Christmas in Dalat

Just back from Dalat, we all had a wonderful time. Catriona enjoyed herself and there were some cool presents for her to open.

We all had an early start on Xmas Day (4am for me & CC) so we could get to the airport on time. We had to do a bit of shopping to prepare for dinner at the villa, put up the tree and hand out presents to the kids.

The weather was absolutely perfect and the views fantastic. So we settled in to our first bottle of wine!

Following an afternoon snooze, the food arrived and we cracked open the bubbly. The food from the Sofitel Hotel was great, the turkey cooked to perfection. Post-dinner drinks were served by a roaring fire.

On Boxing Day, the boys played golf while the girls went round Dalat town. In the afternoon, we all relaxed at the villa, watching movies.

The following day, we organised a day trip. First stop was Pongour Falls, the biggest and best waterfall near Dalat. The boys went for a swim while the girls organised a picnic. Next stop was Datanla Falls. At this waterfall, they have installed a rollercoaster/bobsled that runs downhill to the waterfall. Each sled took 2 people and you were in control of the speed using a hand brake. It was great fun and there quite a few screams from the girls as we raced down the hill. I don't think I used the brakes once!

In the evening we went out for dinner and then headed to Larry's Bar in the Sofitel for a few drinks before heading back to the villa and another roaring fire.

Our flight back to Ho Chi Minh was due to leave on the 28th at 6:30pm, so we had a very lazy day round the villa.

I've put some photos up on the web here and a short video of the rollercoaster here. We did take a lot more video but I'll need some time to put it together and post on the web.

Hope you all had a great Xmas and are looking forward to New Year!

Nearly There...

Only two days to go! It's the usual frantic preparation, but I think we're almost there.

Anyway, just a short blog to let you know there's a new video of Catriona up on Youtube.

You can see it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTWkHvSIem0

Christmas is coming

Well, its been a while since I've written anything in our blog. We're just a few days away from Christmas, so getting excited now!

We're going to Dalat for three nights with a group of friends, staying in a villa we've rented. The Sofitel is catering our Xmas Day dinner - roast turkey and all the trimmings. Should be great fun!

Catriona turned 6 months at the weekend. Amazing how time flies. We visited friends of ours at FV hospital at the weekend, they've just had a baby girl, Kim. They were in a room just a few doors down from where Catriona spent her first few nights in this world.

Catriona is getting more active every day, making quite a lot of noise! She loves playing with books and we've just got he a walker. She's not big enough to move herself in the walker yet, but she much prefers being able to sit upright and watch everything going on.

I've uploaded some more photos of Catriona from the last month or so. You can see them at http://picasaweb.google.com/andrewhcmc

Seasons Greetings to all and we hope you have a great festive season. We'll be posting more once we get back from Dalat.

Cricket

It's been a while since we posted on our blog. Catriona is coming up for 5 months in two days' time, getting and more active by the day.

Last Sunday we took Catriona down to the cricket. It's her 2nd Sunday outing to the cricket. A famous victory against the Aussies a few weeks back and sadly a heavy defeat by Sri Lanka last Sunday. There's some good photos in our web album here.

CC is back to work now for almost a month and we're settling into a routine with the new nanny. Christmas is just around the corner and we're planning a trip to Dalat for a few days. Should be nice and cold!

Productive Sunday

Downloaded video editing software today, so I've been busy putting together some video from our trip to Dalat and also uploaded a few photos. The Movie Studio software from Sony seems pretty easy to use and the results are ok, although I'll need to spend a bit of time on the tutorials to get the most out of it.

You can see the video on Youtube here and the photos here.

Catriona goes up to the hospital on Tuesday for her 3 month vaccinations and check-up.

Guard Up!

We took Catriona down to the K1 gym last night. CC's kickboxing trainer, FX, had just returned from a boxing match in Singapore and there was a party to celebrate his victory. You can see the fight here.

Catriona was fascinated by the gym - I think she might be an early student! Good for keeping prospective boyfriends at bay...

Speaking of gyms, Tom and I started back at the gym yesterday. This is in preparation for our next trek in February. I weighed in at 98.4kg (15st 7lb) and Tom at 102.7kg (16st 2.4lb). There's a lot of work to do! After 15 mins on the treadmill and an hour floating in the pool, we decided to celebrate with a breakfast of eggs benedict and a bottle of Zinfandel! The real work starts Monday...

Our new nanny started this week. Her name is Lệ and she's from Can Tho, near CC's Dad's house. CC's Dad knows her quite well, so fingers crossed she'll work out ok.

