Loose Ends

I realized there were a few thing that I wanted to share, but got busy with life. Now that our time is winding down, it's now or never!

The first loose end, is Langston's school. In previous posts I said that he started at Superland and told about his birthday celebration... but I had to share a couple photos and a little about Langston's routine.

This is the bus Langston rides to school in every day. It picks up him and Elizabeth, his classmate, at the lobby/breakfast room of our apartment every morning around 8. This has got to be one of the cutest buses I've ever seen, especially in the afternoon when it is full of kiddos.

Speaking of breakfast and second breakfast and elevensies, I think Langston may be a hobbit. We have breakfast here at the apartment every morning - and he does not have a small breakfast rather eggs, fruit, cereal and yogurt... this is one day, not four. Then, according to the notes I get from school every day, he has a second breakfast at school. Granted, he usually only eats half portions at this meal, but still he eats half of it. But then comes morning tea which he seems to like since it is typically completely eaten. So now it's 10:30 am and he has already had three meals. As I said, hobbit! At school they also give him lunch... half portions again is the norm. Then he comes home and begs a PB&J out of me. Seriously. Five meals before 1pm. I guess it's no wonder he's got the miniature body of a 40-year-0ld beer drinker.

Another loose end, is my meeting the owner of Love for Earth. On my third attempt I finally meet Patrick, his wife, and two kids. They were quite surprised to have me just show up in their shop! We had a nice visit and they asked me questions about the shoes. Maybe they will surprise us at our shop one day.

Finally is the "student lead conference" at Kahlil's school. This is a meeting between students and their parents and is a chance for the student to show off all they learned and made that year. Kahlil was very proud to tell us the story of the Three Little Pigs with puppets, sing the 's' song, and show us all of his art work. He also had Jay and I both fill out one of the math worksheets he has done this year and then he checked our work. He checked on Jay first and Jay did both of his sections correct so he got two smiley faces. I got one section right and one smiley face, but on the second section I circled 6 even though it is smaller than 10. Kahlil found my error right away and boldly crossed out the 6 and circled the 10. I got a sad face for that section. His confidence in correcting my error was fantastic. I highly recommend these conferences. It really gives the kids a chance to spend some quality time with Mom and Dad.

WIld Singapore

Over the last few weeks, we've visited two of Singapore's natural offerings... Bukit Timah and Pulau Ubin. Since much of Singapore is well developed, it was nice to spend some time closer to nature.









Bukit Timah is a nature preserve in the center of the island and it contains the highest point on Singapore. We hiked from the visitor center to Bukit Timah Summit. Singapore is pretty flat and the summit is only 545 feet above sea level. But that was fine with us as it was a hot / humid day. Both boys did great on the hike and we saw some cool insects, butterflies, a terrapin, and MONKEYS!

The monkey troupe was hanging out at the summit. The females and babies were playing and grazing. The males were tussling and fishing for treats in the trash can. There were signs around asking us not to feed the monkeys and to put all trash in the bins. Apparently the monkeys didn't think putting something in the trash can meant it was off limits... and there wasn't much to stop them from opening up the trash cans and getting out what ever they wanted. Apparently the Singapore Parks service should investigate critter free trash cans such as those that can be found in Yosemite.

We saw a sign telling us about the snakes that can be found on Singapore... most of which are common in Bukit Timah. We did not see any snakes - sorry Sarah and Bob :-)




Pulau Ubin is a secondary island that you have to ride on a boat to get to. All the power there is via generator and there are very few cars. The island kampong (Malay for village) is the last in Singapore and has about 100 residents. This is suppose to give you an idea of what Singapore was like in the 1960's.

Last Tuesday was a holiday and Corina, the daughter of Tim from Soft Star, was coming into town for work. She took the red-eye from New Zealand to Singapore and go in early in the morning. We meet up with her around 11am and hit the MRT for the long train ride out to the the ferry point. We were surprised to find a pretty nice beach on this north-east corner of Singapore. The boys tried to talk us into some surf and sand time, but the promise of a boat ride got them over it.

Once on Pulau Ubin, we rented some bikes and made a circle of the island. Kahlil was a little rusty and it took a few tries before he had his petal-legs back. But he found them and was amazing. Langston got the best deal on the trip... a comfy seat on the back of my bike. The positive part of that situation was that I got an especially good workout.

We rode over to the Chek Jawa wetlands and got to see some cool ecosystems - mud and sand flats, mangroves, and coastal forests. We also visited House #1, a Tudor cottage that was built in the 1930's and it believed to have the only working fireplace in Singapore. It is now a visitor center. While walking around the wetlands we also saw a wild pig and her piglets! It was awesome.

It was again a sticky day. There were threatening thunder clouds, but they did not open up. It was nice that we didn't get rained on, but we were all pretty hot and sweaty and could have used a bit of a wash off.

While I had thought we would have Corina back to her hotel nice and early so she could catch up on sleep lost from her flight the night before, that was not to be. After the boat ride back to Singapore we had dinner at a local restraunt and introduced her to BBQ stingray. By the time dinner was over, and we FINALLY caught a cab, it was well into the evening by the time Corina got home. At least she had a good night sleep after an active day.

When it rains, it pours

So many posts... so little time... so here is a quick one.

Singapore weather is no joke. It will be sunny one minute and then thundering the next. These photos were taken in the span of about 10 minutes. Try to watch the building in the background with the blue roof...

Writing on the wall

Kahlil has had quite the expansion in his artistic expression lately. He typically draws for an hour or two every day and I want to share some of his creations...

These are skeletons taped up over Kahlil's bed. I'm not sure why he drew skeletons, but there the are.

These are scuba divers on our dinning room wall. These went up shortly after we bought him a snorkel and mask.

He got the idea to play restaurant and made a drink and food menus. He drew the pictures and I wrote the words. He told me he would be the waiter, Jay and Langston would pretend to be hungry, and I would be the cook. To be the cook, he told me conspiratorially, I just had to bang pots in the kitchen... this got a good giggle out of Jay and I. As it turned out Jay and I were the customers and he took our order which took some time because 'pepperoni pizza' and 'chocolate chip cookies' have a lot of letters. Langston was the cook and would deliver our food before Kahlil even finished writing it down.


Here is everybody's favorite mouse.

This is a picture of me, with my long hair, and hearts.


And not to be left behind, here are Langston's contributions to our living room wall. Purple seems to be his favorite color and he was quite proud of the circle on the left picture.