Here are some pictures that Daddy took of Aaron.  Some are silly, and some are fun.  We hope you enjoy them at home or on the run!

Daddy's Tie on Little Boy

The Monkey on the Playground

"Daddy, shouldn't it be These Ways?"

A New Way to Climb!

Math Boy Working in Daddy's Classroom

The Play-Grid

Slides Are Good for Ladders Too.

Hello, Way Down There!

Mommy In the Orchestra at Church

Catching Up

The Growing Boy

Aaron's First Day of Kindergarten

ICS Carnival

Aaron's favorite game:  Fishing

Every year, the International Community School (ICS) has a carnival to raise money for the school.  There are always lots of games and prizes.  The most popular game is always the dunk tank.  As usual, Danny took his turn awaiting a wet morning.  It wasn't long until he went in!  Aaron even took a turn trying to dunk Daddy.  He missed but there were many others who hit the target!

Aaron attempts to Dunk Daddy!

In he goes!!

 

Mrs. Kennedy is Aaron's teacher this year.  He tried his hand at knocking her in, but she stayed dry.  So, we waited around until someone finally dunked her as well!

A Day With Friends

We recently got to visit with some good friends who live in Indonesia.  They came over to Singapore, so we spent the day together a couple weeks ago.  It was a public holiday, so we searched for something that was inexpensive but that would not be filled with fellow citizens.  We met at the Asian Civilizations Museum.  It was calm and cool, being air-conditioned.  And not very crowded.  It was the perfect place for our families.  Aaron and Jonathan discovered all kinds of new talents in the children's areas.  Here they learn about Chinese culture and eating with chopsticks.  The goal was to pick up fishball sized round, slippery stones with the chopsticks as quick as they could.  But we all know that fingers work much better!  Next we traveled to the Middle East and learned about nomads living in tents.  Aaron liked the hat and pillow!!

Boys playing in China

Our Little Nomad

Betsy's Trip to Vietnam

Last May, Betsy got a chance to visit Ho Chi Min City in Vietnam (formerly Saigon).  She went with the orchestra from the International Baptist Church (IBC).  It was an opportunity to minister to churches with music.  We were so pleased to be a blessing.  However, we were also blessed by the many people we met during our 4 day visit.

Our hosts took us to a unique quilting store where local women sell their hand-made items to support their families.  It is a great help to many people.  I saw this pattern and thought Mamma Whittaker would enjoy this Asian flair to a beautiful quilt.  Unfortunately, I could not get the quilt as well.  

Street Vendors Bring in Their Food to Sell

I was impressed with the mix of old and new architecture all over the city.  Some of the buildings were so narrow, yet so tall!!

New Construction and a Coming Storm

The most common mode of travel other than your own feet.

The Saigon River

Home Sweet Home

Here are just a few pictures from the construction site next door.  It is the rainy season now, and you can see for yourself just what it does!

When new housing is slated to go up, the first thing that happens is a building is constructed that gives an example of what each unit will look like, called a Show Flat.  It happens that the show flats for the new site next door opened on a public holiday last week.  This is from our window on opening day.  You might just be able to see the small, dark forms hugging the shelter in the distance.  That is the queue (British for line) of people there to get a glimpse of the show flats opening day.  It started outside, but once the deluge commenced, there was a press to the scanty overhang on the only building in the area.  That parking lot is the result of all the construction we posted previously.  In spite of the downpour, the weather, as always, remained quite warm.  In fact, the best way to dry off quickly once the rain lets up is to just let your feet get wet.  Most people stay in sandals or flip flops even in the most severe weather.  So the next picture will show you the best defense for the parking attendants on opening day.

Flip Flops and a Raincoat

In between rainstorms, we have some beautiful weather!  Perfect for getting the laundry dry.

Our Neighbor's Laundry

Sunset behind the Singapore Flyer

First Day of School

School started up for Aaron on Wednesday.  He was very excited to be starting in kindergarten.  Betsy was really excited to have some quiet around the house.  Danny, not so excited as he had to go back to work!  But then again, Danny IS excited about his new math courses for his Master's degree.  So, it is a good August.  We are all enjoying the closer proximity to school, only about 20 minutes on average to get to school! (Instead of 50 minutes last year).

"Where's Aaron?"

  To introduce our new space to all of you, we decided to play a little game called "Where's Aaron?"  Enjoy these fun pictures from around our home.

Picture 1:  The Living Room

Here you see our new, and much smaller living room.  We are not exactly sure why there is a big hole in the coffee table, but we thought of some ideas.

 Picture 2:  Aaron's Room

Now that Aaron has a big-boy-bed, he has more space to lose toys under it.  And he has more space to keep all his buddies on it!

Picture 3:  Aaron's Room

The other side of Aaron's room is a wardrobe with a full length mirror.  Lots of space and funny faces!

Picture 4:  The Storage Room

Yes, our storage space has been reduced by over half.  However, God gave us wisdom to use the space available.  Yeah, it is very full!!

Picture 5: The Kitchen

Mommy is very happy with the new kitchen space.  It is small, but the overhead space is more clear than the old kitchen.  She doesn't feel like she has to duck under the drying rack to wash the dishes.  Another plus:  Piped in gas for hot water at the tap!!!  That includes the shower as well!!!!  No more flipping switches and heating dishwater in the tea kettle!!!!!!  Yeah, this makes her very happy!!!  Can you see Aaron?  He is there!

