A few photo's

On our way to the doctor. David's eating his breakfast, an egg.

Ma knows what to take pictures of. 

Signing in.

3-D video of Baby Kaiser at 16 weeks

What an exciting day!  Mom is in town and gets to come with us to our doctor's appointment, and we get to take home a 3-D video of our tiny baby!

David and I are in the talks of a baby-moon. I found out about this term while reading a pregnancy magazine, and just had to hint about it to David. Instead of honeymoon it's a babymoon.  One last trip with just the two of us. We're thinking Western China.. Let the research begin!

Ciao!

The Riviera

For the last three years David's been eating at these little outdoor stalls right next to his office. It's a quick walk across a dirty diaper infested river for a lunch of about $2 per plate. Today we took Ma here for some delicious stir fried rice and David had beef soup.  We'll definitely miss eating like this when we leave Malaysia.

Boy or a Girl?

Babies. Babies. Babies.  David and I plan to keep the sex of our baby a surprise for ourselves and for everyone else.  I don't mind the waiting and guessing but during the last couple of weeks it would've been nice to know if we are having a girl or a boy because with mom in town we've been doing lots of shopping! So far I have resisted buying clothes but since we will be moving away from Malaysia soon I wanted to buy a little Indian outfit that I have been eying for so long. So, here they are, a girl and boy outfit! 

Perth Revisited

Here I am in Perth once again.

I came here about 2 years ago and it was my first time in Australia. Yesterday I was walking into the office with my friend Tim, telling him how I was so wide-eyed taking in everything as this revolutionary expirience.

Now years later I have a completely different view of Australia and Australians. It's no longer new territory and I'm familiar with it all now. I have expectations, which I now have to force myself to stifle so I can stay open to new expiriences.

While I've changed a lot in 2 years, Perth hasn't.

It is still a wonderful place to visit. The quality of life here is hard to match. There is ample beautiful weather, open (clean) water, nature and wealth. It seems that 50% of the population cycles to work here, and everybody is fit and dresses very well.

It's inspiring to be here.

Before, this culture feuled so many wild dreams of mine. I wanted the life here, I wanted to be here. My short 2 week stint left me with dreams that when the dust settled, I wanted to be here and have a family here.

But alas my situation has changed drastically in just a few short months, and my long term dreams have (albiet slowly) have shifted to something different.

While I still envy the Perth lifestyle, my dream is to somehow encapsulate pieces of it (key points mentioned above) and adopt them somewhere closer to home.

For so long I've had little reason to move back to Houston. But that city has changed. The public infrastructure inside the loop alone is amazing. And those changes are driven by a cultural shift in Houston as well, driven largely by a wealthy, younger generation that has come into wealth and driven the changes...a good example being the buffalo bayou partnership expanding greenspace and cycling routes from the heart of the city to the beltway.

So as I jog through the Perth CBD, up to the overlook in King's Park, I'm thinking how good it would be to have this expirience then pop over to Liz and DK's for dinner. Cycle into work, then spend the weekend at the farm.

Next week I interview with Petroleum Houston, and my hopes are up. There is so much there to expirience, to build. I can't wait to see how this turns out.

Until then, I'll enjoy the great food, company and weather that Perth has to offer. It's a bit sad because I may not be back in Oz for quite some time, so I'm soaking it all up.

xoxo

Happy Valentine's Day! 

Finished Painting

Oil Painting demonstration at The Alice Smith International School. 

Finally, my work finished and soon will have a new home. 

Vietnam ::: Sunday

Early Sunday morning we met up with Mike who arrived the night before from Houston. It was great to see him again.  We had some Pho soup for breakfast and extremely sugary iced coffee and later on in the morning Mike's entire family picked us up in a van to take us to a little town South of HCMC where Mike's mom lives.

Eating and drinking in kids sized chairs.  Imagine how much space you save by using these instead of the adult chairs!  I don't think they could pull this off in the U.S. 

Like a true Texan David teaches Mike's nephew how to shoot his toy gun at a target.
This kid was half German and I pulled off a short conversation with him.  *Pat on the back*.

Mike's mom runs a restaurant called Pho 36 right here in this space. She opens every morning for breakfast only, with little kids chairs and tables included.  The room has some awesome speakers. Mike's uncle played Michael Jackson and Celine Dion songs through out the day. David mentioned how anywhere else he would not be able to stand these songs, but right there in that moment he was loving it.  Don't tell anyone I said that though! Ha ha!

Favorite moment. Getting suckered into getting my hair and face washed at the local hair saloon. cost. $1.
The girl (Carrie) with the pink hair tie was our translator since she is the only one in the family who knows  English.  The lady doing my hair is her aunt and Carrie said that she gets her hair washed every morning. 

This is a videotape of David eating a Balut Egg, which is a fertilized duck (or chicken) egg, with a nearly-developed embryo inside that is boiled and eaten in the shell. GROSS! David is the brave one on our team and ate the egg. Me on the other hand stayed far,far away from it, even though everyone was trying to convince me that it is very good for the baby!  Notice me hitting Mike's uncle's head with the camera while filming. I'm so embarrassed!

To be continued..

Vietnam ::: Saturday

Old American helicopter at the War Remnants Museum used during the Vietnam War

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Last Saturday we landed early in the morning and managed a quick taxi ride to The Equatorial hotel in Ho Chi Minh City. We usually don't stay at fancy places like the Equatorial but Mike booked a room there so we thought we would make it easier on us all by staying at the same hotel. It's funny how a 5 star hotel can still smell like sewage and charges you to use the internet.  I'm not complaining or anything. 

As soon as we dropped off our bags we decided to grab a bite to eat and visit the War Remnants Museum.  I thought it was interesting to find out that they don't call it The Vietnam War, but the American War. Pretty terrible things happened that I didn't realize before. What shocked me the most was that 2 out of the 3 million people that died during the war were innocent people! So sad..

Looks good huh? The Vietnamese use fish sauce in almost all of their dishes.   After living in Malaysia for two years I have gotten used to the taste but since my pregnancy I can't stand the taste of it!  In this picture I'm actually not enjoying my meal but a girl's gotta eat!  

All that walking in the heat of the day made us tired so we decided to go back to the hotel. David went to the pool and was harassed by some kids who kept jumping in the pool right beside him which resulted in splashing him while he was drinking his beer at the bar. I took a quick,  I'm an exhausted pregnant woman nap in our ice cold hotel room with a comfy king sized bed.  Heaven.

Later on in the evening we found a place to eat at the main square of town, and enjoyed people watching and shopping at antique stores throughout the night.  

Before we left for Ho Chi Minh City I always imagined a dirty, hot city with lots and lots of motorcyclist. I never imagined how many there really would be! Here is a video of David magically crossing the street without injuries.