BB be gone

Hubby's Blackberry got stolen!

He's in Singapore right now. Yesterday, he had placed his phone on the table. Then he turned around to look out for his companions and when he turned back, his BB was gone! Yes, apparently, there is crime in Singapore too!

Poor baby. It was quite new and he was just starting to get attached to it! He most probably attracted this incident unto himself though, because he has directed a whole lot of energy into cursing this phone!! When he first got it, he wasn't used to handling it yet and was so frustrated for the first week! He wished he had bought an iPhone instead and kept blaming his friend who advised him to get a BB over an iPhone! I guess his phone resented all the negative energy and ran away!! hehehe...

He said this himself, "Be careful what you wish for!" :)

Con artist

Little Eva is 3 years old, and has a list of nicknames which goes like this:
1. Osama the Terrorist
2. The Serial Scribbler
3. Little Miss Destructive

I am now nominating another title to add to this list: Con Artist.

Eva is known to tell 'stories' to get her way or to save her own hide. I believe, once again, that this comes from Hubby's genes! :) Hubby has this way of subtly manipulating people to do what he wants them to do, while his 'victims' remain clueless. I bet even I have been 'played' many times.

So anyway, I was picking Eva up from school yesterday and noticed she was much happier than usual. She was beaming when she showed me a precious sweet which she grasped in her palm. (Eva is a sweet tooth, the worst of the lot!)

Eva: My friend give me sweet today!

Mum: Oh, that's nice!

Eva: I bluff him today is my birthday, so he give me two sweet!!

Mum rendered speechless...

Spear fishing

Hubby went diving at Talang-talang again on Sunday, this time to go spear fishing. They don't use a traditional spear of course, more like a harpoon/ spear gun thingie. I did not go because I wanted to attend Annie's school sports day.

Annie ran the 100m sprint for her Purple House. She tried her best, but only came in 5th and was a little disappointed. I told her it was okay and to train and try again next year.

Anyway, on Sunday, the water was soooo crystal clear. Very unusual for this part of our world. Out of the many times I've been there, I've never seen it as clear as in the pictures they took!

Hubby only caught one fish because the gun shaft wasn't very straight and of course they had it for dinner right away!

 Another rainbow at the exact same place as the week before!

My little Ah Pek

Meet my very own little Ah Pek (old man). Annie took this photo of Solomon in his usual serious pose! With the botak (bald) head and the standard singlet, he looks like a bored Ah Pek sitting in the coffee shop with nothing to do!!

How to train your dragon

Last Saturday we went to watch "How to Train Your Dragon". It was the best animated movie I've seen so far. It is action-packed, fast-paced and entertaining with witty dialogue. The graphics are also superb, as expected from Dreamworks. Both children and adults will enjoy this movie.

It's about how a remote viking village has suffered regular dragon attacks for generations. It seems that the dragons are misunderstood and are actually lovable creatures who plunder for survival to satiate a monstrous 'queen bee'/ 'alpha male' ish super ginormous dragon!

The younger generation, led by a scraggly boy called Hiccup, befriend the dragons and save the day. His personal pet dragon, Toothless, is so adorable!

Eva was the only one who did not enjoy the movie much. She was initially afraid of the dragon and was covering her face with both hands most of the time!! Well, at least this time she didn't drag me to the toilet halfway through the show, but this was only because she fell asleep!!! :)

Well, at least the others had a great time!

Ridiculousness!!

I don't read the news. It is full of ridiculous (tabloid trash), depressing (tragedies) or frustrating (politics) news. I find I'm not missing out on much. Hubby showed me an article this morning which just goes to prove my point.

You can go here to see the full article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8631775.stm

The title: Iranian Cleric Blames Quakes on Promiscuous Women

The gist of the article: An Iranian cleric says that women who wear revealing clothing and behave promiscuously are to blame for earthquakes!

Muahahaha!!!

Well I knew we women are powerful, I just didn't think to the extent that we had control over Mother Nature!

Go Girl Power!!!

Okay, tomorrow I'm gonna wear a micro-mini skirt and spaghetti strap blouse and see if we get some seismic activity in Kuching!!!! :)

First dive 2010

On Sunday, we went for the first dive of the year 2010. It marked the beginning of the dive season here. Usually, during the end and beginning of the year, the sea is too rough for scuba diving.

