Tag Archives: hapa

Our cute son

Nathan’s 6th Birthday

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Just wow, our tiny little Churchill is now six years old already! That little man will start with elementary school in August, something I have never really thought much about. All the time he was just our little one who goes to kindergarten and now he is so old already. His birthday we celebrated only with the family, taking him earlier out of kindergarten so he could enjoy his special day more. We had some cake, went out for dinner with the kids and of course he got his presents. The “party” with his friends will be next Sunday as another girl in his group has her birthday on the very same day as Nathan so we wanted to split up the parties as some kids are invited to both celebrations. As you can see from the Instagram picture Nathan got a crown at kindergarten full with Minecraft characters. He really loves the game, even though he hasn’t played it untill yesterday (was a present from us for his Nintendo Switch)

So what will be ahead for him and us now? In kindergarten he has his pre-school lessons in preparation for the school time, we send him every Sunday to Mandarin lessons in another city (on hold right now as the Chinese teachers are afraid of the coronavirus) and of course his standard Taekwondo practice twice a week. Right now it is not so different for us but once he starts with school our entire schedule has to be set anew. Kindergarten and school have different starting hours (so one of us has to bring Nathan to school and afterwards Nathalie to kindergarten). However bringing little Nathan to school (by walk) will be only for the first few weeks till he feels safe and sure enough to do it on his own. Back when I went to the very same elementary school we were allowed to go by bicycle starting grade 2 however regulations changed here in Germany and they have to walk until the reach the fourth grade. Oh well, but at least he will have enough fresh air by walking each day as we won’t be those helicopter parents driving their kids to the front gate of the school. What I have to witness every day at kindergarten is already insane with all the cars blocking the streets. Seems that many parents think that their children can’t manage anything on their own anymore these days!

Why the kids grow up so fast?

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Our cute daughter, Our cute son

Nathan’s 5th Birthday

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Time really flies so fast as we had Nathan’s 5th birthday already! That little boy who looked like Churchill in his first month grew into a little devil in such short time. Today we invited some of his friends from kindergarten to celebrate at our place and it was the first time for us to do so. We had first planned that Nathan gets invited to some birthday party and then invite those kids to his celebration but he was never invited in the 1 1/2 years he is in kindergarten. So we had to rethink our plan and let him just chose some kids he likes the most.

Playing some games

Thus far we had only celebrated his 1st birthday with some friends and family but that one didn’t really count as Nathan has zero memories of that time. Now he was all excited the entire week and it was so hard to get him to bed each evening as he was looking forward to his birthday. All the previous years it was just like any other day for him as he did not really understand what a birthday is. My wife did once again all the planning and organising for this event and she really invested a lot of time into it.

Weeks before the birthday she ordered all the decoration and the theme she planned for was Paw Patrol. Nathan is just like most other kids a huge fan of that show. As the whole Paw Patrol thing is rather huge it was not hard to find the proper decoration for the party. Now what was hard was to get the apartment ready for the birthday. We basically cleaned and decorated for two days untill everything was ready just minutes before the kids arrived. I think nothing can prepare you for the madness of having so many kids in your place. Nothing broke or anything like that but it is just crazy when all the kids are running around, screaming and trying their football skills in the kitchen.

Destroying together the Lego Ninjago City

Yes we are dead exhausted now but it was worth it as Nathan had tons of fun and the kids also were happy. No matter how deadly such event is for the parents it is still worth it when seeing all those beaming faces. Nathalie also had a lot of fun but she was a bit in the way for the other kids as she is a tad bit too young so I brought her downstairs to her grandparents. Haruki the Shiba was not fond at all of the crazy kids and the noise so I had to evacuate him to my parents as well.

 

How did you celebrate as a kid or how did you plan your kid’s birthday parties?

Be sure to follow me also on Facebook and on Twitter as I will post there occasionally pictures which do not find their way into my blog posts. Furthermore there is also my Instagram account in which from time to time some pictures and short videos might pop up.

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Crazy Family, Crazy Germans, Travels

Too many Passports in the Family

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A couple of years ago I had a little blog post about the various passports in our family. Back then I thought it was rather amusing to have so many different ones but by now I have changed my mind.

I have both the Finnish and the German nationality and this also applies to both kids Nathan and Nathalie. They got both nationalities due to jus sanguinis which is applied both in Germany and in Finland. I on the other hand have both nationalities as my father is German and my mother in Finnish. But as my wife is Chinese and maintains her Chinese passport both kids are by Chinese law also Chinese citizens. However as China does not recognize dual citizenship they are per se really Chinese. Some smart people in some higher ranks in China probably realized that this is not such a great idea to just say no to such interracial kids and thus they soften the regulations and voila the Chinese travel document was created. At the beginning it was only valid for two years but by now (at least according to our embassy visit in 2018) our kids can (re)apply for it untill they are turn 18.

Just a few of the passports in our collection by now

Alright so we got now actually three Nationalities for the kids (kind of three, more like 2 1/2 right now with the travel document). This all sounds pretty nice to have especially when traveling as the Finnish and the German Passport belong to the most powerful ones in some rankings. It basically means that they have one of the most visa free travel rights around the globe. Really great isn’t it? Well that is till you actually travel somewhere as a family. No we do not take all the passports with us as that would be just madness. But alone for the two kids we need to have already 4 Passports with us! Especially when we are at the check-in/ luggage drop at the airport things can get a bit messy. For example last year in Japan (Osaka) the check-in took nearly an entire hour for us as the staff was just too confused with all the documents we had with us. To make it even worse for the staff we had not checked beforehand which passports we took with us. This means that Nathan and Nathalie had both their German passport and the Chinese travel document with them. But what was so confusing for the staff was the fact that I had only my Finnish passport with me and they could not quiet understand how the kids can have the German passport but non of the parents have one!

What is my nationality?

For this years’ trip to China (and perhaps Thailand) we will make sure to take the “proper” passports with us. Meaning that the kids and I have all the German papers with us in order to not overly confuse any staff at the airports. Besides this year my father won’t be coming with us so there will be one less passport to handle. I never imagined back in the day that the whole passport matter could cause trouble at the airports. I did started to realize it first time when applying two years ago for a Visa for China here in Germany and I brought only my Finnish Passport along. Oh what trouble that was as I had to bring a paper from my hometown stating that I am a registered foreigner even though I am actually German but just could not prove it at the Visa Center.

Did ever run into any troubles at an airport?

Be sure to follow me also on Facebook and on Twitter as I will post there occasionally pictures which do not find their way into my blog posts. Furthermore there is also my Instagram account in which from time to time some pictures and short videos might pop up.

https://www.facebook.com/CrazyChineseFamily

https://twitter.com/CraChineseFam

https://www.instagram.com/Crazychinesefamily