The 2013 Adventures of The Hill Family

2013 has been an epic year for the Hills.

We have had so many blessings and so much to celebrate throughout the year.

Over the course of the year, we enjoyed the company of visiting family and friends from overseas, celebrated new lives into this world, welcomed new members into our family, attended a wedding overseas, indulged in a holiday in Hong Kong, met some family members for the first time, made new friends, and basked in the love of our good friends and family.

One of the highlights of the year was our overseas trip to Hong Kong in May, to attend the wedding of Gloria’s cousin JJ to Veronica. It was a very elegant affair and joyous occasion, with lots of family gatherings and celebrations in the few days leading up to the big day, and official ceremonies spread over the course of the wedding day itself. We were privileged to catch up with Gloria’s large extended family, even meeting a few cousins for the very first time! Even though we stayed in Hong Kong for nearly 2 weeks, there still wasn’t enough time to do much sightseeing. Instead, we focused on spending time with family (including Gloria’s sister and family who live in Hong Kong) and catching up with some old friends, as well as eating our way around Hong Kong. We did manage a visit the Hong Kong Disneyland; an eye opening experience for Gloria who had never visited any Disneyland theme parks anywhere in the world. It was a truly magical day. We are eternally grateful to Gloria’s parents, who made this trip possible.

Another highlight was hosting Jonathan’s parents in August for two weeks, when they paid us a visit from New Zealand to celebrate Mum Robin’s 60th birthday. On Robin’s birthday, we drove up to Tuggerah to have lunch with Nana Una, who was also in Australia visiting her friend’s family. It was a most lovely day. The two weeks flew by all too quickly, but we are looking very much forward to seeing them again in March 2014.

Speaking of hosting visitors, we had the pleasure of JJ and Veronica’s company for a couple of days in November when they paid a flying visit to Sydney. In the very limited timespan, we had a great time showing them around Sydney and enjoying the delightful seafood at the Sydney Fish Markets, before they jetted off to Melbourne and a driving tour around Tasmania.

This year, we welcomed precious new friends and family into our lives. The births of many adored little ones to our cousins (on both sides) and to our dear friends made us very clucky, and we have been honoured to cuddle and watch these little people grow over these past months. With news more family and friends are expecting bundles of joy in the coming weeks and months, we are looking very much forward to holding these precious lives in our arms when they arrive.

Jonathan continues contently with his job, dividing his time between the site office and the head office in the city. The company continues to provide Jonathan with these flexible working conditions, which has made things a lot easier with Sean’s day care arrangements. As the year drew to a close, Jonathan’s manager rode into the sunset of retirement, which may mean some interesting and challenging opportunities in the new year.

After 2 years on maternity leave, Gloria finally returned to the workforce on a part time basis in January. It was initially a rather tumultuous time, with Gloria being asked to work in different areas on short term projects. Thankfully, things soon stabilised, especially after Gloria became a full time employee again in August.

It’s been a big year for Sean. Sean celebrated the one-year anniversary of his life-saving stem cell transplant in March. The doctors continue to be amazed by Sean’s recovery, and Sean in turn continues to charm all the doctors and nurses during our regular check-ups with his gleeful nature and chatty friendliness. Sean also went to day care for the first time in his short life, and has thrived on the socialisation. His carers adore him, and he has proven to be very popular with the other children, especially the girls!

And of course, the biggest news of all is that we are expecting the pitter-patter of tiny feet in March 2014. 16 months ago, we started talking to medical and scientific people about the possibility of giving Sean a sibling. Today, we are 11 weeks away from meeting our littler man, another son for us and a baby brother for Sean. We are absolutely thrilled and cannot wait to meet this little person, who we have nicknamed Magic Bean.

2014 promises to be an even bigger year for us. The arrival of our much anticipated littler man is just the tip of the iceberg! We are looking forward to another visit from Jonathan’s parents, and a few trips (both locally and internationally) towards the end of next year. On the cards are a wedding in the Barossa Valley in South Australia, a highly anticipated wedding in Hong Kong, and a trip to New Zealand to celebrate Jonathan’s 40th birthday.

We wish you a very Merry Christmas and a safe and Happy New Year. Here’s to 2014 - may it be wonderful and magical for you and yours.

Being Momma G: Day 182

Dear Sean,

Happy Half Birthday to our darling little man!

Daddy and Momma can hardly believe how big you've grown, and how quickly time has flown!

In this month, you've achieved three major milestones:

* You've grown a tooth, with another well on its way.
* You've learned to roll over from your back to your tummy and on to your back again, unassisted!
* And you've also learned to sit up on your own without having to be supported!

