Tokyo!

Here's some pics from our "layover" in Tokyo this July. We spent five days in Japan, en route to Utah for our home visit. Enjoy!

First pic is of Nikko. It's an ancient city near the mountains with lots of temples and shrines. We took a two-hour train to get there and only made it up into one shrine. Then it rained. A LOT!

Washing our hands before entering the temple. The girls loved doing this.

Reality of traveling with a two-year-old. She's hiding in a stack of scarves in a shop.

 Struggling to get a picture. Cute squirmy girls.

Shibuya. World's busiest intersection. We had a blast running back and forth.

 Livvy trying sushi for the first time. Loved the shrimp.

Bhutan -- sneak peek

This is for you, Mom. :) Keep me on track to actually sort through and post more of my pictures. For now, this will have to do.

This April, we went to Nepal and Bhutan to celebrate seven years of marriage. It was a once in a lifetime trip to an incredible part of the world.
Bhutan only has about 50,000 tourists a year. In comparison, Nepal gets about 600,000. We loved how untouched the country was and how pure and sweet the people were.

This first picture was actually taken as we left Bhutan, but you can also see the Himalayas as you fly into the country. Everest is the mountain on the left. The week we were in Nepal, there was one of the worst recorded climbing accidents on the mountain.

To get to Bhutan, you pass over the Himalayas. The plane ride is 45 minutes and is considered one of the most dangerous landings in the world. You pass through a tight mountain pass into the town of Paro. We were about to turn around because of the impending night, but our pilot tried one more time and landed us with a big bump. The girls slept through it, amazingly. Troy and I said it was one of the scariest landings we recall.

 Bhutan is a highly religious country. Everywhere you go, you see prayer flags and prayer wheels. The people are incredibly devout and seemed to really go out of their way to make offerings and prayers. These flags are on bridges everywhere, because they catch the breeze and that's good to help your prayers descend to Heaven.

A sweet nun who spent her day spinning a massive prayer wheel and counting her rosary beads. Our girls joined her in spinning the wheel for a while and I think it made her day. I think prayer wheels were Olivia and Annika's favorite part of the trip.

Well...prayer wheels or picking dandelions. Here are our girls picking flowers in front of a monument build on a high mountain pass. This monument was dedicated to a group of Indian nationals who were asked to leave the country. Just across from this monument is a hillside covered with prayer flags.

Ummm. Yes. That's a...one-eyed snake. Seriously. In Bhutan, phallic symbols are a symbol used on buildings and homes all over the place. So you'll see paintings like this on houses everywhere. This is in front of a phallic handicraft shop with wooden versions of this painted one. Good thing our girls were too little to understand what their Daddy was giggling at.

 These larger prayer flags are placed on hill tops and are for people who have died.

 Olivia picking wheat. After living in the most urban country in the world the past three years, it was refreshing to go to one of the world's most rural countries. Our girls loved playing in the dirt and picking plants and being allowed to be in nature. This wheat field was outside a small village where we watched kids play marbles and jump rope. I wish sometimes we could go back to a time without television.

The entrance to one town fort. These forts are used for official government business and also the home of local monasteries.

Young monks who were enjoying freedom after being required to pray nine days straight. 

 The Tiger's Nest. Incredible monastery built on the side of a cliff. Maybe a five-mile uphill hike, round trip. We made it with our girls...and the help our our drivers.

Bhaktapur, Nepal. Much dirtier than Bhutan. But incredibly gorgeous and interesting. 

 Our little cuties. We love traveling with these girls and letting them share our adventures with us. They are good sports and have gotten used to being dragged around. I love how willing they are to associate with different people and they are very accepting of a lot of what they see. It was a highlight to watch them interact with our guide and driver in Bhutan. This picture was in a royal house in Nepal. We have other pictures with some of the locals.

Dragon Babies - Two Years Later

The year our sweet Annika was born, there were about 10 other little ones born in the wards here in Singapore. We took a picture of the group when Anni was six months old, and then two years later decided to get the group together again before more families leave beautiful Singapore. 

