Family Photo - at last!

pHoTo cReDit: AnA & RoNNie (thAnX, guYs!)

Au BoN PaiN, aLL SeAsOnS

Last weekend we went out to All Seasons place and met up with our friends, Ana and Ronnie Mercado. Their son is the same age as Akhtar and here are the pic of them getting acquainted:

When he's left alone in his 'ride', he seems content, too, just like what you can see on the photo below:

Akhtar's mummy likes to take his pictures in various angles, probably she's trying to be the next Anne Geddess. :-) Here's one sample:

Cast your Vote! :-)

We were trying to take a photo of Akhtar for immigration purposes in which the Indonesian Embassy required us to have a few pictures of the baby with red background. Instead of running off to the photo studio, we came up with having a "studio" in our bedroom. As an old red t-shirt of mas Nuki's was laid down in bed, we put Akhtar on top of it and Aretha took several shots in sequence. Below are the sample of the pictures we successfully produced. Can you give us suggestion as to which one we should choose for his passport and birth certificate? Please cast your vote Now! :)

a.

b.

c.

Above: That's what Akhtar looks like when he plays and mocks around with his mum and dad

Below: He likes to grab daddy's t-shirt when bathing, probably he's worried of drowning. :-D

A piece of reminiscence from London, UK

I was browsing through our photo collections and found the one I posted here. This picture was taken at a restaurant in London right after the UNEP Advisory Board Meeting for Sustainable Consumption project was completed in September 2004. The food and even the beer served in this restaurant are all organic, in line with the idea of our project (and also my thesis research - coincidentally).

This image brought me some memories, thus I skimmed through the previous postings in this blog. Things have changed rapidly within less than 2 years time. Now our life is a bit more settled, though not completely. I miss travelling here and about, wondering when and where I can experience these feelings again.

Anyway, back to this picture again. Just for reminiscing reasons. From left to right:
Uchita (Sri Lankan, served as the director of Centre of Environment and Development)
Claus (Denmark, served as project partner, from an NGO called DCC - forgot what it stands for)
Villy (same as Claus)
Niclas (Swedish. He's one of my favourite people in the world! A terrific boss with such great attitude. He was the Project Coordinator and Officer of UNEP Bangkok and thanks to him I got to be here. Currently he's assigned to a new post at UNEP Paris).
Bjarne (forgot his nationality, but he's UK-based. He's the project partner from the NGO Consumers International, and the host for this event).
Adriana (Mexican but Paris-based, Project Officer from UNEP Paris)
Aretha (Indonesian,... don't know where to start with the tagline)
Priya (Indian, was born and raised in Canada, but also UK-based. She's a cool person and we stay in touch up to now. We even met up in a lovely Italian restaurant in Paris when she came over. Hope that one day we'll meet again).

Girls Night In !

Last weekend my good friend Sarah - the Australian Young Ambassador that works for UNEP Bangkok, visited us and stayed over at our place. It seems to be so long since we see each other, albeit her visit in the hospital right after Aretha gave birth, which was 1,5 months ago.

It was good to catch up, especially since we couldn't get our daily dose of chatting like it used to be when we worked together at UNEP (we didn't actually work together, coz she's dealing with conserving the poor turtles while I dealt with shopping... um, I meant consumption... "sustainable consumption", more like). :-)

Sarah is one of my sweetest friend, she's very independent, witty, pretty (taller than most fashion top models as she is 179 cm tall! I wonder how the wind is up there!) ;-) She is also a determined person, and I believe her to be successful in all her future endeavours.

Anyway I've just got her e-mail and here's what she says:

"Hi beautiful Aretha = D Thank you soooooo much for having me over, I slept like a (um) baby!! So good to goss with you again, and to see your amazing motherhood skills in action...I am returning to Australia on 3 March to take up ajob in sunny Queensland, yay. Will have to meet you in the next few weeks before I run away! Lots of love, Sarah"

So here comes the part which I hate the most; goodbye! But it had been great to have known her, and although there's always be a "farewell" whenever there's a "hello", it's warming to know that a friendship is established and God knows what tomorrow has in store for us. We may cross paths again, hopefully!!!

Playdate with the Mercados

Last weekend we came over to our friends' place, Ana and Ronnie Mercado. They came from the Phillipinnes, but already lived in Bangkok for quite some time now. We met the first time at the Maternity Class and apparently we have some common grounds, i.e. we have our first newborn sons, and they both were born in December. We also happen to live quite near, only about 10 minutes away, should we disregard the traffic.

So we had some nice chats, sharing of experience, etc. Kind of funny because it's the first time we (Nuki and I) had such an 'adult' conversation. You know, like the price of Pampers compared to Mami Poko, the frequency of baby's pee pee and poo poo, and also the forms of the aforementioned. :-) But seriously, we had some nice sharing of insights in regards to nursing and raising the baby.

Below are some photos taken during our playdate. In fact, it was more like a playdate for the parents rather than the kids! :-P