Thanksgiving in Singapore

Thanksgiving seems to have snuck up on us - the 90 degree days and the lack of any Thanksgiving decorations just makes you forget that it's coming.  Clearly Thanksgiving isn't celebrated in Singapore - duh, it's an American holiday - but we have definitely missed seeing stores decked out with things that could be used during the holiday.  The most amazing thing is that as of the week before Halloween, Singapore was already all decorated for Christmas!  It totally throws you for a loop and seems completely out of place, especially with the heat and everyone walking around in shorts and t-shirts still.

 This pictures were taken near our house on October 27th!!!

Thanksgiving this year was our first with just the five of us.  It made me a little sad but it also let us decide exactly what we wanted to do on Thanksgiving day.  Luckily, the kids' school was out on holiday since it's an American school but all the rest of the school kids were at school and everyone was at work.  Drayton took the day off and we just relaxed, ran errands and then Drayton went to pick up our cooked turkey.  Yes, he picked it up!  Our oven was too small to fit a full turkey in it and so many people here but their prepared turkeys (with gravy and stuffing) from Mr. Ho.  We followed suit and it certainly made things a lot easier.  We still had corn pudding, mashed cauliflower, broccoli casserole and cranberry sauce to go along with it and of course, pumpkin pie for dessert.

We wanted to make sure we took a family picture since we even got dressed up for our very small Thanksgiving dinner.  Naida stood on a stool and took numerous pictures of us trying to get all three kids to look at the camera and smile at the same time.  In the end, we decided that our "dance party" pics were our favorites.

 "Shake it Off" was our theme!

 Then Sumner caught Daddy doing his own dancing and showing off....

Happy Thanksgiving!

Ashley Comes to Visit!!!

I have been so excited for my sister, Ashley, to come visit us for a week.  This was a visit I hadn't anticipated since Andy, Ashely and their kids were already booked to come visit us next June but the addition of a bun in the oven due next April definitely put taught her a lesson about buying plane tickets 300+ days in advance!  Things can change - and we're so excited about Baby Freedman #3's arrival next spring.  And I was especially excited because it meant she fit in a visit in November since otherwise she wouldn't make it here for quite a while!

Usually Ashley is great about taking lots of pictures - she's very much like my mother that way - but somehow we were completely remiss during her visit and so there are few pictures to share.  I can say that we did lots of things along with her accompanying me on regular school-day activities as well.  We hit Chinatown, the Aquarium, the Gardens, Fish Spa, American Club, lots of errand-running and grocery shopping, a little personal shopping, Marina Bay Sands light show, riding in the Duck Boat, visiting the Merlion and a full day in Batam, Indonesia at a spa.  There were lots of other activities too but I can't remember them all!

Out of all these activities, the only really great pictures I have are from the Fish Spa.  Never done it before and probably won't again except that seeing the reaction on Ashley's face after she put her feet into the tub would be something I would love to recreate on all of our visitor's faces.  Both of our cheeks hurt from laughing so hard.  Definitely an experience!

 At this point, Ashley is shrieking and laughing and crying all at once!

The fish were a little nervous about getting too close to Laura's blue polish!

 Ashley entertaining kids at the kitchen table

Standing in front of the famous Singapore Merlion

(a combination of a Merlin fish body and a Lion head, which is Singa in Malay)

The Weekend of Big Sports!!

The weekend of November 8th was a busy weekend for us - Sumner had his Division Basketball playoffs and Ella was playing in the Singapore Lacrosse Spectacular!  Henry was just a good sport!

Let's start off with Sumner's basketball tournament.  His U11 Team B Stamford basketball team did not have a winning record for the season but did a great job and improved steadily throughout the season.  As a result, we were thrilled when the team won their division playoffs on Saturday morning.  It was a great season and Sumner really worked hard and loved playing.  

 Victorious!

 Coach and teammates post-game.....

.... determining whether their medals are real gold!

