Watch Julian Scoot

Watch Julian Scoot

Julian reading his book :)

So - finally he's able to read, kind of.

So, recently Julian internalized the whole idea of Birthday Parties!! He patiently waited for a few months to have his - and finally - he had it. We decided to throw him 2 parties. one, early so he could celebrate with his best friends, and another on his actual birthday, in 2 weeks time, in Montreal!!

Julian Baking a Caka fo Oma's birthday

Head Shoulders, Knees and Toes

Cranky Julian

Then it's off to Stuttgart where we stayed with our friends Linh and Martin, who unfortunately also had to bear with an extremely cranky and angry little Julian. He was so jetlagged, and just didn't know what hit him. EVERYTHING made him angry in those 3 days we were in Stuttgart. Needless to say, this part of the trip was a little hard on the nerves!

But it was great to catch up with all our friends. We even had time for a beergarten one evening. And another night, we were treated to another wonderful dinner at the home of our Dutch friend Jeroen and Nicole.

There was another "bun-in-the-oven" - our friends Julia (standing in the green dress) and Bern were expecting their first child. We were expecting little Emile Julius Weick to be delivered while we were there, but he didn't make his appearance until about a week later when we were already in Montreal.

It seems we chased the sun around the world. Because we seemed to bring on the 30+oC hot weather wherever we went! Having come from Singapore, that was not a good thing. We wanted cooler Summer days.

The vacation

Our big holiday this year is to Montreal, with pit stops in Germany and New York. Travelling with a toddler on a 22hr flight was not easy, but suprisingly not as horrific as I imagined it to be. I would never do it alone, of course. One needs at least 2 adults per toddler for such a long flight!

The journey started with a mild panic when Julian started having a very high fever the night before we travelled. On the morning of our flight (thank god it was an afternoon flight!), we managed to rush him to the doctors who advised us to postpone our trip by a few days if we can afford it. Against the advice of the doctor, and after much debate, we decided to beeline it to the airport. Julian was feverish throughout the flight, but he managed to sleep through most of it for our first leg to Frankfurt.

My cousin Dini and Wolfgang, and their little "bun-in-the-oven", made a special trip from the northern part of Germany to see us in Frankfurt. We stayed with them for one night. They treated us to a wonderful Italian meal that first evening we arrived - fresh bread, antipasti, raviolis with different sauces made with truffles...and of course..... wine! It was amazingly fresh and simple, but just absolutely delicious and perfect.

The one and only picture

I have of Julian's birthday party. Nader had recently bought a new videocam, and decidedly forgot to take any still shots of our son's party. And this shot was not even ours....it was taken by a friend. Anyway, we had a big do for Julian for his 2nd birthday. This year the theme was CARS - because he's so mad about them! We had about 25 adults and about 15 kids screaming and running amok! The party was one big blur of screaming kids!

I think Julian had fun.....

By the way, it's been 7 weeks since my last update (my bad...). So the next few updates will be retrospective.

Sharing birthday cake at Julian's daycare

This is the cake I made for Julian's 2nd birthday. Nader says it's a marked improvement from the first cake I made.....

We brought the cake to Julian's daycare to share with all the other kids. It was about 200oC in his school....and we were all melting...including the cake......

Mama got a little emotional and started to tear when all the kids broke out in a birthday song.... My baby is 2!!

And finally, one picture with all his class mates.

Birthday morning

It's Julian's 2nd birthday today, and we opened a gift that arrived aalll the way from New Zealand! A new shirt!

Then from Mama and Papa, the first of 3 gifts..... a play handphone.... in the hope that he will finally stop trashing ours!