CC & I are off to a party at the Sheraton today. It's the AFL Grand Final (Australian Rules Football) and there's 400+ people going. One of the biggest events on the calendar for Ho Chi Minh City. Because the game is in Australia (obviously!), it means an early start - breakfast at 9:30am and the game kicks off around 11am.

Dalat Trip

Just got back from a long weekend in Dalat - we were keen to get straight back on the plane to Dalat once we were back in the heat and chaos of Saigon!

There were 11 of us in total, including Catriona. We had Tom, Thu, Bill and his cousin Vy. Also up with us were Diem, Sam, Alan and Ngoc.

We stayed at a fantastic old French-era villa at 28 Tran Hung Dao, a steal at less than $14 per night per room.

On Saturday we all went on a short trek through the hills. Catriona came along as well, fast asleep in the baby carrier. I think she preferred sleeping against my over-sized stomach than CC's... The trek brought us to a lake, where we took a boat ride to one of the islands and Tom & Sam took the kids out kayaking.

Sunday was golf day - there really is nowhere else like Dalat for playing golf in Vietnam - beautiful course, quaint old clubhouse, perfect weather and friendly staff all add up to a great day out playing golf.

As always, CC & I vowed at the end of the trip to get up to Dalat more often (or even live there!).

My plan is to put together some photos and video of the weekend and I'll be posting that up on Sunday hopefully.

Bibles

Just received The Babycare Bible from Amazon. I bought CC the Pregnancy Bible last year and we both found it invaluable from earliest days through to the first weeks following Catriona's birth. It was particularly good in dispelling the numerous old wives' tales and myths that surround pregnancy in superstitious Vietnam!

This book is by the same people and covers birth to 3 years. Hopefully it will be just as good.

I was a bit disappointed though - when I saw it was an Amazon parcel I was hoping it was The Abominable Snowman DVD with Peter Cushing!!!

Nanny no more

It's been a while since I posted, so a little update on what's been happening. We had a nanny arrive and start work on the 28th, Miss Oanh. She is from near CC's home town and the plan was for her to stay with us for a while and then she would be daytime only once she got used to living in HCMC.

Seven days, she lasted. She was fine with Catriona and didn't mind Walker. But I think her husband, who was still living in Can Tho, was missing her too much. Oh well, plan B (we don't actually have a plan B yet...).

2nd September was National Day in Vietnam, a public holiday. Tom, Thu and their son Bill came down to visit us and see Catriona for the first time. That's Thu, CC and Catriona in the picture. Check out CC's colour co-ordination, especially the patent leather orange Doc Martens!!

I've uploaded some new photos of Catriona to Google Web albums - check them out at http://picasaweb.google.com/andrewhcmc/200908Catriona#

We tried Catriona in the baby bouncer we got from Mum and Dad. She's still a bit small but she seemed to enjoy it. It also confused Walker no end!

Yesterday we were on a charity Fun Run across the new Phu My Bridge., which opened last week. There were 5,000 people who attended and it was a good day out. Most people walked the 5km but there were quite a few runners as well, including CC's boss Pat, who is training for the New York Marathon. He'd been out for a 12km run at 5:30 that morning as a warm-up!

We debated whether to take Catriona but in the end we decided not to in case the weather turned bad.

There's some photos at http://picasaweb.google.com/andrewhcmc/200909PhunRun#.

A quiet week ahead for us, as it's back to just me, CC, Cat and dog...

Rowies, Butteries or Aberdeen Rolls?

Well, which is it? I seem to remember I only ever called them rolls, until I moved away to Edinburgh where that meant something else completely.

Anyway, I'm going through a cooking phase at the moment and have been trying out recipes in the Sopranos Family Cookbook. Minestre, Braciole, Eggs in Purgatory - all great!

My latest attempts have been at baking, with a passable Quiche Lorraine and on Tuesday a batch of Aberdeen Rolls. Now I realise why they were tagged as being so unhealthy!

I could get all ingredients except lard. So the internet provided a method to make my own. My capable assistant, CC, picked up a kilo of pork fat and set about wet rendering our own lard while I was at work.

The recipe came from a Scottish Cookery book that I got as a gift a few years back. It's a fairly time-consuming process, although getting the dough to rise was easy in this hot & humid climate. A lot easier than when Mum and I used to try and make pizza dough in Aberdeen!

By the time they came out of the oven, it was after 1am and the initial reaction was disappointment. But since then I've been heating them up on the George Foreman grill for breakfast and they taste pretty good. Not quite authentic but I think I need to tweak the ingredient quantities a bit.

Next attempt is going to be soft floury baps...