What a clever little sausage you are!

Being Momma G: Day 112

When in Hong Kong, one shops. And shops a lot.

Poor Jonathan. He's seen the inside of more shops on this trip than he had seen of important landmarks and tourist attractions! It was just as well then that today, there were things Jonathan wanted to buy as well.

After having breakfast with the family - another soul warming feast of congee and fried dough sticks, the men retreated to their rooms (Dad to his, Jonathan took Sean) and the ladies went into Zara and shopped for HOURS. I didn't even realise how long we were gone until I looked at my watch and realised why my boobs were so sore - Sean was well and truly overdue a feed! We tried on so many things, and in the end, I grabbed a couple of tops while Grace bought a pile of clothes. It helped that the clothes fit her - they don't make clothes for people my size (curvy).

While Sean was enjoying a feed, we contacted Carolyn to find out what time she was going to meet us at the hotel. It was close to lunch time, which meant she had had time to sleep in and have a lazy morning. Carolyn met up with us close to lunch time, and while we thought today was our "exclusive" day with Carolyn, it ended up being a day when Carolyn took all of us shopping.

The rest of the family were thinking about going out to lunch when Carolyn arrived at the hotel, and one thing led to another, and we all ended up at an eatery for lunch. We sat down and ordered our meals, and amongst the many things that we ordered were a few tall glasses of Hong Kong style ice tea. I was looking forward to having one of these, and eagerly grabbed the spoon to start mashing down the lemon slices in the tea to infuse the lemon juice even more.

One mash saw the glass flying across the glass topped table and the tea spilling all over my jeans. Sweet, sticky, lemony ice tea. Yum.

I was so embarrassed. I should have held the glass with one hand while I was trying to mash the lemon slices. Any kid could have told you that this whole process needed both hands, yet I was so eager to get to my glass of ice tea that I forgot the cardinal rule - hold the damn glass!

Luckily, I wore most of the spillage, with Kiran getting a little bit of tea on his clothes. Kiran didn't mind, even though I was apologising profusely for the rest of the meal.

After lunch, I now had an excuse to shop. I needed clothes that weren't covered in ice tea. Fortunately for me, there was a Giordano store not far from the eatery, and they had a "Buy 1 Get 1 Free" sale on, so we all went inside and had a look. I ended up with 2 pairs of jeans. I could not tell you the last time I fit into jeans from Giordano in Hong Kong. And they weren't the largest size available either. So stoked right now!

There was a tailor on site, so she altered the length of the jeans for me in next to no time. So impressed with their service. Whilst we were waiting for the jeans to be ready, Sean managed to perform a poosplosion that required a trip back to the hotel, so Jonathan took Sean back to get him all cleaned up. When they returned, we walked up the road to get eggettes. Another first for Jonathan, and I'd almost forgotten how light and fluffy and delightful these tasty morsels were!

Next stop was to the Golden Computer Centre, where Jonathan had requested we visit so he could buy the things he wanted to buy. I was happy to stand outside with Sean in the pram and wait while everyone else milled up and down the narrow corridors. Jonathan didn't take very long - he found what he was looking for, purchased it, and away we went to our next destination.

Carolyn took us to a new shopping centre called Festival Walk, which was, well, HUGE. This enormous structure has 217 retail stores and restaurants, a multi-screen cinema, one of Hong Kong's largest ice rinks, over 220,000 sq ft of office space, and 830 car park spaces. Bloody hell!

Carolyn led us to Marks & Spencer, and we spent ages looking for clothes and trying on clothes. I managed to find a few more items of clothing that not only fit but looked good and were within my price range! Sean was mostly good, and didn't really give us any trouble while I shopped up a storm. We spent another hour just in Marks & Spencer before walking out with bags and bags of clothes.

Last shop of the day was a visit to H&M, which stocked some very cute Hello Kitty merchandise. We looked through the items and bought a few bits and pieces for Mina.

We were all exhausted, so Carolyn took us back to the hotel again. She had already made plans with her friends that evening, so we thanked her for spending the day with us and headed to our rooms. Dad had wisely returned to the hotel after lunch, and with all of us completely worn out from our day of shopping, we were glad he was well rested and happy to arrange dinner reservations for us.

Totally pooped. I'd organised to have lunch with an old friend and an old colleague tomorrow, both of whom happen to know each other - small world! It'd been years since I'd seen Karen, and I had yet to meet her beau of 3 years, Ben. And I'm looking forward to seeing Jerome and meeting his partner Claude as well. Fun times ahead!

Being Momma G: Day 111

As was the tradition, we went to visit our elders to pay our respects today.

