Alive and Well

Hi everyone,

I am pleased to report that we are healthy again! Riley and Seamus have returned to school, Annie and Conor will return tomorrow (yay!). Since I last wrote, Riley and Seamus both started school volleyball. Riley also started Sunday soccer and Seamus started Sunday rugby. Sunday rugby is fabulous, it takes place at a military base in HK about 10 minutes from our house. The kids play on a field the size of two football fields. Kids are broken into age groups and taught how to play rugby. Bubba and Seamus caught on quick, no bloody noses yet. Each practice session ends with a scrimmage, Seamus' group really got into it. I sat in the shade and watched Bubba while Rich chatted with parents next to Seamus' field. The big highlight for me was listening to the CAL game on my iphone...the beauty of modern technology. After rugby Rich and I got a craving for Mexican food and proceeded on a half hour journey to find what was decent Mexican food. Finding the place was an adventure with Rich annoyed at me cause I WAS NOT LOOKING AT THE MAP! We found the restaurant and more importantly found a neighborhood that we will return to...it is in mid levels, lots of hip restaurants and shops...reminded me of the lower westside of Manhattan. The big highlight for the girls (and me) was finding frozen yogurt!! Riley and I have been craving frozen yogurt so this place was a big find. We returned home from our outing with an hour of down time (rich did bills and I went to the market) after which we headed to a friends house for dinner and a swim. This swim was a much needed relief as the pool was actually cold! The pool we have on our roof looks good but it is about 85degrees...

So overall we are settling in, going on excursions and meeting lots of nice people. Adjusting to the weather, the absence of our favorite foods and the school closure have been our biggest challenges. Rich gets dressed for work and has sweat marks on his shirt by the time we walks to the car. Rich is still walking Ginger regularly and to date has lost 12pounds! As far as food, we miss Brummel and Brown butter, Knudsen cottage cheese and ground turkey thigh meat. Meat and vegetables are delivered on Tuesday. The meat is from Australia and New Zealand, the vegetables are from a local organic farm. We had a compound BBQ on Friday night and BBQ'd some beautiful steaks...we sweated profusely but enjoyed being outside. As I said earlier our compound neighbors are lovely; warm, friendly people with delightful children. Seamus is over the moon because Ted, our neighbor, invited him to his air soft gun birthday party this Saturday. Seamus is begging us for an air soft gun but that isn't going to happen. Riley is still pretty unhappy about being here. She spend Saturday cruising around the city with some friends and will sleep over at a friends house this Friday. We are glad she is making friends, playing sports and singing but we know-through her outbursts-that she misses California immensely. Annie and Conor seem to be enjoying their life here, making friends, enjoying school etc. And me? Now that I am feeling better I can get back to exercising. I went to my boxfit class today-cute Australian guy runs a circuit class next to the beach (in the shade). Ten women train together, chat and enjoy good company. Annie and Conor have "virtual school" so I will help them with their assignments and then head to a friends house for an afternoon swim. I forgot to mention that we went to Big Wave Bay on Saturday. The heat was a bit oppressive but we enjoyed lunch and a swim. The water was decent, small waves with lots of boogie boarders. The scary part is that the water had been tested a week ago and it rated as "poor". Rich was reluctant to go in the water but Conor and I were desperate to cool off. Everyone joined us but Rich reminds me that if he gets sick....I am going to think positive thoughts!!

Ok, must check on Annie and Conor. Just wanted to say hi and let you know we are well.

Much love,

Mary