and this is how the days go by

So, my mom has been here almost three weeks already - just two more days before she has to return to Norway.

During these three weeks our days have basically just been super late mornings, Leona sleeping with her mormor when she'd kind of restless so I can get some more sleep, us hanging around at home, taking walks around the neighborhood, buying groceries, her over the first two weeks doing a super deep-spring-cleaning overhaul on the apartment for us, her making food, her hanging up and collecting laundry, me feeding Leona and resting with her and sometimes doing some editing cases, Judge working 12 hour days.

The great thing about my mom is that she enjoys just 'living life' in new places - doesn't enjoy so much tourist activities - which has been perfect as I do not have a car-licence here in Taiwan, and we cannot go on scooter adventures with Leona, and I'm hesitant to head out on the bus still as it only goes about once an hour - and Leona is not quite good at eating out yet (still a dramatic eater where lots of milk ends up outside her rather than inside her).

That being said we have had some excursions. For example we went cruising in the mountains one day (car cruising of course...) so my mom could experience the lush greeness, and this last week Judge has taken several days off work, so we've been doing more travellings/mini-adventures too.

For example, on Sunday we drove down to Taichung and met up for lunch (A-Kuan hotpot of course!) with two of the three amigos who've been faithfully visiting me up here (I have now known them already for five years - worked with them at the language center), and then after hotpot we all met up with one of my previous Chinese teachers whom is super sweet and that I have similar love of animals (she has a budgie, fish tank kind of like me and Judge were doing in Tainan, and she also loves to feed the squirrels and sparrows in the square on campus):

[Frozen yogurt enjoyment time]

[Back row: Ms Ning, Judge, Leona

Front row: Me, April, Season

Photographer: My mom :P]

[Squirrel feeding at Feng Chia campus]

[Grab, scamper up, hang on, eat]

Yesterday - Monday - was also just a perfect day. Late wake-up as usual (we sleep around 2am every night as Leona settles then, and every 2.5-3 hours I wake to feed etc), Leona's aunties (Judge's sister and cousin) and her cousin Owen came to visit and eat some waffles before heading off to the high-speed-rail, and then we went cruising to a temple Judge and I had stumbled upon during our scooter cruising last year - by the coast, hidden along some back-roads, a new temple section being built, kind of like a hidden treasure for us:

[New section of temple with older section behind it...

oh, and our three generation of Drageset-Owen ladies]

When we got there we heard what Judge thought were tortured animals, but my mom knew from around her house in Tromsø were car-racing, and we walked down the road and stumbled upon this (totally making Judge's day = HUGE grin):

We then did our scooter-style cruising where we just drove around randomly checking out new areas/roads. Brought us by a scenic-temple we have visited before as well:

[The view]

[The temple]

And then we stopped by Judge's parent's place and ate sticky-rice-wrapped-in-bamboo-leaves (it was Dragon-Boat Festival day and that is a must to eat] and my mom got to meet Judge's dad for the first time...well, sit and chat with him for the first time at least (she had briefly met him at Leona's full-month dinner); and Judge's dad held Leona for the first time:

Today was yet another wonderful day. Again woke up around noon, got ready and headed out at around 2pm for my birthday lunch which my mom was treating us to (a day early as Judge's dad is inviting us out for lunch tomorrow in honor of my mom visiting). Of course we went to our favorite bbq restaurant:

Finished around 4pm, bought a drink (bubble tea), stopped by a famously cheap baby-stuff store to pick up some baby stuff, and then headed to the (windy) coast for a look:

And then we headed home.

Such is the way our days are going. Late mornings, small excursions to our favorite spots, then home again for chill evenings.

Tomorrow is the lunch, a vaccine shot for Leona, a visit to the company I worked for before giving birth, and then some kind of eats I'm sure.

Day after tomorrow we will head up to an Ergo baby-carrier shop in the late-afternoon as my mom wants to treat me to an Ergo (thanks mum!!) before heading to the airport to drop my mom off in the early evening.

And thus a wonderful visit (my mom's first visit to Taiwan) will come to an end.


.