Unfortunately, this dive was not much fun for me. Actually, 'not much fun' is an understatement, I felt so sick, I almost puked, and I was so tired, I almost fell asleep while 12m under the sea!! Yes, for real... I closed my eyes for a while a few times, but didn't dare close them for too long lest I really fell asleep and started swallowing water, or Hubby might see me and panic, thinking I'd blacked out!!

Okay, it all started with not enough sleep the night before. We slept around midnight, and as usual I had to wake up twice through the night to feed Solomon. Then we had to wake up early, 6:30am, because the drive to the jetty would take over an hour. We also had to squeeze in the yummy 'kolo mee' (dry noodles soaked in pork fat) breakfast, which, in our self-designed weight-loss diet regimen, we are only allowed to have as a prelude to super heavy duty physical activity!

Loading up at the jetty.

So anyway, I was pretty tired and also a little nervous as we went down for the first dive, because it has been almost a year since my last dive. The visibility was not too great and the current was really strong. When Hubby and I went down, we had to kick so hard to go in the right direction, we ended up 'crawling' on the seabed! I was really out of breath and maybe sucked in too much nitrogen!! :)

Then Hubby swam around looking for lobster and I had to keep up with him. I was also sneezing underwater! I had to hold on tight to my regulator, otherwise I would have sneezed it out! I had flu and already took Clarinase to make sure I could equalize the pressure in my ears.

When we surfaced, I was soooo tired and feeling nauseated. We were some distance from the boat and had to kick our way back. I could barely move and was trying to puke, so Hubby had to haul me back! He kicked while I just relaxed and floated on my back! My hero! :)


When we got to the boat, Hubby even had to take off my fins for me and I crawled to a corner of the boat and promptly fell asleep!!

After everyone had lunch (I didn't dare eat), we moved to another site and it was time for the second dive. I was feeling a little less nauseated, but was still pretty knackered. However, I was kiasu and didn't want to waste the opportunity for another dive, so I ignored my body and we went down again!

While underwater this time, I found that the slightest movement of my head would make me want to puke! Even when I had to look up to clear my mask (blow through the nose to get rid of water in the mask), I felt dizzy! So I just looked straight and downwards, as I swam. Hubby followed behind while I swam slowly. Looking behind to check on Hubby also made me feel sick!

Anyway, we spotted some lobster antennae under a rock and Hubby went at it! He wrestled with the tiny thing (it had super willpower though!) for almost 10 minutes I think, and finally tired it out. He made the mistake of taking off his gloves and ended up with painful scratches on his hands and itchy rashes on his arm and leg from the coral.

I am glad I did go down though, because that day there were plenty of beautiful fish to see, much more than the usual. When we did our safety stop at 5m (you have to hang around for a few minutes at a shallow depth to decompress or something like that), on top of a reef, the corals there were so beautiful, with many different colours. There were all types of colourful fish also swimming about.

When we surfaced, I was even more tired than the last time! I don't think I've ever been tired'er' in my life! Hubby had to once again rescue me, and I used every last ounce of energy to get back into the boat and fall asleep again!

I've learnt my lesson; the next time we decide to go diving, I'm gonna sleep like pig first!

 Delicious, well-deserved dinner; fish fresh from the sea.

The end of a beautiful rainbow accompanied by it's reflection and a gorgeous sunset to guide us home!

Conspiracy theory

Yesterday Annie went for her ballet lesson and came back once again thinking she was fat! Her ballet school teachers try to 'encourage' the students to control their weight, but I seriously do not like the negative methods which they use. Annie is of above average height, for her age, and will of course weigh more than some of her shorter peers. She is, in my (I think more reasonable) opinion, neither over nor underweight!

I understand that weight is an issue when you want to take ballet seriously. Yes, it's pretty hard to jump gracefully when you waddle like a hippo, but as this age, most of the girls are just taking up ballet for fun or exercise. Every week, the teachers will remind them not to eat too much. They will weigh the girls and announce who is the heaviest in class! Annie will always come home worrying that one day she will be the heaviest (in fact there are a few rather overweight girls in her class)! I also understand that obesity is a serious problem with children nowadays. It is a good thing to address that, in fact, but I am sure there are much better ways to go about it.

I have confronted her senior ballet teacher and she seems very proud of the methods which they are using and was even more pleased to hear that Annie thought she was fat!! She felt sure that they were doing their job well, if they could make the children aware of their weight issues! I argued with her, but to no avail. She insisted that it was part of their job as ballet teachers. I agreed that they needed some form of discipline but reminded her not to take it too far.

