Summer Fun

We are having a nice summer--not that summer is different from any other season. The weather is pretty predictable around here, like some kind of Groundhog Day--hot, humid, rain at some point, etc. We are keeping busy with our summer reading program trying to catch up, if you will.


This is Samara's favorite book at the moment. It is called "Wide Awake". It really hit home for her the first time we read it. I think we read it 10 times in row. One of her all-time favorite phrases is "I waked up!"


We've also been busy sewing luxurious napkin clothes for all of her pets.


It's not all work though around here. They finished a new playground with water features on top of our mall. It's AWESOME! Samara loves the water play area as she calls it. The locals were out of school in June so it was packed then but now if we go in the morning we pretty much have it all to ourselves.




Samara and Daddy have a new favorite pastime--watching our new Malaysian DVDs together. Ben cried the first time we saw Wall-E in the theaters and pretty much every time they watch it. I get choked up every time Lightning McQueen pushes 'The King' across the finish line. It's very touching!

And what is summer without a few trips to our favorite place, the zoo. Being a 15 minute bus ride from the zoo makes up for living so far from church and the city. I'm pretty sure when the year is over it will have cost us about $2/time. Thank heavens for memberships!


There is a petting zoo, but we'd never stopped by it before. They have the cutest little Falabella ponies. They are about as tall as Samara and she loved petting this one. I had horses growing up and Ben promised someday we'll have some. If I were to have a pet it would be one of these ponies.


Samara kept sticking her head in and asking, "What's your name?" People always ask her what her name is and how old she is. Lately, she'll sometimes just say to someone as soon as they come up to her, "Samaya, I'm two. Bye bye" The other day a lady asked her how old she was so Samara told her and asked, "How many are you?" The lady didn't answer so she asked me, "How old is her?" So I clarified for the lady and said, "She's asking how old you are." The lady said, "I know what she is asking but I'm not going to answer." It was hilarious. She was totally put out that a two year old asked her age.

We also met up at the zoo with one of Samara's friends, David, who is moving. We are so sad they are moving. We thought the days of us being in a transient ward were over once we got out of a student ward but we've lost over 1/3 of our ward since moving here. Samara's friend is the youngest of seven boys and he is the calmest sweetest little boy. His mom and I are in YWs together. She is wonderful. His brothers are just as nice.


They treated her to her first carousal ride and were so sweet. The one just older than David sat next to us on the tram ride and when I looked over and he was holding her hand. When I tried to get Samara to look at me on the carousal ride and asked her "Where's Mommy?!", she very matter of factly said, "You're in the camera, mom."


This is a house near the petting zoo that I've always thought was just a maintenance building. It has these freakishly realistic manikins in it and displays depicting life back in the day. Those are real rats but thank heavens those cockroaches aren't real. David is a month younger than Samara but he's just a 'wee' bit taller.

We finished the day off right with ice cream. The four of them looked so cute sitting in a row with their cones, which gave me a clever idea. I wanted each one of them to stick their head forward so I could focus on him/her. Samara and I sometimes have creative differences. This was one such instance. She wanted to take the shot in a slightly different direction.


Actually, I just got the wrong "pink" ice cream so she wouldn't eat it and wanted WATER instead! She got water and I got two cones. :)

Adventures in Grocery Shopping

Does anyone out there really enjoy grocery shopping? Personally, the only time I enjoyed it was when I was 16 and had just got my license. Before Samara was born Ben and I would wait until the fridge had nothing in it but a bottle of ketchup and week-old leftovers before we would go grocery shopping. When Samara was a baby, I was pretty proud that I kept up on groceries myself with an infant in tow. Then our grocery-shopping day coincided with a friend’s and we’d often run into each other. Marcie had a baby too AND four older kids. I secretly followed them around the store once waiting for any signs of misbehavior or rebellion. I didn’t see any and realized that she was super-human and that I couldn’t yet add grocery provisioner to my resume.

