The last carnival of the season...

It has been a great season of rugby and a learning curve not just for the boys but for us grown-ups as well. The boys had their final carnival of the season today and I was amazed at how their skills are developing. So here are a few snaps of the boys in action.....Riley in the midst of the action........Liam is not letting go of that ball and driving forward.....with a little help from his team-mates

Callum in hot pursuit. It is a little tough to get good pictures of Cal since his pitch is so much larger than the other boys so there is an element of luck in being at the right place when he has his hands on the ball.

All three boys teams performed really well today. I was extremely proud.

Next week sees another training session they some pre-game matches at the HK 7's

Should be a great chance for the boys to get some really great "watch and learn" time!

Wonderful faces....

One of the things that I love about the twice I have travelled in India is the wonderfully interesting faces of the people we meet. I love that her people are so smiley and friendly and happy to have that "pesky foreigner" snapping away in their faces, and not only are patient and indulgent of such behaviour but smile and wave in return. (OK ,all except that lady who came at us with a stick- but she was the exception LOL)

Here are a few of my favourite faces from this most recent trip.

This lady was so sweet and kept gesturing for me to take her photo that I couldn't help but give her some money for tea afterwards. She was sitting on the side of a dusty highway, selling the lovely earthenware pots which are used to carry water on the women's heads.
This lovely gentleman gave us a perfect photo oppportunity as he showed us how he smokes his pipe (?charras??)
This little sweetheart was all smiles until her relatives tried to make her "pose" for the picture- this was well before any official posing :)
This lovely , lovely lady was the lady who dealt with our stick weilding non-smiler lady and asked her , I think (since my hindi is absolutely non-existent), to "play nice" and she might get some tea. A a result we got a lovely "scowling" photo (check out that closed body language below), she got her tea and we were all mostly happy in the end.

Here is our less than smiley friend ......

Back to the blogosphere........

Wow, what a whirlwind of months. It seems the end of last year and the beginning of this year have slipped by and I have not been blogging ...for ever......

So a quick update....even though I have been off the blog I have indeed been living the moments and not actually writing of them. I have been incredibly blessed with many special moments the latest of which include a trip with three special girlfriends to India. Odila travelled from Panama, Riya and Monisha and I from Hong Kong.

We started in Mumbai for an amazing wedding experience ( at Riya's most generous and kind invitation ) and it was so special to be treated as such honoured guests. The celebrations were out of this world and the bride, Usheeta and her groom Kamal, and their respective families were the most amazing hosts.

We then flew to Delhi, drove to Agra to visit the Taj Mahal and then on to Jaipur. I won't go into detail with our itinerary but we packed SO much fun, laughter and sightseeing into our days( and nights). From Jaipur we flew to Udaipur and had another couple of days exploring the township, and soaking up the splendour of a 300 + year old palace in the middle of the lake which is now a 5+ star hotel :)

Needless to say there were so many special moments on the trip and one of the real highlights for me (other than the girly stuff) was the opportunity to indulge my passion for photography with like minded devotees in such an immensely rich photographic environment. So, 1000+ photos later, how do I possibly convey to you the wonder of this journey????

I am going to choose only a few of my favourite photos with you...... I hope you like them.

and a few more....

In pictures.....

East Asian Games.....Go Tigers !!!

It has been a crazy busy few weeks and so I am skipping a WHOLE lot of news and jumping to this weekend....

our 3 boys played warm up exhibition matches both yesterday and today at the East Asian Games which were held in HK this weekend.

We were tremendously proud of how they played , just half way through their first season and they coped well with being in the big stadium.

As a highlight they each got a special East Asian Games medal, which, to their way of thinking, puts them up there with Olympic medalists :)

Our hero! Congratulations Dad

We had good cause to celebrate today.

Mark graduated his MBA from Macquarie University in the Grand Ballroom at the Hyatt Hotel in HK. Due to ticketing limitations only Maddie and I were able to attend, and then the whole gang including the boys went out to lunch afterwards to help celebrate.

Mark not only received his very special MBA but was further awarded the HKMA (Hong Kong Management Association) award for best performance overall in the MBA program!!

All those very many long hours of very hard work were finally rewarded.