weekend in Tainan; no hubby for a week
i haven't had time to write anything and now it's almost 1:00 AM ^_^;; i should have gone to bed an hour ago, but i wanted to get something up before i forget anything that happened. :/
my sister's birthday was on the 19th, so i decided to head on down there to spend the weekend with her and her family. i was going to go down in May when my niece Zoe was born, but i just couldn't make it. i wasn't about to miss my sister's birthday though, so i booked an early bird high speed rail ticket down to Tainan. that saved me around NT$700 in cost, so i was quite happy about that. although, the down side about the early bird tickets was that i had to leave early to come back to Taipei. :/ so, i went down on the 17th, arrived in the afternoon, and then left in the morning on the 19th. that's hardly even 48 hours! :( sigh, but i guess beggars can't be choosers.
anyway, the last time i saw my sister and her family was for Christmas, so my nephew Xavier had grown so much and has started talking! :D i was so taken with my niece Zoe who looked like a 3 month old baby instead of a 6 week old newborn ^_^;; Kay wasn't as well behaved as i'd wanted, but mostly it was due to fighting over Xavier's toys. other than that, Kay loved being down there with her cousins, auntie and uncle so much that she bawled her eyes out all the way from the Taipei Main Station to our apt. door... ~_~;; so, no the trip coming back home was NOT enjoyable...
on Friday, we headed down in the morning on a 10:36 bullet train. since it was an early bird ticket, i had a seat reserved, which was actually a problem because there wasn't a seat for Kay to sit in next to me (that part of the train was packed!). so i had to hold her in my lap for the hour and 40 min ride down. fortunately, she just fell asleep until we arrived in Tainan at 12:18. if i had known that it was going to be that packed, i would have gone to the non-reserved cars on the train and sat there with Kay. by the time i thought of this idea, Kay'd already zonked out in my lap, so i wasn't able to change seats. :/ my sister originally had told me that her mother in-law (her in-laws all live together) would be picking us up, but she surprised us by arriving with her kids and my brother in-law who took us all to have a big lunch at a place called "Cinderella". it's a fairy tale themed restaurant where the waitresses dress up like maids and there are elegant paintings with castle decorations everywhere. the food was great and we stayed for almost three hours just eating and chatting and letting the kids get acquainted with each other ^_^
afterward, we headed to their home and Kay and Xavier played in their little blow-up pool. it was a perfect sunny/breezy afternoon for that kind of activity, but Kay got the sniffles on Thursday, so i decided to just let her wade around with her legs. they played until 5:00 and then all of us went for a small walk around my sister's neighborhood. we were till pretty stuffed from the lunch, so we just had a small plate of food for dinner in our rooms later that night. the kiddies were all sleeping by 9:30, which gave sis and i some time to play catch-up, which lasted until 1:30-ish in the morning ^_^;;
the next day was the 18th, Father's Day! just like we'd planned earlier, we all got onto my sister's comp and video skyped home to wish my dad a Happy Father's Day. it was really nice since all of us were there for the video chat :D usually when you have 3 or more people on skype, you have to pay to video chat, so i was happy that we could all see each other then. a bummer about that day was that Kay's sniffle became a hacking cough and i knew that she'd caught yet another cold (sigh... once a month...). i'd given her some probiotics to boost her immune system a bit, so that might have helped with controlling her symptoms this time. i made sure that Kay had on her mask all day long, because the last thing i wanted was for my sister to be taking care of a sick toddler and a sick infant... ~_~;;
we didn't go anywhere that day since i normally like to stay at my sister's house and veg and spend time with them, which is exactly what we did. my sister had requested an apple crisp for her birthday, so i gladly obliged ^_^ i brought down some of the ingredients, and we baked it in the afternoon for her. she enjoyed it very much even if there wasn't any ice cream ^_^; Kay had a bit of a meltdown later over a toy, so i had to drag her to our room to let her calm down. it took her a bit longer than usual, but she eventually stopped crying around half an hour. ~_~;; she hadn't taken a nap that day, and neither did Xavier, so there was some crying/fussing here and there during our visit ^_^;;
the day went by so fast and eventually night time came. after the kiddies were all asleep, sis and i spent the rest of the night just sitting on her bed talking about nothing and just spending time with together. i got to hold Zoe a lot that day and evening, and it made me miss having a baby soo much! it also made me really sad since i was thinking how i might not be able to go back to Tainan to visit my sister in years! they plan on visiting Taipei in August, but after that, the next time i see Xavier and Zoe is when they'll be around 3 and 1 years old! ;_; that makes me teary eyed now just thinking about it. my sister told me not to think too much since we never know what will happen, so i guess i'll just roll with that. :) i didn't get to sleep until 1:30-ish again that night. ^_^;
the next day on the 19th, we spent most of the morning just having breakfast together. Kay and Xavier weren't in the best of moods since they both knew that we'd be parting ways that day. :( it wasn't until Kay got some pancakes in her that she started to perk up a bit.
after saying our good-byes and a happy birthday wish to my sister, i got our stuff into the trunk of her mother in-law's car and proceeded to get Kay in the back seat. that's when she started bawling ~_~;;; i forgot how we got her to stop, but she did and we made our way to the Tainan high speed train station. i let her choose some snacks and a drink for the ride back, and i got some local snacks to share with the kids in our Monday playgroup. this time, i just ignored my assigned seat and went straight to the non-reserved cars and sat there with Kay. i think because she had her own seat, she was actually quite happy on the train ride back and even slept until we reached Taipei Main Station. although, i guess she was a little grouchy from being woken up and was in a fussy mood on the bus ride back home. eventually, i got both of us through our apt door and then proceeded with the unpacking, laundry and chores. i was soo pooped that night that i treated myself to some thin crust pepperoni pizza from Pizza Hut and Kay got a side order of BBQ chicken wings. ^_^
didn't i get anything for hubby, you ask? well, considering that he had hopped on a plane earlier that morning for Japan, i had the whole pizza to myself! ^.^ hubby is currently in Japan until the 25th to get paperwork done for our move this summer. since we are moving to Fukuoka, he needs to get proof of residency in Yokohama and a whole bunch of other paperwork to show the realtors when we go apt hunting. so, these past few days i've been without an extra pair of hands and eyes to help me take care of Kay. therefore, my time and energy has been running a bit thin. hence me posting at 2:00 AM... ^_^;;
fortunately, Kay is being well behaved and i'm really enjoying the extra time we have with each other now. although today when i took her to school, she did the whole clinging to mommy bawling act again... ~_~;; i guess too much of a good thing can be bad? ^_^;; hopefully she won't repeat that again on Thursday. i do miss hubby though. my ears perk up every time i hear someone jangling keys down our apt hallway, and then i get disappointed after i remember that hubby is in Japan right now. ;_; sigh, good thing there's only 3 more days to go...
anyway, i'll leave you with a couple of vids that my sis took. enjoy!
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