Every time we went to Hong Kong, one of the first things we would do was to visit the elders and pay our respects. My paternal grandparents' final resting place was in a cemetery on one side of Kowloon, and my maternal grandparents were in a different in another part of Kowloon. The "normal" programming would see us pay our respects to Dad's parents first, and then visit Mum's parents. It was very important to my folks, especially Dad, that we set aside one morning of our visit to do this. And we had no problem complying with this request.

This morning, we piled into 2 taxis - Dad and Grace and her girls in one taxi, and Mum, Jonathan, me, Kiran and Sean in the other. We needed Dad and Mum to be in separate taxis, as we had no idea where we were going. The taxis took us to the cemetery where my paternal grandparents were, and we piled out of the taxi and walked down to their gravestone. Together, we bowed three times to show our respect, and Dad spoke to introduce Sean to his great grandparents. Dad always got a little bit emotional on these visits - even though he was nearly 80, and his parents had been gone for a long time, I think he still misses them and wishes they were still alive to see how well he was doing, and how happy he was to have 6 gorgeous grandchildren.

After a short stay and a few photos, we piled into the taxis again and headed over to the cemetery where Mum's parents were. Their faces looked down on us from their place in one of the walls of the building, and we bowed three times, took some more photos and headed back to our waiting taxis. My Gong Gong (Mum's father) has been gone for 20 years, but I still miss him every day and wish he was still alive. He would have so much fun with Sean, and vice versa.

For lunch, as a way of thanking us for spending the morning with him, Dad took us to this special restaurant that was famous for their shark fin soup. And before you attack me for eating something so endangered and obtained in such an inhumane manner, let me tell you it was delicious, spectacularly so, and I enjoyed every bite, and Jonathan's serving as well!

Jonathan and I did a bit more shopping in the afternoon. We'd see posters advertising this Toys Bazaar in a shopping centre near our hotel, so we went in search of this wondrous Toys Bazaar. After wandering around for what seemed like an eternity, and having already asked for directions 3 times, we finally found the secret lift that took us to the secret location of this Toys Bazaar. And we were really impressed when we walked in.

There were so many toys!!! It was hard not to go too crazy, as there were so many things on display, at a greatly reduced cost. We spent just under 2 hours in this huge room where all the toys lived, and ended up walking out with many, many things. Considering how many birthdays were coming up, and Christmas really wasn't that far away, we stocked up big time and hoped everything would fit into our luggage!

Dad had arranged for us to have dinner together at a restaurant close to the hotel, so we didn't have to think about where to find a meal. Dinner, as always, was a happy, rowdy affair, one that Sean was learning to nap through! While Sean napped, we enjoyed our meal in peace.

We get to spend all day with Carolyn tomorrow - yippee!!! Looking very much forward to hanging with my little cousin!

Being Momma G: Day 110

Jonathan and I played tourist today, and we didn't even see half of Hong Kong!

We set off from the hotel, bright and early, ready to spend the whole day sightseeing in Hong Kong. We had seen ads for the Big Bus Tour, and as we had previously enjoyed tours on double decker buses during our trip to New York City, we thought we'd give the tour a go. We had to catch the ferry across the harbour to alight the bus, as the tour started on Hong Kong Island.

It was while on the ferry that Jonathan made a startling statement. He accused me of not taking him to Hong Kong for 2 whole days, and I was only just taking him there. I looked at him as if he'd gone mad - which country did he think we had arrived in and why was he being so weird?

I should have seen the glint in his eye when he made the statement.

It was funny now, a few hours later, looking back on what he'd said. But at the time, it completely threw me. Jonathan had to explain what he meant.

Hong Kong is divided into 3 main regions - Hong Kong Island, Kowloon Peninsula and the New Territories. As the name of the region suggests, Hong Kong Island is separated from the other 2 regions by Hong Kong Harbour. The New Territories and Kowloon sit at the very bottom of China on the map.

Our hotel was located in Tsim Sha Tsui, a suburb in southern Kowloon. For most of yesterday, with the exception of about 90 minutes spent in Central purchasing my ring, we were in Kowloon.

We were on the ferry when Jonathan asked where we were going. I said we were heading to Hong Kong Island, and that was when he accused me of keeping him in "China" and only now taking him to the "real Hong Kong".

Oh, my silly husband - whatever will we do with you?!

The big bus ride was quite good. We sat on the bus pretty much the whole time, looking at the sights. The day started getting a bit warm and we decided it was best to stay on the bus for the loop, and then go back to the places we wanted to really explore. Traffic in Hong Kong was always bad, and there was no exception today. By the time we'd completely half of the loop, half the day was gone!

