Laughing gal & off we go again

Emma is back from Singapore and glad to see her Daddy!

Listen to Emma laughing at Steph's "Japanesing"

We arrived back in Vienna on Good Friday and were supposed to be flying back to Geneva tomorrow (Easter Monday) but we changed out flight a couple of hours ago and are going today!

Emma in her "bassinet" on the SQ flight back to Europe
sheltered behind an improvised curtain
to protect her from the harsh lighting of the plane

I still dislike it but I'm becoming incredibly good at packing, unpacking and repacking even if it's for an entirely different climate and for Emma and me.

As for Emma, she has taken a plane more times than her age in months!

Happy Easter people!

twinkle twinkle

Little Emma in the middle looks just a tad overwhelmed by her cousins' expert rendition of Twinkle twinkle little star. The applause did not seem to affect her too much though. I wonder... Potential for a career as a public figure, there?

Tara, Lana and Emma singing
Singapore March 2008

with love from Singapore

So with all that's been going on and to cut to the chase, let's just say that:

• the work that needs doing in the flat is bad enough for them to have offered to send the three of us to a thermal spa for a week - all expenses paid (Oh! God! something tells me this time it is worse than bad)
  
• we refused the offer and have decided to start searching for a new home in Vienna
  
• but since the work needs doing now and we have been unsettled for the past 8 months, we figured a little more wouldn't harm us and so we decided to take the opportunity and visit family in Singapore!
  

So here we are, enjoying the sticky warm weather, sushi, shopping and a well deserved break from it all. (may I say that in all immodesty, I am patting myself on the back for moving ahead on my 2008 resolutions and doing my best not to spend too much time dwelling and moping as I did when we first arrived in Izmir, determined as I am to turn this ongoing disaster into an opportunity!) 

So, Emma took her first long distance flight with Singapore Airlines, no less, where she had the best and most comfortable bed of all.

Shortly after arrival, a dip in the pool 

and a nap in the shade helped us recover from the jet-lag

Milk bar closing

It's been magical and slightly painful (at the very beginning), practical (whenever, wherever), amazing, touching, affectionate, exclusive, healing, tiring and dehydrating, dangerous (ouch!)... It's been 7 months and 4 days and the milk bar is now closing. I guess it's the end of another chapter. Time to share feeds, go back to more aesthetic bras, to have a drink and pop a pill when I have a headache or a cold.

Every minute was worth it and I think I might even miss it (occasionally).

So what is Emma up to?

Moving on up and out

Basically, an update on here we go again, AGAIN:

• the latest is a leak from our bedroom bathroom to the flat downstairs
• the coordinator came by and explained that
  

1. it would require 7-10 days work
2. they would need to basically demolish our bathroom
3. they would be happy to send us to a spa hotel to recover and relax

• opposite us an apartment whose bathtub has been filling up with rain while sitting on the terrace, its kitchen cabinets and furniture stored on the landing while the floor is stripped open by desperate plumbers trying to find the source of the leak... this never ends!
  
• more neighbors moved to a hotel -these people bought their place! so all things relative we are lucky!!!
  

Need I say more than WE ARE MOVING OUT OF HERE!?? Because no matter the compensation, the niceties, the motivated repairmen and skilled working crew, we will never be sure that next week/month/trimester something else won't urgently require seeing to and I have no intention -at least for now, of taking up baumeister-ing as a new career choice.

Here's to us finding somewhere nice, safe, cosy, and perfect for the new family that we are, in Vienna to call home

for background on the nightmare of this flat you may have a look at:

here we go again,

here we go again, AGAIN,

nasty november