Desaru, Malaysia

Playing in the waves with friends is always a good time. I can hardly believe my girls are so grown up! They are such great big sisters to our 2 boys.

Desaru

Gong Xi Fa Cai!  

Chinese New Year is the biggest holiday in Singapore.  So we decided to take the surfboards and head to the beach while Mike had a few days off of work.  It was a typical Malaysian vacation...it started out with traffic through the border, then finding our beachfront hotel that was oh so beautiful on the website but very run down and unkempt in reality; mixed with poor service and throngs of Chinese & Malay tourists who filled the pool area of the hotel.  I can't forget to mention the large amount of oil in every meal...oily eggs, oily spaghetti, and oily fish & chips were oh so tempting.

Actually, aside from the crowds, our increased level of cholesterol & lack of surfable waves we really made the most of it and had a great time.  We had great weather...(a bit windy so that the surf was blown out) and good times with friends.  Our regular traveling companions, the Robisons, were there, as well as the young men from our ward who were camping down the beach a bit in tents.

We can't believe ourselves

Cars are expensive in Singapore...very. Most Singaporeans take public transportation. Scooters and motorbikes are very common and since we live very close to Malaysia we get to see lots & lots of Malaysians commuting by scooter to Singapore everyday. They are brave men & women b/c they have some unwritten code here that flip-flops are proper foot attire for motorcycle riding. Don't think they've ever considered Harley Davidson as they're picking out their footwear.

Anyway, we feel extremely blessed that we have TWO cars! We added this cute mini to the Daynes family a few months ago and she is still the baby of the family. Which baby is cuter?

More This Is Our Life in Singapore

Here's a photo with our whole, tall house in it with lots and LOTS of stairs. No worries about us thinking our house is anything special because then there's the house across the street from us. It's about twice as big as ours, with about 4 more bathrooms than us and a much bigger pool. I wouldn't want that house anyway. There might actually be a room big enough to make into a toy room, enough space for the kids to ride their bikes in the front room, room for an eat-in kitchen, space to park 2 cars in the driveway. Who in the world would want that???

There's also some shots of the kid's school which is about a 2 minute walk from our place. It's really more of a campus than a school. You can see the ECC portion which is where Carson spends his time and the middle school portion where Sammy spends her day. The other shot is the central Administration building.

The shot at the top is of Carson's soccer team, The Chargers. Hmmm. Wonder who implanted thoughts in his head that "Chargers" might be a great team name? (Carson is back left, next to the coach in green)

The team photo was taken on the beautiful grass fields on the campus of Singapore American School. Some of their fields are real grass and some are turf. It's just great to have somewhere close by to run around...another reason why we like living close to SAS. Sometimes you just crave GRASS.

This Is Our Life in Singapore

I thought it might be helpful for our friends and family to get a glimpse into our daily life in Singapore. Especially since the chances are very high that many of you will never make it here to visit us. We rarely get visitors so when we do it's a big fuss! Our most common visitor is a businessman passing through for work duties who we may know from living elsewhere in Asia or from the U.S. We would love more visitors but with the economy the way it is we understand why we don't! So, here's a glimpse into our home...There it is! It's a townhouse and we're very fortunate to be in an end unit so we only share one wall with our Vietnamese neighbors.

Our pool is in the front of the house, behind that wall. We're the only townhouse in our neighborhood with a pool b/c we had it put in ourselves when we moved in. Our landlord liked the idea...as long as we paid for it! We are so glad we did it. It is small but it is so refreshing when you are hot which is every day in Singapore!!!

Kiss My $#%!

I know that it appears that this blog all about Carson...but I remembered something today that I just have to write down before I forget...
I put Carson in time out recently for messing around at the dinner table. This is a common occurrence during the dinner hour. He acts up, I put him over on the stairs in time out, he comes back, the cycle is repeated, etc.
So, I gently escorted him over to the time out position when he says to me, "Mom, Kiss My Ass!" He said it loudly and clearly with perfect intonation for all to hear so I quickly looked at Sammy to find out where he could've learned such language!? She immediately said, "Don't look at me...he learned it from Hair Spray!"
I was busting up because first of all he used it in the perfect context and he was totally calm when he said it. Then, when Sammy knew immediately where he got it from I was dying with laughter.
I think we may need to cut our viewing time of Hair Spray in half for awhile...

Carson Daynes - Super Duper Model

I just got a few more photos of Carson the supermodel. (I'm sure he's going to love reading this when he's 17!) Here he is with his best girlfriend Estelle. She is my awesome friend Jocelyn's daughter. They moved back to Utah in December and we were all so, so bummed! Estelle was in Carson's pre-K class at school.

One day when I picked Carson up from school the teacher told me she needed to tell me something. She told me that Carson was sitting next to Estelle at lunch and kissed her! When we got home I asked Carson about it..."So where did you kiss Estelle?" With a sly smile he replied, "on the hair."