Anni had a blast taking pictures and loved being with her friends. Aliyah is her best friend, pictured on the left. These two are so darling with each other. They're only five weeks apart!

Just a normal day

It's been a busy week, so we decided to stay in today. The girls have been coloring, eating raw noodles and playing little people. I've been rearranging the house. After three months, it's still not quite there. I have one wall of pictures still to hang up. Getting there, though. 

Turtles!

This post is a little Annika-centric, but man, she was posing for the pictures today. We went with our good friends, Chelsea, Desmond and Aliyah to the Chinese Gardens to take pictures and on the way out, visited the turtle museum. I've been wanting to see it for a while. Very small, but so fun for the kiddos to see the turtles roaming around the grounds. Poor Anni and Aliyah got scared whenever the big turtles got close. 

Here's Anni posing next to Aliyah for a picture. This girl is good! Talk about striking a pose. 

Ooops. There's that tongue. Funny girl.

Feeding the big turtles.

Look at Anni's face. She didn't like how close the turtle got and kept stomping her little feet. Sweet baby.

Yum.

Ah. There's a turtle she liked.

Three, almost four...

I am having a blast with my girls these days. They are hilarious, and smart and creative. It's been fun to watch them play together. And incredibly irritating when they fight.

They've been sick the past two weeks. Today, after a long day of whining (combined with lack of sleep), I was just "done" and sat down on the floor and started to cry. Livvy came up to me and began to console me. First, a hug. Then she traced my face with her finger. Then, she grabbed a bottle of water because I might need a drink. After that, oddly enough, she told me I needed to put hand sanitizer on my hands.

Her last resort was to look at me, put her hands on her hips and say, " Mom, get off your butt."

It's always fascinating to hear your voice being channeled by your kid. Ha ha. Drinks of water, hugs, hand sanitizer, then the command to get up and deal with life.

Too funny.

Also today, Annika said one of her first true sentences. We were at a store. She was thirsty. One of the clerks went to get us water. I told her that "uncle" was getting the water. She said: "Uncle, Annie, a ba ba!" Translated: "Uncle, get me water."

Funny the difference between her first sentence and Olivia's. Olivia said, "pretty bird in the tree."

Love my ladies.

Here are a few other noteworthy phrases from our girls, mostly Livvy:

"I wish I were a mermaid with a tail and those boob things (aka, a seashell bra)."

"Ok Anni, I'm not frovoking (provoking) you. On my birthday we will go trick or treating. Anni, you are the best." (We've been telling her lately not to provoke her sister, which inevitably ends up in Annika biting Livvy.)

"I love you Anni. I draw a picture and we will be holding hands."

The other day, I found Olivia squeezing juice from an orange I had peeled into a cup. She wanted to put it in a bag and send it to Utah to her friend, Maryanne.

From anni:

At bedtime, she gets a sippy water and then I'll pat her bum so soothe her to sleep. Now, she gets in the crib and says: "ba ba, bum."

We survived!!!

Troy comes home in four hours. Yippee! It's been a great week, but man, I have a whole new respect for single moms. I never want to become one. I don't have Troy a lot, but it's amazing the difference it makes to have him around for the whole bedtime routine and cleanup.

My girls are sweet hearts. We sure had fun. I love their little personalities. Livvy is feisty and spunky, but after she calms down, she sure is sweet and will tell me sorry and "I love you." Annika is more mellow, but has the same spunk. She's pretty easy-going and loves to follow sister.

Here's a few shots from this week. The first are my "selfies." For YW this week, we went to Sephora and got makeovers with the girls. I was sporting some pretty nice purple eye shadow. Not my color.

My two ladies love to hold hands and play on our little playground. Livs is such a good helper and so sweet to her little sister. She loves to act like a little mama herself.

 This is our dinner portrait for Troy. Note the half-crazed look in my eyes and the pink hairbow from Anni's torn out hairstyle. She's eating split pea soup. I cooked twice this week. The rest of the time, we ate out of a can. Notice the peas that Anni kept spitting out?

From this morning. These girls have dueling strollers. Thanks, Naomi, for giving us the second. I think there would have been carnage if we didn't have two.