For goodness sakes, we are talking about 8-9 year olds here! I told her she could use gentler, more positive methods, or educate the parents of children who had real weight issues (not mine!)! She said that those methods didn't work, and some parents were in denial that their children had weight problems! (Ahem... I think she was hinting that I belonged in that category!)

Okay, so let's say you manage to get a child to lose weight with your boot camp methods, but at what costs? The use of shame on such young, tender children can seriously injure their self esteem. You might have 'rescued' her physically, but in the process destroyed her emotionally! There are also other issues like anorexia or bulimia which are more prevalent than we think.

Well, yesterday, Annie told me that they were going to have a 'competition', where everyone would be weighed and the heaviest of each age group would have their photo put up on the school board!! Furthermore, everytime you gained one kilo, you had to run one round or something like that!! This really got my blood boiling!

Well, I had been wondering whether or not to pull Annie out of ballet class, because of these 'crazy' teachers, but I do want her to continue learning ballet, and so I thought I could use this situation to teach Annie a thing or two about 'adults'. It's time they learned that adults don't always know everything and you don't have to be afraid of them!

I told Annie not to listen to her teachers, that aside from ballet, just ignore whatever they said because they were plain stupid! I try not to use this word when talking to the kids, because it's not a very nice word, but in this case, it was just begging to be used! In fact, other more 'colourful' words were also begging to be used, but I managed to restrain myself!

How do you expect children to grow without gaining weight?? These people are downright stupid. I suppose it's a good thing also, so Annie can see that adults are not always right. I want my children to respect elders, but at the same time, I do not want them to trust adults too much or be afraid of them. In this day and age, there are just too many bad people out there, that we have to teach them from young not to be too trusting. Of course we have to try and strike a balance. We do not want them to become too scared and cynical, just aware and less naive, I suppose.

I want my children to be more like Hubby and not me. I find he thinks outside the box better than most people. Where most people see dead ends, he can look beyond and see many different paths. He is not afraid of authority, whereas I'm the type who can lose sleep over unpaid bills, parking tickets or summons!

I think the systems set by society, are designed to keep everyone in check, to produce law-abiding citizens who do as they are told and not cause trouble. Those who challenge authority and think outside the box are those who are more likely to break free of the system and go on to do great things! :) Well, that's my conspiracy theory anyway...

So anyway, I have another theory, as to how Hubby got this trait of his. It goes like this:
What are the two authorities children are afraid of most? (Other than fictional characters like ghosts and goblins!)
1. Teachers and
2. Police officers!

I know this very well, because these are the two threats which have the highest success rates with my most recalcitrant (for the moment) child.
The threats usually go like this: "Eva! If you don't ____________, I'll tell your teacher?!!!", or
"Eva! If you don't ___________, I'm going to call the police!"
(With Eva, I've exhausted all other options and am usually forced to resort to these threats!)

I suppose children see teachers as these mythical goddesses (only women have the patience to teach preschoolers!) who dwell in their school and know the answers to every single question in the universe! And police officers are strong, uniformed, superheros who save the world on a daily basis!

Hubby was not disillusioned like thus, because:
1. his dad was a high ranking police officer, and
2. his mum was a school principal!

So as you can see, Hubby grew up being totally unafraid of police officers, or teachers because mum and dad were the bosses of these people! He knew they were regular people like you and me. Thus, my theory is that the more your kids are afraid of adults/authority, the less 'balls' they have to take on the world in the future!

Okay, I think I've rambled on too far... hope I made some sense!! Adios!

Animal rights

Hubby's home for the moment, he'll be going to Papua New Guinea in a couple of week's time.
*sigh*

So anyway, we were all in the car yesterday when Solomon spotted some birds perched on the telephone wires. Eva said the birds were so cute. Daddy, fooling around as usual, said that he wanted to shoot the birds!

Eva (in her extremely loud voice): NO!! Don't shoot the birds!!

Daddy:             But I'm hungry bo, I want to shoot the birds and eat!

Eva:                 Noooo! Cannot! Cannot shoot the birds!

Daddy:             But I'm hungry bo, how?

Eva (very angry already): Go and shoot the pig!!! (cos they're not cute?? Hmm...)

Everyone was laughing at her by then, but she was not done berating her dad...

