Christmas "Staycation"

We stayed in Singapore this year for the entire Christmas vacation. We had a great time and were very productive too! These are some of the things that we did/accomplished!

We found Santa!!! (Not an easy task since it's hot in Singapore and Santa doesn't really like to visit hot places.)



We made sure to find time for lots of service! We gave Christmas to a family in our stake (Secret Santas!). We made batches and batches and batches of our famous "Daynes Own Christmas Salsa" and delivered it to our friends and neighbors! We worked our buns off for 3 nights in a row at the Stake Nativity at our church - buying and serving all the refreshments to 1,000 people, setting up, taking down, building stalls, decorating stalls, giving tours, training "Mary" on how to properly hold the baby Jesus a.k.a. Skylar, and sang Christmas Carols to the residents of a nursing home in our neighborhood.



We did lots of Christmas shopping on Orchard Road!



This is the view looking up into a tree in front of the ION Mall on Orchard Rd. You can put on 3D glasses while inside and look up and see this view:



We also went with our friends to the Bubble Snow at Tanglin Mall...this is a fun, yearly tradition. Jack has never seen real snow and actually thought that bubble snow was the real stuff. It might be time for a trip to a cold climate at Christmas break to show him what the real stuff is all about...








We had a fun Christmas Eve with lots of good friends over!!!

Here's Tiffany Dimond as "Mary" in the nativity play!

And Carson as a "sheep!"


Santa showed up, as usual. This year he came on a bicycle with one of his elves. (Bailey was the elf!)

Here's Santa and Cassidy Dimond:

Santa with Brittney Dimond:

Santa with Jack:

Santa with Skylar:


Santa with Tiffany Dimond:

Santa with Sammy:

Santa with Norm Dimond:

Santa with Wesley Dimond

Santa with Zachary Dimond:

Brittney put Sky to sleep!

Haley Dimond and Sky:

Wesley opening his present from Santa...deoderant!!!!

Santa with Marnelie and lots of the kids!

Santa with Carson:


We painted Skylar's bedroom!

I had a lot of helpers!



Bailey was awesome at pulling out all of the old nails in the wall! She is definitely not afraid of heights!




We had some paint accidents! (I sort of lost it on that one!)


More helpers (Bailey & Britta)


Friends make work so much more fun!!!


Finished room!!! It's definitely not the most professional paint job ever but it was sure painted with LOVE!!! We love you Sky!!!


Sammy got contacts!!!!! She spent two hours practicing how to put them in and take them out at the optical store. Luckily, Singapore has a law that you cannot leave the store until you prove that you can put the contact in as well as take it out. Sammy did a great job of learning her way around her new contacts. There were a few frustrating moments but she did a great job and is so happy that she can SEE all the time now!

Bailey found the whole thing pretty funny...

Santa Claus Swim Meet

November for Bailey has included the Santa Claus Swim Meet for half of her life. She has swum in this swim meet for 5 years in a row. This was Carson's second Santa Claus meet. This is the biggest meet of the year that is held at our own campus, Singapore American School, but has 10-12 other international swim teams and clubs who attend it.

November was a fun month! It's so exciting in November to know that Christmas is just right around the corner!!!

Bailey with favorite swim buddies: Sarah Choi, Ally Huber and Kristi Kawasaki.


I love it when they cheer on their teammates during a race!


The competition was extremely tough today. Carson and Bailey are looking pretty tired after an entire day of swimming...but aren't they cute in their reindeer antlers?

Christmas Stay-Cation (Part two!)

That other post was getting too long so here's part two:

Some other fun things we did included:

ICE SKATING! I took all 5 of my kiddos to the ice rink for some good old fashioned ice skating! I was surprised that all 4 of the "big kids" LOVED IT!!! Especially...JACK!

He doesn't look happy in this photo...this is actually his sad lip...but he was a happy boy on the ice! He skated around all by himself with one of those metal bars that you can push around for beginners. He skated the entire two hours without any breaks! We went skating with several other families and my cute friend Emily watched Skylar for me and loaned me her skates so that I could skate around a bit with Jack. He surprised me the most because he's my kid who loves to sit home and play the Wii but I guess skating is one of his passions now!

Sammy & Bailey were in heaven over the Christmas break because they had so much time to hang out with their friends! Both girls had a game night at our house with their friends who were in town. Sammy's friends had fun dressing Skylar up as a princess. Here she is donning all her jewels:


These are some of Sammy's good friends:
Holly (from Colorado), Ashlyn (Danville, CA), Jessica & Amanda (Utah) and Morgan (Indiana).



Bailey also had a game night at our house one night. Her friends played Dance Party 2 on the Wii the entire time!!!

We also went to the Singapore Science Museum with friends:




We hiked the TREETOP WALK at MacRitchie Reservoir. This is an 11 km hike that is very famous in Singapore. It's not an easy hike for a four and a half year old. So here are some of the kids faces before the hike when they heard they'd be hiking 11 km's in the heat, with only our family, no friends along to make it more fun, etc!


We took a shortcut so that we were able to cut off 2.6km's of the hike by having Mike drop us off as close to the trail as possible and then park the car and walk to catch up with us. We had a great time and Jack walked the entire way without ever asking to be carried!
We were harassed by monkeys along the way!
There is a very cool bridge to cross suspended by metal cables up in the air. It is a free-standing suspension bridge spanning Bukit Peirce and Bukit Kalang, the two highest points in MacRitchie.

At 25m above the ground, the walkway gives you a closer look at the canopy, where all the action takes place. Here, you also have a better view of some forest birds; Colugos (flying lemurs) and Long-tailed macaques (monkeys); view trees from an entirely different angle and enjoy a panoramic view of Upper Peirce Reservoir. Some 80 species of birds and 18 rare trees have been spotted in the forest.





Notice the monkey behind Carson:


Here's Jack at the end of the hike. He's touching all the Touch-Me-Nots and watching them fold up!




Here's some of us again toward the end of the hike. Everyone looks pretty hot but happy!

Here's one of the monkeys...ready to harrass us!


Everytime we stopped walking and tried to take out a snack a monkey would hear us and show up out of nowhere to try and get his share! I'll never forget Bailey's face as we were walking down some stairs. She yelled, "dad, turn around!" and her face had a look of terror just like as if in a horror movie! Mike turned around to see a monkey following us and ready to pounce. He hit it with a plastic bag of water bottles and that kept him away from us for the rest of the hike!

Carson and Jack made Gingerbread Trains and decorated them: They were fun to make and delicious to eat!!!