And travelling and sightseeing with an almost brand new baby was quite different to travelling and sightseeing when there were just the 2 of us. Lucky for us, Sean was pretty well behaved for the most of the day, sleeping when he was tired, eating when he was hungry, and chilling and being happy for the rest of the time.

It was lunch time by the time we got to Stanley Market, so we hopped off the bus in search of some food. We'd gone past Repulse Bay, and I relived some of my happy childhood memories to Jonathan. Oh, how I still remember spending all those summers in Repulse Bay with Li Li (奶奶), my paternal grandmother, who had an apartment overlooking Repulse Bay Beach. Stanley Market was one of the places we visited a lot during our stays in Repulse Bay, and somewhere I'd gone back to with my cousin Carolyn and my friends Jamie and Justin on my previous visits. There were also a large number of shops and stalls that sold Hong Kong souvenirs, and we were tourists after all, so we got off the bus for the first time since we joined the tour.

We had a look at the shops first before heading down for food. I really wanted Sean's Chinese name to be written in Chinese calligraphy, and stopped at the first calligraphy shop we came across to enquire about getting it done. They said it would take 30 minutes, so we took the ticket and continued our first browse at the shops. As we walked, we became hungrier by the minute, so food became more important than shopping.

Unforunately, I'd forgotten how westernised (read: "expensive") the restaurants were in Stanley Market. Nothing really jumped out at us, and after a second pass, we entered a restaurant that was a little bit cheaper than the others. The food wasn't that great, but it was food.

After lunch, we continued our shopping and bought a few souvenirs, and seeing the time, we hurried back to the bus stop to meet the bus. Sean was great - we both had a little nap on our way back to the ferry terminal where we started the tour - Sean enjoyed sleeping in the MiniMonkey, and I enjoyed knowing he was safely strapped to me.

The ticket for the tour also allowed us on the tour bus on Kowloon side, but it had taken literally all day to get around Hong Kong Island, so we went back to the hotel and rested for a bit before meeting up with Carolyn for dinner. Carolyn chose a lovely Korean BBQ restaurant near our hotel, and we enjoyed catching up with her over the delicious banquet of meats and seafood. Being a bit of a dessert connoisseur, Carolyn took us to a jam packed shop for ice cream. The place, Tong Pak Fu, was literally heaving with people, and everyone was enjoying these awesome looking ice creams. We let Carolyn order for us, as we had no idea what was good. The waiters brought out goodies to the table - chocolate ice cream, sesame ice cream, and mango sago pudding. The ice cream was out-of-this-world good, absolutely spectacular, and so creamy and delicious and light. We found out the secret - the ice cream was actually shaved ice!!!

After the delicious desserts, it really was time for us to head back to the hotel and put the little man to sleep. On our way to flag a taxi, we wandered through some shops, and Carolyn bought Sean a pair of oh-so-cute Adidas shoes. When Carolyn saw these gorgeous little blue shoes, she just had to get them for Sean. I can't wait till his feet are big enough for the shoes to stay on! As we continued towards a taxi rank, we stumbled across a store that sold these gorgeous Hello Kitty bowls, which of course I had to buy!

We bade Carolyn farewell and got into a taxi, and headed back to the hotel for some well earned rest. We'd spent the day apart from Dad and Mum, and while we were dining with Carolyn, they were braving the Hong Kong public transport system on 2 modes of transport to go to the airport to collect Grace and her 3 kids. We heard them arrive at the hotel, and went out to greet them. It was quite late by the time they arrived, so we all went to our rooms to get some sleep, as we had another day packed full of activities tomorrow.

Being Momma G: Day 109

Today was our first full day in Hong Kong, and it was a day of eating!

Here's how it went:

Breakfast - I introduced Jonathan to congee (粥) and fried dough sticks (油条) - he seemed to like it. I'd talked and talked and talked about this for weeks, and Jonathan had been curious enough about it to try. There was nothing quite like a huge steaming bowl of congee and fried dough sticks, still piping hot from the deep fryer to wake you up in the morning. Jonathan chose shredded chicken congee and I chose my favourite, pork and century egg. Jonathan shudders at the sight of century eggs, and often wonders how I would and could eat egg that was black. When the congee arrived at our table, Jonathan tucked into it with gusto. Admitting it was vastly different to, say, a breakfast of bacon and eggs, Jonathan nevertheless finished his portion.

Lunch - dumplings at Din Tai Fung. I'd also talked and talked and talked about how good the dumplings in the HK Din Tai Fung were, and Jonathan was hopeful these dumplings were better than the ones we'd had in Sydney. And we weren't to be disappointed. They were good. Mmmm... dumplings.

