5/18 Daddy’s Last Day Off

We ran errands today while Todd put in the base molding behind the barrister so all the books could be moved back out of the dining room. Violet is always very interested in playing with the 14 piles of books that need to go back upstairs and we are tired of trying to distract her from that area of the house. We are still working on Mama and Dada. Those are her only English words so far but everything is still Mama (food, toys, etc.) so we are now learning that there is only one Mama. We found a basket for her toys and she wanted to be a toy! Grams and Gramps gave her a mini radio flyer wagon that she puts her baby dolls in and pulls around. A big hit because it is just her size!

5/17 Laundry and Mail Day

After sleeping in and a leisurely breakfast Violet and I started on laundry which she helped by sitting in the basket and collecting the dirty laundry, she also helped by putting the clean clothes I give her into the dryer. Todd spent the day following us around putting up safety latches, outlet covers and baby gates that we didn’t get to before we left. We went thru 3 weeks of mail and found out Violet loves junk mail we had her going back and forth between the two of us all afternoon. I’d give her a piece of junk mail to give to daddy and he’d give her a rag to give to mama, it was too cute. She got to meet Grams and Gramps and even blew kisses and gave them high-fives.

5/16 Going Home

We left the hotel at 6 am to make our first flight of the day… a four and a half hour flight to Tokyo. Five minutes into the flight she fell asleep and we watched two movies, thinking “our child is a dream, this is a piece of cake!”. We then had a four hour layover in Tokyo. She spent it running back and forth between us, either playing with her stacking cups or Todd giving her ‘trot trot to Boston’ while trying to check email. She was a real trooper. We were thinking that the next 12 hour flight shouldn’t be so bad. Once we got on she was wide awake and did ok as long as she was in my lap, so trying to put her to sleep on the seats between us was five minutes of crying. Needless to say she got lots of sleep on my lap and when we got home I was exhausted. Luke/Stocky and Clara were our “pick-up crew” as everyone else was out of state. Violet got her first ride in a car seat but with the smoothness of the Explorer and the driver she wasn’t car sick! Good News! Clara painted two signs, one at my parent’s house and one at ours, how awesome!










Our pick up crew was great! They dropped us off to unpack any essentials, we all walked up to the store for the necessities and then they left to go make us all dinner while we got settled. Violet had a great time, her new home has garbage cans to play with and paint cans that are just her size for a nice place to sit. Stocky and Clara came back with dinner for us all then afterward they left and we crashed for the night, after being up for over 34 hours we were beyond done!

5/15 Hong Kong Day 2

We went to the waterfront and took the Star Ferry to Hong Kong, Violet did great on her first boat ride, she had a wonderful time playing with the seats on the boat. The back of the seat would flip from back to front depending on which way the boat was going and she enjoyed moving the back of the seat, back and forth. After walking around Hong Kong for a while we took the Peak Tramway, a funicular railway, from the Central district on the island to Victoria Peak. Once we arrived at the peak we had to take escalators up seven flights to the observation deck. It was a spectacular view of both Hong Kong and Kowloon. On the way down Violet thought it was great because the escalators are the perfect height for a seat so we would start on the next one and she would sit and swing her legs, completely content with life!








From there we walked to Man Mao Temple which was filled with prayer requests attached to incense coils. Meandering our way back to the harbor we went down the Central-Mid-Levels outdoor escalator, which is the longest in the world. It was built in 1994 to transport workers from the residential area to the business center. It is 800m long and climbs a total of 135m. At some points it is three stories above ground so it provided great views of the city below. After wandering around the rest of the afternoon we took the ferry back to Kowloon and headed to Kowloon Park to check out all the statues. Since it was a long day Violet sat and took a rest, I think that look says “listen you two, I’m tired so I’m taking a break.” What a cutie-pie. We finished off the even in the swimming pool, which had a wonderful view of the harbor.