Samara's Cultural Assimilation

This is Samara's trusty umbrella. It is just her size and she LOVES it! When you think of using an umbrella what kind of weather comes to mind? Rain? Try again. Here in Singapore umbrellas are used not only for rain but also for sun protection. No one wants a tan here or the skin damage that comes along with it. They do everything to protect themselves from the sun.

It is hard to believe we've been here almost a year. It has been both challenging and rewarding. While Singapore is certainly a mild version of Asia, there are still plenty of differences (like umbrellas for the sun, excruciatingly slow walkers, etc.). There are many aspects of the culture here that we will never adopt, but apparently this is one we will.When Jody and Dano were here Samara announced one day, "Mom, I need to take my umbrella with us in case it is sunny." We about died laughing. She has told me several times since that she needs to bring it because it's so bright outside. I'm sure she's overheard me telling people about this but it's funny nonetheless.
She and I head home in two (count them...TWO) days. We can't wait. Ben follows a week later. While we are very grateful for all the places we've been able to visit over here there is still no place like home. We watched a Charlie Brown Thanksgiving movie about the Mayflower a few weeks ago. Samara explained the story of the Mayflower to me in her own words today as we were talking about our trip home to America. She said that the kids on the boat were going to America from Singapore because they missed their families and they wanted to see their Grandpas and Grandmas. History retold by a 2-year old. Can you guess what we've been talking about?!

One Fine Day

Once upon a time, I was a 20-yr old trying to figure out what to do with my life. I opened a National Geographic magazine and found an article about rock climbing in Thailand right off beautiful beaches. The ski season had just ended, which always left me feeling lost, knowing I had nothing but college classes to look forward to for the summer.
In the article, the views were stunning and

the climbing looked amazing. Well, I decided that I was going to move to Thailand and climb my life away. Unfortunately, when I called the airline (no online booking back then) to buy a ticket, it cost way more than my meager savings. So, my dream of living off the land in Thailand was put on hold. Fast forward 11 years and we find ourselves living in Singapore. A local budget airline opens up a new route to Krabi with one-way tickets costing $5 plus taxes and it's suddenly a realty. Deborah and Dustin plan a family vacation there and let me crash in their kids' hotel room (thanks Natalie for giving up your bed!). Ben spends the weekend at home with Samara and Dustin lets us take Saturday while hanging our with their kids.Deborah and I have an unbelievable day. My dream comes true.(p.s. that's Deborah and I in those pictures!!!!!!)

Samara and I have already made 12 or 13 flights together so it felt so weird to be on a plane without her. I did, however, get the emergency row exit seat with the extra legroom, which pretty much equals first class on a budget airline. I felt a little nervous when we landed and this is what the airport looked like. I arrived Friday evening (it's just a 1.5 hour flight). Fortunately, against my insisting I'd make it to the hotel on my own in a taxi, the Smiths kindly arranged for the hotel shuttle to pick me up. Russia made me a little too brave. Sometimes I forget that I don't speak Thai and not everywhere is as safe as Singapore.
Saturday, we headed to Railay Island for our climbing excursion. I have to admit I was a little nervous as I haven't really been in 10 years but it was really like riding a bike.
This is Tik, our fabulous climbing guide. He made the the day for us and planned the climbs perfectly. He had the best accent and made the day so fun. He even entertained our excessive photo taking.

We did four climbs in the morning and we all had a tough time on the 4th one so we decided to break for lunch--I was ready!

This is Collin, our new pal and the other climber in our group. He's Irish and also had a great accent. He's been traveling in the region for 3 months and had 3 more to go--lucky guy! When we got our lunch I commented how it wasn't the typical climbing fare. Deborah had just apologized to Collin for our being silly and taking so many photos (i.e., making him say cheese in the middle of a climb). He said, "yes, I'm very sick of it." Collin was referring to the food but she thought he was referring to us. Deborah looked at me and started apologizing telling him he could switch to a different team. At this point, I understood what he was referring to but I couldn't stop laughing enough to tell them both. Then he said, "wait, what do you mean? I am talking about the food. I am so sick of chicken and rice." It was hilarious.


After lunch and clearing up the misunderstanding, we walked around to the sunrise side of the island to the beautiful Phra Nang beach. We saw a very interesting sailor's fertility shrine and lots of long boats. There were several 'food stands' in the water selling all kinds of interesting snacks. This so could have been my job.
We walked to the other end of the beach, hiked up a bit and did another great climb then headed for the Khoa Luk Choee cave.
The lovely Miss Deborah, mother of 3 darling kids, RN, adventure-seeker.

