Singapore!

This year we planned a trip to visit family in America during our winter break, and America's summer break. Usually we fly straight to California from Australia, but this time (since we were flying to the east coast) it was just as far to fly the other way around the world over Asia and the Middle East and Europe. Stan suggested we do some "stop-offs" en route to America so we could slowly adjust to the changing time zones. With three kids in tow it seemed like an excellent idea. We flew in increments of 7 hours flights every couple of days (which was only about a 2-3 hour time zone change, each time). The kids did great!  We got to see parts of the world we had never seen before and I am thinking, after 6 years abroad (and a trip to the USA about every year), we have finally figured out how to travel (....that and maybe the fact that the kids are "older" :)

The first stop-off was Singapore. From Melbourne, Singapore is about an 8 hour flight north, and only a two hour time zone change. We had a couple days in Singapore. The first day we checked into our hotel and then walked over to the local food markets and got some dinner. It was AMAZING, and we could not eat enough. After that we got a taxi over to the Singapore Zoo (ranked top 3 in the world every year) and went on the night safari (ranked #1 night safari in the world). There were these little trains that would take you around the zoo so you could see the Animals get fed and run around. I loved seeing the Lions at night, they were walking all around (compared to how they usually are in the day time). Sorry no good pictures of the zoo- since you were not allowed to use the flash :(

the little market where we got some food after getting off the plane

The night safari. It was so HOT and we were all wearing winter clothes since we had just left Melbourne, we should have changed at the hotel.

Day 2 we had to get out of the city due to hazardous air pollution. the smog was so thick we couldn't see out our hotel window and the schools were even cancelled. All the locals were walking around with masks on their faces. I asked the hotel porter where we could find some masks. He didn't know. Then I asked the hotel if we could get a mask. They said they would issue 1 per family. I was livid. The newspapers and new stations were warning everyone about the air pollution and I had to pick 1 person in my family to get to use the mask while the rest of us breathes in the toxins. I said, 'no thanks' and left.

We decided to get out of the city so we took a bus out to the local ferries, (which was a local fisher boat that could carry up to 12 people), and visited a tiny island, which would rent bikes out to tourists, so they could get around.

 Mary on the tram-love her toothless grin!

 Our little fisher boat

 We rode the ferry out to a little island called Pulau Ubin, which has been conserved by the government, so there is little to no development. The perimeter is about 2 km. Once we were off the boat, we rented some bikes and biked the Island. We could see monkeys in the trees swinging, we ran into a family of wild boars. We did some hikes, and finished off in this little "resort/ aka hut" where you could dip your feet into water and the fish would eat all the dead skin off. It was all so cool!

 Arriving at the island

 Olivia biking

 Olivia found a lizard

Miss Mary covered in the greenery during part of our hike!

 Visiting an restored house with information about the island

 A family of wild boars

 Off the road we found this scenic pond with lily pads. I was so sad there was no one around to take our families picture!

 The kids took our picture

 Olivia and Mary found a coconut

 Here is where we did the fish spa. This "resort" had a bunch of huts for guests to stay in. I thought it looked so cool!

 These fish spa's feel so funny!  I am not ticklish at all, but I couldn't stop laughing when they started eating my feet, it felt so weird!

  Here the fishermen are taking us back to the mainland. I love this picture!

On the way back home we stopped in the city and had dinner. 

 look closely at the menu

 When abroad, we make the kids eat the local food :)  It's an "experience"

 Visiting an Indian temple

 walking the streets of little India

 Saw this sign on the way home...did we wear bug spray after biking around that little island...NO!:-)

Day 3- we went to Sentosa (which is an island that has been turned into a giant amusement park). You take a train over, and can easily spend up to a week on this island going from one theme park to the next. We only had one day so we chose Universal Studios as our day park and went on all the rides until late at night when we couldn't walk any more!

We had several people ask us if they could take pictures with our kids...

Again, very hot- just let the kids play in the water fountains at the park

Olivia is such a fantastic team player in our family.

Thomas' favourite ride was the transformer ride

Another family asking if their boys could get a picture with Olivia and Mary. Thomas wanted in too :-)

Day 4- The next morning we went back to the Singapore zoo and had breakfast with the orangutans. We also got to help feed the elephants their breakfast. The hair on their trunks is very prickly it was probably one of the coolest things I have ever done.  After the zoo, we went back through the city streets and visited china town and went shopping for souvenirs before catching our plane to Dubai.

Feeding the elephants!

They just grab the food out of your hand with their trunk

after feeding the elephants we had lunch with the orangutans. Our breakfast table was right next to them, it was so fun to eat next to them.

After breakfast we went off to see other parts of the zoo.

I loved his broom

Overall, I thought Singapore was very clean, very civil. NO CRIME. The laws were reformed a generation ago and the prime minister got rid of the mafia, drugs (death penalty), graffiti (you get the cane) and everything else. People can walk the streets at night and feel safe. The locals loved living here and except for the air pollution that hit right when we were here, I would have no problems living in this country and I will probably visit again!

