Carson's New Specs

Carson has spectacles now! Spectacles are what they are called here in Asia. But let me translate for my American readers: Carson has GLASSES now!

He got them about 4 days ago and the whole school was pretty much waiting on pins and needles as he counted down for 10 days for everyone for when his glasses would be ready. I'm sure his teacher loved the morning announcements: 9 more days until I get glasses, 8 more days, etc.

I think he looks pretty darn handsome in the cool blue glasses that I let him pick out all by himself. However, at church on Sunday my Korean friend saw him and was just devastated! She said, "Oh no! It hides his handsome face." There's one thing about Asians that I still have to get used to and that is how honest they are! If I have to hear, "oh you're getting big already" from one more Asian lady I'm going to scream! (Oh ya, by the way, I'm 3 months prego for those of you who don't know already.)

But I digress, back to my boy Carson...who just when I thought he couldn't get any more handsome went and got glasses and now he looks even more handsome; and sophisticated to boot! (Wow, all this talk of spectacles and now I'm speaking like a British woman.)

Carson's Eye Patch -




So...how did I find out that Carson needed glasses and an eye patch, you're wondering? Well, this is an interesting story. Carson has what his eye doctor called "sensitive eyes." He wakes up most mornings with red, itchy eyes. So, after taking him to 2 different eye doctors for eye drops that didn't ever help him I finally decided to take him to a "real" eye doctor.

On his first visit they gave him an eye exam and I was literally gobsmacked (British lady day, remember?) by what I saw! He could hardly see anything on the eye chart out of his right eye! So, it turns out that his left eye is doing all the work and his right eye is a "lazy eye." It's only bad enough that he has to wear the eye patch 3 hours per day which is not too bad. He just wears it for 3 hours every day after school for right now. He is super proud of it though and WANTS to wear it to school sometime to show it off! That's our Carson, always a show-off!

The Hills Are Alive...

Sammy tried out for the Middle School Musical this year. It's going to be The Sound Of Music!!! She put on her audition form that she wanted to be one of the Von Trapp children.

Her dream has come true! She is going to be Louisa, second daughter of Captain Von Trapp!

Can't you just see Sammy playing her? She is so excited!!!

We are all looking forward to the perfomances on Feb. 24, 25 & 26!

These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things...

Wish everyone could see her in this...especially Kelly since she's such a big Sound of Music fan. We'll have to buy an extra DVD of the performance just for her!

The most expensive Christmas Tree ever!

The Christmas season was so busy this year! We were too busy with a million other things that had a deadline of Dec. 25; since blogging has no deadline it was pushed back to January...Anyway, now that I have a little bit of time to play catch-up here's our family picking out the most expensive Christmas tree ever in the history of the Daynes family...and quite possibly the history of the world!

My brother paid a big $24 for his tree in L.A. this year. Our tree was well into the $200's. I know that it was brought over on a ship from the U.S. and it's the real deal and all...but ouch!






Sammy ran into her principal at the nursery when we were picking out our tree. She was just SO embarassed!



Tying our new baby on the car to bring her home where she will live for her short 3 week life with us!

Actually, she was a great tree. Everyone who walked into our house this Christmas season loved the fresh smell of pine which wafted immediately up their noses. It is a smell you never get in this part of the world! It will be sad to tell her goodbye.

Turkey Day

Thanksgiving Day was pretty much the usual: Tukey Bowl in the morning, lots of cooking and real turkey in the afternoon with friends. It was a great day!


Here's Carson at the Turkey Bowl. This boy has a temper. He was mad b/c he hadn't scored a touchdown yet so he was off pouting on the sideline...



Jack wasn't interested in playing football but he did have a lot of fun on the sidelines making funny faces...





Carson got his long anticipated touchdown on this play so he was happy again...




Sammy wanted to go down to the squishy courts now to play some basketball. As if we weren't all sweaty enough already...






It didn't take Bailey long to invite a friend over for a swim...



After the play in the morning we went over to the Robison's place for Thanksgiving dinner. Here's Jack hanging on the couch with his girlfriend Kosette...they are looking just a little too comfy together! Before long someone might have to intervene there and say something like, oh, I don't know..."Let's be for sitting up!"



After dinner we played my annual "Turkey Dare" Game which I made up last year. This is how you play: You get a picture of a turkey randomly and on the back there's a dare which you must complete...if you dare! So, it might say something like, "Stick a piece of corn up your nose" or "drink the rest of the gravy." This year Mike got the dare, "Kiss Ruby the dog on the lips!" Here's a photo of 3 people who went together on a dare and just took their dare up to the next level: The dare was, "Sing a Christmas song." They got together and sang with some dancing and bell jingling. It was pretty funny...you pretty much had to be there to fully appreciate it!"



