a mother i always thought that i would dress my kid in gender neutral clothes and that it as really terrible to dress little girls up in pink all the time...however when i became a mother and didn't dress her in pink everyone said oh Dee Dee(which mean little brother) so cute ...so then i started with a little more girl, mostly due to other people at the time giving me very pink things for her (some very very pink) and she looked so cute i went with it. Why fight this fight, who cares she is a little girl and wow she does look good in pink. However now maybe that is why she is turning into such a girly girl. Lisa said God is funny that way, and yes He sure is.
So here are a few photos from a very rare event in Taiwan (as far as i have noticed at any rate) a rummage sale! which was great fun and Sarah had a ball playing with lots of junk. It was held to raise money for an orphange that i know quite well (not Sarahs but linked). the play group that i've started to meet with organised it so our new friend Kelly was there too with her son. Sarah's wearing one of the dresses that Essie sent, doesn't it look perfect on her. bless.

Hairdressers and makeup!

Sarah is obsessed with both make up and hairdressers...she goes into the local make up place (like boots in England) and tries on all the different types of powder that they have there. she lifts up the little plastic screen and wipes her tiny finger over it and then rubs her finger onto her arm or her eye or check or where ever she feels fit. Then proclaims that she is pretty. She does this every day due to the fact that the bus stop is right there next to Watsons (like boots). I've started to think maybe i should always get off the bus early.
I don't wear make up and never really have..so i don't know where she gets that all from. The other thing she loves is hairdressers...yes we go past many hairdresses in our daily route to work and the nannnies house. She likes to point out very darn hairdresser that she ever sees and mostly she want to stand there and watch them...even when it's empty which most seem to be more often than not..
Strange, she's never been to hairdressers and i barely ever go..once a year tops.
So where did it all come from. how come i now have a girly girl that like make up and hairdressers!!
So strange.

Dragon boat Festival days.

So we had a mini 4 day holiday last weekend (just two days really as two of them are the weekend when we never work anyway...but here they always put a postive spin on it!) for dragon boat festival. We didn't go to see the boats..i have never seen them but suspect that there are millions of people and thus a bit of a nightmare to go to with a two year old.
So we went on a picknic with friends, Heather and Anna...plus a few kids.
Nykolas, Mia, Gemma, Sarah, lili, Tilly and Asher.
So just a few.
I have to say that it was way better than it first looked like it might me. The kids were pretty good,and had fun playing with coloured rice...sounds strange but i tell you they like it (Gemmas mum Nevada made it for us to play with its pretty cool stuff...but you need a mat or something under where the kids are sitting or you'll either loose it or have a lot of sweeping to do).
Sarah and Tilly were playing really nicely together it was so sweet to see, they use to play like that about a year ago when Anna took care Sarah for a while during the time i was hunting for a nanny, that would take Sarah...(long and nightmare issue). So that was nice, they were chatting to each other and pouring rice into each others pots. I am all for simple toys for kids. free toys are even better but simple ones are great. Sarah loves simple and cheap toys more than normal ones i think. She played with a large box for months that she colours and stuck stickers too. She loves playing cards so i gave her some i was given and she sits and plays with them for ages. She loves money too so i got her a whole lot of it for 5nt (almost nothing) and she loves to play with that too. Its nice. i try to make her stuff to play with like a drum from a big tin of oats, that went down well too.
God love her, she isn't demanding when we go to a toy store she doesn't ask for this and that. sure she picks stuff up but she always puts it back when i tell her to with out any fuss. Last night we went out with Tom, as he wanted to get her a toy, so we go to a biggish toy place and sarah didn't loose it once when i told her to put things down. She just did it. In the end she chose a car that she wanted which was a rubbish/Garbage Truck...can i tell you why? well this is a girl that hates dirty things but here in Taiwan the Garbage truck sings a little tune to tell you they are here...so now when she plays with it she sings the tune and says err yucky! its very funny. i need it on video really.
Tom wanted to get her something else but she was well confused and just said no this on this one... so she got the truck and no doubt loves it. bless her.

Back to the drangon festival on the friday we went to the beach...but the waves were too high so we couldn't go in. it was such a shame as tom had driven us there and then we couldn't go in. We went to a little lake before hand which was a little strange but nice none the less.I'm hoping it doesn't put tom of taking us again...as i really enjoy the beach.
So here's some dragon boat festival photos...ps they give a holiday for 4 days as it fell on a Thursday so they give you friday off to, nice right...well not really as then you have to work Saturday the following week...ie this week. bummer.