Christmas Fun & Hong Kong

We had a quiet but pleasant Christmas this year.  No family, no visitors; just us.  This was the second year in a row and second year ever that it has just been us.  I think that I wouldn't mind celebrating Christmas with just my little family once the kids are a little older.  But for right now, Heather and I definitely missed spending time with our family during this fun time of year.

But even despite that, we had a good Christmas.  Here are some pics that capture it all.  

Heather took the girls to a holiday celebration at a friend's house in which Santa made an appearance.  Sienna had a priceless moment with Santa, and Elli was a cute as ever.

 

In addition to taking pictures with an American Santa, we also had to take a pic with Asian Santa.  Unfortunately, I was not in this one since I was taking the pic.  Right before us in line was a young Asian couple.  Santa stood behind them while they sat in the sleigh.  Santa was making awesome gestures, like making a heart of his hands, etc.  It was so wonderfully Asian cheesy.  Unfortunately, he wouldn't repeat it with us.  We did get a thumbs up!

Earlier that month, one of our good friends Lily, who runs her own photography business, took some adorable pics of our girls.  

We celebrated Christmas Eve one night early.  Here are the girls as we read over the story of Christ's birth.  Elli and Sienna loved reenacting the story.  Here's Elli as Mary and Sienna as the angel.

Although our Christmas was fairly low-key, our New Years was action packed.  Our close friends Ken and Becky Hamblin, who live in Abu Dabi, happened to be visiting some friends in Hong Kong, which is only a short flight away from Taipei.  So we decided at the last moment to hop on over and spend a few days with them.  It was a such a great treat to see them again.  We've missed them as well as our group of close friends back in northern Virginia quite a bit.

While in HK, we spent a full day at the Ocean Park theme park (kind of a smaller version of Sea World) and had a wonderful time.  Elli rode her first real big kid roller coaster.  She was very brave, and she giggled and shouted excitedly the entire time.  In fact, she rode it twice in a row she couldn't get enough.  

We also spent another full day exploring HK, which we discovered was not the most kid friendly city.  We still had a nice day.  Here was a rather unique Buddhist temple we went to, which seemed to me more like a Japanese styled temple than a traditional Chinese temple.  It was nice and peaceful, except when our pack of little kids entered it!

 We also found a babysitter so the adults could spend an evening on our own.  Unfortunately, our plans to see some of the so-called best sites of HK at night and eat at one of the best restaurants completely failed, but we still had a great time at failing.  That's the wonderful thing about being with such good friends.

The morning we returned to Taiwan, Heather and Becky took a quick trip to Stanley's Market for some much deserved girl time without the kids.  They had a very pleasant morning shopping and eating on the seashore, and returned triumphant with many items.  

Even though it was a short trip, it was a great one.  And we made a pack to make the next time we meet abroad to be in Istanbul!