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.

Happy 40th Birthday Matt

We celebrated Matt's Birthday with a picnic in the gardens with a few friends and were forutnate to have Andy here for the day to help celebrate. Here's to the next decade of fun. I predict in about 10 years Matt might even look 40! Thanks for all the prezzies and best wishes from home.

A room with a view

I've been travelling the past three weeks and there has been a real variety of views from my hotel window.

First, I was speaking at a HP Partners conference in Sanya on Hainan Island at the south of China.  You don't really think of tropical island when you think of China but it was very hot and the Mandarin Oriental was a really beautiful five star resort.  I also spent two nights in Hong Kong near the airport but didn't take any photos out the window.

Week 2 saw me back in China after a day and a half at home.  This time to attend some planning meetings in Shanghai.  The taxi trip from the airport to the hotel was scary, doing 150km down the freeway with no seatbelts! The Grand Hyatt is in JinMao tower in the finance district and my room had a great view from level 67.  It was a pretty full week but I did have one evening to myself where I walked down to the river and enjoyed dinner while ships, ferries and barges cruised past.

Week 3 was a shorter one.  I didn't fly out to India until Tuesday night which gave me a few days to enjoy Christine's visit.  First stop in India was the Fortune Select Hotel in Gurgaon, which is outside New Delhi. My view from level 6 was of the metro station and nearby offices. I was involved in delivering a training class and we were there the day that a bomb went off at the High Court, killing 12 people.  A bit scary to hear about but not close to where we were.  That night there was a magnitude 4 earthquake but I didn't feel that either.

From Delhi I flew down to Bangalore to stay at the Fortune JP Cosmos.  Bit better standard than the Delhi hotel but neither could match either my China rooms or views.  After delivering our training day on the Friday, we flew out Friday night, arriving home in Singapore at 6am the next morning.

Ancestral Graves to High Tea

 Mum's visit has had lots of highlight. We've been to Swan lake on Ice, dined at a hawker centre, found my great great Uncle's grave at Kranji War Cemetery, visited Little India, Arab Street, the Botanic Gardens, Orchard Road shops, checked out Raffles Hotel in the colonial district and been for a few swims in the pool.

Today we watched the girls run in their Cross Country at MacRitchie Reservoir. Alice came first in her age group and Felicity cam second in her age group. Both were delighted with their achievement. I've enjoyed spending a week with Mum and our last thing to do is High Tea at Goodwood park. Then  she hops on a plane and tomorrow I start work full time as the MarComm / Membership Manager at the Australian Chamber of Business. So no more playing for me...

Family Time

We've enjoyed visits from Andy again and Tricia and now Mum is here to stay for a week. It's been nice having the family drop by as Matt has had a lot of travel to Hong Kong and Sanya two weeks ago, Shanghai last week and it will Bangalore and Delhi this week. Luckily we get to see him on the weekends.

Mum and I had a day of coffees, and pedicures and shopping and School pick up and drop offs on Friday. After experiencing the expat wife side of Singapore, we went wild yesterday by bike riding around Pulau Ubin and then headed off to the Night Safari. Today is more civilised once again with a trip to Marina Bay Sands for the Swan Lake on Ice Show.

Happy Father's Day to Dad and Bruce and all the other Dads.