The cave was huge! We had to take flashlights and climb up and down ladders. It was great. Though, when Tek started talking about the blood-sucking bats I got a bit nervous.

We rappelled down out of the cave. The first time I ever went rappelling was in YWs and I had really long hair. My hair got stuck in carabiner and my head was bent all the way down to my waist my the time I got the bottom. Thankfully, that didn't happened this time.


Deb made the day so fun!! The whole experience was just amazing. At the risk of sounding cheesy, it was sort of life changing. To be able to do something I dreamed about so long ago was so neat. It has motivated me to get in better shape and get strong so I can continue to do things I've always loved as I get older. It's helped me realize that you never have to stop living or put your life on hold for events that are out of your control. It honestly made every horrible day when we first moved to Singapore worth it. It almost makes the grocery runs and long train rides worth it too. :)
We did our last two climbs of the day on the Thaiwand wall. This is the longest climb of the day and the view from the top was STUPENDOUS!!! Honestly, it literally took my breath away. It was so much prettier from the top of the climb. The color of the water was unbelievable. It was well worth every little cramp and sore muscle.


Deborah climbed it after me, took her camera up, and got this beautiful shot.




After the long climb, we did one last climb and that's where we got most of our best shots so it was well worth pushing myself. Like I said earlier, Tik planned the day perfectly.


The four of us back at the beach. A perfect day. One I will never forget.
Ben and Dustin were such troopers to let us go off and do this and watch the kids the whole time. Don't worry though--we haven't forgotten them. They get to go on a shopping trip next Thursday together to Johor-Bahru to stock up on DVDs and chewing gum. Pretty manly.

Naughty and Nice

I had a photo session Saturday with a newborn and I couldn't resist taking some of Samara. Five minutes later and the promise of a pink donut for cooperating and we had a few cute shots.

I put these two together for my website and put it as my desktop wallpaper. Samara came into our room the next morning and I asked her, "Who is the cute little girl in these pictures?" She replied, "That's me, mommy. That one (pointing to the left) is naughty and that girl right there (pointing to the right pic) is nice." Hey, at least she admits it....and so do we for that matter, but we wouldn't have it any other way.

The Canadian Matchmaker

Meet Jody, aka Rosie, aka Canadian Matchmaker. She and Ben have been pals since they were in diapers fighting over the same toy in nursery. I met her when we were crazy singles working at Deer Valley. She and my cousin became best pals, which meant we quickly became friends too. After we got to know each other Jody insisted I had to marry her friend, Benji, who was serving an LDS mission in Russia at the time. So, she is responsible for the Ben and Cheryl show. Jody is truly one of the most delightful people you will ever meet. I adore her. My dad was a big fan too. He told every single (meaning not married) person who came to my parents' home about 'the Canadian Matchmaker.' He'd even give out her contact information.


Meet Dano, aka Samara's new BFF. He's Jody's husband of 10 years and he's awesome too. They came to visit us the last two weeks of October for their anniversary. They suffered no jet lag. You see, they have 5 kids, the youngest being a set of 20-month old twins. They got 6 hours of undisturbed sleep on the plane over and that was enough to put them in a whole new time zone. I overheard Jody's dad telling her while they were skyping, "Enjoy your vacation. This is the only one you are going to get." They were welcomed home with everyone catching the flu. They definitely lived it up while they were here though and went nonstop seeing and doing everything. They are our kind of travelers. It was neat to experience some of it with them--both old and new places...


...like this sweet cat forever glorified in bronze at the Peranakan museum. (Is this hilarious to anyone else?) We hadn't been to that part of the city yet and this was the perfect excuse to go there. The first picture in this post is in front of the museum. There is beautiful and unique architecture in the area.


The museum is great too for kids. You get to make stamps and seals throughout the museum. Peranakans are descendants of the foreign traders who married locals and assimilated into local culture by adopting nusantara customs (whatever that means). We'll definitely be returning to the area again as it was very interesting.

We also made it to the tree-top walk, which we attempted one time before but got totally lost and didn't make it to the suspension bridge. We went a different long way this time but they were good sports. Ben says he's never going hiking with me again.


See how the humidity gives us a nice healthy glow and makes Samara say, "I want to go home." the entire way.

We also spent a very rainy day at Sentosa. Who says rain has to ruin a day at the beach?! Well, the lifeguard did when he made us get out of the water. Samara loved it and was not happy when the lifeguard kicked us out.

