Hong Kong Arrival

Hi all:

Lisa here. Contrary to what some of you may have thought that I am sleeping or baby-sitting the kids all of the time, I finally have a few minutes of free time. I am in the Bistro area of the Marriott Sky City Hotel in HK and it's beautiful. The hotel is brand new and we have a great room with a view. I was trying to arrange for our boarding passes tomorrow via the internet, but no such luck (what has been easy on this trip so far - NOTHING!!). There are no "open" seats, so I guess we'll need to re-arrange once we hit the airport in the a.m. It's going to be a long day -- we fly from HK to Tokyo at 8:20 a.m. and then we have about a 7 hour layover before leaving for Honolulu on an overnight flight. We also gain a day going back into the states, which is kind of cool.

We left Guangzhou around 11:30 this morning, arrived in HK at 12:30 and bolted to our hotel, which is literally 5 minutes from the airport. Then we grabbed a cab and went over to Disneyland, which was about 15 minutes away. It was kind of a "rush" tour through the park, after very long days in Guangzhou. The temps were in the high 80's at least with very high humidity. Based on those factors, no real lunch and no naps, we only had a few mini-meltdowns!!! Dylan, in particular, is now at the stage that he cannot leave Charlie's sight or hand. He wants to be carried alot, so poor Charlie was roasting in the heat, carrying Dylan and a backpack!!! Then, at certain times, Kyle decided he needed only Charlie, too (can I say that was tons of fun?!!!) Anyway, Dylan LOVED the rides. We did the Jungle Cruise, Small World (both were enthralled with that), Pooh (another fave), the Carousel (Kyle actually got on that twice!), Buzz Lightyear, Dylan did flying rockets and I took Kyle on the race cars (that are electric here, so no gas smell!) The boys also loved Mickey's Philharmonic show (the 3-D show). The highlight was probably when Buzz Lightyear appeared, took Kyle's hand and walked him over to the picture area. Dylan was initially crying, but then thought "hey, this is pretty cool" so we got a decent picture. Overall, it was a fun trip. It was actually pretty crowded today vs. the last time that we were here.

The boys are doing very well together most of the time. Dylan has to do EVERYTHING that Kyle does - he is learning really, really fast in terms of just doing things and also speaking. He will even repeat Kyle's sentences at times. He is very funny and very smart. If one of us disciplines him, he will immediately go to the other parent. He also has a look that definitely says "if looks could kill." He will definitely be one of the athletes of the family; he can climb anything and everything and he is very strong. He does not like to hold hands and walk normally, so that is a super challenge. He is either pulling an arm or laying on the ground, running off or crying to be held. That will take some time to get used to, I guess. Kyle definitely likes being the big brother and was extremely helpful especially today, when we needed someone to grab a stroller or push it or hold a bag. He is really super with that when we run out of extra arms!!!

Dylan is definitely potty-trained, but is still wearing pull-ups for now, until we can get on a regular schedule. He has learned to say "potty" quite clearly or just do the dance!

Well, must run for now, I am dead tired and we have a super long day ahead of us tomorrow.

Will catch you all when we get to Hawaii!!