Finally we had ONE sunny day!!!!

We were out in the Champgne area, drinking Champagne of course! Nice to get away, even though we had a hard time getting up this morning seeing as we got back really late last night....

Hey, one question... I noticed that some of our posts had comments on them and thet look like spam blogs - don't know if that exists, but Oli you may want to check it out...

Have a great week everyone & hopefully it'll finally start getting warmer as we are almost in June!!!!

Ciao, Méli

Hi Everyone,

Another weekend passes and we are getting ready for the week again. Luckily, next weekend is extended to Monday because of Pfingsten. And then it's not very far off that WM 2006 begins, which should be one great party if Germany manages to survive a couple of rounds.

Life at home has become a little bit more stressfull again since Daniel thinks 4 am is a good time for breakfast...since the little toddler is still getting his shakes from Mummy's milk bar, Diana is working overhours.

OK, gotta run since the little "monster" is waking up!

Cheers and a good start of the week!

Oli the Otzman

Carstonian

Hi, I took the privileg of posting Carstens blog since something went wrong when Carsten tried posting it. Here it is:

Hi Everyone,
Just a quick mail from Tokyo.Everything is fine here and so sorry I haven`t blogged earlier.Just came back from Europe (Hamburg+Paris) and have another week here before flying to lovely Nice for a one week Marketing seminar (you may call it something else...).

The kids truely enjoy their kindergarten- and playtime during the week. Plus Yuko started working for Morgan Stanley just a short while ago and thoroughly enjoys her new job/career. As such all the family members are doing fine.

Weekends are reserved for the Sports Club in Yokohama and we started Emily on tennis about a year ago. She`s a "keen" player, spending most of the time at her tennis classes chatting to the other female friends and basically ganging up as the latest version of Charlie`s Angels. Having said that, her double-handed forehand and backhand is pretty good for a 4 year old and dad still hopes she`s a new Sharapova in the making(plus Matti and I would like to retire before the age of 99 that is...).

Just a quick update, my sister now has two boys and they just moved into a new house near Amsterdam. If anyone would like their address etc. please let me know - as I will also have to find it out myself?!?

Hope everyone has a great weekend,

Carsten

Father's Day??

That's odd on a Thursday? We'll also have a holiday tomorrow, but unfortunately I'll be working again on Friday...holding up the fort actually. Then we'll be off to the Champagne area for a weekend with friends who are actually kidnapping Misha as of tonight for us, so we get to lie in tomorrow morning - yeah!!

This weekend (Sunday) will be Mother's Day in France actually, Father's Day isn't until June 18th. Funny how this changes from country to country... in any case all you mommies & daddies get ready for necklaces made of pasta and clay ashtrays!! Misha already handed me his poem and flowers collage - he couldn't wait!

We were actually quite impressed yesterday as he came home with a trophy - for chess!! 2nd place - I don't even know how to play chess!!?? he'll have to teach me.

Well guys, have a good evening and a good day off for those that have one!

Ciao, Méli

Happy Father's Day

Hi Everyone,

Hope you guys and gals are having a good week. Luckily, tomorrow is a public holiday here in Germany so that it's a bearable week for us. It's also Father's Day tomorrow, so all you Daddys -> have a good one and let your kids spoil you :-)

I guess we'll make it a quiet day at home since the weather doesn't look too good for tomorrow.

Have fun everyone and keep in touch!

Cheers,

Oli

The MAN is back!!!!

Hi Everyone,

What a surprise - the MAN is back and keeping in shape. How Do you do it, Matthi? 4 kiddies and a wifey are waiting at home only to jump up and down on you on Saturday morning whilst you have a headache from Stammtisch? I bet you sleep in the guestroom with an "Enter at your own risk"-sign at the door :-)

I have been Strohwitwer for the last 4 days since Diana is off to her mom with the kids. But instead of partying I have been tied to the bed (better: the toilet) with a stomach thingy. Got it from Fabian...it's really interesting to see how everything is kept and shared in the family. Very christian.

This morning I am feeling better though and will see my beloved again. As great as a couple of days without the gang feel, there is something missing here...no noise...no toys lying around...no arguing...man, what would be an adequate challenge in life if we didn't have our kids?? ;-)

OK, have a great Sunday everyone and do some heavy relaxing. We have the Thursday off next week 'cause of Vatertag (Christi Himmelfahrt) so it should be an easy week.

Hasta La Pasta

Oli the Otzman

Congratulations Sean!!!

This is the proud Godmother of course - on his feet before his 1st B'day - Hooray!

Well, I've spent most of the week as a tourist through Paris with my aunt from America and one of her oldest friends - well, they're 2 months apart, 80 years old and have known each other since birth practically, so I guess you can't be much older friedns than that... quite admirable and makes you hope that when we're 80 we'll still have friends with whom you'd travel to the other end of the world with. It has really been a dream come true for my aunt to visit Europe - it's never too late for your dreams!!!

Well, we did Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower - Misha's 1st time to the top too!! He was quite amazed to be able to see the whole city of Paris!

