The Big Move, Part I

Moving from Singapore was a whirlwind of packing, sorting, throwing away, giving away, selling on Craigslist, a little tourism, and most importantly: goodbyes.

Jon could not have been a better sport. With a little help from our friend Nemo, he weathered the relative parental neglect like a champ. He watched as we packed up his clothes, his books, and his toys without objection. He even watched the movers come into our apartment, take all of our possessions one box at a time out to a truck without concern. At least, until one of the movers picked up our vacuum (crumby, half-broken, destined-for-the-trash as it was) to move it out of the doorway. For whatever reason, when he thought they were taking the vacuum, that was the last straw for Jonathan. He lost it. He screamed, he cried, he ran to the beloved vacuum, snatched it from the surprised mover's grasp, and drug it tenderly into his tent. Then he gathered up the rest of his toys and books (the ones we kept out for him to play with on the plane and as we traveled) into the tent and sat at the doorway carefully watching the movers the rest of the afternoon.

Then he took a nap in the bathtub. It was all we had left.

I was surprised by how big the apartment looked without furniture in it, but also how un-homey it seemed without our pictures, art, and furniture--almost as if the movers packed up our memories with our things.

In a rush we said goodbye to the blue kitchen where I learned to cook without a dishwasher, hot water, stove or oven (keyword: hotplate). We said goodbye to the white tile floors Jon learned how to walk on. Goodbye to the front porch we loved to blow bubbles from. Goodbye to the five air conditioning units we ran 24/7 for two years. Goodbye to the windows we watched tropical birds from. Goodbye to the bedroom and play room where we sang "I am a Child of God,""Twinkle Twinkle Little Star," and "Old McDonald" thousands of times; where thousands of little laughs at the same joke rang; where cars crashed, dinosaurs roared, toy guitar/piano jam sessions enjoyed, and book after book read.

And, of course, goodbye to the big pink door we brought Jonathan home through, and that I was oh-so-grateful to walk through again just a few weeks later.

Then came the hard part. Our great friends here threw one last BBQ on a high rise apartment building in the city. I was thrilled to save most of my "goodbyes" for the very last minute, but it sure made for a tearful last minute!

Left to Right: JB (all the way from England to say goodbye! not really, but we were happy to see her again all the same), LR, LH, me, little SL and mommy JL, little ZB and mommy MB, NE, and AM and her baby boy bump, who is now IM.

Man! I am going to miss these ladies! They have taught me so much about growth, gratitude, strength, self-control, finding joy, being humble, taking people at face value, sharing talents, generosity, discipleship and most of all true, real, friendship.

Fabio had to say goodbye to his friends, too... but they are guys and so for whatever reason no tears were shed or pictures taken. He just carried babies.

We stayed our last night in the Fullerton Hotel right on the bay, a beautiful colonial-style five-star hotel right on the water with grand marble staircases, bellmen wearing hats and white gloves, and plenty of pomp and formality. I laughed out loud as we pulled up in our 1980 clackety yellow cab with it's bumper almost dragging on the cobble-stone drive heavy with our 6 luggage pieces beaten from two years of nonstop travel. The bellmen loaded up two luggage carts with suitcases, duffle bags, backpacks, a stroller, a purse, and even several random reusable grocery bags full of canned food, pasta, and art supplies to give away to our friends that evening. We were quite the classy sight! But I have to say, congrats to the Fullerton because they still treated us like royalty and not one employee looked down the nose at us or our hill-billy load. That, and it was by far the most comfortable bed I have ever slept on.

The next morning we spent our last hours walking the board walk,

getting in one last attraction at the Gardens by the Bay,

and finally going to the chocolate buffet on the top of the Marina Bay Sands that I've tried to con Fabio into going to almost since we got here. It did not disappoint. Deliciousness of every variety was enjoyed. Oh yeah, and we made one last stop to our favorite custom tailor here... she's mailing Fabio the shirts he ordered.

And with that we loaded our four roller suit cases, two military-issue duffle bags, three carry-on rollers, and three backpacks into a "limo" taxi (read: minivan) and drove to the airport.

Thanks for the good times, Singapore!

Visitors!

In May we were so excited to have our friends visit us from Darwin, Australia! Even though we're four years apart in age, B has been a great friend of mine since I was eight or nine and she was in junior high. She was one of those amazingly cool teenagers that is okay with being nice to the little squirts that look up to them and thinks they are awesome. Years later, Fabio and I danced together for the first time and their wedding. More years later, she took our wedding pictures. Even more years later, we both had families on the Eastern Hemisphere and so they came to Singapore for fun. And fun we had!

