SNAKES!!!

The following message was posted on our neighborhood message board today...
**************************************************************************
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
********************************************************************
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?

*****************************

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!