Ella's "Early Happy Mother's Day Poem" which I am posting late

"Mommy's are special because you wouldn't be alive.
It would be strange if your Dad made you.
Or you couldn't be able to dive.
Or if your Dad would have a giant belly!
That's why you need a mommy.
For Mommy
It's good to have a Mommy to love for! "
by Ella O'Connell

Eva's secret

I recently found a little book that Eva had put together from paper and staples. On the front was a big question mark drawn, it said: Secritse (secrets).
First page:
Big heart with arrow drawn and the following text:
'Eva loves Jack, Jack loves Eva'
Next page:
'Jack called me babe' (still cracking up about this one...)
then:
'Jack loves me"
then:
'He does not love them' (cracking up again!)
Big heart and another big heart.......
I thought this was so endearing and couldn't keep it a secret. Sorry Eva! I hope she never finds out....

We're back!

It has been quite a while you've heard anything from us....First of all life got caught up with us and when I finally sat down to write our blogger website didn't work. It turned out that it had been handed over to another provider. Luckily my brother Paul got me back in the game and I will write soon about our latest adventures in Asia....
For now: we are all doing well. The girls are enjoying life in Asia. They have become very confident little persons. It helps that they go to a very good school where the objective is to make learning a fun process. I wish I had gone to that school when younger....
In the previous years Ella had refused to follow any classes or activities after school. With all her talents we thought it was such a pity. Recently she went with a friend to her drama class. This happened by accident since I didn't get to pick her up on time. So she watched the class but when I picked her up at the end of the class she was actually participating! She begged me to enroll her. Now she skips to her drama class every week. She really loves it.
We are very proud of her. Especially because she had been so shy and self conscious the last few years. She topped all of this of by performing in a Chinese Fan Dance at school!
Eva has become a soccer nut recently. She is quite good at kicking the ball in every possible way. But with her own signature 'club foot' kind of kick. It's very funny! Yesterday at the beach she kicked the ball around for hours, with or without us! It's great to see her so active since she had little stamina in the past and her coordination was off. She is coming around! Food wise we're making progress very slowly. We have expanded her diet with watermelon recently and we go through tons of it now!
Carl and I are well also. We are currently planning our travels for the summer which might end up being a tour through the Northern part of Australia by RV (kampeerauto).

Recent photos

The first two photos were made in Borneo. We have a lot of beautiful photos of Borneo but I thought that most of you would like to know if you could still recognize us after all this time....

The last photo shows you the chaos in the morning at our house before the school bus arrives. You can see a glimps of Malou, our fabulous helper.

Ella's poem

The other night I found a red cut-out heart card that Ella had written to me.
Inside it said:

Mama is red,
Daddy is blue,
Eva is yellow,
Can I have a chellow (cello)?

Very funny!

Ella is eight!!!

Ella had her birthday party on Sunday from three till five o'clock. We had eight 'little' girls running around our apartment that day. It was a great success! The theme of the party was nature since Ella loves anything that has got to do with nature. It's really great to see that she is not just interested in cute little puppies but also in frogs, spiders, snakes and insects. Almost every day she brings books home from school about all these animals and bugs.
The kids at the party sat under a canopy of green streamers which made it feel a bit like being in a garden. The snacks were squashed beetles and ants on logs amongst others. The red bug juice went down really well too!
The highlight was digging for geckos in a tub of earth. They were stretchable toy geckos but some of the kids thought they were real....
Carl did his usual (very popular) treasure hunt again. He took the eight girls by himself and came back exhausted. It didn't help that we had had a dinner party the night before and that the wine bottles were quiet empty at the end of the night. Poor guy....
On Monday Ella got her present from us which is an electrical piano. We decided against a real piano because of our lack of space here but this is a real good alternative. It sounds like a real piano. Or like an organ if you change the setting. Last night Ella was playing her own compositions on the organ setting and Eva was dancing ballet to it. It was quite interesting!
Ella is delighted with her present and we are hoping she has inherited her uncle's talents. Otherwise we are in for a long ride...........

The Chinese and their toilets

When we arrived here, almost a year ago, we found out that the public toilets here are very similar to the French ones. It's basically a hole in the ground with a ceramic base around it to stand on. Ella and Eva had never seen such a thing so it was quite an experience. We also figured out the hard way that they never have toilet paper in the cubicle itself but they hang a big roll outside. It takes a few 'bad' visits to help you remember to grab a fistful of the paper before going in.
The other thing that's funny is that in cubicles where they do have the 'traditional' toilets you can often find signs with drawings of what not to do. Like squatting on the toilet, with the feet on the rim and crouching down. How uncomfortable is that?! I would never get away with that one to begin with since they would see me from the waist up. The doors are not that high.....