First, Grandma and Grandpa Gallivan arrived in early February and stayed through Chinese New Year. Thanks to them, I was able to fly to Los Angeles, alone, and celebrate my parents 50th wedding anniversary (Rich joined me for the anniversary weekend). As you can imagine, this was a trip of a lifetime for me, back to my home town, visiting with my extended family and friends. Of course, staying at Casa del Mar sure helped!
Two events not to be forgotten are; 1. Grandpa Gallivan doing the beetle in Annie's 4th grade classroom and 2. The rat climbing over Grandma while she slept. Grandma and Grandpa were the ideal guests/babysitters, taking the children on the peak tram, to central to watch fireworks and helping with all things while Rich and I were away. Grandpa came to the rescue for Annie when she needed her cookies for Chinese class. He hand delivered the cookies to her classroom and was invited by the teacher to stay for a minute and meet the class. While Annie was out of the classroom, Grandpa answered questions, one question was, "can you still dance?" Grandpa smiled and said, yes I can still dance and I will do a special family dance called the beetle if Annie will do it with me. So Annie returns to the classroom, sees her Grandpa in the teacher's chair and says, "Grandpa, what are you doing here?" He explains that the kids want to see him do the beetle...Annie (happily) agreed to get on the floor with Grandpa and do the beetle. Now I must note, Grandpa had both of his knees replaced 4 months ago, so this was quite a feat!
Now onto the rat story...Grandma felt something tugging at her hair while she was asleep. She told Grandpa in the morning that something was tugging at her, possibly a rat. Grandpa replied, "no way Nancy, you were probably imagining it", well maybe thought Grandma. As the day went on Grandma noticed that Ginger, our dog, was staring at the TV cabinet. That is strange, she thought to herself, Ginger must be focused on something....the rat! Grandma called for the children and Grandpa and yes, indeed the rat was in the cabinet. An hour of hooting and hollering, chivalry and bravery...the rat running around the room, the boys with weapons, Grandma standing strong, Riley and Mary running for cover. Finally, the building management brought in some traps and that night while the adults were enjoying a delicious Szechwan dinner, Seamus called to report that the rat had been caught. Ah, the drama was over. Now of course the kids did not like seeing the rat in a cage so the guard came in and gently disposed of it. Now, don't let this discourage you from visiting...you don't have to perform in front of Annie's class and hopefully no more rats will come visiting. It was funny how at that point forward Ginger was Grandma's new best friend!
I'll touch on the API index for a minute, that is the air quality score for Hong Kong. It should not be over 50 and sadly it is more often than not. The other day, a sandstorm in China blew into Hong Kong raising the API index to 500, dangerous. Kids couldn't go outside and play, all after school sports were cancelled, a sad day for Hong Kong indeed.
Onto some good news, the Rugby 7's are this weekend. Seamus and Conor will play in the kids division, both boys have had an excellent year playing rugby. Seamus was given the honor of holding the flag for his team (there is a stadium march on Sunday) and Conor was voted most versatile player for this past year. As a special treat, Riley will sing with her jazz band at the 7's-I don't know what this involves but I think there is a performance area where local schools entertain the crowds. Rich, Annie and myself will watch the festivities from the sidelines, we are told it is a site to see.
I should mention something about Miss Annie as you know she will give it to me if I don't! She was supposed to swim at a meet in Bangkok last weekend but it was cancelled because of the riots. Swimming has been a great niche for Annie.
Ok, that is all for now. Beth, Scott and the boys arrive Sunday night. We all head to Thailand on the 1st and return on the 9th. I have a feeling that the last quarter of the school year is going to fly by. The kids and I touch down at SFO on the 12th of June. We are working on a house to rent. On the 26th of July we fly to Southern Cal to stay at my parents place in Long Beach for a week and then a week on Catalina Island. Then one last week at Grandma and Grandpa Gallivans and then we head back to Hong Kong on the 13th of August.
I hope this post finds you well. We are having fun in Asia. Think about visiting, we are a close flight to Vietnam, Cambodia, India etc...
Much love,
Mary