Click $%^#* to read what I thought about grocery shopping when we first moved to Singapore. Thankfully, the days of climbing stairs and clerks laughing at me because I’d ask for something so absurd as flour are long gone. It got a hundred times better since moving to our condo as there is a grocery store across street at the mall. Samara and I have a good little routine down—she rides over in the backpack, we stop at the one ATM that takes our card to get money since the store doesn’t take our card, she then gets to ride in the cart (which she really enjoys), people rub Samara’s cheeks, she tells them she doesn’t like it and to stop, they don’t understand and think it’s cute she’s talking to them, try to rub them again/talk to her, we try to maneuver past them but the aisles are only wide enough for one cart, we run over a few old ladies’ toes, and finally buy our groceries. We then load the trolley and the backpack up with the groceries, take the shopping cart back to the other side of the store to get our dollar back, disinfect her cheeks and hands, and then she happily walks home along side me eating her newly acquired animal crackers.

Sorry, this post is getting way too long so here’s a picture to keep your attention until the end. Details follow. I think you'll need to click on it to read everything.

This week we added a little excitement to our grocery shopping. First off, Monday (Ben took the day off) we went to Malaysia to buy groceries on someone’s recommendation that they were way cheaper there. The trip isn’t so absurd because we are closer to Johor Barhru (the border city) than we are to our own downtown plus we’d never been there. Let’s just say, maybe with a car this would be worthwhile but for us it was a learning experience. We will NOT be going there again for grocery shopping but will be returning for clothes and DVDs, which are much cheaper—12 DVDs for $25 SGD! It was a (seemingly) legitimate store and big mall. We figure if it were illegal the store wouldn’t be open. ;) It was odd how foreign it felt there and fun to ride in cheap non-metered taxis. That’s how it was in Russia and that’s the way we like it. Oh yes, the ATMs there take our card and we bought gum!

Tuesday, the trip to our store was going normally, until I, not thinking, put the soap next to Samara in the shopping cart. She loves taking the pump in and out of the soap and next thing I knew she was covered in soap. I remained calm and thankfully so did she (she normally HATES having anything sticky or dirty on her, i.e, wants to clean the playground equipment with a wipe if it is wet or dirty before playing on it. She takes after Ben!) We went through the check out line and the checker told me my soap was broken and had gotten on her hands. Apparently, she’s a kindred spirit to Ben and Samara because she left for five minutes to go wash her hands. We started home and passed an escalator. A thought popped in my mind “take that escalator”. I didn’t because it’s a longer route out of the mall. Then we passed the bread store and while I stopped to rearrange the bags, Samara decided it was time for a donut and proceeded to open the strategically placed “at her level” donut bins. I realized this when a man commented, “Your daughter is so clever. She knows how to get the donuts out herself.” I bought the one she’d licked and left the others, figuring her hands were recently disinfected. We then got to the other escalators, which were closed for repair. Then I knew why I’d had that “thought”. We eventually made it home and I had to take a picture.

I’m pretty sure I’m getting closer to adding grocery store provisioner to my resume.

She can't read but...

People universally love to give unsolicited advice about child bearing and child rearing. Whether they think you have too many or too few children, should space them differently, or want to tell you something lame like "you need to relax to solve infertility," people love to get in your business. It's no different here. Shortly after Samara turned two, we were playing at the playground and a lady noticed that Samara wore a diaper still *gasp* and that she wanted to sit on my lap and play with my hair while she drank from her sippy cup *the horror*. The lady was staring while she sat on my lap, so I mentioned, to end the awkward stare, that Samara likes to play with my hair while she drinks as a comfort device. She said, "Hmmm...and she's not potty trained yet either? You must really coddle her." Needless to say, we avoid that lady like the plague.

The other day we were out at the park talking to a woman we'd met before. She asked Samara's age. I told her she turned two in March. She then asked, "So, does she like to read?" I said yes thinking she meant look at books or be read to. She said, "Oh that's great she's already reading on her own." Confused, I replied (thinking "do most kids read at this age?"), "No, she doesn't read by herself yet. She loves books and being read to." She then asked, "So, she's sounding out some words then?" Still confused, I replied, "No, she remembers some of the words if we've read the book before." She finished off with something like, "Oh, that's nice" in a tone of "I'm sorry your child is remedial". So regardless of the fact that Samara can't read, she's got street smarts, which have got to count for something. She can even hail a cab all by her bad self.