 Picture 6:  The Kitchen

The stove top is a bit of a puzzle.  Mommy is guessing that maids like to stirfry more on their level.  So even though the counter tops are low, the range is even lower!  But Mommy is using every bit of the high space for storing the appliances!  Also, the kitchen can be closed off from the rest of the house, which can be air-conditioned!  Mommy discovered a very important reason to close the kitchen doors:  The clothes dryer.  She ran it twice in one day (Wah!! Soooo hot lah!!!)  Yeah, that is a last resort.  Expensive too!

 Picture 7:  The Dining Room

Family meals are much more efficient now that we have a proper dining room.  What you can't see is the cabinets and counter top Marvin.  Setting the table is a breeze.  Having the extra table will be handy when we have guests.  Can you see Aaron?

Picture 8:  The Master Bedroom

Here we have the room with the "Man-eating Bed".  Yup, most of the room is the bed.  It is almost like everything else is an afterthought.  But we also have a big wardrobe like Aaron's, and at last we have a working air-con unit.  Yeah, they fixed it yesterday!!!  Nighttime is quite comfy-cozy.

Picture 9:  The Study/Guest Room

This is the best angle for the study.  It has so much space for computers (yahoo!) and even scrapbooking (wahoo!!!)  Are you a scrapper?  I am going to be again!!  Gigi, can you see a bit of the Narnia poster?  It looks so cool in this room!!!  Oh yeah, the red rolling chair is cool too (a gift from the previous tenets).  Out of the frame is (you guessed it) another big wardrobe.  No more clothes on a little flimsy rack!!

Intermission Story:

  The view from our windows has been most extraordinary!  The first day we came to view the place, rented at the time by some friends of ours, Paula, wife and mom, showed us this beautiful, scenic, open, grassy park.  The prospect was gorgeous (a little Jane Austin there)!  We seemed miles from the nearest apartment buildings.  What a lovely view each morning.  Paula said, "This whole area is slated for development.  We've enjoyed the view the whole time we've lived here.  I can't imagine that they would start developing for several years."

  Each time we came to see the place, meet the landlord, check on furnishings, etc., we enjoyed our grassy park.  Even the landlord proudly claimed this unique claim upon rare open spaces.

  This is absolutely true.  The day, I mean the absolute DAY we moved our furniture in, a construction crew walled off the entire space and began loud, obnoxious, heinous, assaults on that fine park.  And they mounted this attack right under our window!!  Oh, the humanity of it all.  But there is a silver lining.  Aaron has always been fascinated with giant machines.  His view has expanded greatly in the last few weeks.  Even Danny has had a touch of nostalgia.  Today, these fine wielders of expansion and destruction began cutting down almost all of the evenly spaced trees.  Chainsaws can certainly bring back memories for one who grew up in Roseburg, OR.

  Without further ado, our final shots for today:

Picture 1: The Leaning Tree

The tree in the middle is not reaching for sunlight.  It is falling.  Another one bites the dust (or turf as the case may be).

Picture 2:  Construction Orange

The excavators greet us each morning at about 8 am.  They take a break for lunch for an hour in the middle of the day, then they rest for the night at about 6:30 pm.  There is also construction blue and a lovely sea green as well. 

Picture 3:  It Used to Be Green

We think this is a washing station for vehicles exiting the site.  They dug a huge hole, let it rain for a day, dropped bricks into the pool (huh??) and put a grate over the top.  All I have to say is they better not be breeding mozzies!  This is a dengue free zone!!!! 

Picture 4:  All is not Lost

The good news is that there are plenty of great playgrounds in our new neighborhood.  Our little monkey loves flitting from one to the other.  You can see the MRT tracks in the background.  More good news, we are very close to Clementi MRT.  Yeah, that is important.  Green line!!  Gets us a lot closer to everything!  Less waiting for buses and trains!!  Only 3 bus stops to school.  About 15 minutes, with the wait!!!  Or Danny can walk it in 25 minutes.  That is about as long as it used to take him to ride a bike.

Closing Argument:

  Okay, so I guess since we just had devotions with Aaron, and it talked about not hating, but loving your brother, I better not start an argument now.  In short, we are blessed beyond measure at the grace God has poured out on us repeatedly.  Here He has once again shown His provision by providing us just the home we need, at just the right time, and gave us a Christian landlord as well.  What an honor it is to serve the Most High God!!  Thank you all for your prayers and support!

My camera has video!

This is a video I had Daddy take on my camera a couple weeks ago.

Aaron is 5!

We are back!  Our site is going to have some alterations in how we work.  We've added a new editor!  Aaron celebrated his 5th birthday in February and received his own camera.  He's been having lots of fun with it and will begin to have his own pictures to post and talk about.  Here are a few of our pictures from the past months.

Aaron's birthday 

I wrapped a huge box.with a small box

 

with a picture inside.

The next day we all went and picked out his camera.

It has been fun having Aaron at school with me.  He spends a couple afternoons with me in my classroom after school, it's fun to be able to see a bit more of him during the day. Another fun thing came with spirit week.  This year one of the days was twin day.  We had fun being twins!

Sorry about the pictures, something got messed up when they posted.  They are rotated on our computer!

I got a camera for my birthday!

This is a picture of the building outside our window.

This is in my bedroom when my bed is made really good. Look at the funny snow globe on the shelf.

My tower with Pooh on top and Fuzzy Wuzzy beside it. It's funny because I took a picture with my garbage can too.

I took a picture of my airplane and my American flag and the picture I drew at school, it's a picture of me. I laid down on the paper and my art teacher drew around me.

I took a picture of me and Mommy together on Daddy and Mommy's bed.

I love you everybody!