Happy New Year!

Who would have imagined it but we did end up celebrating Chinese New Year here last Sunday. We had tickets for a children's play that was really funny especially seen from the first row. Rushed back to the car afterwards to find the square near the carpark covered in smoke and fire - they had set off real chinese style fire crackers to welcome the year of Tiger. Also there were artists making snow sculptures of the 12 animal signs. Good fun. And then I got back to make my pineapple tarts. Just as expected the assembling part turned out too tricky so I gave up after a while and just made circles of pastry with the pineapple filling on top. Worked for us.
On Monday had my CNY class at B's school. Lots of preparations in fact - bought some forsythia branches, sheets of red paper, sweets, tangerines, collected all sorts of chinese nicknacks at home, decorations that the boys had made previously. Dressed up in our chong sams (both B and me). I gave them a short overview about the customs and traditions and then we made the ang pow envelopes. Think it worked really quite well. Was a good opportunity for me to meet the girls as well.
Karl has been at home with a virus for the rest of the week - ears and tummy! Luckily the others have been healthy. Today we are kind of snow-trapped again. It has been snowing more and more and today there is fierce wind and temperature around -15. B has a friend over to play and it is actually quite nice to have a Saturday without having all these activities. Was planning to go out in the evening to a concert with my sis but am getting quite doubtful in this blizzard.

Found this book in google about third culture kids. I have been feeling quite torn about bringing my kids here. In a way they need an identity and after having read parts of the book I feel assured that this is a good idea. On the other hand I keep asking if it is right not to give them an English language base education. Anyway, for all of you my expat friends, this is a great input. Have a look! Can't get the print version here, Amazon doesn't deliver to Estonia1


Hopefully a slightly milder temperature tomorrow - we need our weekly skiing exercise!