Finally, our laptop is fixed and back! It had been fixed and worked for a short while, but then returned to it's old tricks of being really slow and then eventually crashing. It seemed like it's future was bleak, but then our IT friend Matthew thought we could try replacing the hard drive, which only would cost about $75, and then if it still didn't work after that we'd know we'd done what we could and we would have to get a new computer. So far so good... but I think we'll be very distrustful of this little macbook until it proves itself to us that it really is fixed. I don't think we can afford another macbook if they only last 2.5 years! For the price you could just buy a brand-new PC every year. But here's hoping it's fixed!
So what's new? Well... not too much... let's see...
- Annika lost her second tooth, so we got to use the tooth fairy pillow again.
- Leila's going to have her chance at fame. Remember this post about getting "discovered" at Stanley? Well, out of the blue, Nicolas & Bears gave me a call wondering if Leila would be able to model for their spring catalogue. She's already attended a fitting and the photo shoot is next weekend. I'm very curious how this is all going to go down. The clothes are very fancy. She will be getting a gift certificate for the store for about $200, but it won't go very far. The fitting that she had was basically her standing there while they put on about 20 outfits on her. I helped take off a cardigan at one point and noticed it was really soft. I looked at the tag and it was 100% cashmere! Just a little bit fancier than the Old Navy and Joe Fresh that she's used to! :) Leila was far more cooperative to have so many clothes put on her than she would have been for me, so here's hoping the photo shoot will be successful!
- We figured out what to do next year with Leila for school. CAIS had been planning to start a K2 program that she would attend, but it ended up getting postponed for another year, so we were left with nothing lined up for Leila for next year and schools are competitive and costly to get into. It's not like she *has* to attend school at 4 years old, but in Hong Kong that is practically a sin, and the rest of her little friends are going off to school. Also, kindergarten would be a HUGE jump if she hadn't gone to school at all. Already it was pretty big for Annika to go from two mornings of preschool to all day/every day kindergarten in Hong Kong. So... we found a "local" school called Sun Island English school that will take place every morning, and is bilingual English/Cantonese. We'll try it out and see how she does. My personal hope for her is that she'd actually be able to learn Cantonese and could play with the little kids in her class/neighbourhood and speak their language. I guess we'll see!
And... a few photos since it's been so long...
This is yesterday (Saturday) on our outing to Snoopy World. It's kind of a random-themed playground outside of a mall in the New Territories. The girls didn't really even know who Snoopy was the first time we went, but then we showed them some Charlie Brown Christmas clips on YouTube during Christmas, and it made it all that much more exciting. Mostly they really like the empty Snoopy school bus that you can climb inside.
Unfortunately the whole playground part was closed. It has been rainy and misty lately with humidity between 95-100%. It's like living in a cloud! They like to play it safe in Hong Kong and avoid potentially dangerous situations if at all possible, so that meant shutting down the playground for the day, even though it didn't seem that wet to us. 
After I took this picture of Leila a whole crowd gathered to get their own shot of her. She stood there like a little model with the forced smile that we've been practicing for next weekend! 
Annika wasn't about to be left out and wanted to pose as well with this random stranger. 
This is the mall the playground was connected to. Very crowded and busy! Malls in Hong Kong go up, rather than sprawling like WEM. Lots of escalators!
And a couple of Sunday afternoon shots taken in our bedroom.
