Halloween 2009

I figured I better post my Halloween pictures before another holiday has come and gone! Sadly (but not surprisingly) I don't have many good pics of the boys in their Star Wars costumes (Reed was Anakin and Graham was Luke). Both had parties at school on Friday the 30th, I helped out in Graham's class that day. His good friend, also named Reed, was also Anakin which is a fun coincidence.
Right after school I drove the boys to the other American school in town where Graham's friend Julia goes. Her mom, my friend Kathleen, is on the PTA and invited us to their party/festival from about 4-7 that Friday night. The boys had a blast (you can see Reed doing a broom race) and then they had Trunk Treating (or whatever that's called) so they got lots of candy.

I had pretty much decided we wouldn't do anything Saturday night since they had so much from Friday and there is only about 2 places that they can go trick or treat and there are literally thousands of kids who go to those 2 places. Luckily Darin and Lori Dunham (Jeff's step bro and wife) invited us out to their house. Gramsey was here visiting so we got to spend time with her as well. We grilled out and the kids walked door to door in a normal neighborhood. It was great. The kids had a blast as did the grownups. They have a nice house and a HUGE yard which is such a treat for us since we've been in an apartment for almost 5 years. Below is a picture of Graham and Grace in matching soccer shirts. They are about 6 months apart and truly inseperable when we get together. Last picture is Gramsey with all the kiddos, drying off after the torrential downpour that hit that night. Luckily for us it's the tropics so it's not like it was cold. The blankets are there because the A/C was blasting. :)

Graham's 4th Birthday!

Graham celebrated his 4th birthday 3 times! First was the actual day. As soon as Daddy got home from work he opened presents and we had cake. When he opened a lego truck from Reed he said, "I've been BEGGING for this!!!!" The cake was pretty sad looking (Mommy made it) but it tasted great.

Two days later I brought blueberry muffins to his classroom (his teacher is a huge healthnut and discourages typical birthday treats like cupcakes). Graham got to wear the special birthday vest and hat with 4 candles on top. He loved being the center of attention!

Finally, that following Saturday we had his party. We rented out the bowling alley at the American Club (they have 4 lanes) and invited a total of 11 kiddos for "Cosmic Bowling." They turn off the lights and pull the curtains and have neon lights on the lanes. Unfortunately the game zone is next door, separated by glass so it wasn't real dark but it was different and the kids loved it. After an hour of bowling most of us went out by the pool and spent the rest of the afternoon there. When we got home and he opened his gifts he shouted "Awesome!" after each one. His only wish that didn't come true was having all of his grandparents here! Some day......

Glenda's Visit

I am going to catch up tonight! :) In early October Glenda (Jeff's mom) came for a visit. The boys were so excited to see her. We packed a ton of stuff in to the 8 or so days that she was here. I don't have pictures from everything and my mind is going so my memory isn't all that great but I do know we did the following: went to the boys' classes, Raffles Hotel, Botanical Gardens (twice), American Club, Singapore Flyer, took the Hippo Bus tour around the city which included a quick boat tour as well, Clarke Quay, Sentosa Island, hiking at a nature reserve and the Night Safari. Here are a few of the pictures......
First, me and our car, people have been asking to see a picture of the car I've been waiting 4 years to have! :) This was outside a really cool store called China Connections which is in one of the old, historic Black and White houses.

We went one evening to the Night Safari. It's such a cool place though hard to get good pictures since it's obviously dark out. They have a "Fish Spa" there, several around town, and the boys have always been dying to do it. Finally I said ok, figuring I'd pay the money, the kids would put their feet in the water and as soon as the fish started eating away their dead skin they'd freak and it would be over (didn't even think kids had dead skin). Well, they were the first customers of the evening so the fish were hungry and while they did pull their feet out once in awhile when the big guys bit down, they stayed the full 10 minutes and didn't want to get out!
Another famous attraction is the Singapore Flyer (there is also one in London I guess). It looks like a huge ferris wheel but instead of seats there are compartments that hold up to 28 people. You can actually rent one out and have dinner or parties as well. It moves so slowly it takes a full 30 minutes to go around. We were given headphones to listen to, a man was telling us where to look and what all to see, and some history about Singapore. The view was fabulous. We can actually see the Flyer from our apartment. It wasn't a clear day so we couldn't see far out but a huge storm rolled in (the downpour started just as we finished) so we were able to watch it move ever closer to us. Hopefully you can see that in one of the pictures.

