The kids have been in school for a few weeks now. After the initial shock of "I bought school supplies at the end of the year, and I still need what???", they are settled into a routine. V loves being a big kid in 7th grade and loves all the freedom that comes with it. He made the off-season basketball class and was so proud. With Orchestra, basketball at Legends and Algebra - he is pretty tied up. He handles it like a champ - I am an extremely proud mom!
S is back to the same attitude of "I love school, but I don't like school". He is also busy between Legends basketball, mathnasium and schoolwork. One smart, smart cookie that doesn't apply himself to his fullest potential. He keeps me hopping, that's for sure!
B has been pretty busy with his new job, travels quite a bit. When he is in town, his schedule is pretty grueling. We look forward to weekends when we can spend a little time with him.
Myself, you ask? Just trying to keep my head above water getting these kiddos to keep on moving... Still crazy, I don't think there's any hope for me :-)
I am definitely going to try to keep this up - I have missed the blog and am ready for more - chat soon!
S
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Monday, March 29, 2010
New Beginnings...
So, I realize it's almost been a year since any post whatsoever.
I've changed the name of the blog and am ready to start again :-)
In a nutshell, after moving back from Singapore - I think I felt a little displaced. It was odd to have experienced this amazing place that we LOVED so much and be yanked from there so quickly. When we got back and finally got back in to the swing of things, it was almost as if we had never left. Don't get me wrong - with only being gone a year - it was very easy for the kids to assimilate back into their routines, and that was a blessing.
And even though we were gone for such a short time, we thought we were going to be over there longer - so we sold EVERYTHING - down to the electric can opener. We're still replacing things :-)
But, we are settled and happy - I had missed my friends and family terribly. And we are happy for the new friends we are making along the way.
Enjoy!
S
I've changed the name of the blog and am ready to start again :-)
In a nutshell, after moving back from Singapore - I think I felt a little displaced. It was odd to have experienced this amazing place that we LOVED so much and be yanked from there so quickly. When we got back and finally got back in to the swing of things, it was almost as if we had never left. Don't get me wrong - with only being gone a year - it was very easy for the kids to assimilate back into their routines, and that was a blessing.
And even though we were gone for such a short time, we thought we were going to be over there longer - so we sold EVERYTHING - down to the electric can opener. We're still replacing things :-)
But, we are settled and happy - I had missed my friends and family terribly. And we are happy for the new friends we are making along the way.
Enjoy!
S
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Random thought of the day...
This one is courtesy of an email my dad sent me...
"If Wile E. Coyote had enough money to buy all that ACME crap, why didn't he just BUY dinner?"
;-)
"If Wile E. Coyote had enough money to buy all that ACME crap, why didn't he just BUY dinner?"
;-)
Monday, May 18, 2009
Monday, May 11, 2009
So much for hopping the pond...
Well, as many of you already know - we have been called back to the US. So 10 very short months later, we are in the midst of moving madness... AGAIN...
It's a wonderful opportunity for B - I couldn't be prouder. He has worked tirelessly. His loyalty and commitment to this company is evident - and he is being graciously rewarded.
We are going to miss this place. I am going to miss the beauty, the cleanliness, the people we have met and haven't nearly gotten enough time to know. I am going to miss the quality of education the kids are getting here, how V struggled so much at first and has flourished over the last 2 months - right before our eyes. I am going to miss the traveling - how convenient it is to get to other countries from here. I am going to miss Little India and Chinatown - where I could spend everyday if I had the time.
I have no worries about our move - we are going back to the same area, same town. The kids will be fine wherever we land - they had this amazing experience for a year and I hope they won't ever forget it.
What I do worry about is that we will come back and feel as if we "fit" or "belong" here better. I can't describe the feeling of being culturally connected to our heritage. It's all around us, you can't escape it - it's "home". From the food to the spices to the BAD B.O. ;-)to the haggling over prices... it's familiar, comfortable.
I will take Singapore back to the US with me - and I hope to give a little bit of it to all of my friends and family that I have missed SO much.
It's a wonderful opportunity for B - I couldn't be prouder. He has worked tirelessly. His loyalty and commitment to this company is evident - and he is being graciously rewarded.
