SNAKES!!!

The following message was posted on our neighborhood message board today...
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Dear Neighbors

Last night at 11:30pm, an 8ft long python snake made its way into our garden! Thankfully one of our neighbors that happened to be out walking saw it and called the police and notify us. We kept vigil for a couple of hours until a special police came to retrive the snake. Apparently a few months ago a python was also seen at another neighbors house. This could be the same one and hopefully the danger is out for now. The snake was taken to the zoo.

It would be wise to make sure you check your gutteres, dense folliage and children outdoor toys every so often to make sure you don't have unwanted and "dangerous guests" in your yard, which could be a common thing here. After 16 years in Singapore, I guess it was our time to get a visit !!

Cheers,
Maria Bassiri
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Welcome to the JUNGLE!!! I PROMISE that there will not be ANY python's around when people come to visit us...I will check the whole entire place over!!!!

Twins 6th Birthday Party

Today I took cupcakes into school for the twins' 6th birthday party. The teacher's were kind enough to join the two classes together so that I could attend both parties at the same time.

The Birthday Boy and Girl
Blowing out the candles on the cupcakes. I ordered two seperate kinds of cupcakes - chocolate for Kenton's class and strawberry for Kaitlyn's class. Since we combined the classes all the girls were able to have pink and the boys were able to have chocolate. The lady who made them for me put chocolate lady bugs on Kenton's along with silver balls and put an edible Happy Birthday sign and hot pink sprinkles on Kaitlyn's. They were WONDERFUL:)
Here ate the two classes combined waiting for the party to begin on the playground outside of both classrooms.
Kaitlyn is sitting next to her friend Anna.
I guess Kenton doesn't want to sit down:)

Clarification

Here you go, Katie...the picture below is of my first cousin Amy and the little girl that she's playing with is Katie...When I posted this picture I forgot that most people probably don't know who Amy is and would assume that she was Katie...Sorry, Kate! This was taken on a trip to Florida the summer of '88 and it was always a favorite picture of mine - Katie was 3 years old on that trip.

:)

Happy Birthday Katie!!!

I can't wait to see you and Matthew and Lauren in a few weeks! I miss you!!

Stitches and Fevers and Headaches - Oh My!

Last Thursday evening the kids and I were walking to the local mall with our neighbor Karen and her two kids Sydney and Brody. Ethan and Brody were in strollers and the other three were ahead of us on scooters. We were almost there when Kait had an accident. I'm not sure exactly what happened but I'm surmising that when she fell her glasses hit the handle bar and shattered against her eyelid. Thankfully a local man saw us trying to stop the bleeding and offered to track down a taxi for us. We were not on a main road at that time so it would have been hard for us to do. The taxi arrived and the driver hopped out with a box of Kleenex which was much appreciated! I was using what little we had between Karen and I and it just wasn't enough. Karen took all the kids and our paraphernalia and started heading home and Kaitlyn and I and the scooter hopped in the taxi for the 30 minute trip to the hospital. The staff kept staring at the scooter and asking why we brought it with us! The bleeding had stopped about 5 minutes into the taxi ride (or at least significantly slowed down) so they were able to get a good look at her gash. The ER doctor refused to stitch her up calling in a plastic surgeon instead. The plastic surgeon wanted to put her under general anesthesia as the cut was close enough to her eye that he was afraid she would move while he was doing the local anesthesia and he would risk damaging her eye. The procedure couldn't happen until 10 pm as she needed to be at least 5 hours without food first. This meant that we would be there until 2am to make sure she fully recovered from the anesthesia. Since we were already being charged for a room I decided to just let her sleep there until the morning. She had three cuts that needed sutures - one of them went almost all the way through her eyelid. We get the stitches out on Wed and than hopefully she's home free:)

Now onto the fevers! By noon on Friday Kaitlyn had a headache and a 103 degree fever. Ethan decided to join her late in the evening on Friday...he's still under the weather and I am hoping that she is on the mend. I found the two of them on the couch Friday evening together. One nice thing about Ethan being sick - he snuggles! He's been held non-stop for the past three days which we have been enjoying:) The headaches - just what one experiences when all these things happen and the hubby just happens to be out of the country! AND the hospitals here require you to pay the bill IN FULL before you can leave - this amounted to S$4,495.24 (US$3,307)...ouch!! It's ingenius of the hospitals but it makes me wonder what would have happened if we couldn't pay?