Finally (as far as my pictures go, for those of you who know Glenda, she has tons more), we went to a nature reserve for a hike one morning. In the book about what to do this waterfall had water and was really pretty. It seems to be dried up now but still the whole area is really green and beautiful. There are so many parks and reserves like this around the island, we need to do a better job of exploring them.
We had a great time while Glenda was here! We are ready for more visitors so come on down!

JibJab Video

In copying Erin and Kim, I made a JibJab video starring all the boys in the family. Not bad for my first attempt. :)

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I want to work with these guys!

You may have already seen this on someone's Facebook page but I loved it so much I wanted to put it on my blog. So much fun at the office!!! Not sure why the one chick wouldn't participate......

Summer 2009: Part 2

Here are the limited pictures I took while in Gulf Shores. Most of it is my laziness but in my defense, Erin is a great photographer with a really fancy camera so I let her take most of the pictures and she did a fantastic job. You just need to go to her blog to see them all. www.lillyrollins.blogspot.com
We had a really great time at the Bay with the Rollins family. Jason took the week off so we could go out on the boat, take the jetski etc. The boys and I were really excited that Jeff too, took the week off to go with us. He hadn't seen Erin and her family in about 5 years! Again, take a look at Erin's blog (if you haven't already) and find her pictures from our trip to see what all we did. But here is a glimpse. :)

Summer 2009: Part 1

I am attempting to do a slide show of our summer travels. As always, I did not get nearly enough pictures of the people we went to see. Some day I'll figure that out!!! We started in Dallas then went to Kansas City. From there Salina for a few weeks and then headed back to Dallas stopping off in Tulsa for a night. Spent one night in Austin, back to Dallas again, I flew up to Portland for 48 hours, back to Dallas. Then, with Jeff with us, we flew to Gulfport, MS and then drove over to Gulf Shores for a few days with Erin and her family (those pictures will be separate). From there, back to Dallas one more time before coming home to Singapore. Phew!!!! I tried to put captions on the pictures I did take. I wish I had gotten pix of my Grandma, Grandpa Joe and Gramsey as well as all of my sisters. Next summer, right!

"First Day of School! First Day of School!"...Nemo

Wednesday was both Reed and Graham's first day of school. Reed started his 1st grade year and was so excited. His teacher is Ms. Goldhammer and he has 3 classmates from last year in this year's class including Noah, one of his best friends. Reed gets on the bus at 6:56 AM again this year, he still wakes up excited, I'm hopeful he stays this way for a long time!

Graham started preschool officially Wednesday. He has 2 years of preschool under his belt already. He was really excited to go to SAS like his brother. I had to put him in his PE uniform because they gave me the wrong size collared shirt. His bus came by at 11:15, it's a small bus or van, he was the only kid on it Wednesday but half the preschoolers went Thursday so hopefully tomorrow he will have friends to ride with. I met him at the school and the parents stayed in the classroom with them the first day. Graham was right at home, interrupting the teacher, talking up a storm. He loved the playground, fingerpainting and dress up. The red knight costume is his favorite!

At the end of the day, the boys rode home on the big bus together. When I met them at the bus stop, they were sitting together in the front row. They looked so cute, Reed was really watching out for Graham. Again, hope that lasts!!!!

Reed's 6th Birthday!

There is so much that I should have written about on my blog over the past few months and I plan to do a slide show from our summer adventures soon (once the kiddos are in school!) but at the request of my dear sister, Erin, I will update my blog tonight with pictures from Reed's party. The first few pictures are from the actual day, the boys had camp that day and Jeff had the day off for Singapore National Day. Reed opened his gifts in the afternoon. You'll see his Tower of Doom which he calls the Royal Kingdom. I think he's combining the Royals (baseball) and the Kingdom from our visit to Medieval Times. :) Also his new Wii game from cousin Zach and the rest of the Rollins clan.This past Sunday we went to Wild, Wild Wet waterpark (http://www.wildwildwet.com.sg/) with four other families, there were 9 boys in all. Sadly our friends, the Cains, had to leave early for soccer tryouts so they aren't in any of my pictures. Graham fell asleep halfway through but the other guys had an absolute blast. His friends were Ethan, Jonah and Liam Cain, Darian Hsu, Kenneth Nelson and Oscar and Noah Depp. Such great friends, such great fun!