We are going to miss this place. I am going to miss the beauty, the cleanliness, the people we have met and haven't nearly gotten enough time to know. I am going to miss the quality of education the kids are getting here, how V struggled so much at first and has flourished over the last 2 months - right before our eyes. I am going to miss the traveling - how convenient it is to get to other countries from here. I am going to miss Little India and Chinatown - where I could spend everyday if I had the time.
I have no worries about our move - we are going back to the same area, same town. The kids will be fine wherever we land - they had this amazing experience for a year and I hope they won't ever forget it.
What I do worry about is that we will come back and feel as if we "fit" or "belong" here better. I can't describe the feeling of being culturally connected to our heritage. It's all around us, you can't escape it - it's "home". From the food to the spices to the BAD B.O. ;-)to the haggling over prices... it's familiar, comfortable.
I will take Singapore back to the US with me - and I hope to give a little bit of it to all of my friends and family that I have missed SO much.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
National Organ Donor Awareness Month
Okay - So every April, I get on my high horse about organ donation. I understand how personal the choice is, in fact, before having to live with the possibility of having it creep into our lives, I am not so sure how I felt about it myself.
First, a few facts:
Organ Demands
Each year 20,000 people receive organ transplants. This figure is only 25% of the 94,000 people in need of an organ.
Everyday around 17 people die while waiting for a transplant of a vital organ.
The Waiting List
Nearly 4,000 new patients are added to the waiting list every month.
The Potential Donor
You can choose to donate one or more of the following organs: kidneys, heart, liver, lung, pancreas, intestines, cornea, skin, bones and/or bone marrow.
The heart is the only organ that cannot come from a living donor.
There is no age limit for organ donation.
The few absolute exclusions are those who are HIV+, have active cancer or systemic infection.
Statistics
Less than 30% of the population has signed a donor card or has discussed organ donation with their family.
One organ or tissue donor has the potential to save 50 lives.
Common Misconceptions
Organ donation happens only after the patient is declared brain dead. The law clearly states that the doctor who pronounced brain death must have nothing to do with the removal or transplantation of organs.
After organ removal, the body does not become disfigured.
Second, the pitch:
I know that there are so many reasons NOT to become an organ donor, but in my life there in one MAJOR reason that is behind my reason TO be one.
My son.
He never asked to be born with liver disease. There is no defining reason why he even has it. It's a "fluke". All I know is that he has been through so much in his short life and I'd like to hope that when he ventures down the path of transplantation, someone thought enough of children like him to make that decision. I know I have.
No, we cannot guarantee who our organs go to. But we can pray that our decision changes someones LIFE for the better - that they actually get to LIVE.
If you haven't already - PLEASE consider giving the gift of life.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Resort-style vacation, I think...
The kids are on Spring Break this week - Yeah!
With B being EXTREMELY busy - we decided to take off on a very short trip to Bintan, Indonesia to hit the beach. The kids and I were very excited because this was to be our first "true" beach vacation. I loved going to the beach as a kid and I was sure that my water monkeys were going to love it as much as I did.
Bintan is a short 1-hour ride from Singapore by ferry. We left the house at 9am to catch an 11am ferry. It was really neat to travel by boat - very easy and convenient. It was also pretty special to see so many of the cargo ships that pass through the Straits up close and personal.
We arrive in Bintan, no hitches. In fact, as we are getting through immigration, I see someone I had met once at the kids school at baggage claim. It turns out that she and her family are going to the same resort that we are. Since she also has a 8 yr old boy, we decide to try to meet up while we are there.
We get to the hotel and it is really pretty.
It is 12pm local time and the hotel tells us that check-in is not until 3pm. They did say that our room would probably be ready early, so we decided to walk over to the golf club for some lunch and then head back. It was quite a steamy day and after eating in the open air, we were starting to feel a bit wiped.
We get back to the hotel and find that our room is still not ready - so we hunker down for the duration. We were guaranteed a room at 3pm, so when our room was no ready then, the staff started to scurry a little in order to get us settled. What we didn't know was that they put us in a room that had not been used in a while. The aircon was streaming water, leaving a large puddle of water on the floor. The toilet was running constantly - and our so-called "private" terrace had no fence at all. (Although all the other rooms around us had one). There were no towels, soap, or iron in the room. After bothering the poor man cleaning some of the other rooms around us about a thousand times and after engineering came and fixed the toilet and the aircon, we decided to unpack a few things and go down to the beach. As we leave out our back patio, something large with a 3 foot tail, hightails it into a foot-wide hole about 5 feet from our back door. Ummmmmm....