I am just going to copy what Jody said about this picture because it's much funnier than how I'd put it. "When it started to rain Cheryl and I made sure everything was well covered... We left Samara to keep an eye on the progress. That is the defeted sholder slump of Dano after he put his first castle on the well manicured foundation and Samara knew that it was then her turn to SMASH it......Cheryl went running while yelling Samara NOOOO. I laughed really hard and took a picture"

Jody told me at least 29 times when Samara was, well, acting like a two-year old, "That's so much funnier when it's not one of my kids." Thanks, Jod! :)

Jody and Dano are foodies too, so we enjoyed trying some new foods with them. Above was our spread when we ate at the Food Republic (a food court in the mall but better than mall food courts back home). I think we got something from almost every stall. They are much more adventurous eaters than we are though--they even ate snails.

We also took an evening river cruise of the downtown and hadn't done that before. It was lovely. As you can see we even have that lovely humid glow at night.







Jody and Dano, we miss you!! Thanks for visiting and celebrating your anniversary here. They tell us our bunk beds are the perfect way to celebrate your 10th or any other special occasion, for that matter.
We even give our guests cold cereal for breakfast--no oatmeal for our visitors. Who wants to come next?

Capture Photography

In case the mass amounts of photos on the blog don't give it away, I rather enjoy snapping away with the old camera. It is something I have loved since I was a teenager. I meddled with doing it for others some before we moved from Utah. Then we had a very hectic few years and a non-functioning camera and it got put on the back burner. One of the biggest blessings of moving to Singapore has been renewing this interest. I have learned heaps since I bought my new camera in May but am constantly amazed how much more there is to learn.

I worked on a photography website over the summer and recently created a photography blog. It's kept me up late at night and very busy, which is good--keeps my mind off the barren womb. I've meant to make a post about the site/blog for a while. I've started having a few sessions and am going to be able to do the photos for Samara's Kindermusik and basically trade the service for the fees. This is a great blessing. Hopefully, I'll earn enough for swim lessons and pre-school too then the rest goes to traveling. :) I've already started enjoying taxi rides to church and I'll never go back. One hour vs. fifteen minutes. Wonderful.

Carnival Fun

Every six weeks or so on the field in front of the mall, they set up this big white tent. Inside the tent is a market of food and cheap stuff and outside are some old crusty rides. It stays for about a month then they take it all down and replant the grass. Once the grass is re grown its time to set it back up again. Amazing how stuff grows here. Not super efficient but I suppose they are taking advantage of the cheap labor. Ben always gets excited when they are setting it up. I asked him why he was so excited this last time since we never really go buy anything and the food is smelly and swimming in grease. He didn't really have a reply so there must just be something about fairs and markets that simply imbues excitement.

It sure did for this little one anyway. Seeing as Samara is up to date on her tetanus shots, we decided to hit the rides one evening when she'd had a late nap. She loved it. The swings were first.


Then it was on to the train.


I could kiss those cheeks all day long and will as long as she lets me.

Last was the hot air balloon ride, which she also loved. At $3/ride (you'd think they had these suckers paid for a long time ago) we were out of change at that point. It was all she talked about for the next few days whenever we'd have to go across the street so, thankfully, it was time for the market to come down a week later.

Happy Halloween!!

We went to the largest Halloween trick-or-treat that we will probably ever go to, which is ironic since we live in a country that doesn't even celebrate Halloween. The neighborhood near the American school blocks off the streets and hosts a huge trick-or-treat. Our friends invited us to a fun dinner beforehand. I tried to get a picture of Samara with her cute little skeleton friend who hosted the party but she didn't recognize him in his costume and got scared. Homes give out 3,000 plus pieces of candy! Seriously, is that not insane? It was a nice evening and the weather was even a little windy and a tad bit cooler.


Samara with the Smiths' kids. Are little trick-or-treaters the cutest thing ever?


So terribly cute in her bangles and bindi!


"Hey, mom I didn't get that piece. We are so going back to that house."


Clark Kent and Superman.


This picture is fuzzy but hilarious. We had her stand by the wall. She put on her blank stare, which surfaces when the camera comes out, and said, "CheeseIhavetogopotty!" Speaking of cheese, when we told Samara about trick or treating she asked me if anyone would be giving out 'cheese treats'. She is a girl who loves her cheese.


Boo! Happy Halloween!!!
We can't wait to see pictures of all your ghosts and goblins.