Bumper Cars and Chinese New Year

I'm in Kuala Lumpur for the week becoming certified as a "Smart Board Trainer". So it's nice that I've got my laptop full of photos and videos of the kids. The first just shows the kids as they scoot around the house in their walkers. You'll notice that Cai is waving as she is going in and out of the curtain because mommy is goodbye...she seems to know to wave goodbye.


The 2nd video is just a quick glimpse into "Chinese New Year" festivities. It's shot from our balcony looking across the street at our neighbours. They had a dragon dance in honour of the end of Chinese New Year. One tradition is envelopes full of money are handed out to children (and dragons it would appear). Cai and Tri each received Rp 10,000 in their envelopes from Kathy Nesteroff. In the video, you'll see a woman swinging a bamboo pole with an envelope attached at the end. The dragon tries to grab as many of these envelopes as it can.

Tri's Birthday Party

Happy Birthday, Tri!  A farily large gathering was held in Tri's honour on Sat Jan 31, 2009, to celebrate Tri's first birthday.  A crowd of 30 arrived, and Tri was the center of attention.  It was nice, but I think I preferred it more once everyone left and I finally got to spend some time with my kids again.

We didn't do a very good job of getting footage of the party.  A dead battery and also handing our camera to someone else proved to be a mistake.  The following video was the best I could manage to give a sense of the auspicious occasion.  I am going to try to embed the video twice at different qualities to see if I can see a difference between the two. The first one is regular quality, and if I succeed there will be a 2nd video of a highher quality.

Ok, I've now tested it, and the link below is indeed a higher quality. This means it takes more bandwidth and will take longer to play. But if these are not big issues, you can choose the one below. We're not talking hugely better quality, but the footage is definitely more crisp.