Elsewhere, the Singapore Lacrosse Association hosted the Singapore Lacrosse Spectacular.  It was a 3 day event that included teams from Shanghai, Hong Kong, Australia and of course Singapore.  The ladies lacrosse players only had two teams participating - Singapore and Hong Kong - so they played in each rung of the playoffs against each other.  These were some intense games played by women from 20 - 40+ years old except for three younger players on the Singapore team with the youngest being their 12 year old goalie, Ella!  She was impressive standing up against some fast, experienced players and we were thankful that the Singapore defense was on fire this weekend but Ella still had some spectacular saves and we were very, very proud.  And the best part was that the Singapore ladies won every single game!!!

I should note that it poured every single night and part of two of the days resulting in a field that was entirely mud.  At one point volunteers were on the field between games with a shop-vac trying to suck up some of the pools of water.  It was a messy, sloppy field and at times the ball disappeared in the mud and had to be retrieved and dropped by officials.  Spectators ended up almost as muddy as the players did but we all managed to have fun.

 This is how one dresses if he's coming straight from work, it's just stopped raining but the entire field and sidelines are standing water/mud.  Nice slacks!!!

 The Singapore Women's team (and baby mascot)

 Ready to play with lucky Goalie headband

 Undefeated on the last day (and pretty dirty too)

The Singapore Mens and Womens teams on a very muddy field

Adventures at Universal

We are the people we have looked at incredulously in the past - our family has season passes to Universal Studios!  Never even had been to an Universal Studios until we moved here but the kids saw that there was one here when they were looking through the "Singapore for Kids" guidebook that we gave them the night we told them we were moving.  Through the tears and sobbing, they spotted the page that talked about Universal Studios and in hopes of improving the moral, we told them we could probably have season passes to the place once we moved.

Well, we arrive August 1st and by the time the end of August had arrived, we were given our official season pass lanyards.  A very proud moment for the Virkler family - ahh, no but all three kids were thrilled.  As a result, we have been several times and there are definite advantages to having a season pass.  We can decide to go for a few hours and avoid the huge lines to buy our tickets and then bypass the long lines to ride the rides, and then leave in a couple hours and not worry about "getting our money's worth".  By the way, we have gotten our money's worth which is a relief.

We went recently and decided to try our hand at rock climbing (Henry was revolting and refusing to go on any of the scary rides which are really the only rides worth riding at Universal).  Had a fun time and Drayton and I weren't willing to give up before we reached the top since all three kids made it but must say, it was a lot easier when I was a couple decades younger!

 

I'm afraid the the photographer forgot to take pics of D at the top, but he did make it!!

Halloween in Singapore

After having lived on the farm for the past 10 years, we have never had any trick-or-treaters at our house looking for candy.  The mile-long driveway has always discouraged any interested visitors.  Likewise, we've never had any neighbors where we could go trick-or-treating so the hope was to always be invited to someone's house in Hope Valley where the best, and most convenient, candy can be found on St. Marks Road.

This year was a totally new experience - 35+ neighbors with candy at their doors within 19 flights of stairs!  Probably over 40 kids appeared Halloween evening down on the first floor of CityVista Residences where we met to take pictures of all the kids and send them on their way.  Parents quickly ran back up to our condos to man the doors and pass out candy.  Over the course of about 30 - 45 minutes, I stood at the door and listened to kids running up and down the fire stairs stopping at any door that was open.  With four condos per floor and 17 floors of residences it made for a lot of candy collected!  And the beauty was that Drayton and I were able to stand comfortably chatting with friends and drinking a beer and didn't have to run around in the dark on St. Mark's trying to keep track of three kids!  No offense to all the wonderful folks that have entertained us on Halloween's past - we'll be back in two years to mooch off of you again so thank you!!

Note:  7th graders are too cool to trick-or-treat but they still dress up to go to the Middle School dance.  Drayton took Ella and her friend (and condo neighbor) Caitlyn to the dance and got a cute picture with Ella before she went in.  Ella was Elvira!

 Ella and Caitlyn (Elvira and Ballerina)

 Virkler kids - Elvira and 2 Storm Troopers

 Punk Rock Daddy and Blue-Wigged Mommy (Katy Perry-esque)

 Some of the CityVista kids (trying to get everyone in one pic was impossible)

Daddy and Ella in front of school, dropping off for the dance