Hopefully today we'll be able to relax a bit, seeing as tomorrow we're due up in the NOrth of France for a firends surprise b'day party.

Have a great weekend everybody!

Méli

Congrats!

Hi Melly & Co.,

Congratulations and welcome to the club of the (27-year-)debtors! It's a good feeling though when you think that after a months rent at least that little brickstone in the basement belongs to you already :-)

We are having a good time too. Fabian is well again - only a little bit weak from the stomach-thing. Or is he just acting in order to be able to watch TV all day??

What's happening with Robbo and Matthi? C'mon guys, let's hear what the Swiss Navy and the Hong Kong Fire Dept. are up to :-)

Love to hear from you guys!

Cheers,

Oli

The BIG day!!

Bonjour!
Well, today's the day we sign for our new appartement!!
Once that's done I'll be off to my parent's place to prepare tonights dinner with my aunt from America who is on her 1st European trip at 80 years old - she's actually never left the States.
I'll be thrilled to show her around Paris and she'll be looking forward to seeing Misha whom she saw the last time when he was 6 months old!
Have a great day everyone...
Méli

Thanks Oli for thinking of us "Moms". In France Mother's Day isn't until the end of the month, but as I was seeing my mom today and she's German, I decided to give her her Mother's Day gift now.
Matti will most probably remember the Bill Cosby stand up comedy tapes we had in HK, well I got her CD versions of some of them. We were just listening to them on the way home in the car and like Matti some 18 years ago, André had a very hard time concentrating on the road he was laughing so much.... some of his routines on kids and pregnancy etc... plus the dentist are so great!!
I don't think we can upload anything else but images onto the blog,otherwise I would post some of them for everyone's enjoyment.
Take care, Méli

p.s. I found out how to change the date & time -when you're typing in your blog open up 'Post and Comment Options' in the bottom left hand corner.... the only thing is you need to change each I time I guess.

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY

Hi Everyone and especially our female Bloggers,

Wishing you all a great Mother's Day and hoping that you are being spoiled today by your spouses.

We are also having a great weekend although I had to visit the emergency-ward with Fabian on Saturday due to some stomach-problems...

Nevertheless, today is looking better in every aspect and even Diana is happy with the way Mother's Day turned out for her (the more kids, the more presents :-).

Hope to hear from ya all sometime next week.

Cheers,

Oli the Otzman

Hope everybody is having a good weekend... it looks like vereybody is busy, as there are no posts since mine last Thursday.
We're off to Disneyland today - Misha can't wait since the new Buzz Lightyear attraction opened last month :)
For those of you in a time zone where Sunday is still ahead have a good one, and for those where Sunday has almost come & gone, good luck for tomorrow morning....
bisous, Méli

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CARSTEN!!!!

Oli - I will pass on your wishes, as I'll be meeting Carsten later when I pick up Misha from kindergarden.

We'll be having a drink at my parents, who kindly offered to keep Misha for us whilst we then go out to dinner. For those of you who have been to visit Paris, you may remember the "Entrecôte" at the Porte Maillot with that special secret sauce and the great fries... well, that's where we'll be!

Carsten did mention he's been busy with meetings and travelling, but will check out the blog when he's back!

Take care, Méli

Hi Everyone and especially Melly :-)

Please give Carsten my best wishes for his Birthday when you see him today. He tried to call me the other day when he was in Hamburg, but I couldn't get a hold of him. Buy him a beer on me and tell him some dirty jokes like in the good ol' times. Can't think of any? Ok, then just talk to him about the good ol' times :-)

Cheers and have a lovely day!

Oli the Otzman

Hi Everyone,

Let me try to find a colour too like Melly so that we get some creative elements into this blog :-)

I spoke to Sabbi yesterday - we figured that it is time for another reunion either next year (20th anniversary of the class of 87) or in 2008. What do you all think? Obviously we have to wait for Harald to get back to HK for his feedback - Mr. Organizer :-)

As Sabbi and I noticed yesterday, if you have someone that would like to join this blog, I will have to invite him by e-mail...Sabbi nearly went bananas 'cause it wasn't the case with her and she couldn't blog. I am glad we figured that one out.

OK, take care everyone and talk to you later,

Oli the Otzman

I noticed that thing about the time too, but haven't been able to figure out how to adjust it. I was very happy to find how to switch the site over to English, cos, very sorry, but my German is lacking more & more... If anyone figures out how to adjeust the time, or at least tell us what timezone we're in that would be cool.

Méli

p.s. Hi Sabbi nice to hear from you!

Bonsoir everybody,

Hope you all had a great weekend. The weather turned out to be much better than originally announced, so we spent most of today in the garden, Misha playing baseball...

The highlight of our weekend though has to be yesterday early afternoon, when the real estate agent we visited an apartment with called to oanounce that she had bad news, and that we were going to be neighbours... The appartemnt she showed us is actually opposite hers, and the people came back with a positive response to our second offer - hurray!!!!

