Look What I Can Do!

Thanksgiving

We were so fortunate to be surrounded by family and friends this Thanksgiving. Toby's parents were here along with his sister Lisel. Then we had 3 other families come over. There were 3 kids under four and 3 babies under 6 months. It was fun to have a full house.

As for food, we arranged for the turkey to be cooked and delivered and then also made a spinach cheese thing. Then our friends brought over the sides and dessert. We had such a spread of great food.




We found out our new table can seat 11 :)

The kids table.

The babies checking each other out.

After dinner the kids entertained us by playing with Elyse's cleaning supplies. The mops became a lot of different things including a hockey stick.

Ticking each other= lots of giggling.

Our Thanksgiving crew minus one family (and Anastasia who was sleeping).

Happy Thanksgiving!

Manado: The Volcano, etc

Another adventure we had in Manado was to visit a volcano. It took about 1.5 -2 hours to get there and then there was a short hike (pretty steep for a 3 year old) to the mouth of the crater. We were lucky we had a clear day and could see down into it. After the volcano we drove to a lake to have lunch. It was raining by this point, but we were lucky to be at a restaurant with covered outdoor seating. Our guide ordered for us and we had a selection of fish and veggies to choose from. As we ate, we could see the fish swimming around that would soon become someone else's lunch.

After lunch we thought we were going back to the hotel, but instead our driver took us to another volcano which had a huge sulfur lake in it's cater. The water was turquoise and smelled of sulfur.

Again, we thought we were going to go back to the hotel, but we then stopped at a stable which kept horses. It was owned by the same people who own the resort we were at. Finally, we did go back to our hotel and had some dinner. It was a long day, but we got to see a lot of the area :)

These pictures are in reverse order- I loaded them wrong and didn't feel like switching them around.

Elyse taking a ride- not sure what to think of it. You would see these horse and carts around the city taking people from one place to another.

The sulfur lake.

On top of the first volcano.

A view into the crater.

Elyse hiking. She did a great job.

A view of Manado.

This picture was from our time at the beach. I forgot to add it. This was the first time Anastasia went swimming. She seemed to like the warm water.

Manado, Indonesia: The beach

We traveled to the city of Manado, Indonesia on the island of Sulawesi to meet up with Toby's parents last week. Why Manado? Well, Jack and Jan knew someone there who offered to let us stay at their resort the Murex. I would highly reccomend it especially if you like to scuba dive.



We stayed in little bungalows that looked out on lush greenery, a little stream and the ocean. It was an all inclusive resort so we had breakfast, lunch, and dinner prepared for us in an outdoor eating area. It was great!

The sleeping arrangements changed each night for our family. The first night T and E stayed in the same room while I shared a room with A. The next night A and E started out together, but I later joined them leaving T in a room by himself. This arrangement seemed to work the best since A was waking up more often since her schedule was off and E didn't seem to be bothered by her crying.

The first full day we woke to a wonderful breakfast and then decided to go to the beach. Where we were staying was a dive resort and didn't have a white sandy beach so we had to take a boat to a small island about 45 minutes away.

One of the men who ran the resort said he put his son in a basket while on the boat and he fell asleep. We tried it with A, but she preferred to sleep in my arms.

While A continued to sleep, the rest of the group headed out into the water. It was so clear.

After an hour or so we had lunch. The resort prepared sandwiches and fruit for us to eat. They even made us dessert sandwiches made of bread smeared with butter and chocolate sprinkles. It was very good.

Gramps having fun with A.

While we were eating we were literal surrounded by onlookers. They thought E and A were so cute. After they stopped taking pictures, Jan asked if we could get their picture.

Back in the water Jan found these starfish with "chocolate chips" on the top of them.

On the way back to the resort a few people took a nap.

Happy Birthday Cate!

Bird Park

Today us three girls went to the Jurong Bird Park. It had just stopped raining when we left our apartment, so I thought it wouldn't be crowded yet (even on a public holiday). I was wrong. A few tour groups had already shown up -it was packed, but I convinced Elyse to go away from the big groups and we had most of the exhibits to ourselves. Elyse really liked looking at the owls. We went through that exhibit 3 times.

Despite mosquito bites, a screaming baby, running to the potty for false alarms, the humidity, and hardly seeing any birds, Elyse had a great time and, after we got home, I looked back on our day and decided it was a morning well spent.

As we entered the park:

Although we were at the Bird Park, they were handing out these tiger masks from the zoo.

Elyse really wanted this big drink. It became her lunch since she decided not to eat her $5 hot dog.

As we were leaving Elyse asked if I could take her picture by the flamingo.

Halloween

The day before Halloween we went to a party. It was supposed to be at the Custer's house but poor Kaelan got HFMD so Camille offered up her house. Thanks Camille! Elyse dressed up as a princess, Anastasia was a ladybug and Toby dressed up as Thomas.

I was a Chinese lady.

Camille had baked some cookies for kids to decorate. They sure liked the icing!

Camille's condo had some organized Halloween fun so these are the kids ready to go out. Pierce was a racecar driver, Caleb was Buzz, and Levi was Woody.

When we got to the festivities there was some confusion on what was going on, but after awhile the organizer got the kids into 3 groups and had them search for their trick-or-treating spots around the condo grounds. So instead of going to people's houses, kids stopped by the Ti chi garden and the tennis courts :) Adults were at each spot (10 places total) to hand out candy.

Here Elyse is waiting her turn.

A hot a sweaty Halloween night. Just a little different from the Trick-or-Treating I remember growing up.

Anastasia fell asleep during the trick-or-treating.

The best part:

Thanks again Camille for having us over to your condo.