Graham said the funniest thing....

I want to preface this story with the fact that I take domestic abuse/violence very seriously, it is in no way a laughing matter. But when you read this story, coming from a concerned 3 year old, you just have to laugh......
When Graham woke up from his nap today he was fairly cranky so I held him on my lap while sitting on the couch, him snuggled into me. He finally warmed up and sat back looking at me. Then he leaned in close, pointed to my lip and asked, "Mom, what is that?" I asked what he meant. He said with a very serious expression and tone, "Mom, what is on your lip? Is that where Daddy punched you?" I burst into laughter and couldn't stop for several minutes, he finally decided it was funny too and laughed. After awhile I was able to ask him if he thought Daddy had punched me in the mouth and he said "Yes," like, "That's a stupid question."
For the record, Daddy has never punched me in the mouth. Have a good day! :)

Cambodia Trip Part 2: The bike ride!

One thing I forgot to mention about our ride from Phnom Penh to Kep was seeing buses along the way so packed full of people that it looked like they were sardines in a can and there were tons of people sitting ON TOP OF THE BUS as well. Now, this road is so bumpy that at one point Meredith held up her arm to see what time it was and couldn't read her watch because her arm was flying around so much. But we all had our own seats and had air con. The people on the other buses that we were passing had neither. I asked someone later and these are the people that go from their villages into the city every day to work in the garment factories. So an hour in the morning and an hour at night, at least 6 days a week, this is how they travel. I felt so bad for them!

Onto our accommodations in Kep. We stayed at a little place that had about 8 bungalows. The "reception area" was an open air structure that also served as the restaurant, the bar, had a pool table and wireless. We ate there on Saturday both breakfast and lunch, pretty good food. The owner's wife, I believe, was the cook. He was from somewhere in Europe, didn't recognize the accent, and I think his wife was from Cambodia. There are walkways connecting all the houses, it's very lush and green. Our bungalow had 2 beds complete with mosquito nets, a very small bathroom with cold water only and a fan mounted on the wall. It had a roof and walls but also cut outs above the windows for fresh air. It had a little front porch and a hammock. The roosters somewhere in the distance seemed to be confused as they woke me up at 3:00 AM and kept going until about 5! Here are some pics.

Saturday morning we walked towards town and the resort dog followed us. It's really pretty there, so much green as it rains quite a bit, also very humid. We finally jumped on a passing tuk tuk, taking the dog with us as he seemed afraid and we didn't want to lose him. We got to the crab market which had people selling various things and lots of little restaurants. There was a monkey chained to a tree, not sure what his purpose was but we were squatting down talking to him, and realized he was eating his own vomit. We decided to keep walking. Fun to see everyone going about their daily business, did have to stop a couple of kids from terrorizing a kitten, Meredith is as big of an animal lover as I am! Walked all the way back to our bungalow and was just dripping with sweat, exhausted, with 2 hours until the race! Saw lots of burned out homes or places where homes used to be, can definitely see how this area was once where the rich had vacation homes. Not a lot left of it now but I think it may be coming back.

