SKYNI

Spring is finally coming and soon we have summer, what better way way to celebrate than to showcase some of the winter fun we have had…..
– ice climbing
– dog sledding

Jonathan turns 13 today and he is now an official teenager. He will soon be taller than mom.

The family is also travelling to Tuscany today and will be eating a lot of 🍕 for the week. Jon’s favourite food.

Have a great birthday Jonathan.

Our dearest Linn,

Congratulations on your 11th birthday and we hope that all your wishes will come true.

It has been quite a year for you. We are so proud of you as you transitioned to a new school and had a great Year 4. We know it was not easy to leave all your friends behind and start a new school term with unfamiliar faces, in an international environment and changing the primary language from Swedish to English. But you did it in your usual style and you are taking it in your own stride. You worked hard to earn all the grades and merits. We are most happy to share your achievements and watch you grow.

You even started a new sport, skateboarding which is something that you seem to enjoy physically and socially. Keep going at it Linn and we hope you enjoy the thrills and the moves you are exploring.

It is not easy growing up, specially for making decisions. It is alot easier for grown-ups with experiences as we learn from our past decisions. Sometimes, we want to steer you to make the right decisions without realising that you need to learn for your self. Whatever it is Linn, we are here for you always.

You also had great adventures, climbing glaciers,scout camps, Harry Potter London trip and also the recent Singapore/Penang trip. We hope that you will have loads of fond memories of these trips as much as we enjoyed these with you.

So have a great birthday, our little princess. You will always be our very special princess.

Love you,
Mamma

Happy Birthday Jonathan. I hope you like the gifts.

Dear Jonathan

You are growing so fast and tomorrow you will be 12 years old. I have been watching you over the past few months, watching you mature into a teenager.

I know I don’t say it enough but I love you. Despite my inability to understand you and your toys, you always are sensitive to my needs. You always will sense my unhappiness and will try to cheer me up. Thank you my dear son.

On your birthday, I wish you great joy and may you always find happiness in whatever you do.

And I hope you will get all the toys you want.

Love you,
Mom

Dearest Linn,

Happy Birthday to you and congratulations on your 10th birthday. It is an extremely special day as you celebrate this birthday with Grandma who turned 80 just 3 days ago and your aunt, my sister, Pau Ping who is celebrating her birthday in just 3 days.

And you are celebrating in the country where you are born Linn … in Singapore, just one day before the country celebrates its 52th National day.

I hope you are enjoying the visit to Singapore and enjoying the time catching up with our family. Every time we come back, we feel like tourists as the city is changing so quickly. This time,we spent 2 full days in Sentosa visiting the Waterpark, the SEA aquarium and not forgetting catching up with the food…and you have been most adventurous trying different food.

Whilst it is difficult for Jon to understand the importance of being back in Singapore, i hope that you will enjoy the visit and appreciate our Singapore culture and the family we miss dearly when we are in Stockholm.

My dear Linn, we love you so much and hope that you will continue to enjoy what you do, continue being inquisitive, don’t ever give up and be proud of who you are. You are truly amazing.

Love,
Mamma

The Walls would like to thank everyone in our lives for their love, friendship, help and support in 2016.

It has been quite a year. There were difficult times as well as great happiness largely with the family. These are my personal highlights in 2016.

* Jonathan having his own key to enter the house. This was a huge step for us as it was a milestone for Jonathan. Sure, his path has not been easy and I still get very affected with the new unusual patterns I see emerging from time to time. I feel helpless and despair with my weakness to help him. But in many ways, we are proud of him.

* Nichlas taking the courage to leave his job to pursue new challenges. He has been holding back for too long.

* our family vacations… the Italian summer holiday is my number 1 trip this year.

* Linn’s development in general has been challenging as it is tough for a strong willed child to understand respect, perseverance and determination. Despite the tears and frustrations, she brings us great joy and laughter with her bubbly character. She made great progress in maths and piano which we are proud of. She also went on a scouts camp for 4 days in Gotland.

* I made a trip to Hong Kong to meet Yen Tang, Pei Yao and Ki-en and my mom in December just to spend quality time together. Sure it was crazy to take a long haul flight just to spend 3 days together but it is 3 great days of just hanging out together with no agenda other than catching up. I really enjoyed myself.

* it was always nice to be back home in Singapore in June but it is not home without Jon.

* for the numerous blessings from our family members and support of our friends far and near.

* I am proud of my nephews, Juwin completing his A’ levels, Ki-en doing well in his PSLE and the wonder twins, Evan and Kyle starting primary one.

