I'm such a bad blogger. I have great intentions of posting something every few weeks but I have yet to stick with my plan. We have had a very busy few months though. That is my excuse and I'm sticking to it. Since January I've had three work trips to China. One of them ended up being 18 days because of the Volcano in Iceland. I'm off again this Saturday, but at least it's only for a week this time. I miss Grace and Daniel so much when I'm away. I skype home everyday so at least I get to see them. I don't let them see me though because the one time that I did Grace was hysterical. Poor Mike had a job calming her down once I had hung up.
My first work trip to China was on January 4th. I had to tell Grace I was going to Asia because she would not have been impressed to know I was in her China without her. Grace instructed me to bring her back 16 presents. That's more than one a day. I didn't get her quite that many but both she and Daniel did very well out of the trip. My second trip was on February 3rd. Daniel was sick for a couple of days while I was away. On Feb 7th he vomited all over Mike and my bed and then slept for about 14 hrs. On the plus side he also gave up his bottles that week. The official date for his last bottle was Saturday 13th Feb. I finally threw all his bottles away about two weeks ago.
We went to our first Tet event in Cork on Feburary 20th. We met two of the couples who had travelled to Vietnam with us last year. It was lovely to see them all again. All the kids had gotten so big.
We went to Lanzarote with Geraldine and Nelius for a week at the biggining of March. The kids had a ball but poor Ger and Nelisu were both sick for a few days.
Chris turned thirty on March 17th. We had the usual family get together to celebrate it. We also got to meet Fergus. It's wonderful to see Chris so happy and Fergus seems like a really lovely guy. We had taken Grace and Daniel to the parade earlier in the day. Grace loved the whole thing, but her favorite part was shen a group of men dressed as leprachauns showed up. They had plastic bums on show and she just thought that it was so funny. We had chips from Donkey Fords afterwards and Mike told her that could be our parade day tradition:)
We celebrated our one year anniversary with Daniel on March 19th. We keep these days low key but we did light a candle for his family in Vietnam.
We went to Port Laoise on March 27th to meet up with five of the families who we had travelled to Vietnam with last year. Unfortunately one of the families couldn't make it. Hopefully next year. It was wonderful to see everyone again. All the babies are walking and starting to talk. We had lunch in the Heritage hotel and then headed to the Roll and bowl play area so that the kids could run around. We turned quite a few heads when we arrived. Everyone seems to have a great day. Grace talked about nothing else for about two weeks after we came home.
I headed for China again on 8th April. My trip was to last 10 days but it ended up being 18 days. I had given Grace a calander to colour in the days so she would know when I was going to be home. Baaad idea. The poor child was in bits when she ran out of days to colour and I still wasn't home. I tried to explain to her about the volcano but then she thought I was stuck in it and on fire so obviously I did a great job there - not. Daniel spent the extra week I was away blowing kisses at the computer and saying bye Mom. I finally got home on April 18th. I was bumped to first class for the trip. I don't know how I'll slum it in economy or premium economy now. Mike brought the kids to the airport. Daniel gave me a quick wave when he saw me and then pottered off to play with a toy car. Grace gave me a hero's reception with lots of weeping and wailing about how much she had missed me. I'm ashamed to say that I was delighted by this display. It lasted for about a half an hour before she was back to her usual self. Well that brings me up to April so I'll have to do May and June later.