Proud Aunt

Today I am feeling extremely happy and proud. My second niece came into the world less than 24 hours ago at the time I am writing this :-) Baby Sarah was born on 28th March 2007. My sister refused to tell me what she was going to name her second child. She wouldn't even give me any hints despite me being overseas!! But Sarah, that is a very nice name :-)

My friend Tammy had a baby daughter around September/October last year (sorry I cannot remember!) and named her Sarah. I thought, that is such a pretty name :-)

And so now I have two nieces - Ashleigh and Sarah :-) Mum said Sarah is just gorgeous with jet-black hair and two cute little dimples!! She even opened her eyes when mum went to visit tonight. The only thing, mum said, is that she has a flat nose like you!!! hahaha...Thanks mum! :-)

And so, we have another little angel in this world :-) I have not seen any pictures yet, but I cannot wait to meet her!!! But that won't be until November this year!! I guess in the meantime, I will just have to watch her grow from photos! :-)

Oh, and from my last post where I said it was raining babies...well, afterwards my girlfriend Jenny told me she was pregnant with her second child and will be due sometime in August! See...it really is raining babies!! :-)

It's raining babies!!!

OMG! I just read my cousin Robert's Yenblog and there will be three new additions to the Yen clan before the year is out!!! My sister is due any day now with her second child, and my cousin Grace is due with her first sometime in August. Then my cousin Robert's wife is due with her second sometime in September!!! Not to mention that towards the end of last year, babies Jordan Phillip and Renee joined the family!!! Next thing I'll probably find out that one of my girlfriends is preggers!!! :-) It seems like everyone wants to have a golden little piggy! :-) Well, it's great news all around :-)

Well, I just had a lovely weekend! :-) First I went shopping with Petra and her mum...and all us girls know how terribly draining it is to go shopping!!! I was very good and didn't buy anything as I have reached my spending budget this month already! Actually, on Friday I spent a chunk of money on booking a flight to London for this coming weekend and also booked myself into a weekend course to be certified in "Teaching English as a Foreign Language". I'm not sure I will actually use this certification for anything, but it is a start on the road to my vocation - which is to educate, to teach.

I spent Saturday evening in a village called Muotathal, which is where Petra grew up and where her dad's family still lives. We spent maybe two and a bit hours playing with her little brothers who are 2.5yrs and 4yrs old. And by the time we put them to bed by 8.30pm I was totally exhausted and felt like going to bed myself!! hahah....Instead I stayed up watching some tv show I couldn't understand a word of!! :-)

Muotathal is the kind of place where busy people like Sydneysiders would take a weekend-away break to. To be in a nice little house, with a fireplace perhaps, surrounded by snow-capped mountains and a great river which runs through the village. In the evening, the skies are so clear and the stars oh-so-bright! It was really nice to get away for part of the weekend :-)

On Sunday morning Petra and I took her little brothers Levin and Micha to an animal park where you can feed the deers. Petra's older brother Cornel joined us also. For the first time I saw a reindeer...well, I think it was a reindeer as I just googled it! It was the first time I had seen an animal with huge antlers! It was pretty cool!!! There were heaps of deer around and I also saw the Billy Goats Gruff :-) hehe...The coolest thing I saw however were some bears!!! They were just awesome!! Petra said they were brown bears, and their fur was a very light brown in colour!!! They were bloody massive!!! I took some pretty good snaps as they came to sit on some rocks which were only about 2-3 meters away from where we were. There was some water separating the bears from us!

About 3-4 hours at the zoo with kids is pretty draining...actually more than half an hour with any kid that is awake is very draining!!! :-) But it was a lot of fun and I would do it again, though perhaps not that often :-)

I wonder how many more babies will rain down on me by the time I head home to Sydney? :-)

Snowboarding weekend

Two weekends ago I went to the Rugby Club's skiing/snowboarding weekend to a place called Melchsee-Frutt very close to Luzern. Petra and I got a lift with our friends Christa and Winu and I think it only took like 45 minutes drive to get to the mountain!! :-)

The weather when we arrived was grey and cold. I've been really spoilt with fantastic weather on the very few occasions which I have gone snowboarding. So for once I got to experience probably more normal conditions!!