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I thought I'd include a picture of Kenton setting up his train track in his room. Quite a mess but he had fun. So far he's well and we pray that he remains that way!

Concert in the Park

On Sunday evening we went to a local park for a kid's concert in the park. They had a Chinese elementary school chorus perform and a rather funny rendition of "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie." We had a nice time and found the first "real" park since moving here - it actually has play equipment for the kids - and lots of it!

Gina and Ethan had a grand time! He now says, "Nena!"
Of course we needed to take a family picture:) I'm bad about doing that...
Oh - I wanted to post a picture of how I have to use my mixer...I have to plug it into a power converter and than plug the converter into the wall.
There was a picture taking contest going on to see who could capture the spirit of the concert the best. About 5 men were surrounding Kenton , who had climbed up into a tree to see better, snapping pictures for about 15 minutes. I was able to get a picture of him laughing at the mouse in "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie." I thought he was oblivious to all the picture taking but he said later that he knew they were snapping away!

Treasure In A Warehouse

On Friday I met a friend and we made our way to a place that sells China pottery for cheap. It was an interesting experience getting there - we met at the Queenstown MRT stop and took a bus that we were supposed to stay on for 15 stops. After about 9 stops or so we were on the right road and getting nervous about missing the stop so we asked the driver where to get off. He indicated that right where we were was a good place so off we went. We ended up walking in circles - everytime we asked someone the directions that would send us to the other side of the road! Finally after a phone call to someone in the know we were headed the correct way. We found this little cafe were we stopped to eat lunch - it was good but it didn't agree with my stomach! After lunch and a LOT of walking we finally found ourselves in front of...warehouses! Buried in all these warehouses is a little place that sells the blue and white China pottery. I found several good deals (can't spill the beans or someone won't be surprised this summer:) and am glad to have found it. The picture of the warehouses below is compliments of my friend Becca!

Night Safari

A week ago we went with our neighbors to the Singapore Zoo Night Safari. We all really enjoyed it and as soon as I can figure out how to get the video off of our video camera I will post a video of the fire show that we saw at the front entrance of the Safari.

We took two pictures before we saw the signs that said "No Flash Photography!" OOPS! Although none of us could figure out how you would take a picture without a flash at night and get it to turn out... Anyway, the above picture is a barking deer - That is the sound they make!
These are Indian gharial crocodiles...we like how ominous they look at night!
Family picture at the entrance to the Safari. The hours are from 7pm - midnight. We were all exhausted by 9pm and can't imagine staying there longer! The Asians tend to come later in the evening - don't know how they do it.
Getting ready to ride the tram to see the animals. There are no fences or barriers (that you can see) between you and the animals so it's pretty impressive. You feel like you are literally right there. A few times we were actually surrounded on all sides by a particular type of animal - they were almost so close you could touch them. Of course the big cats and elephants and rhino's were a little farther away from us:)
Kait at the entrance to the Night Safari

Mother's Day Tea

Last Friday Kenton's class put on a lovely Mother's Day Tea! We started with the teacher reading "Love You Forever" which made everyone, including her, cry! Next we watched a slideshow that the class put together - again, the tears flowed! As soon as she e-mails this out I will post it... Next we sat down to a "tea" which the children served to us. They put a lot of work into it which was very evident:)

Kenton and his friend Dante
Kenton and his mom - not a very flattering picture of me but it's the only one that I have:)
"My mom is special because she makes sure that I don't eat so much ice cream"

This little note was inside the jewelry boxes that they made for us as a gift.
Kenton's teacher Ms. Wan
The jewelry box and card that Kenton hand made for me!

Transportation Field Trip

A week and a half ago Kaitlyn's class went on a "transportation" field trip. They are studying about the different modes of getting around in school. We 1. walked to the nearest MRT station and 2. took took the MRT three stops down to a mall to eat lunch. Than 3. we took a bus back to school. It was fun:)

Kaitlyn, Elly, and Amelie. Elly will only talk by whispering what she wants in her best friend's ear! I volunteered last Friday during "centers" and was supposed to have each student read to me and Elly wouldn't. I asked her teacher if they've ever gotten her to speak out loud and she said no. :) She's so cute!
Kaitlyn looks oh so thrilled with the fried noodles and two different types of chicken that we picked out to eat at the hawker's center! Another mom wisely bought a fresh fruit plate which all the kids ate after picking at the hawker's fare! I, for the record, thought it was quite good!