Snacks - beef jerky and pork jerky. Another favourite of mine, I told Jonathan many times how good the jerky from the shop down the road from our hotel was. Thick glossy sheets of meat, covered with sticky sauce. I went a little bit nuts getting enough jerky to last our whole stay, and after sampling the jerky, Jonathan thought the flavour was good, and declared it was definitely not the dry jerky he'd grown up with.

More snacks - leftover stir fry noodles with 3 different kinds of mushrooms from Dad and Mum's lunch. They ordered far too much food for their lunch, and brought the leftovers back to the hotel for us to eat. Yum!!!

Afternoon tea - mango drinks from Mango Fiesta. I love these drinks, as did Jonathan! What's not to like about a cold drink with mango pieces???

Dinner - we had dinner with my cousins on Dad's side of the family - Betty and Alice, and Alice's husband Billy. These cousins were a lot older than me, and had always treated me like a little girl, not worthy of being heard at the table. In fact, I should still be sitting at the kids' table, and trust me, a lot of times, I would have much preferred to be sitting at the kids' table if there was one. To be honest, these 3 are overachievers and high earners, and in Dad's eyes, I could never match them, no matter how hard I tried. Alice tried her best to chat with us, but she was sitting on the other side of the table and it was hard trying to have a conversation over the top of Dad chatting with Betty and Billy. Sean was quite unsettled throughout dinner - the room was really hot and we'd dressed him quite warmly per Mum's suggestion, so Sean was rather uncomfortable and let it be known throughout dinner. The food was good though!

We didn't really do a lot of sightseeing throughout the day. We needed to get a cheap phone to use in Hong Kong, as well as purchase a pre-paid card so we could make calls to HK numbers without racking up the International calls on our own phones. We walked around a few shops and settled on a really cheap Motorola. Dad tried to take us to the shop where he got his pre-paid SIM, but the shop was closed by the time we got there. We'll try again tomorrow.

One of the things I really wanted to buy on this trip to Hong Kong was an eternity band. Dad has a trusted jeweller in Hong Kong (Gaily Jewellery), and whenever Dad wanted to buy Mum a gift, he would go to this shop. My Aunty Josie uses these guys all the time, so we were guaranteed we would not be ripped off. Dad and Mum took us to the shop on the MTR - Jonathan's first experience on the best rail transport in the world - and we arrived at the shop, with me feeling a bit giddy about a new piece of jewellery.

And sure enough, they had exactly what I was looking for - a gorgeous thin band of diamonds. I wanted something that would stand out on its own, but at the same time, did not overshadow my gorgeous Stella, the Tanzanite engagement ring. Mission accomplished.

Everyone was tired by the end of the day, and we are certainly hoping that Sean will sleep like he did last night - a good 7 hour stretch was great for everyone involved. And there's more food to be eaten tomorrow. Can't wait!

Being Momma G: Day 108

I know I'm about 3 weeks behind with the posts, but trust me, they will be written.

In the meantime, we are all off on holiday, to Hong Kong!!! We're just waiting for a taxi now.

Hope you all have a great Easter, and when we get back from our holiday, I will do my best to catch up on the posts, as well as upload the thousands of photos since mid-February.

NYC Holiday, Day 9 (Last Day) - 08/11/2009

Blog entry to come. In the meantime, please enjoy our photos!

NYC Holiday, Day 8 - 07/11/2009

Blog entry to come. In the meantime, please enjoy our photos!

NYC Holiday, Day 7 - 06/11/2009

Blog entry to come. In the meantime, please enjoy our photos!

NYC Holiday, Day 6 - 05/11/2009

Blog entry to come. In the meantime, please enjoy our photos!

NYC Holiday, Day 5 - 04/11/2009

Blog entry to come. In the meantime, please enjoy our photos!

PS - this is the day Jonathan and Gloria got engaged! :-D

NYC Holiday, Day 4 - 03/11/2009

Blog entry to come. In the meantime, please enjoy our photos!

NYC Holiday, Day 3 - 02/11/2009

Blog entry to come. In the meantime, please enjoy our photos!

NYC Holiday, Day 2 - 01/11/2009

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NYC Holiday, Day 1 - 31/10/2009

Blog entry to come. In the meantime, please enjoy our photos!

Floriade 2009 - Day Trip to Canberra

NZ Holiday, Day 8 - 05/09/2009

NZ Holiday, Day 7 - 04/09/2009

NZ Holiday, Day 6 - 03/09/2009