This Timely Adventure

Its a regular Tuesday evening for us. Kev knocks a whopper 14 hour day and I knock to do lists. I should put my feet up and get lost in a book, but I never do. This particular Tuesday, I have snowflake shaped gingerbread cookies in the oven for a Christmas craft I am running at Sierra's class Christmas party this week. I have Rattie running furiously back and forth along the couch beside me, or more honestly, all over this keyboard. Any typos, I blame her. Before me, the Hong Kong skyline twinkles. Spotify provides the background playlist, intermittently drowned out by an aeroplane on its flight path overhead. And I wonder where to start.  This night a year ago, we were at 'The Last Supper' with parents, siblings and cousins in Cape Town. I distinctly remember that hard to swallow, lump in my throat, throughout the evening. Savouring the last hugs, laughs, sharing of food, conversation. The next morning we would give the final hug, smile and goodbye and I would leav...

Last weekend, we began the journey of Advent in our home. Not only was our home filled with much excitement and preparation but so was my Instagram feed full of green foliage and sparkling gold baubles. It seems we weren't the only ones in full Christmas swing. As we prepare for another ‘first’ in Hong Kong, we have been thoughtful about what we want this season to look like for our family. Although we were here for Christmas last year, it felt very different. Having landed on Hong Kong soil just less than 2 weeks before, we were still navigating the most basic necessities in life such as food, transport and a place to live and make home. Christmas's prior to that, were very stripped down for us. We chose to start marriage and family life with as little of the Christmas commercial fanfare as possible. We are not great fans of santa, kitch Christmas decor and an overload of gifts.  A favourite tradition which we introduced for Sierra's second Christmas wa...

I think this shot above pretty much captures everything I want to articulate in this post, more accurately than I will manage to.  It was taken on Monday at Inspiration Lake, a new gem we discovered in Hong Kong. We spent Monday together as a family following our church retreat. This last weekend was a date in the calender that we had been anticipating and preparing towards for months - our first Watermark Church Retreat. It was a date we looked forward to and now its a date we look back on as a highlight of the year.  Here are some quick takes from our (inspiring) Watermark Retreat and Inspir(ing)ation Lake: 1/ Doing community (life) in close proximity is inspiring!  There is something about going away with (150) other people that brings you closer, tighter, deeper. The girls had a gang of friends whom they stuck closely to for the duration of the weekend and I watched as older kids helped look after them and they helped feed younger kids their meals. We ...

Date night has been converted to date morning since we arrived in Hong Kong. Partly because we are so jolly tired by the end of the day, but also, because finding a babysitter is a little more tricky when family lives so far away. It quite quickly became a tradition to go for a walk up the Peak together on a Friday morning. The first couple of times it was a one sided conversation on the way up as I was too breathless to speak, but I have showed some great improvement in my fitness levels in the last few months ;) Sometimes we end the hike with a coffee (or probably more likely a Matcha) up top. And it's so good. The long holidays took away our free Friday mornings together and so it had been a while since Kev and I had quality uninterrupted time together. Last week we decided it was time. The last two weeks haven't been our easiest. We have been stretched, aware of our own limited capacity and weighed down somewhat. So we raised the white flag and made it happen an...