We will now be spending the next 20 years of our life in debt, but we'll have a new home sweet home of our own. It's a 92 m² 3 bedroom apartment in a town 20 mins South-West of Paris (St Germain en Laye). As the whole paper work takes its course, we should be able to move in July/August, so perfect timing for Misha to start school there in the Fall!

Hopefully you'll be able to visit sometime, and we'll definitely have some sort of "guest room" or at least a sofa bed....

I'll be off the bed now, and my IKEA catalogue is waiting for me to bookmark all what we'll need in the new place....

Take care, Méli

Hi Everyone,

Hey, we are really gaining momentum here :-)

First things first....for everyon that cares more about soccer than a sack of rice falling down in China: Bayern München (surprise, surprise) are Meister again and Eintracht Frankfurt is staying in the 1. Bundesliga. Ever since Fabian has become a soccer-maniac we are watching Sportschau every Saturday. Funny, how your kids influence you...shouldn't it be the other way around? :-)

Apart from that we are enjoying a gorgeous Sunday which makes me want to be french for the first time, since Monday is off for the "Melly Folks".

Thanks everyone for contributing to the blog - love to hear how your kids and spouses are....ok, Matthi can skip this one because 4 kids and 2 fingers for typing sounds like loooooong hours ;-)

Cheers and until later!

Oli the otzman

PS: One mor pic of Daniel...I could just cuddle this cutie all day...

I LOVE the bug & the windshield... I'd never heard it before and it translates perfectly into French too...
We've had great weather all week, but of course they're anouncing thunderstorms for tomorrow - just our luck!
None the less we have some friends coming over and are planning a barbeque even if it means the electric bbq indoors. We get another 3-day weekend in France thanks to Victory in 1945 on the 8th of May.

à bientôt!!!


p.s. for any of you FRIENDS fans... Happy Birthday to Rachel !!! (according to one of the episodes May 5th is Rachel Green's birthday - not Jennifer Aniston's, Rcahel's)

Hey Guys & Gals!

Have a great and relaxing weekend everyone! If you are in Europe then enjoy the sunny weather! I'm off to a seminar until Saturday afternoon which is quite a bummer but what can I say...sometimes you're the bug and sometimes the windshield :-)

Talk to all of you later and let's see whether we can get some more posts over the weekend.

Cheers,

Oli the Otzman

That's what I am doing right now :-)

Didn't you say something about snow in Cologne not too long ago? It's sunny and 26°C right now in Frankfurt...Spring (or better: Summer) is finally hitting Germany!

Ok, gotta run off home to bring Fabian and Daniel to bed. Talk to all of you later!

PS: What's happening to Matthi and Carsten? I vote for Matthi being allowed to type in CAPITALS :-)

Cheers,

Oli the Otzman

Just testing...

Potentially I could blog from work on a quiet day!
Hope you're all having a good one....

Yes, Cartsen's birthday is the 11th. For those who rememebr Ralph Gäntgen who was at the reunion, his is on the 9th!

It does take ages to upload which is why I thought it wasn't working... patience is the key!

I guess working with and for Mickey is quite magical, but trust me - it's hard work at times too... If ever you guys want to bring your kids over to Disneyland Paris, let me know and we can try and arrange something....

6:30 am... time to get ready for work

Have a great day everyone!

Hey Meli,

Horrendously cool figuring out the way to upload pics....let's see if it works for me too....yup, but it takes a darn long time for the upload. Tried finding a picture of myself without the dark rings under my eyes but you have to wait for that a few more weeks :-)

So, Melly, hanging around in Barcelona is called "work" hey? :-))

Cheers,

Oli the Otzman

PS: You're looking really cool there with MM
PSS: When is Carstonians BDay again? May 11?

Hey, it worked!!!

I can't get Misha's picture uploaded, maybe too big... I'll keep trying. In the meantime here's me with Mickey last week in Barcelona!

Hi Guys,
Well here's to a weekend of vegging out... the weather hasn't been great at all here unfortunately, but then again my aunt rang from Köln yesterday and said they had snow!!! it's all relative....
Can you tell me if my 1st message comes up at your end as there's a sign next to it here...not sure if I need to do anything else to finalise the publishing process.
Just spent last week in Barcelona organising a Store Managers Conference for Spain, Italy & France. The weather there was great, but of course I was more busy working than sitting around in the sun. Seeing as next Monday is another holiday here we'll have another 3-day weekend to look forward to.
I'll attach a picture of Misha - it's not that recent, but I need to get a new camera to take new ones... (actually not so sure this is working....)
à bientôt...
Méli

p.s. Oli, say hi to Harry if you hear from him again.

Good call about Matthi there, Robbo!

:-)

Hey Robbo,

not sure it's possible to get pics up in this blog but once you have found out, please share the secret :-)

Apart from that we enjoyed a great day off today - you never know how long they will keep May 1st as a public holiday...By the way - Harry just e-mailed me to say that he is in Europe and that he will get into the blog once back in HK.

So, what else is new? Eintracht Frankfurt lost the DFB-Pokal Final against Bayern Munich...a black day in history :-)

Catch up with you later - enjoy the rest of the day off everyone!

Oli the Otzman