A Christmas Tradition

We are heading off to Melbourne tonight, looking forward to a few weeks of summer with family and friends.  Following what has become our Christmas tradition, we started the day with the Bertram Family Christmas gift giving, with Lucinda and I being surprised by the girls who had spent their entire pocket money at a gift store around the corner to buy us Christmas gifts.  It was very lovely.  After pancakes for breakfast, the girls tried out their new snorkeling gear in the pool.  The pool was a bit cool on account of the deluges of rain we've been having recently - on Sunday and Monday it basically did not stop raining for 24 hours.  We then got ourselves dressed up and headed to Goodwood Park hotel to enjoy English Afternoon Tea at L'Espresso Cafe.  We enjoyed a wide variety of foods in pleasant surrounds.  Now we are in time filling mode, before heading to the airport in about an hours time.  See you soon!

Cinderella Goes to MBS

It's been a very busy couple of months and we are all ready for our Christmas break.  I have been travelling, Lucinda has been publishing a magazine and the girls have been finishing another school year.  That's not to mention all the end of year events that have been going on.

The biggest highlight has been the Avondale Grammar School production of Cinderella and Rockerfella, with Act 1 featuring Felicity as Cinderella and Alice as Dan Deeny, Rockerfella's agent.  The girls put on an amazing performance and just looked wonderful.  The whole production was fantastic with great singing and dancing involving almost the entire school.  I was very lucky that my work conference that week was in Singapore and I didn't miss out on the show!

As a presenter and part of the organising team for our sales kickoff event, I managed to get a room at Marina Bay Sands (MBS), which is Singapore's iconic integrated resort featuring 3 towers joined by a sky park.  The girls came over for a swim in the sky park pool, 57 floors up and looking out at the Singapore skyline.  Watching day turn to night (was cloudy, so no actual sunset to speak of) and the lights come on was spectacular.

Dog of a day and other tails

We've had lots of things to do to keep us busy recently. Dress up like Super heroes Day where Alice went as Super Turtle and Felicity as Super califragilisticexpealidocious. Matt's been away to Japan, USA and Hong Kong and Macau in recent weeks but on the weekends we've managed to have good family times with bike riding at Pasir Ris park a highlight. Felicity and Alice both had their awards assembly and Felicity was awarded Superstar Actress of the class and Alice got Talented Artist. This weekend we invited all Buckley's friends to the dog party for Buckley's 5th birthday party. It was very muddy which the kids and the dogs enjoyed. Otis the big white dog turned browny grey - we laughed a lot at him until he wanted to come and greet us and proceed to shake his mud all over us.

Last night we set up our Christmas in preparation for the silly season. And in less than hour we collect Brittany and Tess from the airport for their Singapore stopover before France.  I think they plan to soak up the sun while they are here but considering its rainy season they'll probably get a little more soaked than they planned.

Birthdays and other celebrations

Cup Day - The office went out for lunch to celebrate. Almost as good as getting the day off.

The Australian High Commission was challenged to an afternoon of sport by the Singapore Sports Council. They chose the sports - table tennis, darts and soccer. It was held at the awesome venue of the floating platform at Marina Bay. I won both my table tennis games - singles & mixed doubles so the way I tell the story is "I beat Singapore at Table Tennis while representing Australia." I even have a medal! Unfortunately overall Singapore Sports Council proved they were pretty good at sport!

I brought along my fan club to cheer for the Aussies but my fan club  had their own fan club and were required to pose with many from Team Singapore.

Scary face for Halloween. The kids did trick and treating around at Fiona's condo. Felicity went as a mime while Alice went as "Ghost girl"

The loot they scored was obscene. Next year they are going with a small snap lock bag. Once that is full then that's it!

Felicity and I had fun decorating her cake as a piggy.

Universal Studios for Felicity Birthday. Lots of fun with family and best friend Eleanor.

Felicity unwrapping all the gifts! Thanks so much.

A week in our life

Our week:
Sunday night: Andrew arrives
Monday: Kids have play practice after school. Lucinda has "Social" tennis after dinner.
Tuesday: Swimming Carnival in the evening. Felicity picks up 2 Firsts, Alice 3 firsts and a second while Lucinda and Matt come in Third (ie last) in the parents swim relay. Lucinda goes to Book Club.
Wednesday: Public Holiday for Deepavali. Geocaching with Andy at Labrador park. Felicity spots a snake guarding the cache and runs flat out for 200 m screaming, abandoning her uncle and sister who are just looking perplexed and only a metre from the snake. All survived and ended up locating three caches but not game enough to find the one near the snake. Then we went to friends for a late BBQ lunch. Andrew leave for KL.
Thursday: Lucinda does Table Tennis practice after work.Matt goes off to Tap. Andrew returns from KL
Friday: Matt takes kids to early morning dentist appointment as Lucinda has to be in at work to get ready for the big day of the AustCham President's Luncheon and Business Awards. Andrew leaves for Melb.
Saturday: met up with other Avondale Families for a jog at Bedok Reservoir and a BBQ.
Sunday: Church and then Sentosa for the kids to try the flying trapeze. They loved it. Then a play on the beach. In the evening, Matt and Lucinda used free tickets to see a 5 Grand Piano Chopin concert with 5 visiting Polish pianists.  Pretty awesome.

This week is the International Schools Cross Country meet and both girls are in the team so we are hoping for some nice weather on Friday afternoon. We've been getting lots of bursts of tropical rain at the moment.

A quick update

Life has been fairly busy recently with the girls back at school and Lucinda having several work events last week that had her starting early and finishing late.  On Friday night I went to a farewell party at a Karoake venue.  It was basically a private room with pool table, xbox, food, drinks and a karaoke juke box.  It was good fun and with 4 mics there was some good enthusiastic singing going on. The girls are into rehearsals for their school musical - Cinderella Rockafella - and have also got into the computer game Minecraft. Instead of watching TV right now they are exploring a strange world, taming unicorns and constructing amazing structures, houses and minecart tracks out of lego-like building blocks.  I think it's better than just TV - certainly more interactive and they also are talking (and arguing) about stuff together.

On Saturday we took the girls 10-pin Bowling before seeing a movie (Dolphin Tale) and on Sunday afternoon we all dressed up in order to watch Toy Story 3.  Alice was Rex the dinosaur, Felicity was Jessie the cowgirl and I was a dashing Ken to Lucinda's "exercise" Barbie.  Sadly, all photo evidence was destroyed in order to protect the innocent.

Andy arrived last night for another visit and is staying until Wednesday evening.  I think we've seen him more regularly in his new "Australia-only" job with than when he was at HP!  Wednesday is a public holiday (Deepavali - Hindu New Year / Festival of lights) so we are thinking of some plans for what to do while he is here.

Scene Around Town

 So our girls haven't been around seen our town recently but I spotted one of them in an advert in the ANZA Magazine so they are still making their presence felt here. I also had my pic in the social pages of the Expat Living. I think the High Commissioner hangs around me because he knows that's where the photographers will be ;)

Here's pictures of the girls having fun in Pomonal. Thanks Elissa for the photos and for everyone who is making their time in Oz heaps of fun.

Missing them lots but it's good to know they are having a happy time.