Birthday Surprise

As many of you know Toby is in Korea :(, but he is a wonderful husband and remembered my birthday. This came in mail for me...

 What do you think it is?

Surfboard........





Woodcarving..........





Nope.......




 It is this wonderful screen. (Elyse calls it a wall)

Thanks Toby!

Dress Up

Both of my girls love to play dress up. Daily Anastasia will ask to dress up in my shirts and try on Elyse's headbands. Now she can even wear some of the stuff in the dress up box, just like her big sister.

Anastasia looks huge in this picture for some reason, perhaps the angle of the camera...

I really like this picture of Elyse. I can kind of see what she might look like when she is 12 by looking at this picture. And, FYI, that's a dinosaur tattoo on her arm.

Chinese Garden Lantern Festival

Over the weekend we went out with some new friends to The Lantern Festival at the Chinese Gardens. As you know, we live right across the street from the Gardens, but this is the first time since we have been here that they actually did something for the festival (although they did things before we came). We walked around Jurong Lake to the entrance of the Chinese Gardens and were met by beautiful decorations.

Each display was accompanied by a legand like this one:

and then at night they were all lit up. (I'll have to go back to get better night time pictures.)

My zodiac sign the snake (I think she is very cute snake):

Besides the displays they also had an "Adventure Funland" for the kids. Sofia and Elyse chose to ride on the swings, play in the bounce houses, and go on the train.

After the rides, it was time to eat. They had a food court where we had chicken nuggets, laksa, bee hoon, and a cheese hotdog. Can you guess which family member ate what?

Close to where we were eating, there were rocks to play on and bamboo gardens to explore.

As it got dark and things began to light up, the girls got out the lanterns. They got the simple pink ones from the festival and we brought the other ones. The ones we brought had light bulbs in them, the ones the festival supplied had candles. We did not light the candles. Something about 4 years with paper lanterns and fire just didn't seem safe...

At about 7:30 I took Anastasia back home while Elyse and Toby hung out at the Gardens for awhile more. They got to see a show with a magician, a contortionist and some scary lady with masks. Not sure what that was about... Anyway we had a great time and I would recommend going. It's only on until the 18th.

Kickin It Singapore Style

On Saturday night we met up with some friends from church who took us out to a Hawker Centre (Whampoa Market)  and exposed us to some typical Singaporean dishes that we hadn't tried before. Both Ruth and Bim grew up here eating hawker food plus Ruth even wrote a book about it so they know what they were talking about.

Here are some of the dishes we tried. I linked the names of the food to a description instead of rewriting everything.

Hokkien Mee:

This is the stale we got the Hokkien Mee from. It has a long queue, so it must be good.

Ngoh Hiang Stall:

This place basically sells fried things. It's fried and then when you order it it's fried again.

The food we got from the stall.

Rojak:

There were a few other dishes we tried that I didn't gt a picture of: an Oaster omlette and chicken wings. Needless to say we had a lot of food.

After our main dishes we had a few things for dessert.

I don't remember what these are called. The brown was like a peanut soup, made from roasted peanuts. It was like eating liquid peanut butter. The other was a sweet soup with boiled(?) peanuts and glutenous rice balls floating in it.

Chendol: (scroll down on this link to see a desciption Ice Kacang)

Here we are will out desserts and sugar cane juice:

Ruth and Bim:

After our desserts Bim convinced Toby to try some durian. I had tried durian when we first moved here and did not like it at all. Bim loves durian (Ruth not so much) and has fond memories of gathering with friends and family over a fresh cut durian; a very social fruit apparently.

Bim talked to this guy and got to taste the fruit before purchasing it- durian is like a fine wine or cheese. The guy said he would give us a mild one since Toby hadn't tried it before.

Here Bim is explaining how to eat it. You pick up a seed and suck it. He was so excited! Toby- not so much.

Once Toby tried it and said it wasn't that bad Ruth and I decided to taste it as well. It wasn't that bad. Bim explained that you need to get you durian fresh and if it's in a packet, it's probably old and won't taste good. That's what happened to me. I wouldn't go out and buy my own, but if someone offered it to me again I would eat it. Ruth, who hadn't tried durian since her collage days said it wasn't that bad either. I guess Bim picked a good fruit for us to try.

Overall, I liked most everything I tried. I would order most again. The different combinations of tastes and textures is great and truly unique to Singapore.

After the Hawker Centre we went to Mustafa which is a HUGE mall(like Super Walmart on Steroids times 2.) It has everything it it that you would want and never thought you needed. We walked on one floor and it just went on and on and on. It's like a casino in Vegas: no window, no clocks - no sense of time.

Here are a few things I saw walking through. We wound up getting bindis for our Singapore box and some Dr. Pepper.

I had so much fun and I can't wait to go out with Bim and Ruth again.

Check ups

Today I took both girls for check ups at the doctor. Anastasia had her 15 month check up and Elyse had her 4 year old one. Both girls had to get shots :(

Elyse got checked out first and then the doctor (who hates giving shots and causing pain), put some numbing cream where Elyse was going to get her shots. Then it was Anastasia's turn. This was the point that I told Elyse that she was going to have to get a shot. All she said was she didn't want to, but then was fine.

Anastasia got her shot and didn't cry at all. It was kind of weird.

When the reality of the shot began setting in, Elyse started to cry, but she sat on my lap and didn't fight it. I had these images of her running away and hiding in a corner, but that didn't happen. That is an answer to prayer!

After the doctor we played on the nearby play ground for a bit and then went out to lunch :) I was so dreading this appointment, but it turned out just fine.

Elyse weighs 16.9 KG (37 lbs 4 oz.) and is 101 cm (39.8 in) tall.

Anastasia weighs 10.68 KG ( 23 lbs 8 oz) is  79 cm (31 in ) tall and her head is 47 (18.5 in ) around. The Dr. said her head might be bigger than Elyse's.