Thomas turns 5!

This year we celebrated Thomas's birthday a few weeks early since we were planning a trip overseas during his special day. He was very excited to have a "reptile party."


We decorated the house like a jungle, hired a lady to come with her reptile collection and let the boys pet the turtles, snakes and crocodiles.


 Thomas has talked about it non-stop!  We are so excited to have a 5 year old!

Note: I cannot find any of the pictures!! :(

Stan got PROMOTED!

This month Stan was promoted to a Manager at Bain!  We were all very excited and have been crossing our fingers for the promotion in the last little while!

So what does this mean? A manager is the spot directly under a partner. A manager starts to sell work for the company, and will manage multiple work streams in various projects. Stan has been doing this job for a while now, but now he gets the title!

What does this mean for our family?  Probably not much.  I have had a lot of family members ask if this means we will stay abroad. Our home office is Sydney, Australia and we have been on transfer to Melbourne, Australia. It is likely that Stan will change assignments in the near future (he has been with one client for some time which is somewhat unusual in his field), but at this stage we don't know where that will be, and it is most likely Melbourne or Sydney without any changes on our side in terms of where we want to live. We'll keep you posted!

Congrats Stanford we couldn't be prouder!

Mary Lost a tooth!

Mary has had a loose tooth for a very long time now. Once it was finally hanging by a thread (and Mary could no longer eat her lunch at school) we decided she needed to pull it out. Olivia was very keen to help...maybe a little too keen!  I think the pictures tell the rest of the story!

 Hanging by a thread- 

 Olivia eager to help....

 Olivia- your face is cracking me up here...

After the tooth was out, Mary called her best friend from school, who drew her a picture the next day.

In Australia the tooth fairy leaves 1 gold coin for good teeth. A gold coin is either one or two dollars. Mary really wanted the blue tooth fairy to come, as the coin usually has some fairy dust on it. I think the blue tooth fairy did come. Unfortunately Mary fell over on her bike coming home from school the next day, and had to spend her glittery gold coin on a band-aid. She was so sad, she wrote a note to the tooth fairy and luckily received another glittery coin the next day. Good thing the tooth fairy checks under pillows every night and got Mary's note :-)

Mothers Day, and the Gold Coast!

This year for Mothers Day weekend we flew up to the Gold Coast. Stan had a Bain training meeting up there on Thursday and Friday, so we met him Friday night and flew back as a family on Monday. The Gold Coast is like Florida in America. It is warmer (up in Queensland), it has miles and miles of beaches, the mix of the younger party crowd + the older retired crowd. The mass grouping of amusement parks: Wet N' Wild, Sea world, Movie Land (kind of like a Universal Studios)....still waiting for a Disney Land) and that about sums it up.

We had a fantastic time- here are some pictures from our weekend!

 We were able to only hit two parks over the weekend. First was Sea world (Internet picture above) and phone pictures below.

 Feeding the sting rays!

 Remember to touch the sides (that look like wings, but not the head and tail (they are sensitive)).

 Mary said, 'it felt slimy.' They have no teeth so they suck the little fish and squid bits off your hand.

Our first roller coaster was at Sea world. Stan was so excited to take the girls on their first coaster. Thomas was too short so he stayed back with me. Unfortunately when the girls got up to the line Mary (7 years) got through, but Olivia (9 years) didn't. They are about an inch apart, but the lady would not let Olivia through. You can imagine the horror on Olivia's face, the hot tears while Stan and Mary rode the coaster twice in a row.

It all came out, right then and there. Olivia "It is so hard being small! I am two years older than Mary and she gets to go on a roller coaster before ME! It's not fair, I hate it (sobbing)" There was nothing I could do to make it better, and everything you can say (as a parent) had already been said and continues to be said. I just kind of listened :(

Later we hit Movie World. Olivia put her hair in a high pony tail and rode every ride she could. She had something to prove. The best was the Batman Space-Shot. I said "no way." Olivia lined up with Mary and Stan, and when Olivia got through, Mary told the lady who measures kids that she was too short to ride. Olivia said "no your not" and dragged her on.

Thomas and I rode the kiddy- coasters :-) They were perfect!

Here are some more pictures of the parade and rides-

 Me and Mary!

 Bugs Bunny and Olivia

Our hotel was walking distance to Sea world. 

The picture below is of the gold coast (the beaches are golden).

 Our hotel  (Sheraton) was right on the sand, it was beautiful and I love nothing more than running on the beach. The kids had such a great time swimming in the pool (below). 

It was a great weekend and glad I got to spend Mothers Day with the kids!