Eva:                  We are not poor!! Go and buy food la!! Mc Donald got
                         chicken!!



Hehehe... our very own little animal rights activist in the making!
Though I think she has yet to make the connection between Mc Donald's fried chicken and the slaughtering of live chickens! :)

iphone mania

I've been rather preoccupied of late. Hubby got me an iphone! Yippee! Thanks Darling! I would not have gotten it myself, because, for one thing, it costs a bomb, and another being the fact that mine will most probably have a short life span, what with me being the klutz that I am! :)

Anyway, I've been learning the ropes and checking out the endless list of applications they have! It's so amazing, there's everything under the sun and more; from the usual games and music, to a mosquito repellant app! The application enables your phone to emit a high frequency sound which apparently repels mosquitos! Crazy eh?

So, I've already got an app for recipes, one for drug reference, Facebook, Skype, a unit converter, English-Chinese dictionary, children's stories, games... and the list is growing!

I do believe this magical device shall hold endless hours of entertainment for me and the kids (well, mostly me...)! Thanks again Darling!

Red bananas?

Annie asked me once if there was such a thing as red bananas, because her teacher at school said there was. I don't know if I've read of them or seen them on t.v., but I did think there were such coloured bananas. So I told her so and added that I didn't think we have them here because I've never come across any in real life.

So anyway, I was at the market last week and guess what I spotted? Yup, red bananas! I was a little excited but didn't want to look like a 'dungu' taking photos of bananas at a market!! I also wondered how they taste (I guessed not that great, otherwise they'd be more popular), so I went ahead and bought a bunch for the kids to see and taste. The lady said that red bananas were harder to come by and she assured me that you could eat them as they were, just like the regular ones.

We tried them and they were sweet, though a little slimy. They taste nice but a little different, so we still prefer the regular ones. But at least the kids were adventurous enough to try! I think it would be more suited for steaming or cooking. I predict that's what I'm going to have to do soon, since they're sitting on the kitchen counter collecting dust. I might try cooking them with sago pearls and coconut milk... let's hope that'll interest my fussy little 'slave drivers'! :)

In other news today... Kung Kung Paul has been admitted into the hospital for a drip of intravenous fluids because he became dehydrated after a whole day of bad diarrhoea! It all started with Solomon.

Last week, Solomon came down with a bad case of diarrhoea and vomiting, complete with fever and I presume stomach cramps which he couldn't tell us about. Poor thing, everything he took orally, came back out. He was vomiting through the night and purging until his bum got all red and raw.

It must have been a super stomach virus, because Hubby was having the same thing all the way in Bintulu, minus the fever and vomiting. Luckily Solomon is now better, but he's lost a bit of weight from the ordeal.

So after those two, came cousin Allyson, cousin Marc and also Eva. Eva seemed to have it better, she only had fever and vomited once. Today, Annie is unwell, with fever and diarrhoea. Luckily she doesn't have nausea, so I've been forcing water down her throat every hour.

Based on this current situation, I had no choice but to declare today a 'lau sai' holiday, so all the kids stayed home from school. Annie was still sick and I wasn't sure if Eva was totally okay yet (seems to be now). So that only left Claire, and I decided I might as well sleep in because she definitely wouldn't want to be the only one to go to school! It would be good also to keep an eye on her. We wouldn't want her to have diarrhoea halfway during class now would we? Ya, okay, okay, I really wanted to sleep in also...

Well, I guess kids are more resilient and their bodies can handle attacks better. The very young and the old must be careful. Among all the kids, Solomon had it the worst and it took quite a few days to run it's course. Poor Kung Kung is also getting it bad and now has to stay the night at the hospital. Let's pray for a speedy recovery.

So everyone, remember to wash your hands regularly! Go out now and get yourself a bottle of hand sanitizer! (available at a pharmacy near you)

Hey, doesn't hurt squeeze in some advertising... hehehe...

Bespectacled

Poor Claire needs corrective glasses. She actually likes to wear sunglasses and treasures a pair of pink, faux diamond studded ones which she got for Christmas. Now, she has to wear spectacles whether she likes it or not!

Around a month ago, I started to notice that she had a slight squint. Occasionally, when she looked at you, her left eye would be looking outwards, instead of straight ahead like her right eye.

Hubby also has bad eyesight and has an eye disease called keratoconus. It is basically a disease where the cornea, or outer layer of the eye becomes cone shaped. It usually onsets around puberty and can progress into rapidly deteriorating eyesight. In short, Hubby was 'almost blind' (his own words) and ended up on the waiting list for a cornea transplant.

