Happy birthday Linnea!

We were all invited to Linnea's birthday party this afternoon (including Corin). The theme of the party was Rainbow! Yes like what Oliver had for his birthday.

Here is Corin and Luca ready to hit the party!





Merryn and Yvonne

I was pleased Boel could recycle some of my decorations from Oliver's party (It took quite some time for me to prepare all these rainbow things when I was still heavily pregnant with Luca).





The party food table:



Birthday girl Linnea getting a colourful drink (and drunk it already...)



Lots of rainbow craft activities were organised. Make your own rainbow bracelet, make your own rainbow door knob sign, make rainbow beads. Oliver was there being crafty!



But best all of all, the most exciting activities for the children was to find a treasure at the end of the rainbow! They had to find rainbow coloured papers to find the next clue.

They were hidden very well, in the letter box, under the bed, in the cubby house etc etc.







The last clue lead them to a treasure box full of chocolate coins!!



And... an awesome awesome rainbow birthday cake (you are just so talented Benaal!!).







Corin had a ball. He stayed there even after I left with Luca and Oliver. Thank you so much for inviting us Linnea!

Do we look alike?

Oliver and Corin with Wisconsin caps:

Swimming at the yacht club

We finally made it to our favourite spot here in Brunei - the yacht club. Having Oliver at school and him requiring a good nap made it difficult to visit. I was starting to worry we couldn't take Corin there. Luckily Lucas was free to come along too. So both boys had a ball running around swimming in the Brunei sun!



Merryn and Dennis:



It was Corin's first swim for this summer (it is still late spring in NZ). He hasn't swum for the whole winter so was a little bit cautious swimming without floaties.



Oliver was chasing a rugby ball as well : ) Go! our little All Black!



Luca recieved new swimming togs - had to put him in! He looks so good in yellow : )





Yummy lunch after a big swim!





It was a very hot day but we enjoyed the nice sea breeze and relaxing time together.

Fabric shopping

Once again we were back in the fabric shop "Hokko" together. Whenever Merryn comes to visit us in Brunei, we end up in visiting there for some reason. This time she came along to help me choose fabric as I want to make a baby quilt for my friend. It is always nice to go fabric shopping with Merryn. She wants to spend longer than me in the shop!

The owner of the Hokko was there. She straight away could tell Merryn is a very skilled patchworker. It was great to chat to her - she knew some of the patchwork shops in Singapore where Merryn used to shop. We managed to get extra discount too!







This will be the very first quilt I am going to make (Merryn and I are calling it a cheater's quilt, you will see when I put a photo up when I finish). Having Merryn as a tutor I am already part way done.

Monkey river boat ride

I decided not to go on the boat ride this time as I have done it a number of times plus I have two little boys to look after (Oliver had a fever so couldn't go either...). Of course when I don't go it turned out to be the best excursion ever!!!

Here is Dennis and Corin on the boat.



They saw 34 proboscis monkeys!!! 34!! And so close!!!! I cannot believe it - Corin counted them all!





We usually take our guests to do this river ride in the morning and this was the first time we organised it in the afternoon. Merryn and Dennis have done it before but they liked it far better this time. Nice cool breeze and so many monkeys! I am going to do this again very soon. Anyone want to come with us?

House of Curry

The restaurant is called "House of Curry" but we often describe it as "roti curry place". This place is the best for rotis. Matthew and I have started to have roti as a starter and have a murtabak each as a main. We had to take our visitors there to share our local cuisine. I don't think we were talking to each other much, they were just so delicious we had to keep eating!

Waaaarghhhh

Rare find

I took Corin and Merryn to a bookshop in Times Square today. Merryn bought some things for her school and I managed to find great magazines for Merryn for Christmas (yes! already!) She can read them on the plane back home and hopefully wrap them again for Christmas : )



While we were there I found this book from Thomas the Tank Engine series. Did you know there is an engine called Oliver!? I knew it existed but it is so rare not many places has the models or the books. I had to buy it!



When we got home Oliver enjoyed the story with Merryn!

Sushitastic!!

This is how Corin described our lunch out at Kaizen Japanese restaurant the other day.
Before going inside the restaurant we watched the river boat taxis.





We had fab fab delicious food. I don't think we have ordered that much before.
Corin used chopsticks very well and ate his sushi, noodles and some vegetables. (I told him he must have a Japanese aunty to be able to do that!)

Yellow day

The school celebrated the Indian festival of lights "Deepavali" today. Students could wear the colour yellow. Oliver was very happy to be dressed the same way as L&L!

Kiwi alphabet quilt

How lucky is Luca! He received his very first quilt from Merryn! It is so colorful and full of NZ icons. Of course Luca cannot talk yet but I know he will be saying "awesome!!"



Can you see the silver fern stitches Merryn did? How cool!







I love it! Thank you Merryn : )

Yeah! Our visitors are here!

Oliver's grandparents arrived safely with Oliver's little cousin Corin on Monday. They were very excited to meet all of us but especially seeing baby Luca for the first time.