Happy Birthday Diego!

Oliver's little friend Diego turned 3 last week. We were invited to his Spiderman Birthday Party! As lots of you know Oliver (or Mummy?) loves dress-ups! Look at our gorgeous spiderboy!



Everyone had a ball playing with Diego's toys! Especially Oliver had a great time with this red car (he has some obsession with red cars at the moment...). He just couldn't let the car go so stayed in it until the end of the party.









D'Mirna really made a huge effort putting the party together, she even dressed herself in a spiderman shirt, and check out her finger for a spider ring (she had a spider toe ring as well)!





Happy Parents -D'Mirna and Vladimir

It was time for a birthday song and the cake! Great big spiderman tower!





Diego blowing out his spiderman candle!

The little 2-3 year olds like ours have not experienced many birthday parties here in Brunei. They were familiar with the birthday cake but not this great big box - piñata!!

Diego knew what to do - Bash! Bash! Bash!



Oliver was a bit confused... poke poke poke



While waiting for their turn...



Jasmine, Emma, Noah and Ewan

In the end Vladimir had to open the box for the waiting kids.



Taddaaa!!



Lots of goodies came out. But it was more of the parents saying "why don't you take this one, you will like this" rather than kids rushing to fill the bags. I guess only few more years then we will be saying "that's enough, you don't need to be greedy".

Us parents also had a great time. We ended up staying till birthday pizza dinner! Thank you for a lovely party the Caicedos!

Beautiful leg work

Check this out!!

Our Garden

We are very lucky to have lots of greenery in our garden (This is one of the reasons I love this house) but it is very difficult to maintain it ourselves. Especially the trees are too tall to trim and we had a tree full of red ants. Our maintenance guys have been in and working in our garden. The last time they came they did a fantastic job and they quickly learned what I wanted. So this time I didn't have to spend too much time being outside telling them which branches to trim etc.

The main job they had was chopping down the tree that was full of ants. Oliver and I watched them (I felt very bad chopping down the whole tree but the ants were out of control...)



This is their nest so thousands of ants were in this cocoon...



These photos were taken from my office window upstairs

And this time my monkey guy was extra considerate and cleaned all the dead leaves etc off the roof including all these!!



Cannot believe they were all growing on the roof!!
I now have more plants in the garden for free!!

Naked boy

We had such a bad heat wave last week until the big rain came and cooled everything down. It is very nice and cool the past few days (not so much this afternoon tho). I am loving being outside just to have a cuppa or glass of beer.

We put the little pool out for Oliver - he went fishing.





But only lasted 20min or so then he took off!!



He looks cute with his new hair cut ha? - picking some flowers for mummy : )





It's getting cold in Japan but here in Brunei, nice and hot - just perfect for my naked boy!

Meeting the governor general of New Zealand

The Commonwealth Games are held in India this year. The Governor General of New Zealand has been there to watch the games and is now on the way home. Instead of going straight back to NZ, he made an effort to stop by here in Brunei.

The New Zealand Association here in Brunei made a special effort to put a function on at the Empire yesterday.
We got there just in time for the GG to start his speech. In his speech I learned that in the last 20 years the Sultan of Brunei has visited NZ twice but this was the first GG visit to Brunei.

After the speech he came around and talked to everyone. Even to me!! We didn't get to talk to him long but he was sharing his experiences down in Darfield after the earthquake.

It was interesting to see so many new Kiwis at the function. I thought in a country this small plus not many supermarkets around, you would meet most of them very quickly. But there were lots and lots of new people (I think they are Kiwis??) Spending almost 7 years in NZ I feel like I am a part Kiwi and was very proud to be present at such an unusual occasion.

There are some articles on the Borneo Bulletin Online if you would like to read more about it.

Fire evacuation - practice

This morning at Geckos we practiced how to evacuate in case of a fire. It was a rather strange practice as we knew when the alarm would go off and were sort of waiting for it to happen. The little children had no idea why they had to leave the room and go outside.
But we all got out safely.



Just a little practice but I am sure it will make a big difference in the case of a real emergency!

Messy morning

The kids had a great time being messy at Geckos this morning. The activities included some texture play with vividly colourful pasta and jelly, and painting.



