Bailey's Capture The Flag/Scavenger Hunt Party

With 5 children in this fam., with 5 summer birthdays, we decided we'd celebrate Bailey & Jack's b-days with friends before summer travel to the U.S. and celebrate Carson & Sammy's b-days with friends when we return to Singapore.  (We will celebrate Skylar's with family in the U.S.)
So, Bailey's party was scheduled for Friday, May 25 from 7-10pm.

It was a Capture The Flag/Scavenger Hunt/Amazing Race/Water Fight/Swimming party.  Bailey invited 30 friends and 3 of them couldn't attend because they had a dance rehearsal that night.  The other 27 of them were there.  That number turned out great because that made 3 teams of 9 people each.  We sent out an e-mail with the list of teams to everyone a couple of days before the party so they could dress in that color.  The teams were Bailey's favorite colors: purple, orange and blue.  I even ordered personalized M&M's in her fave colors:

How cool is it to have an m&m with your face on it?

                                              The downtown kids all arrived by mini-bus

They arrived ready to play!

Weather was perfect that night...no rainstorms!

Mike was head referee.

Orange Team

Purple Team
Luc Bradford's sweatshirt looked a little bit warm for this party so we found him a purple shirt to wear.

Blue Team

Getting ready to play

Bailey hair flip

 

 The Capture the Flag games were played first, with Mike as the head referee.
Then it was onto the Amazing Race where each team had to complete 12 tasks in the neighborhood with the goal of being the first team to finish.

One of the tasks was to build a pyramid with your entire team in it:

Purple

Orange

Blue

 Another task was to have one member of your team eat one bite of durian (I had to watch them eat & swallow it.)

                                            Eli did a great job of chowing down his durian.

 Britta got the durian out of the garbage can so she could try some.  She didn't hate it.

Another task was to write YMCA with your entire team on the street.

There were extra points added for the team if each person jumped into the pool.  I think every team got their extra points.

With that many kids in our tiny pool we were concerned that there might be an accident.

 There was a pretty good one.  Nick got a bloody nose and a cut on his eye.  His friend Jacob was the one who wacked him (accidentally).

                                                                Bailey and Mady.

It's hard to believe that Bailey is 12.  She is so joyful to be around and she chooses fun friends.  Can't wait to see what the theme will be for next year's party!

Queen of TDT

Bailey is the Queen of TDT....THAT DANCE THING.  It's kinda like cotillion, kinda like etiquette class, kinda like ballroom dance classes, kinda like manners class...all rolled into one.  And the dancing partners are BOYS.

When Sammy did TDT she didn't really appreciate the social part of it.  Bailey is only there for the social part.

Bailey gets together with her friends before TDT to do what I used to do with my friends before school dances...we called it pre-funk.  Basically you meet at one of the girl's homes, eat some snacks, hang out and do each other's hair before you leave to drive to the American Club together for the event.

This is Bailey and her posse looking their best tonight over at her friend Amanda's house:

Here's some photos of the girls at the last TDT pre-funk party of their 6th grade year (last May):

TDT is only for middle-schoolers so Bailey has just begun her last two years of this program.  It's only once a month so she has many opportunities for dressing up ahead of her.  Her favorite months of TDT are the ones where Mike and I are the chaperones!  :)

Marathon Man

Mike has done a lot of races in his life but Saturday night, May 26 was his first marathon.  The marathon was originally supposed to start at 11:00pm but the time was changed to 12:30am so it actually ended up being on Sunday.  The name of the race is the Sundown Marathon. 

Sammy, Bailey and I decided to be superfans and stay up all night to cheer on dear old dad!  So, we left the house around 11:30 pm to meet the man of honor at the starting line of the race, which was down on Republic Avenue.  The problem with trying to meet him at the starting line turned out to be finding parking.  We tried a couple of carparks and quickly found out that they were closed for the night.  Then we tried parking on the streets but that was a joke b/c there was a 10K, 1/2 marathon and marathon going on which meant that 10,000 + people were down in that area.

So, we missed Mike at the starting line.  I was worried about missing him the next few places nearby so we got in the car and drove to the East Coast to catch him along there somewhere.  We camped out and watched for him.  We were happy to see him coming along so Sammy & Bailey ran along with him for a bit while I filmed.  Then Mike was too fast so they let him go and we waited for him to come back the other direction.  This time all three of us ran with him for a bit and Bailey played Rocky music with her i-touch and smiggle speaker as we ran along.  He got too fast for us again so we left and headed for the finish line.  Our intent was to run the last kilometer with him but it was roped off so we just waited at the finish line and tried hard to stay awake...since it was approaching 4:30am at this point.  We were totally PSYCHED when we saw the clock hit 3:58 and could see Mike heading for the Finish Line!  He finished his first marathon ever in under 4 hours!  Not bad!

There was rain for the last half of the race which was great and cut through some of the awful Singapore humidity a bit.  Stay tuned for many more races this next year for Mike, leading up to Ironman New Zealand on March 2, 2013.

Just finished!

Sammy & Bailey waiting to go home.  We were so wet and muddy.

Waiting at the finish line was tiring at 4:30am but it was worth it to see him finish so strong!

