Happy 2024!

Happy 2024! 2023 is the first year that we haven’t managed a physical Christmas card. This is because it has been a very quick and a very long year, and we’ve finally been overwhelmed by juggling life and four kids. It never stops, but we are getting better year-on-year at managing.

At the start of 2023, Chinese New Year again coincided with the boys’ birthday, we took the chance to organize a low-key outdoor picnic at a park to introduce new classmates. They are in two different classes at the same school, and have 60 classmates in total, but as the first to have birthdays in Primary 1, most of the children, siblings and parents turned up for giant bubble wands and coffee, that we had deliberately planned as a Sunday breakfast.

In March, the financial markets continued to fall apart with the Credit Suisse bonds debacle and neither the equity nor sustainability investing markets were spared. Work changes have shadowed the markets and we look forward with humility to opportunity and progress in the new year. At home, things were thankfully more peaceful as the boys settled into primary school.

We did initially receive multiple calls from both boys’ teachers. Both boys were beyond happy to receive an allowance, Wes used it to commission classmates to queue up for him at different food stalls so he could eat a diverse meal each day, occasionally forgetting whom he had asked to buy what. When we mentioned this to him, he asked if the teacher had told me that he reimburses his classmates for the food. While this was a creative solution to his problem, he was discouraged from such exchanges of money and potential miscommunication. He grudgingly agreed to desist, but also declined to pack a second lunch from home, “but it’s cold!”, as he would still like to rotate his chicken rice, prata and wanton mee.

Paxton’s teacher called to tell us that he gets bored in class but cannot spontaneously lie himself down on the floor to sleep. He is 155cm tall, has outgrown three shoe sizes this year and now wears a men’s size 5. This is a problem as he can’t quite tie shoelaces.

Juniper and Rowan continue to be absolutely adorable. Pippi has also shot up this year, she is both extremely bossy and clever and has begun learning to read, so she has stopped lying in wait to trap visitors with a stack of her favourite books (the top spot goes to Godma Lisa at 6 books read in a row). She has trained her siblings to call her Woofy the Dog. Roro is the ultimate princessy, clumsy and stubborn little girl, with a fantastically sly sense of humour. She still pronounces L as Y, U as N and loves nothing better than to parade around in rainbow Nunicorn dresses, asking people to Yook, Yook at her Yipstick.

In June, we roadtripped through the UK to Scotland- our first trip as a family of 6. Travelling with 4 children with no help was arduous but to know that we can, is wonderful. We realized that being very self-sufficient as twins, the boys are very responsible to each other, but do need reminding to care and sacrifice for their sisters.

It was also a good lesson in how we have so much to learn about our girls, whom we can’t pre-empt the way we do the boys. They were incredibly resilient, with Rowan being our star traveller. Unlike Pips who appreciates natural order, Rowan does not get any jet lag, can sleep anytime and anywhere, eats little, sings and dances to herself and is always cheerful. She said, “I love travelling with mummy and daddy. I even love going from house to house, to house, to house…”

Although it was lots of cooking, referee-ing and laundry, watching the four of them interact and converse is a dream come true. There were many trip highlights and happy memories, especially meeting our friends for Giffords Circus, staying at an airbnb that turned out to be the converted stables of an expansive and fancy gentried estate in the beautiful Peak District, visiting with the clan family while staying in the grounds of the Monzie Castle, and taking a sea ferry across to the Isle of Arran.

We welcomed many college and childhood friends over summer reunions, as global travel continued to resume. It was good to see everyone again. In September, we took a trip to Shanghai, the first time back in China in half a decade, to visit the boys’ beloved XiaoChun LaoShi who has started her own school near Shanghai.

The changes (and unchanged) in China were startling. The boys loved the food, culture and e-bikes, they look forward to returning to school each year during their holidays. On the way back, Weylin was stuck on the tarmac for 10 hours on a grounded SQ plane with intermittent power before take-off (thankfully she was by herself), and made the news.

We adopted Henny Penny and her 7 chicks, Typhoon, Valentine, Percy the Peacock, Ronald Wesley (blonde) Sirius, Severus (both black) and Albus (brown). While we were completely wrong about their genders, the hens have now, to the children’s delight, started laying eggs. Henny Penny has a specific, triumphant ‘egg call’ which they have learned to listen out for. The whole process of egg farming resonated with human fertility and is much more complex than we thought.

In October, Weylin had the opportunity to moderate panels on transition and sustainability investing as part of internal and external work forums. She enjoyed meeting the great and the good at a large-scale event held at an iconic power plant, although it did also rain inside the building halfway through the day.

Weylin has reached 10 years of health and is officially off monitoring, which is both unbelievable and terrifying. Our new year resolution is now to deal with the issues that have crept up- lose weight, exercise and sleep more consistently, in a bid to better manage the germs from the office place. Uncle Sonny has also started travelling again post-Covid in this past year; we are very grateful for the continued overall health of our parents, and their help with the grandchildren.

In November, Wes did the costing and baking of 30 pumpkin pies to raise funds, half of which will go toward sponsoring his birthday lunch with a group of migrant workers under the It’s Raining Raincoats program. Pezzy is convincing him that the second half should be spent on a microscope that Pezzy wants. Wes is trying to make it through all the Roald Dahl books by the year-end, while Pezzy is trying to complete assembling a hydraulic hand.

In December, we had a year-end road trip to ski then hike in San Diego. To our surprise given her anxieties, Pips is a phenomenal skiier at 4 and the girls showed us that they can do what the boys can, at a year younger! Weylin watched Netflix for the first time in 2 years while the kids were on the slopes. We hope at some point to visit more adventurous areas like Turkey or Morroco and are looking forward to a friend’s wedding in France next year. A privilege of the season was that everyone we met up with on the trip have been in our lives for almost 20 years.

The boys will start in Primary 2 in January and the girls will move schools for kindergarten, after their previous pre-school raised fees multiple times. If we have not seen you recently, we hope very much to catch up soon and include you in our prayers for good health, the ability to serve and deep contentment in the New Year. We wish you every joy and success in 2024!

Love, Weylin, Ignatius, Wesley, Paxton, Juniper and Rowan

Favourite shows/books/podcasts:

Zhan: Deep Dive with Ali Abdaal, The Hot Ones, In Time

Wey: Only Murders In the Building

Wes: Harry Potter, Matilda, Super Mario, Journey to the West

Pax: Forged in Fire, Top Gun: Maverick, The Grinch who Stole Christmas

Pippi: Bluey, The Tiger who Came to Tea, 小薇, 鸭子

Roro: Peppa Pig