I knew Oliver wouldn't be too keen on being messy as he hates something being on his hands or feet ( I am not sure where he gets this from...) but he had a go anyway.
While others are going full swing and getting messy...



Oliver was carefully picking up a strand of pasta with a fork!!



He loved playing with paints. He was very fascinated with what he was drawing (abstract snake falling off a tree?). Maybe an easel would be a great idea for his Christmas present!!



Here are Oliver's little artist friends;



Emma



Emma and Lucy



Jasmine

It was not as bad as us parents thought it would be. We should do this more often!!

Strange animal in the kitchen

I found this strange animal in our kitchen the other day.

Rhinoceros





Triceratops





He looked strange but very very cute!

Memories of Spain

This was our dinner tonight, calamari fritters and salad - inspired by the wonderful seafood we had in Sitgets in Spain .

Monkey supermarket

Grocery shopping is getting easier as Supa-Save (which carries most of the imported products from the UK and Australia) is stocking more and more products over the years. There are two of these shops, one in Gadong and one in Mabohai. The Mabohai one is much smaller than the other one but I find it easier to shop and it is closer to our house.

It is also known as the Monkey Supermarket - sometimes monkeys come out from the jungle and hang around the car park.

The other day we spotted a baby one! Doesn't he look cute!?

Shoes

Oliver's words are coming together, he can now say shoes ! Especially this pair he got from Sara (in Spain) - he loves!

He is even walking around the house with them in his hands calling out "shoes, shoes, shoes!!"

Here is Oliver on the catwalk... He could be Brunei's next top model.



And posing for the photo shoot : )



Like his mummy he will end up with so many pairs of shoes (He already has 9 pairs!)

Studio Scene Concert 2010 - Dancer's Palette

Amazing, just amazing!
Last night I had an opportunity to watch some great performances.
It started with this statement; Dancer’s palette portrays the relationship between Art, Music and Dance. - And it beautifully showcased this statement in the concert. The dances varied from classical ballet, tap dance, hip hop and were performed by children some young as three (they were super cute to watch). All had gorgeous costumes. It was such a shame I didn't take my big camera and had only my iphone to take photos. I was overwhelmed by the end of the night. I never knew we had such great performers here in Brunei (Our neighbour Nicole's daughters Kate and Gemma were performing - they were fantastic!!). I was impressed enough to consider enrolling Oliver when he is old enough.



Egyptian dance



Great performers



The audience (Venue/Empire Amphitheater)

I certainly feel we are lacking this kind of cultural/art experience here in Brunei. I hope I can find more to attend in the future.

Studio Scene Brunei web site http://studioscenebrunei.com/

Wanna be famous??

It was time to get fancy and famous -
How can we transform? ?

I started with searching images of Björk on the internet months ago. Well... the only resemblance I have with her would be the dark hair - I needed to transform myself either by special make-up or a costume. As you know tailors in Brunei are fantastic, so I decided to makeover myself with her famous swan dress. I was able to get all the bits and pieces I needed in one stop - Hokko in Kiarong (they are just fantastic! don't you agree Merryn??) then straight to the tailor. 4 days later... BOOM! my swan dress was ready! Just like that!

Unfortunately Matthew had to work so no Eminem at the party.

What do you think of Misuzu Björk? I was very happy I got this dress made. Most of the people at the party knew who I was straight away!



Here are some of the stars at the party. Don't they look fab!? Can you tell who they are? I will reveal who they are at the bottom of this post.

1. The birthday girl



2.


3.


4.


5.


6.


7.


8.


9.


10. I think everyone would agree the best transformation was this lady, she was just amazing!!


My feet were so sore from dancing by the end of the night but I loved it!! Great party Rebecca! Happy birthday!!

As always Boel has done a great post on her blog - Check it out!

----Bonus photo-----



-------------------

1. Cheryl Cole
2. Bruce Willis
3. Sporty Spice & Harry Potter
4. Terri Irwin
5. Elle MacPhearson & Björk
6. Gwen Stefani
7. Capt. Jack Sparrow
8. Jennifer Lopez & Charlize Theron
9. Bill & Hillary Clinton
10. Neytiri the Na'vi girl
Bonus photo. Baby Björk