G-ma and G-pa's Visit to Singapore (Part 2)

Saturday we tried to get tickets to the movie "The Lorax" with g-ma and g-pa but when it was all sold out we went to Carl's Jr. for lunch instead.  Then we walked around the mall a bit...since there's thousands of malls in Singapore that's what people do here.  When we got home we started April Fool's Day a bit early breaking into our sweet neighbor's, the Stevens, house and playing lots of tricks on them.; including a sign that read," It's never too early to start celebrating a holiday.  Let the games begin!"  That started an all out war and they returned the favor later that night leaving a sign on our house that read, "Game On!" with bananas mushed everywhere.
Sunday was church - Sammy and Carson stayed home b/c they didn't feel well but the rest of us made it to church.  That gave Sammy a chance to get into the Steven's house one more time to play a few more pranks; including leaving our cat and litter box there with a note telling them "no refunds!" (Too bad it didn't work...Katniss is not our favorite cat ever.)
Since the Stevens move back to the U.S. this summer our days of pranking on April Fool's Day may be over.  Not sure who else would put up with us and not get upset!

Monday the kids had to go back to school so my mom and I met up with two of my friends in Holland Village for lunch and did some shopping while Mike and my dad played golf in the rain.  Monday evening we watched Carson and Bailey's soccer practices, had dinner and family night.

Tuesday was back to Holland Village for foot reflexology, a massage for my dad and lunch at a favorite restaurant, Thai Express.  We all enjoyed the mango sticky rice for dessert.

 Tuesday after school my parents and I took Sammy and Bailey down to the Art Science Museum to see the Titanic exhibit.  Since it sank almost exactly 100 years ago (on April 12) it was especially meaningful to learn about it.  It took us about 1 1/2-2 hours to go through the exhibit, where at the end we found out if the person whose bio. we received at the beginning of the tour survived or died.  They have all the names of those on board at the end of the exhibit and whether they lived or died.  It turned out that only my mom's "person" actually survived.  My mom also found the name of her friend's grandmother who died on Titanic.

Wednesday was my parents last full day in Singapore.  They spent it mostly around the Singapore American School.  We met all 4 kids for lunch at Subway during their lunch time, then my parents went into Carson's classroom to be the "guest readers."  Carson loved that!

                                                        Carson even did a little reading.

Wednesday afternoon we watched Jack play soccer, then had some Indian food and took grandpa to the Night Safari so he could try fish reflexology!  He did 10 minutes in the tank with the big fish chowing on his feet.  I gotta get some photos of this from my mom because the initial reactions to this experience are always so funny.  The rest of us just experienced Ben & Jerry's ice cream and watched some of the fire show while g-pa had the fish chow on his calloused feet.

We had so much fun with g-ma and g-pa here in Singapore!  Skylar is very confused and still calls both g-ma and g-pa "grandpa"...I guess that's because they are such a great team.

Thanks for your wonderful visit "grandpa!" Come back again soon. :)

Grandma & Grandpa's spring break visit to Singapore! (Part 1)

Grandma and Grandpa are here for their 3rd (g-pa) and 4th (g-ma) visits to Singapore!  We're so glad that they could make the long & grueling trip to visit us!

How it's going so far:

They arrived at 2:00am Thursday morning.  Sammy & Bailey did a great job as the "welcoming committee!"  They decorated their room and hid behind a wall at the airport and jumped out to surprise them at the airport!

Thursday after a bit of sleep we swam at our house, played some "horse" in the swimming pool, allowed g-ma and g-pa to have a nap and then introduced them to their first "Gold Class Movie" experience in Singapore.  They went to see The Hunger Games at Vivo City Gold Class with Sammy and Mike.  I don't think they will ever be able to enjoy another movie without a blanket, lazy-boy chair and waiter to bring them hot chocolate (due to the freezing cold nature of Singaporean movie theatres) again.

Friday we packed up for an overnight stay at the Marina Bay Sands Hotel.  We checked in and met up with my friends Jen and Kyle Larson who work there.  Then we checked into our beautiful room on the 50th floor of the hotel.  The rooftop pool is on the 57th floor of the hotel.  Our view out of the window was the most amazing that I have ever seen.  It is right up there with the view of the Hong Kong harbor out of the Marriott Hotel (where we stayed when we first arrived in Hong Kong).

We hurried and changed into our swim suits so we could enjoy the amazing 150 metre-long infinity pool on the roof of the Marina Bay Sands Hotel.  Because Singapore likes to have the "biggest everything in the world" this hotel doesn't disappoint... having the "largest outdoor swimming pool at that height in the world!"

                                          Sammy & Sky had a great time splashing around.

Grandpa is way too much fun in the pool!

The view is stunning!

A view of the top while I'm standing in the pool.

View down below while standing in the pool.

 

My mom enjoyed her book more than the cold water.

Bailey was so lucky to have a close friend from school staying there the exact same day as us!

G-ma finally braved the cold water!

A view of the opposite side of the hotel.

Dinner was an adventure at the Food Court in the mall across from the hotel.  The food was good but it was so crowded!  We found some Japanese ramen, dim sum and chicken rice that was delish.

Grandma stuck to rice and steamed cabbage.

This photo was taken on Saturday while we were wandering the skypark on the roof of the hotel.  Saturday's weather was weird...windy and I think someone even said cold?  Is that possible?

No one wanted to swim on Saturday.  Carson and Sammy decided to get sick and Bailey had a terrible night in the hotel with her allergies acting up.  Don't think g-ma and g-pa got much sleep...but it was very memorable!!!

Saturday night we went to the Woodlands Waterfront Park to walk around.  We were very surprised when we showed up and 100's of people were there getting ready to celebrate "Earth Hour."  So, we went home and celebrated it ourselves by lighting tons of candles and telling not-so scary stories:  For example, the timing was perfect for g-pa to tell this old classic:  One night 2 men sat by a campire, one turned to other and said "Tell me a story Bill and the story was this:" (Now just repeat it 100 times!)