Flat Stanley Visits!

We've had a visitor!!  Flat Stanley came all the way from Mesa, Arizona to visit us!!  A childhood friend of mine contacted me a while back and asked if her daughter could send us her Flat Stanley and of course we were delighted to host him!  If you are not familiar with Flat Stanley, you can read about him here.

Flat Stanley visited Little India with Lily and me.  We met up with friends, had our hands painted with henna and shopped for beautiful Indian dresses.

Flat Stanley rode on the MRT (Singapore subway).

We took Flat Stanley to the fire station (previous blog post) and to school!  I put together some photo collages to send back with Flat Stanley.

Singapore Gardens By The Bay

Sights around Singapore

The Chinese Garden and National Orchid Garden

The Chuan and adorable Caudle Kids!

Flat Stanley is off today for his journey back to Mesa, Arizona.  We sure enjoyed your visit and I hope it was what you were looking for!  Thanks for coming!!

Bishan Fire Station

This weekend, we visited the Bishan Fire Station!  Every Saturday morning for 2 hours, all of the Fire Stations in Singapore are open to the public.  We've been wanting to go for a while and it finally worked out this week.  We all really enjoyed it!

These are the water nozzles.  They were actually pretty heavy!  The kids were all give little firemen hats when we arrived.

Madeline climbing up the back of the truck.

The kids in the truck with one of the firemen.  You may notice there is a Flat Stanley in the truck with them too!  We have the honor of hosting Flat Stanley for our friends from Mesa, Arizona!  I'll post more about our visit from Flat Stanley after his visit is completed.

This is the Singapore Fire Bike (ignore Wyatt in front picking his nose)!  I don't think we have these in the US.  Sometimes the traffic can make it pretty difficult for the big fire trucks to get onsite quickly.  They use these bikes as a first response.  They always send in a team of 2 and they have a pack on the back of the bike that is also a back pack.  The pack has foam in it (like a large version of the red fire extinguishers that are usually kept in buildings).

Here's a fire man all suited up.  He showed us how quickly he can get his suit on and we were very impressed!

We had a full demonstration on how the firemen use the fire pole!  

Next on to our favorite part, spraying the water hose!

Things got a little out of hand!

Then a lot out of hand!

Our firemen guides with our soaking wet kids!

After we left the station, we let the kids play in a nearby park for a while until they stopped dripping.  It was a very fun  morning!  I was impressed with how friendly the firemen were and also how informative our visit was.

Holidays, Birthdays, and other Days.

Time is flying!!  I can't believe it's already September.  How did that happen?!  I was recently reflecting on how we've been living in an endless summer since about April 2011.  It's been about 18 months of summer!  It's strange have time pass and to have the weather remain constant.  In some ways, time seems a more abstract.  

We've been busy with normal life these days.  The kids just finished week 7 of term 3.  There are 10 weeks per term, so we've got 3 weeks left of this term and then a 2 week holiday and then 10 weeks of term 4.  We'll be in Austin and Arizona this year for the Christmas holidays.  I hope to be able to see a lot of our friends and of course family while we are there!!

In August, Singapore celebrated National Day.  The kids were invited to wear red and white to school and they had a Singapore National Day assembly.

We celebrated Book Week at school.  On the last day, the kids dressed up as their favorite character from their favorite book.  Lily dressed up as Silky The Fairy from The Faraway Trees by Enid Blyton.  Madeline dressed up as Fancy Nancy.  Wyatt didn't have school on the day the kids dressed up.  To my surprise, Lily kept her wig on ALL day!  

I celebrated my birthday this month.  My kids made me this beautiful cake and sang to me.  Scott took me out to dinner.  My girlfriends surprised me with a lunch this week too.  I felt very loved and very spoiled!  

I've been running.  I signed up for a 1/2 Marathon that is in November.  I'm really looking forward to it. I've been running with a few different friends and I'm feeling great.  I'm especially enjoying my trail run on Wednesdays.  There is a beautiful nature preserve in Singapore that has an 11 Km trail.  I've been doing it on Wednesdays while the kids are at school.  It's shady and peaceful and sometimes I get to see monkeys!

You may have noticed the scab on Wyatt's nose...  I have to document his big fall this week!  Just after school on Monday, it was raining and he took off running away from me and into the rain.  Moments later, his friend comes running up to me to tell me that Wyatt was hurt.  Wyatt tripped at full speed and caught himself with his face.  He had scratches above his eye, below his eye, across his nose, on his lips and chin and shoulder!  Lots of blood.  His mouth was full of black tar from the pavement.  BIG LOUD CRIES.  We went straight to the nurse.  I wanted her to check to see that his teeth we alright.  He was fine, the scratches weren't deep.  He sure is a tough kid!  I have to say that if my face was scratched up like that, I probably wouldn't have been as tough.  

That's us for now...