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Saturday, April 09, 2011

Back in Hong Kong for the week, survived another flight with 2 kids and laptop died

In Hong Kong this week and then it's on to Vietnam next week from Sunday - Thursday. I made it a requirement to get back in time for Easter so hopefully all planes and automobiles will cooperate.

Apologies for the lack of status updates. Last weekend I finished my taxes and cheered as refund turned out triple what I thought it would be. Then my computer died almost immediately after hitting send for the refund. Sooooo, I guess this means a new computer when refund arrives??

The dead laptop has been complaining of aches and pains for quite some time. It seems every year it dies of some issue and we have to take it to the computer tech. This time it seems as if the battery is dead, I've ordered a replacement and it's coming through the slow US postal service. Meanwhile I'm in Hong Kong and can't SKYPE with husband. Booooooo.

Just prior to coming to Hong Kong I dropped the kids off in Texas with their grandmother (Mema). The trip with both kids is getting better on some fronts but more stressful on others.

Highlights:
  • Charlotte immediately buckled her own seat belt on both flights! Win!!
  • I can't seem to keep her occupied for the entire 3 hour flight and the flight attendants get nervous when you let them in the hallway even if it's just to wait in line for the bathroom which took an entire 25 minutes! But people helped, the flight attendant sat and chatted with Charlotte while I changed Sam's diaper and then some random stranger mom volunteered to hold Sam while I took care of Charlotte. During which she continued to try and press the flight attendant "help I've fallen" button. Sigh!
  • Sam is getting to active to hold for an entire flight. He jumps and jumps and flips around in all these crazy positions to show he's not pleased with sitting still. 3 hours of that minus a tiny 1/2 hour nap - exhausting!
  • We had 55 minutes to reach our connection in Dallas, on the plane the gate was announced so we went promptly there with a tiny stop at Starbucks. It took all of 45 minutes to walk there! Only to be told the gate had been moved to 17 stops back!!! I almost cried but fortunately there was an airport guy right next to me and he called a cart to drive us to the gate. Charlotte had fallen asleep in the stroller, the guy unbuckled her, placed her started self next to me and packed our remaining stuff on the cart. What a sight!
  • I took Cat's advice and put all the kids stuff in a backpack, had Sam in Bjorn front pack and was quite balanced even through I had 20lbs in the front and maybe 10+ in the back.
  • Husband had bought a $1.00 SpongeBob dry erase board that fit into the backpack and that turned into a lifesaver when SB episodes on the iPhone got boring.
We had one day together in Texas. Charlotte discovered snails and bugs in Mema's flower bed and called them all "cute". The below is a dead "cute bug".


We got a pedicure together (her first), it was totally a whim, we asked the lady if she would also paint Charlotte's nails and surprisingly she sat still till it dried.

Sam was dressed in a really cool orange and white outfit so I edited him to look like Nemo while everyone took a nap. The outtakes are actually funnier than the above because he got really mad that I wouldn't let him mess with the computer while I took his photo through a computer program.


When I tried to use my phone to take his picture he kept turning to smile at the camera. Such a ham!

It was a really nice day with family, hate to leave for another 2 weeks!!!

After all this travel I need a vacation! The first quarter of this crazy year has been two trips to Hong Kong, two trips to Texas, one to California - I think a long break is required!!!

3 comments:

Cat said...

I am in awe of you! Traveling with 2 kids like that!!!! Awe-mazing :)

And OMG! Did I get mentioned in this post? Weeeee :) How cool.....um, you were referring to me ("Cat"), right? If not, slightly embarrassed :-P

Safe travels!

Cat said...

...And LUV the pics of Nemo...um, I mean Sam ;)

And the pedi with the super kyoot sandals. Gorgeous!

R. Molder said...

Ah yes Cat I was referring to you, sorry I should have included a link back to your blog. Blogging in Asia is tricky with spotty connections so I tend to cut corners.