The beach was clean, the South China Sea clear - we really enjoyed ourselves. The kids were just in awe of the waves and eventually found themselves wanting to go in deeper and deeper until I had to pull them back. It was a lovely evening and we decided to go wash off in the pool. So back to the room we go to get the goggles. The back door does not work because the lock is jammed from the outside, so we have to walk around the side to get back to our room. We get inside and...
The aircon has started to leak again. I bend down to the bag and drop one of the goggles so that it has scooted slightly under the bed - when I pull it out, part of it is covered with cigarette ash. B tells me to take the kids to the pool and he will meet me there after getting engineering to come to fix the aircon again.
He finally comes to meet us there and tells us that we need to get back to the room to pack, he got the hotel to switch us to another newly renovated room.
It's all the way on the other side of the resort and by this time it is also 8pm and we have not had dinner. The lizards and the beetles are out in full force and one decides to dive-bomb right into the front of my bathing suit. As I scream and drop EVERYTHING I am carrying, I freak the kids out enough that S is frozen in his footsteps. I finally manage to extract the beetle (the size of my big toe) and we make a beeline for the room. After we get into the room and shoo out 2 more beetles, S is finally calming down, I am nursing my wounds, V is starved and B is trying to figure out how much we would have to pay to change our ferry reservation to leave the next day. Each room carries a can of bug spray in it - if that shouldn't have told us anything. We notice that our lock doesn't work on the door and the safe will not close - we again wait for engineering to come and help us out.
We decide to tough it out and B sprays the opening for all the rooms with bug spray. We order room service and settle in for the night - although by this point none of us are feeling the least bit "settled".
The next morning, we wake up and get ready for breakfast when B says "I don't have my glasses on, can you come tell me what this is on your slippers?"
OMG, OMG, OMG... It's some sort of reddish brown millipede looking thing that is about 1 inch fat and 8 inches long. We DOUSE it with bug spray and B gets it out of the room. We never showed the kids - which probably was a good thing. We navigated through the dead and slightly alive beetles (the lizards had gone home for the day) and get breakfast. By the time we venture back to the room, the staff has done an amazing job of sweeping up the beetles.
We take the resort bus to a little place called Pasar Ole Ole to do a little local souvenier shopping. Hot day - but it was nice overall.
We had another amazing day on the beach and saw the people that we knew. We decided to meet for dinner at their villa. We had a great time at their place and came indoors when the beetles and lizards started coming out again.
We left feeling as if we had made some wonderful new friends and braced ourselves to get back to the room through, as B put it, "National Geographic". S freaked out again and I carried him half way to our room - but I seemed to think it was much easier that time back. No issues that night with critters.
The next morning we pack, relax (it's raining cats and dogs), and get ready to check out to go home. We have major issues with our bill and decide that although we truly had a good time - our relaxing vacation didn't turn out to be so relaxing. Although I hope we will go back to Bintan, we will never stay at that hotel again and have decided to write the manager.
All in all, we are HAPPY to be back home and spend the rest of the week here in Singapore. If you ever plan a trip to Bintan - we can definitely tell you where NOT to stay ;-)
With B being EXTREMELY busy - we decided to take off on a very short trip to Bintan, Indonesia to hit the beach. The kids and I were very excited because this was to be our first "true" beach vacation. I loved going to the beach as a kid and I was sure that my water monkeys were going to love it as much as I did.
Bintan is a short 1-hour ride from Singapore by ferry. We left the house at 9am to catch an 11am ferry. It was really neat to travel by boat - very easy and convenient. It was also pretty special to see so many of the cargo ships that pass through the Straits up close and personal.
We arrive in Bintan, no hitches. In fact, as we are getting through immigration, I see someone I had met once at the kids school at baggage claim. It turns out that she and her family are going to the same resort that we are. Since she also has a 8 yr old boy, we decide to try to meet up while we are there.