It has been quite a year. I wish 2017 a happy one filled with love, peace, good health and joy for everyone.

Dear Linn

This is our first holiday without you and Pappa and I felt that you cannot handle the long distance walks. It was hostlov and we really wanted to go somewhere before it gets too cold.

The last time we went to Milan, you were complaining most of the time. This time, we walked alot more and we visited beautiful places that Mummy has never seen. We really thought Rome is really fantastic. Our hotel was right in the city central at the shopping district. Mummy was so tempted but resisted buying so many items.

The food was incredible and we ate too many pastas, paninis, and pizza. It was really nice.

Here are some pictures of what you missed.

But we are sure that Farmor took care of you well. We are most grateful to her for looking after you.

I also visited Tibet, it was an interesting but tough experience, the altitude made the trip fairly tough, i set new altitude record, 5202 meters above sea level, but i did not feel to hot at the time and was both tired and exhilirated

Long time since it put something in here so i thought it would be good to put some stuff from my side

this is when i climbed Swedens highest mountain Kebnekaise, its only 2100 meters but it took around 9 hours up and down and as you see the weather is having some dramatic changes on the way, at the top there was only 10 meters visbility

Dear Jonathan

Grattis as they say in Sweden. Congratulations on your 11th birthday.

It has been a great year for you and have seen how you have grown to be the good little man you are now.

We love you so much and only want the best for you.

Love and kisses,

Mamma

First Day of school after 10 weeks of summer vacation. They definitely have grown over the summer.

Dearest Linn

Happy Birthday and you are nine today.

I know this year has been rather interesting for you specially now that you are growing up and going through the growing pains. At times, you cannot understand why you cannot get your way. It makes you angry when Pappa and I get stricter with you. But one day, you will understand.

It has been quite a year. You had so much fun and had great adventures. You went on holidays to Iceland, Copenhagen, Singapore and Italy. I am so proud of what you have achieved at school. You learnt to read really well, improved your maths, even started playing the piano, composing your own songs and you went for your first scouts summer camp for 4 days in Gotland.

I wish you happiness and joy always. I love you very very much.

Love and Kisses,
Mamma

This year, the Walls had our summer vacation together in Milan, Lake Como and Bergamo. It was our first Italian holiday as a family.

It was really hard to be in Milan but not able to shop. But shopping is really not the kids’ thing.

Lake Como is simply stunning. Nicke rented a beautiful apartment just facing the lake in Lierna and each day, we just enjoyed the scenery from our varenda. The kids also love to swim in the lake. We visited the small cities by the lake, Bellagio, Varenna and Menaggio using the lake ferries.

Our last stop before coming home was to Bergamo. A small city 2 hours away from Milan. Beautiful and unique with one of the most beautiful church I have seen.

After a week of pizza, pasta, foccacia bread and lots of gelato. We promised ourselves to stay away from italian food for a while as it was not helping our waist lines.

We will be back for sure.

Nicke,Linn and I went to Singapore in June to celebrate Yen Teng’s big birthday. It was not an easy decision to leave Jon in Sweden but he requested to stay in Stockholm.

We took it easy this trip and stayed largely in The Quek’s beautiful condo in Seletar. Thank you to our wonderful family who always take care of us so well. We ate our favourite food and spent quality time with our family and friends.

It was really really nice to be in Singapore again.

The Walls went on a roadtrip this weekend to Copenhagen. It was fantastic and spring is finally here. We are blessed with clear blue sunny skies for the past four days.

Jonathan wanted to go to his favourite aquarium The Blue Planet in Copenhagen to see his hammerhead shark. Nicke took a slow drive to Copenhagen with many detours. Both adults and kids had their fair share of fun. Nicke and I found the Copenhagen Street Food and the Meat packing district (Vesterbro)which is a hip trendy eating area. But we couldn’t stay as they are clearly not suitable for kids. However, the kids had a great time in the Experimentarium and Tivoli.

On the way home, we stopped by Sweden’s one and only KFC in Malmo and to visit Nicke’s old friend, Kristoffer, Guang Lu, Anton and Simon in Lund. He even visited the Military Aviation Museum in Linköping whilst I nursed Linn’s migraine in the car.

I love these road trips. But maybe it was a little too long for the kids to sit in the car.

I have no idea how we can spend the entire day in the zoo. Jonathan wants to see all his favourite animals like the polar bears, the seals, the sharks and he waited patiently for the brown bear to come out for this hidding place to take a picture of it.

I must admit that this is an amazing zoo.