Excuse Me, Can I Check Your Pockets?

Alot of you have asked to see pictures of Singapore, the house, us, etc. I would LOVE to be able to put some pictures up, but sadly, cannot. The reason? My camera was stolen last week. I'm not one to point fingers, so I won't come right out and say whose fault it was. But you know that guy that I'm married to? It was his fault.

Let me explain... We were at a playground with the little ones and I had asked him to hold the camera for me while I took Alex to the bathroom. In the meantime, Ali decided that she had to go to the bathroom (naturally). Col--I mean that guy that I'm married to, laid the camera on a ledge in the bathroom and forgot to get it before he walked out. To his credit, he did remember almost immediately and turned around, ten steps out the door and went back in, but it was already gone. There were two guys who he had passed on his way out of the bathroom, and he confronted one and actually asked the guy to empty his pockets so he could make sure that he didn't have the camera! (Desperation and panic had set in at this point, obviously.) Well, after a thorough search, Colin determined that Suspect #1 didn't have the camera. And of course, the other guy had already skulked out of the bathroom by then. By the time Colin came back to where I was and (with fear in his heart, I'm sure!) told me what had happened, our thief was long gone. We looked all over for him, but couldn't find him. So, if you happen to see a Chinese guy in a dark blue shirt with a backpack on, stop him! He's got my camera!

Obviously, I could care less about my camera. I mean, yes, I'm mad that someone took it, but it's the pictures that I care about. And of course, my camera was full of three weeks worth of wonderful shots and videos. All of them gone now, belonging to the Chinese guy. I mean, if you're going to steal a camera, at least have enough decency to leave the memory card behind! Geez!

So as of now, the only pictures I have are a handful that I had put on our computer when we first got our air shipment. There weren't many to begin with, and after eliminating those where someone's eyes are closed, I look fat or it's just a bad shot, leaves very few to share. But here are a few that made the cut.

(Click on the pictures to enlarge them)

Walking along the Singapore River. We're on our way to take a bum boat tour.

This is a bum boat. Authentic looking, huh? Wonder if the 16th century bum boats had car tires on them, too?

Waiting for Colin to run to the ATM to get cash. Bum boat operators don't take debit cards. Go figure!

Colin and Alex enjoying the ride. Or perhaps a little intoxicated by the diesel fumes from the engine. Either way, they seem to be enjoying themselves.

The small buildings are part of one of the three Quays - a large commercial area along the river and extending inland with restaurants, nightclubs, etc. The tall buildings are part of the Central Business District.

Cameron just HAD to have a picture of this. Take a look at the name of the snack.

Ali is enjoying her $8 ice cream and a free kiss from Cameron. This is in Holland Village, which is about a 15 minute walk from our house. It's very popular and very busy. So busy, that it's nearly impossible to find a parking spot. In fact, men stand in the parking lot and offer to drive your car around and find a spot for you. Yeah right, I don't think so!

I'm still shopping around for a camera (I wasn't too crazy about the one that I had anyway!) and I will definitely post pictures once I buy one. Check back soon!

More later!

A Geography Lesson and an Update

Being so far away from everyone and trying to keep everyone updated on our goings-on so far has been kind of hard, so I thought I'd try my hand at starting a blog. I can't make any promises, but I'm hoping to post on a regular basis. I'll probably just ramble on about nothing in particular in most of my posts; so if you have nothing better to do (you've alphabetized your canned goods, scrubbed the grout in your bathroom with a toothbrush, and memorized A-M of the phone book) and you'd like see how things are going, you can just check it out. Obviously, I'd still love to get emails, but I think this might be an easier way for me to "communicate to the masses". So...

OK, so here we are in Singapore. For those of you who aren't quite sure where Singapore is, you're not alone. Cameron thought that we were moving to Mexico when he first heard of it. (Well done, IHS Geography 101!) Anyway, I've inserted this handy map. If you click on it, you can see that Singapore is that teeny, tiny dot in Southeast Asia, just below Malaysia. In fact, so tiny that the black dot is covering the whole island on this map! Anyway, it's about a 20+ hour flight from America; not exactly convenient for weekend trips to visit mom and dad! But on the plus side, a mere 1 1/2 hour flight to places like Bali, Phuket, Java, Bangkok; a 4 hour flight to Hong Kong, the Maldives...Places that we hope to check out while we're over on this side of the world.

I'll do a quick update in this post and then will post day to day-type things in my other posts...

Things so far are going good. We are settling in as best that we can without many of our household goods. We're waiting on our sea container to arrive and in the meantime have rental furniture. The house is pretty sparse right now, so I can't wait to fill it up with our stuff and make it feel more like home. When we arrived, we thought that our air shipment would be here waiting for us. We had packed towels, sheets, kitchen supplies, our computer, etc. Just a few things that we figured we'd need right off the bat. Well, (of course!) it wasn't here. It took three weeks before our air shipment arrived. So, in the meantime, we bought one towel and small blanket per person, we were eating off of paper plates, using plastic utensils and washing styrofoam cups. We were roughing it! Of course, it's hard to cook without kitchen supplies, so we ate out quite a bit. (Oh darn!!) My neighbor lent me a skillet, though, and I bought a giant pot that did double duty as a steamer and stock pot, so eventually I was forced to cook meals for my family. Our air shipment arrived safely a couple of weeks ago. I don't think I was ever so glad to see a can opener in my life. Pretty sad stuff, huh?

Cameron and Alex started school at the American School the week after we got here. They are settling in. I know it can't be easy starting a new school in the middle of the year, let alone moving to a new country to do it. They both seem to be adjusting, though, and are doing pretty good so far. The school itself is amazing. They have a great campus and awesome facilities for all of the kids. For example, Alex's PE class is doing a swimming segment this quarter!

Cameron just got back from his interim semester trip. He went to an island in Indonesia with about 20 kids from his school. (Interim semester is a type of "life enrichment" project that's a requirement for all high school students at the American School. The students have over 100 places all over the world to choose from to go to, with seniors getting first choice. Places like Australia, Nepal, Rome, Greece, Indonesia, New Zealand...I was jealous!) I had hoped that this would not only be a great experience for Cameron, but would also give him the chance to bond with some other kids from school, and it did. He made several new friends and had a great time. I'm so relieved! I'll have to write more about his trip in another post and maybe post some pictures that he took, too.

Alex is doing good in 1st grade. I met with his teacher last week and she said that he's fitting in well so far. She did say that when they need partners to do something in class, all of the girls want to know if Alex can be their partner. When I asked Alex about it, he just smiled and said, "I think they like my hair." Our own little Casanova!

Alison and I are together during the day while the boys are at school. She and I go on walks, go to the park, explore Singapore and spend alot of time at the American Club. They have tons of activities, classes, a pool, library, spa, gym, restaurants, game room, bowling alley...you name it. Alison has swimming lessons and ballet class every week there and she's loving it.

Eric is coming to visit us for spring break and we're really looking forward to him being here and all of us being together. Unfortunately, his break is the week before Cameron and Alex's break, so they'll still have to be at school, but I'm sure we'll find plenty to do during the day. He'll move over here in mid-July to do his sophomore year at the American School. I know that Cameron, especially, will be happy to have his brother and friend back!

Well, I think that covers the basics for now. Of course, there are a hundred things I could tell you about living in Singapore and adjusting to life over here, but I'll save that for another time.

More later!