We get to the hotel and it is really pretty.
It is 12pm local time and the hotel tells us that check-in is not until 3pm. They did say that our room would probably be ready early, so we decided to walk over to the golf club for some lunch and then head back. It was quite a steamy day and after eating in the open air, we were starting to feel a bit wiped.
We get back to the hotel and find that our room is still not ready - so we hunker down for the duration. We were guaranteed a room at 3pm, so when our room was no ready then, the staff started to scurry a little in order to get us settled. What we didn't know was that they put us in a room that had not been used in a while. The aircon was streaming water, leaving a large puddle of water on the floor. The toilet was running constantly - and our so-called "private" terrace had no fence at all. (Although all the other rooms around us had one). There were no towels, soap, or iron in the room. After bothering the poor man cleaning some of the other rooms around us about a thousand times and after engineering came and fixed the toilet and the aircon, we decided to unpack a few things and go down to the beach. As we leave out our back patio, something large with a 3 foot tail, hightails it into a foot-wide hole about 5 feet from our back door. Ummmmmm....
The beach was clean, the South China Sea clear - we really enjoyed ourselves. The kids were just in awe of the waves and eventually found themselves wanting to go in deeper and deeper until I had to pull them back. It was a lovely evening and we decided to go wash off in the pool. So back to the room we go to get the goggles. The back door does not work because the lock is jammed from the outside, so we have to walk around the side to get back to our room. We get inside and...
The aircon has started to leak again. I bend down to the bag and drop one of the goggles so that it has scooted slightly under the bed - when I pull it out, part of it is covered with cigarette ash. B tells me to take the kids to the pool and he will meet me there after getting engineering to come to fix the aircon again.
He finally comes to meet us there and tells us that we need to get back to the room to pack, he got the hotel to switch us to another newly renovated room.
It's all the way on the other side of the resort and by this time it is also 8pm and we have not had dinner. The lizards and the beetles are out in full force and one decides to dive-bomb right into the front of my bathing suit. As I scream and drop EVERYTHING I am carrying, I freak the kids out enough that S is frozen in his footsteps. I finally manage to extract the beetle (the size of my big toe) and we make a beeline for the room. After we get into the room and shoo out 2 more beetles, S is finally calming down, I am nursing my wounds, V is starved and B is trying to figure out how much we would have to pay to change our ferry reservation to leave the next day. Each room carries a can of bug spray in it - if that shouldn't have told us anything. We notice that our lock doesn't work on the door and the safe will not close - we again wait for engineering to come and help us out.
We decide to tough it out and B sprays the opening for all the rooms with bug spray. We order room service and settle in for the night - although by this point none of us are feeling the least bit "settled".
The next morning, we wake up and get ready for breakfast when B says "I don't have my glasses on, can you come tell me what this is on your slippers?"
OMG, OMG, OMG... It's some sort of reddish brown millipede looking thing that is about 1 inch fat and 8 inches long. We DOUSE it with bug spray and B gets it out of the room. We never showed the kids - which probably was a good thing. We navigated through the dead and slightly alive beetles (the lizards had gone home for the day) and get breakfast. By the time we venture back to the room, the staff has done an amazing job of sweeping up the beetles.
We take the resort bus to a little place called Pasar Ole Ole to do a little local souvenier shopping. Hot day - but it was nice overall.
We had another amazing day on the beach and saw the people that we knew. We decided to meet for dinner at their villa. We had a great time at their place and came indoors when the beetles and lizards started coming out again.
We left feeling as if we had made some wonderful new friends and braced ourselves to get back to the room through, as B put it, "National Geographic". S freaked out again and I carried him half way to our room - but I seemed to think it was much easier that time back. No issues that night with critters.
The next morning we pack, relax (it's raining cats and dogs), and get ready to check out to go home. We have major issues with our bill and decide that although we truly had a good time - our relaxing vacation didn't turn out to be so relaxing. Although I hope we will go back to Bintan, we will never stay at that hotel again and have decided to write the manager.
All in all, we are HAPPY to be back home and spend the rest of the week here in Singapore. If you ever plan a trip to Bintan - we can definitely tell you where NOT to stay ;-)
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