Happy Birthday to ME...and a busy week with Olivia

This year my birthday was all a bit of a whirlwind. It started on Monday, when I got a phone call that Olivia was invited to audition for a Broadway Musical called Gypsy. They were looking for little blond girls who could sing and dance for the part of baby June. I had never heard of the musical, so I Google searched it. The plot is basically about a stage mom who pushes her two girls into show biz while they are really young. They travel (like gypsies) their whole childhood preforming, the blond girl (who is the star) resents her mother walks off the stage as an adult, and so the mom uses the brunet daughter (who was always in the shadows during childhood) to be the star. The brunet becomes a star of the burlesque stage, and that is the end of the show!...Yes, I think there is a reason I had never heard of this musical :-)

Anyway, Olivia had to prepare two songs and be ready for a dance/ gymnastic audition (our weakness) in 5 days. To top it off, if Olivia got the part we would have to re-schedule our trip to the USA in just a few short weeks (as the rehearsals would start in June). If I declined the invitation to audition, (since this was our first invitation) I would get put on the black list. I know, because I called to decline, and the lady who answered the phone let me know that it was a very impolite thing to do in the theater industry and there are lots of little girls who would love this opportunity just to show up at the audition. So....we committed to the audition. Our goal was to get to the end (like Annie) and get cut :-)  That way we would still feel good about the effort, but still get to go the the USA. So our preparations started.

To top it off Wednesday, was Olivia's first voice competition (called an Eisteddfod out here). She still needed to prepare for that by Wednesday and then turn around and be ready for this Gypsy Audition on Friday....and just for fun, my quarterly board meeting for work was Thursday :-) It was going to be a rough week.

To sum up: Wednesday- Voice comp.

Olivia preformed the song "Why can't you behave" from the musical Kiss me Kate. She did great. She was one of two kids who competed (the other kid was 11 yrs), and she loved it. It was an open Eisteddfod (so there were no age groups or style/genre groups). This meant Olivia was up against adults singing Opera or Country or whatever they wanted. There was prize money for the top three. Olivia had a following of female university students who were not afraid to tell her how cute she was. Olivia enjoys singing on stage, but she really enjoys the applause, she is quite a ham.

We hedged our bets about the winners and went home after her performance. A few weeks later we got Olivia's score card in the mail. She did really well (got ranked in the second highest category for all the areas of critique, with the exception of 'diction'- that was lower... we've got to work on that American accent :-) The judges said she has a lot of potential, but the song choice was not age appropriate. Oops!

Thursday the board meeting was good, but afterwards there were even more things to work on and I knew Friday I needed to work hard.

Friday rolled around and Stan insisted he make me breakfast. I wanted to delegate my birthday to Saturday. It was not a milestone birthday and I had a crazy day ahead of me. I lost, we had breakfast and opened presents, which made us all late. This was bad. Stan missed the bus so I had to drive him into work. When I dropped the kids off at school they missed the lunch order van (school lunch orders are outsourced to a catering company here in Melbourne). This meant I had to run to the store to buy lunch food and assemble something for my kids lunches. My boss kept calling to see if I was close to finishing assignments, but I hadn't even gotten back home yet, (it was almost noon) so I hadn't had a chance to even look at the computer or even shower.

By 1:00 I had Olivia in the shower getting ready for the Gypsy audition. Then I remembered I needed a portfolio (her CV, current  8x10 head shot , sheet music etc...) I spent the next hour getting that put together, still not on the computer for work yet, and then we got in the car and started the drive across town to get to the studio. We knew we were close when we could see a bunch of little blond and brunet girls walking with their mums down the sidewalk in dance shoes. YIKES, the anticipation started. When we showed up it was a lot like the Annie audition, but a much smaller crowd. This audition was not open to the public (only kids with agents or people who had made it on stage before who were short listed by the community), so the 100- 200 girls that were there, were the ones we recognized from round two or round three of Annie....it was sort of like a cut had already been made.

Olivia's group had around 30 girls her age and height. They went in for 10 minutes and 6 girls went up and 24 girls got cut. Unfortunately for us, round 1 was a dance round. They asked the girls to copy a routine for the judges. They watched it once from the choreographer and then got in a line and had to dance it back. It was three spins, a tap dance move, and a cartwheel that landed in the splits. Olivia was cut and 5 minutes later we went home.

I didn't feel too bad about Olivia getting cut since another girl who HAD gotten the part for Molly in Annie was also cut at the same round with Olivia. These girls can all dance and sing, but some are singers who can dance (Olivia) and others are dancers who can sing. Because round 1 was dance first (Annie was singing first), they wanted a dancer who can sing.  We thought Olivia would be sad, but she wasn't.  We then spent the rest of the evening doing some downtown shopping (for my birthday present) and then out to dinner.

I got some Ugg boots from Stan (since my birthday is now in the fall) and he took me out to --?-- which was a french hatted restaurant in the city. I LOVE IT! It was perfect, and fun to bring Olivia along. Before dinner I got the dreaded call from my boss. I still hadn't gotten online and I felt so bad for dropping the ball. It was my first time juggling work and family. Usually there is no problem, but Friday was an exception.

Saturday morning Olivia had her first dance competition. She did great, it was fun, but I am not going to lie, it was too much for one week! :-)

ps. pictures to come-