Back in the Hotel Liva got celebrated with a cake that her mom had bought in the Hotel Bakery
In the morning we had Dim Sum for brakefast in the chinese restaurant in the white swan
While we were in China Liva turned 5, and she talked to Oma and Opa on Chris' phone.
While in Guangzhou we stayed at the White Swan Hotel and we grew quite attached to the "function rooms" of the Chinese restaurant as they gave us a possibility to be "alone" with the kids. This is from the best of the "function rooms", which not only had a table but also two sofas and a television.
We are in Hong Kong these weeks and of course had to go to the newly opened Hong Kong Disneyland. The kids had a wonderful day with their Hong Kong based cusins.
A few posts back I talked about the wonders of Google Earth. If you have downloaded Google Earth and want to take a small trip around the world to visit all the places were we have lived and worked, all you have to do is to click on the link below.
Download Google Earth file
When you have downloaded the file, all you have to do is go to the "Temp. Places" folder in Google Earth, open the file and press the "play" button.
After Joop's birthday it was off to the Netherlands and Oma and Opa for Lieke and kids.
As I wrote earlier we only had a couple of days together in December, but we managed to fit in the 3rd birthday of Joop, both with the traditional morning celebration (see picture) and with a party later in the day.
And finally, Joop and Sinterklaas. After hearing David Sedaris "six to eight black men" she is of course just happy that the former bishop of Turkey is not pretending to hit her with a small switch or take her off to Spain.
To hear David Sedaris' piece on Sinterklaas please press the play bottom (as it is not our film I have no idea who the kids are - I just love the David Sedaris piece):
And here is a picture of Liva in a deep discusion with Swarte Piet - I guess they are discussing candy or maybe how you get all the way from Spain to Yemen in a steamboat.
Now I have finally remembered to bring a few digital pictures to work so you can get some updated pictures of the kids. These pictures are from Sinter Klaas here in Yemen. Unfortunately, I was unable to participate as I was in Denmark that week but according to Lieke and the kids they had a wonderful day. The first picture is of Liva and Lucas, one of Liva's best friends from Arabic and Dutch School.
With the new services like Google Earth you can by now see pretty much any distination in the world – even where we live. So below is a screen shot of our house in Yemen. To find it on Google earth all you have to do is to go to destination 15º19’26.41” N 44º11’48.41” E
After Christmas and New Year in Europe we are now back in Yemen again. We have of course returned with a lot of pictures but I have unfortunately left them at home, so you will have to live with this one picture of me in full swing at work – it was made for our newsletter. So you will have to wait until after the weekend before you can view pictures of the kids from our holiday in Europe. Here in Yemen we are slowly getting used to the life again – the crazy traffic, the always present qat chewing men and the 4 o’clock morning prayer. It has been a bit of a tough transition for the kids – it took them a while to get used to getting up in the morning after sleeping late all the time they were in Europe. We are enjoying to be back in the sun again. Though Yemen has become quite cold, with night temperatures in the house down to 8c and outside down to 2c, the middle of the days are still quite pleasant with temperatures reaching 20c.
It was very nice to be back to Europe for Christmas. Lieke and the kids already went in the middle of December and therefore had much time with Oma and Opa before we drove up to Denmark just after Christmas. Though we again had a much too tight schedule we managed to see all our family and many of our friends; spending Christmas in Vlijmen and New Years in Skødstrup.
Back in Yemen we have returned to work again. Lieke has had a bit of a tough start with both a bad cold and at the same time a heavy workload with all the budgeting for the new year.
I will try to remember to bring some photos one these days so we again can get this blog moving
It was very nice to be back to Europe for Christmas. Lieke and the kids already went in the middle of December and therefore had much time with Oma and Opa before we drove up to Denmark just after Christmas. Though we again had a much too tight schedule we managed to see all our family and many of our friends; spending Christmas in Vlijmen and New Years in Skødstrup.
Back in Yemen we have returned to work again. Lieke has had a bit of a tough start with both a bad cold and at the same time a heavy workload with all the budgeting for the new year.
I will try to remember to bring some photos one these days so we again can get this blog moving
With Sinterklaas getting closer the kids are getting into the spirit. Over the weekend the Dutch school had a handicraft morning where Liva and Joop produced (with a great deal of help from Lieke) Swarte Piet hats and also managed to dance with six Swarte Piets and over the weekend Swarte Piet also made a visit to our house to leave them a small treat in Liva and Joop’s shoes in exchange for the mandatory carrot for the horse of Sinterklaas. Liva is somewhat concerned if Sinterklaas will find his way down here and also where the six swarte Piets are staying while waiting for Sinterklaas to arrive but after much discussion we agreed that they were probably staying at the Sheraton and that Sinterklaas would probably come down on Turkish Air.
With the winter approaching the weather is getting colder here in Yemen, though it is of course nothing like it is in Europe. It is now down to 5c at night but the days are still beautiful with high blue skies and up to 26c so it is difficult to believe that we in three weeks time (for Lieke and the kids) will be in Europe with only 10c or colder. Things are going well here in Yemen. The biggest news is of course that I finally found a job two months ago. Through funding by “Local Government Denmark (KL)” I have gotten employment by a decentralization project situated in the Yemeni Ministry of Local Administration here in Sana’a. With our new situation of two working parents we have had to reorganize our lives quite a bit. All of a sudden we now have to coordinate our travel plans and have had to employ a driver to drive the kids around during the day. Until now there has only been once that both Lieke and I have been traveling at the same time but we are of course lucky to have Rachel, our nanny, who has been staying with the kids. Lieke is off to Jordan today where she will be attending a workshop for the whole week. She will be coming home by the end of the week after which I will be leaving for Denmark for almost two weeks to participate in study tour for 13 Yemeni civil servants, who will go to Denmark to see a functioning municipality system in action. I will return to Yemen in time to celebrate Joop’s third birthday and the day after that Lieke and kids will go to Holland for Christmas where I will join them a week later. So all in all our life here in Yemen will be a bit stressed for the next month.
We have now gotten settled in our new house. The last two months have been used on getting the garden into order and getting some of the smaller issues in the house resolved. The new house, though lacking some of old world charm of our first house, is turning out to be really nice. The kids are really feeling at home and it is definitely much more child-friendly with only one level and direct access to the garden. The electricity situation seem to get worse (or maybe it is only our new neighborhood) and we have one hour power-cut everyday. Our kids are probably the only ones that are able to say power-cut in three different languages before they turn three!
My mother pasted away on 15 August after a long and ultimately loosing fight with cancer. When we first made this blog it was to keep her and Oma and Opa informed with our actions abroad and keep them posted with pictures etc. That others took and interest was only an added advantage. My mother managed to visit us in all the places that we lived and would have loved to also visit us in Yemen had she not become sick. We will miss her dearly.