week 4 - daddy's first day!

sorry for the long break in posting.. life has been a bit crazy with packing and moving!  more on that later =)

so, to continue our story...
after the mother's day festivities, we hurried home to pack a bag for the first night in the hotel.  we decided to move to a hotel for the last week so as not to outnumber p and e in their own house ;-)   our friend leo outdid himself by setting up not only the lodging, but the airport transportation both ways for us. 

the plan:  the girls and i would taxi to the airport, meet ben, then come back to the hotel together in the arranged car

the reality:  the girls and i taxied to the airport and got caught in a huge traffic jam.  meanwhile, after a long wait at immigration, ben emerged to find no evidence of nicholsons except a sign with his name held by a non-english-speaking driver.  figuring plans must have changed, he identified himself and shrugged his shoulders when the driver asked him, 'one?'  on our side, after walking up and down the waiting room a few times and finding no ben and no sign, i put two and two together and woke up poor leo (remember this was nearing 11 pm now), who called the hotel and confirmed that the car was en route, with ben safely aboard.  so off to hail another taxi we went =p

all things to laugh about when we were reunited, all FOUR nicholsons, with much hugging, squealing, laughing and snuggling =)

our fantastic hotel

checking out the Zoku popsicle recipe book that was part of my mother's day present.  guess what the other part was ;-)

we enjoyed a leisurely breakfast at the hotel VIP lounge (thanks, leo!!), where the spread included the usual cereals, oatmeal, yogurt, breads, bacon and eggs, fruit, but also congee, steamed vegetables and fish/pork/chicken (??).  i thought we'd head over to taipei main station to scope out the high-speed rail situation for our taichung trip and do some shopping in the underground mall.   as it turned out, we spent most of the time wandering around trying to find the HSR, and when we did, the ticket machine wouldn't take my credit card despite the visa logo =p  then it took us some more wandering and elevator searching to locate the underground mall, where i did procure two pairs of shoes that ben admired for $7 a piece (way to make both nicholsons happy ;-) ) and some hair clips for the girlies.

finally, it was over to auntie e's to pick up our stuff and see baby k:

don't mind the camera strap =p

it's uncle ben!

that evening, we had a family dinner with two of my aunts on my dad's side and my grandma:

a great opportunity for some generational pictures, courtesy of p =)

enough already! ;-)

the restaurant was very close to our hotel, so some girlies went for a spin around the block on uncle p's scooter:

there was morning and there was evening and so ended the first day ;-)