Another fun Thanksgiving was had by all!!! Jonna cooked a 20 pound turkey which was very delish. I made some rolls, sour cream apple pie, creamed corn, mashed 'taters and stuffing. Now the countdown for Christmas is on!!!

The beach in Singapore!!!

Tanjong Beach, Sentosa - Saturday, November 21, 2009

You'd think that because we live at 1 degree north of the equator that we'd go to the beach all the time. This is not the case because Singapore's beaches are not very good. However, there's a place here called Sentosa (it's kinda the Disneyland of Singapore) where the beaches are pretty nice. So, on Saturday we went to our ward beach party there. Mike planned this whole party since he's our ward activities committee leader and he always makes everything fun so we knew that it had to be good. As expected, it was really fun!

One of the activities he planned was a Body Building competition. Here's Carson showing off his muscles in the competition. So as not to keep you in suspense I'll tell you now that Carson was the first place winner of the body building competition! He got a nice gold medal for that too.



Jack was the third place winner of the body building competition. Just look at that six pack!







Here's Sammy having a swim in the water at the beach...



This photo shows the kids from our ward playing some relay games in the sand. You can see Mike and Sammy standing there watching and I am in the background with a red rash guard.



The last photo is of Bailey and her friend Madyson goofing around with Madyson's dad.



There was also a swim competition for the adults which Mike and I participated in. We had to run into the water, swim over to a small island, run and touch a big rock and swim back to the other side. I swallowed lots of warm, salty water...yummy!

It's the rainy season from now until January so the rain came down really hard 3 different times while we were there. Some people took shelter in a covered area nearby and some just kept on playing on the beach like it was no big deal. You really can't let the rain stop you from doing anything because it rains pretty much everyday! The rain was actually nice because it was not so sweltering HOT like it usually is here.

Sammy went to a Fear Factor birthday party before the beach party so she had 2 fun parties in one day!

We saw the new roller coaster that is being built next door to Sentosa; where the new Universal Studios site is. That opens up in 2010 so that will bring a lot more tourism to Singapore.

We love you Singapore, lah!

Halloween 2009

The rainy season hit Singapore hard this week. We've had hard core thunderstorms with lightning and massive amounts of rain the past few days. Halloween looked like it could be a complete washout but somehow the lightning and thunder remained just in the distance of our "Little America" on Halloween night. It was a great sidekick for the vampires and werewolves out but not the little ones who were a little scared. It did rain for a bit but not hard enough to keep the hard core trick-or-treaters (like Bailey) indoors.

We continued our tradition of inviting several families over for soups, cornbread and pies. Somehow the number of families about doubles on Halloween night though. We had over 20 people in our small living room at one point while 20 people were in the pool or the pool area.

Mike and Rich jumped off of the roof into the pool for an added surprise this year to the existing craziness. Bobbing for apples was especially fun as everyone seemed to really get into it this year with their whole bodies. We also had homemade root beer which was so yummy it will definitely be a new tradition for Hallow's Eve!

We also invited Marnelie's boyfriend over and got to meet him for the first time. He and Marnelie had a great time passing out the candy to all of our trick-or-treaters.


Carson with some homemade root beer!




Yeehaw...it's cowgirl Bailey!!! And I had to get some shots of the kids sorting through their loot and making trades.



Yummylicious Luke Skywalker!



Luke Skywalker with girlfriend Tinkerbell.




Marnelie with her boyfriend Nassir and friend Paz. They passed out candy to the 2,000 trick-or-treaters who came to our door between 6-8pm Halloween night.


Mike and buddy Rich in a bobbing for apples race.




Sammy with 2 of her bestest friends - Sophie & Natasha.


The Daynes Fam...yee-haw, meow-meow, and May The Force Be With You!!!


Obi One Kenobi and Cowgirl; Luke Skywalker and Tink.



Cowgirl Bailey with her friends Sophie and Kierica.


Carson was an awesome Yoda. He was totally in character as a 500 year old creature. He even had Mike bring him back a walking stick from Indonesia. This was an important part of his costume (to him). He also refused to use a light saber unless it was green.


Jack Sparrow and Obi One.


Sammy Cat - three years running!


Obi One, Luke Skywalker and Master Yoda.


School Halloween Parties.