I learned she had this skill a few weeks ago when we were walking home from the park and she asked, "Can we take a taxi home?" I said "no" and proceeded to explain why this wasn't cost effective, which I am sure was sinking in and completely understood. In the meantime, she proceeded over to the curb, put out her arm and said, "Mom, I want to ride on taxi. I don't want to walk home. It's too far."

Free SLR zoom lens!

Do you want a free SLR zoom lens? I just read about this on my friend Lena's blog (Thanks!).

Enter for your chance to win a free Tamron zoom lens for either a Nikon or Canon from MCP actions by doing the following:

- Post to your blog, twitter and/or facebook about this contest (let people know how to enter and provide a link)

- Come back here and leave a comment writing where you posted (with link so that it can be verified if your post is picked from the random drawing)

- In your comment, please write why you want to win this lens, where you would want to most the lens, and for fun tell us how many lenses you currently own.

Here is the link to their site, where you can leave the comment.

4th of July Party

Samara is in a contradictory phase. No matter what we ask her the answer is the same, "No, I don't like that. I don't want to do that." We are having fun with this asking her things like, "Do you want to go to the zoo/eat some cheese/watch Little Einsteins? " She'll reply, "No, I don't want to go to the zoo. I don't like the zoo." Then comes a pensive confused pause where she wonders why in the world she just turned down something she loves and she'll say, "No, no I want to go to the zoo. I like it there."

The US military base hosted a 4th of July party. They had a shuttle taking people to and from the MRT station and base. This is the conversation we had 10+ times on the bus-ride there.

S: Where're we going, papa?

B: To the 4th of July party.

S: No, we not going to a 4th of July party. Where we going?

B: Samara, you tell me then where are we going.

S: To the 4th of July party.

We were reassured by the security at the entrance until we went through the beeping metal detectors as the worker stood there, blankly waving everyone through.

There was good ol' American music and dancing

We had a great time despite it being very crowded. We met a woman from Scotland at the train station who told us about the shuttle who was going to attend with some American friends. She had perhaps the most fabulous accent in the world. It was obvious that not all the attendees were American. We figured they just came for the ...

hearty servings of beer. I had to wait in line for food for almost an hour and had to find some way to pass the time. Unfortunately, the camera battery died and Ben had the bag with him so my fun of taking beer photos ended prematurely.

Meanwhile, Samara and Ben waited in line to get her face-painted. The line moved only a few inches in that time so she got a flag sticker and hat instead. This is what she thought of not being able to get her face painted. Although, she did like the hat.

The long wait for food proved not to be worth it as well. They were out of fries by the time I got up to place my order. Ben played it safe and went with the chili dog. My chicken sandwich was disappointingly not an all-american chicken sandwich. I had high hopes. Before moving here, we corresponded with a family who had moved here about a year prior to us. They warned us the food would be an adjustment but didn't give much detail except telling us that they eat a lot of chicken and rice. We thought they were pretty soft because who doesn't like chicken and rice, right?! Then we moved here and had the chicken. You can say goodbye to boneless skinless chicken and hello to chewy weirdness and those creepy tendon things that are a pain to cut off. I am pretty sure they just get scraps of unwanted chicken parts from other places. So, next time you eat a delicious Chic-fil-A chargrilled chicken sandwich in all it's splendid glory, say a little prayer of gratitude that you know what you are biting into.

I have a fry addiction and my 4th just wouldn't have been complete without them. So Ben obliged and found a shorter line with some potato wedges and...er...deep-fried frog legs. I settled on the former for my fried fix.

And finally, we got to see fireworks or 'fireguys with so many many colors' as Samara called them. There is nothing like fireworks to make it really feel like the 4th of July and help us feel a little less homesick. America certainly isn't perfect but I do believe we have a divinely inspired constitution and that God guided the founding fathers. I am proud to be American. Ben is proud to be half-american and Samara isn't sure what she thinks yet. We are still trying to convince her she isn't from Russian. She knows she lives in Singapore, was born in 'Amerca', and that daddy is from 'Canana'. She talks about Borneo more than any other place. This has all got to be very confusing for a 2-year old.