I actually wasn't too keen on hopping on my board to be honest. Probably cos of the weather and my nerves. But then I just need to push myself a little and I'll be fine. I'm just a slow starter is all :-) I had all the rugby people around me who have so much experience on the slopes...and then there was me! Petra boarded with me...she's so cool and patient when it comes to snowboarding with me :-) My first run I took a few stacks but was fine. There was one fall however where it was really bad and I had to regain my breath lying sprawled on the snow. That one really hurt!!!

After that, Petra and I stopped at a bar and spent over an hour there :-) I had some coffee schnapps thing and also tried to eat this soup. I wasn't that hungry but the food smelt so good!! I however felt sick when I started eating the soup...it wasn't that the food was bad...I think it was a mixture of the coffee schnapps with the bad fall that I had which made me feel like throwing up everytime I took a spoonful of the soup!!! But I eventually finished it with Petra's help!! :-)

Then we carried on with snowboarding. We went down a run shared with sledgers (where you sit on a sledge and slide down the mountain). At first it was alright. I made a big stack early on and remember just lying sprawled on the snow again totally disoriented!! Slowly I made my way to where Petra was.

Then things started to go bad for me...The snow on the run was compact and each time I fell, I was quite determined to get back on my feet straight away and to keep going. But after falling so many times and on the same bloody spot on my butt, I got really really frustrated and gave in. Cos it really started to hurt after a while!!! I was so angry and annoyed with myself. I lost my confidence and just said...fuck it! I can't do this anymore! And just walked down the mountain (it was a long way)!!! Petra asked me to try and sit on my snowboard to slide down the mountain. I did try for a short while, but I couldn't even get that right!!! My mind had already given up!!! I was such a grumpy bum!!!

I was really glad when we got back to our little hut. We stayed overnight and it was great fun. I don't think anyone really had a late night as we were all quite buggered! We ate this traditional Swiss meal which was macaroni with cheese and apple sauce!!! It's really weird seeing it...but actually it goes really well together!!! Then later we played some games and had a good laugh at those that were drunk and attempting to think at the same time :-) I though, was not drunk :-)

One of the guys lost a bet or something and had to go outside in the snow and slide down the slope naked!!! hahahah...that was great entertainment for the rest of us!!! hahah...

On the Sunday I was energised again after a good night's rest and wanted to hit the slopes, forgetting about the bad afternoon I had the day before!!! I tackled another black run...though actually it was only black cos there was one really steep part which was also quite icy! I think I managed that by sliding down on my ass! hahaha...After we finished that run, we stopped at this hut...and actually I had no idea that that was the same hut we had been hanging out at!! I was just really disoriented!!! haha...

I felt so good with that run that we did the same again. The weather on the Sunday was quite miserable...windy and really really grey!!! But that didn't bother me! I was so happy that I hopped on the ski-lift, actually forgetting to undo my foot from my snowboard!! hahha...It wasn't until I got on with Petra and Christa, and they mentioned it to me! hahaha....So I undid it when I was riding on the ski-lift! hahaha....

The second time round, I actually sorta fell off the side of the mountain! It was a little scary, but I didn't fall that far and was back on track in no time! When we eventually made it back to the hut, there was a snowstorm happening at the top of the mountain and all ski lifts were temporarily suspended. It was a bit crazy watching the weather and I was glad I wasn't outside!!!

Overall I had a great weekend, but I'll try never to give up so easily again with my snowboarding!! :-)

Some kind of Magic...

A new light
illuminates my path.

I can feel
my skin start to shed
I can feel
myself breaking free.

The veil has been lifted.
The hurt, the pain, the tears
of yesterday
have been released.

It's like I am soaring.
It's like...some kind of magic.