Finally it was time for our bike race. Not really a race, just a 10k ride through the country side in order to raise money for an organization, Bridges across Borders for Southeast Asia http://www.babsea.org/. There was also a 10k walk and a half marathon the next day but we were flying out early in the morning and would miss that. Our entrance fee of $50 (USD, everyone in the country wants USD and even the ATM's dispense it!) got us a cool shirt, all the transportation to and from Kep as well as the races, a nice dinner Saturday night and covered the price of the bicycles that we rode which then went to the villagers. Sixty bicycles were donated and I'm sure, are making a huge difference in 60 families lives. Over $50,000 was also raised (we had to raise at least $250 each ourselves). We got to the starting point where all the bikes were waiting. You'll note these are not 10 speeds (or any speeds) but did have handy baskets on the front for our stuff. It was to begin at 3:00 PM so Meredith and I thought we'd LOVE the cold showers that were waiting for us as we knew it would be so hot and humid. I even bought an expensive visor that was made to keep the sweat off your face and out of your eyes. Just as the starting gun was shot a HUGE crack of thunder hit and as we were pulling out onto the road the downpour began. This was not a little rain, this is what we refer to as TORRENTIAL DOWNPOUR. Not just downpour but sideways pour right into our faces. That visor of mine proved even more valuable. One thing I didn't know, 85% of the race was on dirt/rock roads. When those roads get soaked, they are actually mud roads. NOT EASY. I kept trying to tell myself that the person who gets this bike deals with this on a daily basis, it didn't help too much from feeling sorry for myself and wondering why I was doing it. I wondered why we couldn't just give them the darn bikes. And, ironically, it was FREEZING. The cold air and being literally soaked to the bone made for a very chilly ride. Not to mention all the stuff in our baskets were soaked, all of our money, our passports, cameras and phones, Meredith's camera never did recover. The kilometers were not marked so we never knew how far we had gone. I won't go into all the detail but it was a LONG ride. Especially for poor Meredith who is totally in shape and could have finished in less than half the time it took us as she patiently waited for me. I told her to go ahead and send someone back for me if I didn't finish an hour after her but she stayed with me, bless her heart. Once it finally stopped raining we were able to enjoy the beautiful countryside. We made it to the finish which was at a school were villagers were waiting and cheering (along with 97% of the other participants who had already finished). We didn't get to hand over the bikes then, that was to be done at the closing ceremony on Sunday which we missed and were disappointed, but it was still fun to see some of the people. We climbed onto the airconditioned bus, still freezing as we headed towards our cold showers waiting for us. During the ride I thought I wouldn't do this again but even by the time we got onto that bus, we were planning for 2010's ride!

That night we had a nice dinner and some entertainment, at risk kids from Phnom Penh doing a breakdancing show. They were just adorable. Then, early the next morning we had our arranged taxi ride back to the airport in the city. We had been told the drive back would be a little shorter since we were in a car rather than a bus. It was still dark and a Toyota Camry picked us up. The driver (hardly any English) wanted $30 up front and the other $20 when we got there. I gave it to him and we drive about 4 minutes when he stopped and said, "My associate will take you the rest of the way." An almost identical Camry waited for us. I explained to him I had just given him $30 and he said, "It's ok!" So he got 30 for a 4 minute ride the other guy got 20 for a (supposed to be) 5 1/2 to 6 hour trip. This second car had no seatbelts in the backseat. He did have a little screen covering the rearview mirror that showed music videos and played the music very loud (all in Khmer). It's still dark and he starts driving. We asked a couple times to turn down the music (using charades since he doesn't speak any English). He is driving incredibly fast on these narrow roads. There are already people on bicycles, people walking and buses and trucks on the road. He honked his horn constantly for everyone to get out of his way and swerved around everyone, no worries at all at what may be coming towards us in the other lane. As daylight came more and more people were on the road, many holding children on their bikes or mopeds. This did not phase the guy. I yelled at him many times to slow down especially when we were driving through towns where people (many kids) were just steps off the road. He didn't. I thought we truly might die especially with no seatbelts and wondered if that would be better than surviving a crash in rural Cambodia with no doctors etc. We obviously did survive but a dog and a chicken did not. He slammed through both of them while we gasped in horror. We made the 3 hour trip in 2 hours and 5 minutes. Even in the city he continued to drive this way. I had planned to tip him as I thought he got the raw end of the deal but of course, by the time we got there, I didn't give him an extra cent. After he unloaded our suitcases he turned to us with a big smile and said, "Bye!" Just another day at the office for him. We tried not to think about who or what he hit on his way back to Kep. Other than that experience, we loved it all. We had to pay another $25 to get OUT of the country but had such a fabulous time. We can't wait for next year, we hope to bring our families this time to cheer us on and stay a little longer so we can be at the closing ceremonies. May even throw in a quick trip up to Siem Reap and Angor Wat so we will have really experienced all of Cambodia. I have to say every single person we met (besides the murderous taxi driver) were just as nice and sweet as anyone I've ever met anywhere in the world. Thanks for reading!!! :) I will send out my kodak gallery of pics now. If you don't get it and want it, send me a note tracyefaulkner@yahoo.com .