They have four adorable kids, so we had five kids five-years-old and under in our tiny apartment. It was an amazing whirlwind of energy, fun, juice boxes, meltdowns, jam-packed taxis, laughing, and toys. Jonathan (and Fabio and I) were in heaven.

We enjoyed the usual Singapore fare: riding elephants and feeding giraffes at the zoo,

admiring the skyline from 42 stories high in the Singapore Flyer,

feeding tropical lorries at the Bird Park,

And then we thought, what do we do with five kids and two adults? Let's rent a station wagon and take a road trip to none other than...

LEGOLAND MALAYSIA!

With a different group, (older kids, less awesome adults, etc.) someone might call Legoland Malaysia "a bust," but we had nothing but fun the whole day. The magical thing about toddlers is that they are thrilled with the sweetest and simplest things. The magical thing about lots of toddlers is that they have this contagion effect on each other and so a park full of "lego boats" for them to steer on a river, a "lego train" ride, and a "lego car" race track results in complete and perfect joy (interspersed with tears of exhaustion and hunger, obviously).

But don't worry, we made sure to save plenty of time for naps in parks,

                            

stroller-buddy stare-downs,

And plenty of long catch-up girl talks with an old friend.

Jon and E found best friends in each other. E made sure Jon never wandered too far by putting his arm around J and saying, "C'mon guy. I got you." He also shared his Spider Man toy and taught J to sword fight. They were both happy to have a friend to share their manly interests with--E with his crew of sisters and J with all girl buddies in Singapore!

Basically, we had an amazing time and we're so happy they came to share our tropical home with us for a few days! We love you, L's!

Chinese New Year

Last month marked the beginning of the Chinese Lunar New Year, which probably went unnoticed by most of you, over-shadowed by holidays like "Valentine's Day" and "President's Day." But in Singapore, the second new moon after the winter solstice is a big, big, BIG deal.

The best way to describe the nature of the holiday is to say it's Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Spring Cleaning combined into one, huge holiday. Chinese New Year music plays in the stores and malls for weeks, red lanterns adorn almost every door, cleaning and catering services inundate mailboxes with hundreds of promotional flyers... basically the entire country is all a hustle and bustle for a month and a half. I have grown to really appreciate, and even love this time of year. Some of the traditions are so smart that they could only have come from a very old, experienced culture...

Some of my favorites:

-Everyone spends hours and hours cleaning out their entire house leading up to the holiday. Every corner of the house must be cleaned meticulously... the worse a year you had last year, the more rigorously you clean. You get rid of your old stuff and buy new as much as you can afford, at the very least a new outfit. This is olympic-level deep cleaning.

-The holiday is really a week of celebrations and traditions, part of which includes two days for visiting family. The sons visit their parents and family for a "reunion dinner" the first day, and the daughters visit their parents and family for a "reunion dinner" the second day. No "taking turns" or jealous in-laws. Genius. People do everything in their means and power to make these visits happen. They spend thousands of dollars to go back to China if they have to, because it is Chinese New Year and that is the day you visit your parents. Couples whose parents live in different provinces will travel for hours through the night to make it from the son's family to the daughter's family on time. It is pretty incredible.

-During and for several days after the reunion dinners, there is absolutely no cleaning. None. Lots of people even have two sets of dishes so they can host their sons and their daughters without doing dishes in between because it is such bad luck.

-No gifts. Just "ang pau", little red envelopes filled with and even amount of new bills of money. Not old bills, new ones. Not $4, or $40, or $400 though... because the Chinese word for "four" sounds like the chinese word for "dead" and you are basically wishing someone dead. Chinese are so superstitious that doing something so unlucky would be basically the meanest thing you could possibly do to someone. And only older people give them to younger people.

-Symbols, symbols, symbols. Some make no sense to me even after someone explains them, but the ones I like include: two fish decorations to signify having enough and then some; tangerines with leaves to symbolize long-lasting friendship; Red and gold EVERYTHING to symbolize good fortune and prosperity; tangerines and pineapples without leaves to symbolize wealth; firecrackers to chase away bad spirits; and so on... everything means something during Chinese New Year.

-Along the lines of symbols, rubbing a blonde child's hair is considered very, very good luck (it's gold, which is an auspicious color). Last year Jonathan almost had a bald spot rubbed off--it was the Dragon year, which (for reasons I'm still not totally clear on) is really important it go well for people. So lots and lots of blonde-baby-rubbing happened. The hair rubbing happens all year around, Jonathan doesn't even notice or flinch when people rub his hair because he's so used to it, but it is especially intense during CNY. People will rub his head, look at me, smile and say, "It will be a good Snake year, now. Thank you." You are considered extremely fortunate if you actually have a blonde baby in your house. Basically nothing can go wrong for you... I can't disagree. We are pretty fortunate to have our little tow head around.