When an available cornea came about, Hubby was supposed to fly in to Singapore as soon as possible. He rejected the first one, because they called up during Chinese New Year. Then after the second call, he immediately accepted, because you only get to reject 3 times or something like that and after that you're removed from the waiting list.

So anyway, Hubby went to the Singapore National Eye Centre to get someone else's cornea stitched into his eye! Later, after the surgery, when he removed his eye patch, his friend joked that he had gotten a blue eye!!  

Hahahah... (FYI: he just got someone's cornea, a thin transparent outer layer, not the whole eyeball!!)

So anyway, with all this history of eye disease in the family, I thought it would be wise to get Claire and Annie to have their eyes checked.

After a visit to the ophthalmologist (eye specialist doctor), we found that Annie's eyesight was fine, thank goodness. Claire's slight squint was harmless, because she could control it. Her left eye would drift outwards when she was tired or a bit 'spaced out' but she could pull it back in when she paid attention. We had to make sure it did not develop into a lazy eye though. She might just not bother using her left eye and in the end that eye would deteriorate.

However, after some tests, he found that she seemed to have quite bad astigmatism in both eyes. The doctor wasn't 100% sure of the degree because she was fidgeting quite a bit. So he referred us to my ex-primary school classmate's mum, who is a very dedicated optometrist. The best in Sarawak I dare say. She is also the one who finally detected Hubby's eye condition, after he went to so many 'optometrists' to keep changing glasses when his eyesight was deteriorating badly.

The doctor himself told me that she was the only one who would do the procedure which Claire needed. This involved putting eye drops into children's eyes so that their pupils would dilate and you could then get an accurate reading. The drops sting a bit and Claire has always detested eye drops! I usually don't even bother to try giving her eye drops when she has red eye, because it's near impossible to hold her down and get them in her eyes!!

Sure enough, at the optometrist's shop, two people had to hold her down while the optometrist and I tried to pry open her eyelids which she forced shut really tight!! (This was after trying the positive methods like sweet talk and chocolate!)

After the ordeal, we found she was not short or long-sighted, but her astigmatism was around 400 degrees on both sides! I pray that it won't get progressively worse like her dad's. It's so unfair that these things come in packages; keratoconus is linked to atopic disease like asthma, allergies and eczema. Claire has allergies and eczema, luckily not asthma. So, hopefully keratoconus also won't be included in her 'package'!

Anyway, she chose a cute, red pair of glasses which have a kitty named 'Saki' on the sides. She told me secretly, when we were alone that she really liked the glasses she chose, but she was very shy and did not want to wear them to school. I guess it will take her a while to get used to them. She has a classmate who also wears glasses, so I suppose she'll get around to wearing them in school soon.

While we were there, Eva was also tested and so far seems to be okay. So we'll be visiting the optometrist every 6 months from now on and will have to keep an eye on Solomon too when he's older, because keratoconus is more prevalent in males!

Holy Saturday

The day before Easter, there were some children's activities being held at the Sarawak Club. We decided to bring the kids over to have some fun, since Annie is always whining about wanting to join colouring competitions!

Anyways, there was a colouring competition, a 'guess the number of eggs' competition and also a clown act. This clown act is really getting old, because it seems this guy is the only clown in the whole of Kuching! :) He's a Filipino guy and uses a few names like Uncle Banana or Uncle Jerry..etc

I hired this guy once to come to the house for Annie's birthday and he was Uncle Jerry then. A couple of months later, the kids saw him again (was it Amanda's birthday?) and this time he introduced himself as Uncle Banana!

Cousin Michelle then screamed, "No!! You are Uncle Jerry!!"


Hehehe... you can't fool the kids!

Well, we've seen him many times since then, with his usual magic show and balloon sculptures. He also holds some games like the hula hoop competition. Annie is very good with the hula hoop, because since she was around 3 years old, she's been fascinated with hula hoops and got me to buy her one. Then she kept complaining that she couldn't do it well, so I told her to practise and one day she would be really good. And that is what she did!


After years of practise, she is now a pro and can twirl the hula for a very long time indeed. She's won a couple of  hula hoop competitions which made her feel really proud, even though the prizes were small tokens (Uncle Jerry gave her RM1!).

