Happy Holidays!

Merry Christmas!  Happy New Year!  Happy (belated) Hanukkah! Happy Festivus! Joyful Solstice!

Friends and family, we are thinking of you and sending our love your way!  I hope you are happy and healthy this holiday season and finding peace, love and joy.  Many blessings to you all!

Love,

The Caudle Family

On The Street Where I Live

Over the last 2 weekends in Austin, it was the Austin City Limits Music Festival!  ACL takes over Zilker Park in downtown Austin and bands play for 3 days solid.  This year, a second weekend was added so more people could attend.  We did not go, it was just too soon after moving here and I couldn't really get my head around spending 3 days in the crowds.  Kids under 10 are free, so next year, we are there!  (There's even an area set up just for kids!)



I love this aerial view of the festival.  You can see our new condo...  On the far right side, about 1/3 of the way down there are a couple of buildings that have a dark orange vertical stripe, that's our condo!  It's about a 10 minute walk from our front door to the entrance to ACL.  Awesome!  Surprisingly (and luckily), I couldn't hear the music playing when our windows and doors were shut.

It rained this last weekend!  That's big news in Austin.  Austin has been having a drought for the last few years.  Our lake reservoir (Lake Travis) is tragically low.  Over this past summer, thousands of trees have died all over central Texas as a result of the drought.  A beautiful art installation has been erected in Town Lake.  The kids and I are driving past this nearly every day, and it has sparked a lot of conversation for us about water conservation and the effects of weather on a community.  Check out this website for THIRST.



The rain this weekend caused a lot of flooding in Austin.  They even cancelled the last day of the ACL festival due to flooding.  Here are some pictures of the flooding at Zilker Park.

The weather has been fairly warm, although we've had a few cool mornings.  However, I think that's all about to change.  Tomorrow, the high is just 64 degrees F (17 deg C).  It's time to locate some jackets!

We're Home!

Well, we made it all the way back to Austin, Texas.  I've been here just over two weeks and I feel like I'm just now catching my breath.  This is the first chance I've had to unload the pictures from my camera and even think about my blog.  There's been so much I've wanted to capture, but I haven't been able to sit down at the computer.  I'm going to quickly go through our farewell pictures and then try to capture a few moments from the last two weeks.

Here's my builder at his Art Show.  Wyatt built an amazing city.  It was huge and very creative.  He had first built the city out of blocks and stones in the building corner in his class at preschool.  He then planned out how to recreate his city using cardboard and paint.  It was a very big project and I'm so proud of him!

Lily at her farewell with her best friend.  It's so hard to say goodbye!

Wyatt playing ipads with his sweet pal.  We sure miss our good friends!

Madeline at her farewell.

We even had a surprise visit from Madeline's best friend for her farewell!  

Party On!

We had to say goodbye to our hamsters.  Lucky for us, a very sweet family took on all three of them!  

Goodbye Benjamin!

Farewell Hamcia!

Goodbye friends!  Goodbye Singapore!  I can't believe we're actually leaving!

Our journey from Singapore to Austin went really smoothly.  It was long, but not as long as it had been in the past.  Every plane was on time and all of our bags made it.  We've never traveled with so much luggage before.  The kids were amazing.  Beyond expectations (and my expectations were high!).  Nobody vomited.  I think that was a first for us!  We usually have vomit when we travel.  By all measures, it was an excellent trip.

So, I haven't taken many pictures since we've arrived.  It's been all tasks and work, and not a lot of trying to capture the moment.  We had a lot of business to manage the first few days, my drivers licence had expired, we had to change our address with everyone and register the kids for school.  Then, we had to do some shopping.  We needed a car and some furniture, we had to get rid of some furniture, it's been a whirlwind.  Oh, and I was sick.  Just before we left Singapore, I got really sick.  I had bronchitis.  I got a really strong antibiotic from my doctor there and I was feeling a little better by the time we boarded the plane, but I had a nasty cough.  It's gone now, but it certainly added to my exhaustion during the move.

There was a funny story with Wyatt.  On one of the first few days in Austin, we were driving to Papa and Gram's house and Scott and I were kinda grumpy, the kids were loud and none of us were particularly happy.  Scott then realized that we hadn't had our coffee yet... BIG MISTAKE!  So, we quickly drove to the nearest coffee drive thru that we could find.  As we were receiving our coffee, Wyatt says, "Wow!  This is the best country!  You can get coffee at the window!!".  We then realized, this was his first drive thru experience that he could remember.  Awesome!

Here are the kids on their first day of school.  Wyatt started Kindergarten!  Madeline is in First Grade and Lily is in Third Grade.  Their teachers are all lovely.  We are really happy.  The school they are at is small and the class sizes are surprisingly small for a public school.  The girls have told me that its really different from their school in Singapore, but that they are happy.  They are all three making friends and they seem to be settling in very well.