A Parent's Worst Nightmare

We had a very sobering day Saturday. An 8 year old girl went missing down between us and the American school for 5 hours. Praise God that they found her - she had gone over to a neighbor's to play and fell asleep on the third floor while playing hide and seek. By the time she walked through her front door Sat. evening the police had closed down the border to Malaysia and were checking vehicles and had search dogs trying to find her. Apparently she didn't tell her parents that she was leaving or where she was going and for some reason the occupants of that house didn't know that she was still there. A neighbor and I started canvassing the condo's where we live, going door to door with her picture, asking if anyone had seen her and to call the police if they DID see her and the neighbor mentioned that we need to start micro-chipping children so this doesn't happen. Scary! As a parent it seems like a good idea that could potentially save children's lives but as a Christian you wonder if that's the right thing to do. There was a big neighborhood yard sale which compounded the fears - there were hundreds of people who came from all the island as this was a widely advertised event.

On the bright side I found several fantastic buys:) I found a gas grill, two teak lounge chairs with cushions, and a teak side table for half the price we would have paid for a new gas grill. The grill is a Weber which you can't buy here and comes with an extra griddle and a cover - we were pretty excited:) I also found an electric digital alarm clock (they are crazy expensive here) and a very cheap stereo. Now, back home it's fairly easy to transport a large item that you find at a garage sale. You either empty out the van and load that or you find a friend with a truck and a little extra time. Here it's a bit more of a challenge! I found a man that will deliver items to you that you purchase from families who are moving or at yard sales for a very reasonable price so he's delivering everything on Monday. I have used our wagon to haul quite a bit - large plants, a stereo, a cozy coup, etc but it was going to be a challenge with the larger furniture!

Happy Mother's Day!

Hailing Taxi's

I was on my way home from our last Newcomer's meeting (we have all officially graduated and are no longer "newcomer's"!) with a friend when she started laughing. The two of us along with our babies were standing along the road raising our hands to hail a taxi. Ethan was beating us to it:) He has become an expert "taxi hailer" although I must admit that he will raise his hand at any car that passes, not just the taxi's! We're working on it...

Ethan Update

Well, Ethan is officially into the "terrible two's!" Too bad he's only 18 months old!! His new words are "NO!" and "um." I'm not sure why he walks around saying "um"...anytime he hears someone say this somewhere in the middle of a sentence he repeats it back. He only goes up and down stairs like an adult (no crawling for him!) and he tries to ride the twins' scooters - which is too funny since he tries to put both feet on at once instead of just one and pushing the other foot along the ground! He usually topples over, chews out the scooter, and tries again...not too bright sometimes. He went from being a great eater to entering the "if we only get one meal in him a day than we've done well" stage! I remember the twins doing this so I didn't panic too much once I realized that he wasn't refusing ALL foods. He does prefer the unhealthy ones:) I keep reminding myself that I read once that toddlers only need a few tablespoons of food a day - seriously!

Here are a few pics of his life!

Ethan and his buddy Collin. I walk in the mornings with Collin's mom and this is how they ride together. Usually one of them falls asleep - sometimes both do. This picture was taken at Mustafa Centre (yes, I spelled that correctly) an Indian Wal-Mart so to speak.
Ethan's new past time is cleaning out my wallet and playing with my money (not that I have any) and my debit cards - no credit cards here Dave Ramsey fans! I remember the twins sitting in church doing this with Kara Snyder's purse:)
He likes to accessorize these days! It's not unusual to find him with one of Kait's headbands or my shoes on. I don't worry too much as today he handed me a bug - all boy in every other respect!
Lately he's taken to sleeping with the twins. He LOVES to snuggle up to either one and will wake up if we try to put him back in his own bed. We don't mind too much as it keeps him out of our bed and sleeping through the night.
Today he "helped" the Salvation Army guys take apart his crib! He kept grabbing tools out of Ryan's tool box (for some reason they don't carry any with them) and handing them to the men. I think that they were a little annoyed but I though it was cute so sat there taking pictures instead of getting him out of their way:)