Anyway, this time round, the clown got a lot of kids to try, after they dropped out one by one, it was Annie and cousin Allyson left! The both of them could go on and on without missing a beat! So, Uncle Jerry Banana had to make them do tricks while spinning, like bending down, lifting one leg and turning around. In the end Annie outlasted Allyson and won a balloon umbrella!

It doesn't look like a lot right?

For the 'guess the number of eggs in a glass bowl' contest, Annie initially wrote down 100. Then Sis. no.3 said she didn't think there were so many. So I told Annie to go and change her guess! Annie then changed it to a much smaller number. In the end, the answer was 98! Annie was so close! She would have won if we adults were not so kepo (busybody)! :) That just goes to show that, sometimes, kids know better than us!

Anyway, all the kids enjoyed the colouring competition. Annie was over the moon when she won second prize for her age group. I don't think she has won a colouring competition before. This is also the first time she has won a hamper. Just like us when we were young, she finds hampers amazing, like a treasure chest of goodies!

Well, the important thing is that everyone had a fun day out! Nobody went home empty-handed since they were given a party pack of lollies each. It's way better than sitting in front of the t.v. for hours I'll say!

Hope everyone had a blessed Easter!

Time zone

I got an unexpected text, two nights ago, from one of my many ex-Sidekicks (Indonesian maids). Her name is Misa and she just messaged me to let me know that she was now back working in Malaysia.

The one year when she worked for me was a heavenly time, because I had a total of two maids then! That was when Eva was just born and Claire was only a year old, so with two babies, another 5 year old and a shop that still required my full attention, I really needed the extra help. Seriously.

So anyway, my tag team then consisted of Misa and another Indonesian, Ani. Ani was in charge of Claire, while Misa mostly took care of Eva. Both were only in their teens and Ani was the smarter of the two. Misa I suppose wasn't very bright, to put it nicely, but she was the happy, funny type who always made the kids laugh with her crazy dancing! I think she was from a very ulu kampung (rural village) with very little education or exposure.

Anyway, thinking of them reminded me of this one time when I was listening to their hilarious conversation in the car. It went like this:


Misa: Eh, pukul berapa sekarang?
Eh, what time is it now?

Ani: Kenapa kamu tak ada jam tangan?
Why don't you have a watch?

Misa: Oh, saya sudah bagi dengan itu anak ejen saya.
Oh, I gave it to my agent's son.

Ani: Kenapa bagi dengan dia?
Why did you give it to him?

Misa: Oh... sebab itu bah... itu jam Indon!
Oh... that's because it's an Indonesian watch!


Hehehehe... for some reason or another, the poor girl thought that her watch which told Indonesian time would be useless here in Malaysia!!

(FYI: we're even in the same time zone!)

Botak

My two boys are now botak (bald)!! :)

Solomon is not good with haircuts, so the shorter we cut it, the more time we have till the next barbershop appointment!

Hubby just got sick of hair wax / gel / mud / glue or whatever they call it nowadays...

Palm Sunday

Last Sunday was Palm Sunday, the Sunday before Easter.We decided to bring the kids to climb Mt. Singai again. It's an easy climb, with steps all the way, but that day, the planks were wet and dangerously slippery, so we had to go slow and be very careful.

This time the experience was made more special by celebrating Palm Sunday mass together with the parishioners from the surrounding kampung (village). I think this was the first time most of us attended mass in a church in the middle of a jungle, halfway up a mountain!

After mass, they generously invited us to join them for the fellowship lunch. Everyone was starving after the climb, so the deliciously simple fare of white rice, ginger chicken and stir-fried cucumbers was very much welcomed indeed! Annie asked me if it was a special restaurant where you eat for free! :)

The big kids had no problem climbing up to the church and down again. Solomon fell asleep even before we started climbing, so I had to carry him, hoping to burn mega calories in the process! But I surrendered mid-way and passed him to Hubby to carry.

Claire did very well and only needed occasional words of encouragement to keep her going. Eva was pretty grumpy when she got tired and needed lots of coaxing and of course the usual bribe of the magical 'Sunny Hill ice-cream'! We told her if she climbed up and down all by herself we would all go for ice-cream after. Hubby had to carry her for a short while, but other than that she mostly climbed on her own! The second we reached the bottom she perked up and asked, "Now we eat ice-cream?"

Pit-stop; notice Claire guarding the blue bag... it contains food! :)

Last time we checked, he was 13 kilos!