I love our new condo!  It's gorgeous and I love living in downtown Austin.  I'm still getting used to my new surroundings and figuring out where to go for different things, but it's been pretty easy and pretty fun.  I've been catching up with a few old friends and making some new ones.  The girls are taking ballet and Wyatt is playing Tee Ball.  We're all getting used to it and finding our way.

Now, I need to take some more pictures of our new life.  I'll post more when I have some!

Tattoos!

So, these pictures have already been posted on Facebook, so this may be old news to you...  But, here it goes anyway...

Scott and I got tattoos!

Seriously.

I chose an elephant with a lotus flower at the bottom.  I chose this design because the elephant represents to me that anything is possible.  Before we moved to Singapore, but after we knew we were coming, I was sitting with Scott looking at my ipad and reading about the different places we would be able to visit while we were living here.  One place I read about is Thailand.  I said to Scott, "I want to go ride elephants in Thailand!".  At that time, it seemed absolutely crazy.  Who does that?  Well, it happened.  We rode elephants in Thailand.  Additionally, our first year here, there was a campaign in Singapore called the Elephant Parade.  There were elephants placed all around Singapore.  I went and saw them all.  It was part of how I discovered Singapore.  Elephants have been a big part of our Singapore life. 

Scott chose the Merlion.

For us, these tattoos represent in some way our time in Singapore.  We've loved our time here and the perspective that it has given us on our own lives.  We've found a happy head space and we don't want to loose it.  We're hoping that as our lives change we can catch a glimpse of our Singapore tattoos and remember this head space and hopefully maintain at least a part of it.

More From August...

I love this picture!  Scott and I took Dennis and Marcia out for durian one night.  The bus that we took there was pretty full, so we each had to sit in a different row.  I was near the front and at one point I turned around and snapped this picture.

Beautiful dragon fruit!

Durian is so sharp and pokey that the guys wear gloves when they open it.

You eat the squishy yellow part.  I've actually come to like and enjoy eating durian.  

Marcia didn't really like it...

These are longan.

Crazy Hair Day.  

We tried to curl Madeline's hair too, but the curlers were too big and it didn't take very well.

Grandma needed one last henna before she returned to the US.

We absolutely LOVED having Papa and Gram visit us.  It's was really wonderful for us to have the chance to share our little life here with them.  The kids were so proud to bring them to school and to show them all the little things in their life here.  It's really special.  I think it's also helping a lot with the beginning of our transition back to Austin.  The kids feel very close with their grandparents again, and knowing they will be there on our return makes it that much more exciting to go home.  

Thank you Dennis and Marcia for making that long journey half way around the world to be with us!  

Book Week!  Both girls decided to dress up Star Wars for Book Week this year.  We couldn't be more proud.  

Lily was the MC for the Year 2 assembly for Book Week.  She had several pages of lines and also some jokes to tell!  I was really proud of her.  She did an excellent job!

Lily had a recital for her violin.  She performed Lavender Blue.  She did a beautiful job!

We are nearly caught up... just one more post...

What Happened to August?!

Seriously, what happened to August?

It's a bit blurry from where I'm sitting now.  Today, it's the 9th of September 2013.  I'll be moving back to Austin in 16 days.  Life is starting to take on that surreal feeling that happens when it's changing faster than I can keep up with emotionally.  I need to take some time to write down my memories from these last few weeks, or else they will be gone.  

On August 1st, we celebrated Scott's birthday!!  

On Scott's birthday night, Dennis and Marcia arrived in Singapore for a visit!!  Everybody was so excited.  We planned a lot of exciting and fun activities to share with Papa and Gram.  On the top of our list, was the Singapore Flyer.

Following our flight on the Singapore Flyer, we headed off to the Singapore Zoo.  It was a big day!  We had so much to share with Dennis and Marcia that we couldn't allow them any time to adjust to the heat and to recover from their jet lag.  Fortunately, they were troopers and were able to cope with it!

We had to go to Little India for a Mango Lasse and some henna!

We walked through the Tekka Market and had a good look (and smell) of the different foods available there.

All the girls had to get some henna!

The kids got to bring their grandparents into school for violin, reading groups and tennis.  Wyatt brought Papa and Gram on his school excursion to the Art Museum.  Dennis and Marcia accompanied me on some errands I had to run.  We rode buses and the MRT.  

On weekend 2, it was National Day in Singapore.  We headed out of town to a little resort island in Malaysia called Batu Batu.  We had time for relaxation and fun in the sun.  The weather was perfect and the food was amazing!  

There was an infinity pool on the beach!

Our best friends came too!  The kids were a little happy to see each other!

Special time reading and playing games with Grandma!

More from our August adventures coming up!