It has been said by some that my recent enthusiasm for cooking has been a tactic to avoid changing nappies etc. Never!

My PC at home is currently on the blink, so I haven't uploaded any photos for a while. CC has some good photos of Catriona to put up, waiting until I get the PC fixed.

2 months

Well, Catriona is 2 months old tomorrow. Time flies!

We've taken her down to the Consulate to get her birth registered in the UK, so she will have a UK birth certificate next week. Dealing with the British Consulate is a bureaucratic and costly business - almost £200 (4.91m VND) just to get a birth certificate issued. Then there's the passport...

We've been talking about getting away next month, so looks as if we'll be going up to Dalat for a weekend. It'll be nice to have some cooler weather and get out into the countryside a bit. I might try to sneak out for a game of golf, but will play that one by ear!

The Baby Carrier

We used the baby carrier to go out for the first time on Saturday. We did try before but she was too small. Within a few minutes she was fast asleep. The carrier works great and she seems pretty comfy in it.

Here's a video of it: -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnW9mfMhkIA

As you can see in the video, Walker is in the doghouse after chewing the skirting boards. We've now painted them with a mixture of vegetable oil and raw chillies. Seems to work, as first attempt at going back to the same spot sent her straight to her water bowl!

Swings 'n' Things

We've been having some problems getting Catriona to sleep in the early evenings. Putting her in the stroller and pushing her back & forth seems to do quite well, but its a bit cumbersome for the apartment.

We decided to get a baby swing. I spent at least an hour sweating over what to pick - a Rocker or a Swing - and which model to get. Finally got the one pictured. It's pretty cool; it plays music & lights and it has a motor to power the swing - no more pushing the stroller round the apartment!

All good in theory but would Catriona like it? So far, so good. She goes to sleep in it quite easily and likes following the lights.

She was up to the doctor again today for follow-up from last week. All's looking good although she has another couple of days on the medicine.

Well, off to have some mulligatawny soup for dinner, made by my own fair hand.

Smoked Monkey

We took Catriona round to Sam and James' new apartment on Saturday afternoon for a few hours. A couple of bottles of wine, a few beers...bit of Guitar Heroes on the PS3. Not very good at the latter, but managed to do okay at Tiger Woods' Golf.

Found out that Sam's dad has a smoked monkey in his freezer. Why, you may ask? For eating, apparently. I suppose a bit like smoked duck, although not sure it would sell as well in Sainsbury's.

Sam's dad had to hand-carry said monkey from Africa. Can't imagine what the X-Ray machine operator must have thought when he saw that...

Dirty Deeds...

This morning, woke up to AC/DC's 'Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap' just as Catriona was doing some Dirty Deeds of her own in her nappy...

Forget about lullabies, the best music for getting Catriona to sleep seems to be Highway to Hell.

Spotted the pictured baby clothes on the AC/DC website - brilliant!

Blog on the Go

Just testing that I can post to our blog from email. Cool!

Walker's snacks

Walker's been at it again. Woke up this morning to the sound of retching and found her hunched over a pile of wooden splinters.

It took us a while to find where they came from. All cupboard doors intact (except for the one she chewed a few months ago). We finally tracked it down to the wooden blinds we've yet to install on the balcony...

This is in addition to the metal bookmark (in photo) she half-ate yesterday, CC's spectacles, my headphones, Hien's shirt and a good size of the wardrobe door at the hotel in Vung Tau. What's next?

Catriona was at the doctor yesterday. We had her first check-up last week and she's fine, although she does have dry red skin patches on her head which we have ointment for. Very common, apparently, and nothing to be concerned about. But since then, one of her ears has become quite inflamed, so CC decided to see a different doctor yesterday. They say it might be an ear infection, although based on my numerous ear infections she seems remarkably untroubled by it. Better safe than sorry, so she is taking amoxycillin at the moment.

She also has yet more ointment for her outer ear. For some reason, ointment for babies have a bright colour dye in them. The one from last week for her forehead was bright red. The one for her ear is an ink-coloured black-purple. With her purple ear and red forehead, she looks as if she's been attacked by a demented graffiti artist!

CC has a company event tonight she wants to go to. Which suggests I'll maybe have to cope with Cat on my own...

First blog

CC & I are going to try and keep a blog going to keep people up to date with what's happening in Catriona's life.

Today was an eventful one for Catriona - we took her down to the Tavern for lunch with Steve Guess, his wife Ngoc and their boys Adam and Ben.

It was CC's sister Tam's birthday tonight, so we had Catriona out for that as well.

Tomorrow we pick up her Vietnamese birth certificate - step 1 in getting all the paperwork done!