So in the spirit of Chinese New Year, some friends and I bought our kids little Chinese outfits and took them to a beautiful monastic garden to take pictures. Because, you know... that's what happens when you get a bunch of expat stay-at-home moms together. As Jonathan and I left to meet our friends that day Fabio called out to me, "Have fun playing dolls with your friends today!" It is what it is. But look how cute they turned out!

Jon and the ladies... S, O, A, J, and Z

We also had a little "reunion dinner" with our Singapore extended family. Jonathan played with his buddies (read, ladies) while we ate egg drop soup, lettuce wraps, and brownies (no authentic Asian desserts for me, thank you very much). We couldn't bring ourselves to be totally authentic, so we did the dishes afterwards too. Hopefully we didn't send all our luck for 2013 down the drain (literally).

And with that, we wish a belated but sincere Gong Xi Fa Cai to everyone!

Mid-Autumn Festival

September marks the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival. To celebrate like the "locals" we are, we tasted some traditional moon cake (i.e. a little bitter-sweet poundcake with a whole egg-yolk in the middle-- definitely not recommending it). We also wandered the huge Chinese Garden by our house, which was lavishly decorated with bright lanterns for the month, with some friends.

We enjoyed that half of the celebration a lot more.

Sage dressed much more festive than Jon, 

but they still cracked each other up with their babbles. 

Since the festival celebrates family unity,

we thought a family photo by a pagoda was in order.

Love him!

Between bright red flags,

and fancy pagodas,

and beautiful silk lanterns,

We felt like the night couldn't get any better, until we found the shocking and slightly disturbing Chinese re-telling of the beloved Frog Prince fairy tale...

Then our night of Chinese immersion was truly complete.

Splash Pad

Last weekend for Family Fun Day (known to some people as Saturday) we went to the giant aviary a few minutes from our house, the Jurong Bird Park. Not only does it boast one of the world's largest collection of tropical birds, but more importantly it has an amazing and huge splash pad. So naturally we are the proud owners of an annual family pass, which is often put to use on Family Fun Day.

Jonathan was in heaven. It was, after all, a combination of four of his favorite things: water, swings, older kids, and undivided attention from doting adults.

Such a sweet, happy boy.

Did I mention he loves swings? He does.

The higher he goes, the better.

And since Jon was in heaven, we were too. 

It's days like these that I genuinely cannot imagine how my life could be better or sweeter. Happy Family Fun Day!

A Mystery Solved

Most nights this mysterious (and very loud) sound just outside our apartment accompanies whatever we do...

When we first moved here, we thought it was a cow or some other livestock. But no one really keeps livestock in urban Singapore.

So then we decided it was someone's air conditioner that was in desperate need of repair and servicing. But it came from a different direction every night.

Maybe it was a strange Southeast Asian instrument we had never heard of, and someone was walking the grounds playing it?

Finally the mystery was solved when on his way home from work Fabio asked a Singaporean man walking in front of him what that crazy sound was...

Are you ready? Are you curious?

It's a toad.

Little Islands

There's no question our favorite thing about Singapore is the friends we have made, and continue to make, here. A close second is the adventures we go on with the fun people we keep finding! This month we took a couple of day trips to little islands off the coast of Singapore.

First, Jonathan and I took a cruise on a gaudy ship with a huge group of friends to Kusu Island, just off the coast of Singapore.

The weather was perfect and it was fun to see the city from a distance.

Our buddies, Sage and Jessica

The island had a little temple, a beautiful beach (swimsuits next time), and a lot of turtles--all in one fun morning! You can see Singapore's skyline in the distance. 

I think J's favorite part was chilling with the ladies, though. Don't you think so?

Poor Jonathan. All is baby friends are girls. Or, maybe lucky Jonathan...

Then last Monday we took a precarious but functional little ferry with some friends to another island off Singapore's coast, Pulau Ubin, to rent bikes and explore the island.

We felt very welcomed

We strapped Jonathan into a safe-ish-looking baby seat on the front of Fabio's bike and cruised around jungle trails all morning. Jonathan was in heaven with the wind in his hair flying through the jungle.

Really. He's strapped in. I promise.

After a long day of biking, hiking, and wild boar watching Jonathan was exhausted and started to fall asleep, so we put him in the carrier for the trip back.

It was another fun day with great company. We just love our people here!

Jon and Sage. Such a ladies man.

Our adopted Gaertner, Lindsay. 

We're secretly happy when her husband travels 

because that means we get her all to ourselves!

Basically, we really like it here.

Majulah Singapura!