to the MRT

we've traveled at least once a month since january this year. while it's been a dream come true, packing-unpacking-new time zone-airports-all that gets a little exhausting. we're staying put for a bit and exploring all that singapore has to offer. there is still lots on my to-do list. for now, i want to remember the everyday things about our life here...

we don't have a car, so we rely on taxis, buses, and the subway train--the MRT.
mostly the MRT.

we pass the same little temple each day, with the same uncle who carefully sweeps every nook and cranny of that place. i love that last year, the banner on the gate read "celebrating 106th anniversary" and this year it's "celebrating 107th anniversary." that banner stays up year round, so i guess it's a constant party there?

it's usually a construction zone around here with all the buildings going up (our ocean view was just blocked by a new building!). but...an awesome new shopping center is almost done. i'm so over the stench of durian and unknown animal parts of my local grocery store lately.

our "green space". don't be fooled -- those grass-like weeds are about as soft as astro turf.

since we live downtown, we get the business crowd at our MRT station. i feel under dressed every day.

spotless trains and stations...probably because the fine for eating or drinking is $500

everything is in four langauges: english, mandarin, malay, and tamil. it's my favorite part of singapore. isn't written tamil beautiful?

and my other favorite thing. 

people are usually pretty generous about giving up their seat, unlike so many other cities (ahem, chicago).
most of the time, we dig the MRT.

saturdays

we get our taste of america with a little college football and pancakes on saturday mornings.

(and mounds of fresh laundry waiting to be folded. such is life.)

the three of us

when belize was in singapore a few months ago, she kindly agreed to take some family photos for us. 

we just went by the seat of our pants...when sage woke up from a nap, we threw an outfit on her (the shirt i wanted was dirty), i picked my favorite top as of late, and made nate wear my favorite of his shirts (the one he always wears if truth be told). i was harried and my hair turned frizzy within minutes, everyone was a little grumpy, and we accidentally dropped sage's bow somewhere and had to use whatever i could find in my purse. just keeping it real!

but belize is still a genius and still talented. i'm so glad we have these photos of our little family in a country that we love. thanks b!

 

p.s. how much does sage look exactly like her dad?

the art of finger painting

years after elementary school, one of my friends told me she'd secretly loved coming over to our house because my mother always had an art project ready. we puffy-painted sweatshirts and scrunchies, or tye dyed socks after school. art supplies were never missing from my childhood. and i think my mom did a pretty good job of exposing us all to the arts in general (my brother is proof. well both my brothers).

so naturally, in my former-preschool-teacher-art-loving glory, i was so excited to teach sage to finger paint and learn about mixing colors with dyed vanilla pudding. despite shoving fistfuls of pudding into her mouth and licking every last finger instead of the blooming van gogh experience i had in mind, she loved it. oh, and broke out in a splotchy rash afterward because psych! her body does not like milk. even in pudding.

password: pudding

she's au natural, so excuse the crazy hair. you can catch a little bit of "sagenese" at the end.
we wish we knew what was going on in that sweet little mind of hers...

tim tam slammin

rodney and kylee began and ended their asia trip in singapore, so a few weeks after our bangkok rendezvous we got them back in singapore! our first trip to the store, we picked up some dark chocolate mint tim tams, and from then on, every night was tim tam slam night. 

(back in august, when they flew in for church and some quick sightseeing before they traveled across asia)

we loved showing them around here, fitting in pool time, games, and naps too. 

nate and i lost hardcore in the lawler/dial water olympics we held in the pool one morning. gotta work on our michael phelps technique.

sage was just in heaven having other people around to play with. kylee is the best at trying to speak sage's "language." sage chats all day long...but not quite in english yet.

chinatown was decked out for mid-autumn festival coming up...

we rode the singapore flyer one afternoon and had a whole capsule of that huge observation wheel to ourselves.

and fit in a few jumping pics for good measure

 

we walked through little india and up to the top of mustafa for a view.

i think we covered all our food bases with dim sum, mediterranean, indian, american, australian, and a few different hawker centers thrown in there.

and had date night at marina bay sands

 it was a little sad to send them off. we'd been looking forward to july with the hamiltons and august with the dials for awhile...we loved having summer visitors.

 

by the end, all that partying wore sage out

bangkok: elephants

we couldn't have tara and nikka leave thailand without riding elephants. but why just ride them when you can bathe them too? we left early one morning and drove three hours out to the kanchanaburi province to an elephant village. it wasn't quite the magical, national geographic experience i'd imagined...

i was praying i wouldn't get some mysterious disease from that murky water, and "bathing" the elephant really translated into face shot after face shot of water sucked through the elephant's trunk. needless to say, we left sagie on the sidelines and took turns with the elephants. 

but we loved it! asia offers so many animal encounters that just wouldn't happen in the u.s. 

these massive animals are incredible, and playing with them in the water was pretty surreal.

 the men would yell "rodeo!" and the elephant would shake his head around underwater, trying to throw you off while you held on to its ears. nate was a given a 7 out of 10. i'm pretty sure i fell off in seconds every time.

nate had some pretty good battle wounds on his stomach from doing "rodeo" with the elephants

at the end, it was our turn to splash the elephants

bangkok with the dials

months ago, we planned a trip to cambodia with our dear chicago friends rodney and kylee, complete with staying at an orphanage and hiking angkor wat...

and then the EV-71 virus broke out and killed too many children and is spread too easily,

so we cancelled our much-anticipated adventure (r&k still went and loved it. someday we'll get there!).

the good news is that we met them in bangkok instead.

the trip happened to fall on nate's birthday weekend, and we loved bangkok just as much the second time around.

we hit the temples the first day: the grand palace, wat pho,
and a water taxi ride across the river to wat arun.

 

tara and nikka (r and k's sisters) were good sports as we trekked through temple after temple in the heat.

they are such fun girls.

i love the reclining buddha's huge toes

how could we pass up a chance to dress up? this was so fun. we posed for a few random tourists too.

the steep stairs of wat arun were a little dicey with a baby in tow, but the view and the breeze at the top were so worth it.

sweet tara even took a turn holding sage.
later that day, we all got traditional thai massages. i'm not sure what to think of it...i don't think i relaxed once, but i definitely felt limber and refreshed when it was all said and done.

after nikka and tara caught their flight out of bangkok, we took kylee and rodney back to blue elephant. a famous thai chef was offering a limited time prix fixe menu, so of course we had to taste it. i'm still thinking about the perfectly seared scallops paired with crispy fois gras. dinner was phenomenal.

each morning, we'd meet at au bon pain for chocolate frappuccinos and pain au chocolats, so we stuck some flags in nate's pastry and made him blow out the "candles"

happy 28th nate!

we went to church in the morning, then nate got his birthday wish--no schedule. 

understandable, considering i usually plan our trip itineraries and keep us "on schedule" (i am that lady from the movie dave...and we're walking, and we're walking!)

i liked this birthday...nate sent me for a cheap, wonderful foot massage while he napped with sage.

r&k flew on to their next stop in asia while we spent another day in bangkok. sage and i explored some local malls and markets, then we all went to check out the jim thompson house. this beautiful compound in the middle of the city belonged to the silk millionaire of thailand who mysteriously disappeared while on vacation in malaysia.

we got a little glimpse of the traditional thai architecture and the silk being spun, then booked it to the airport. we flew scoot airlines for the first time, and noticed the plane menu offered "rootbeer floats--a singaporean favorite!" 

for the record, i have never ever seen a rootbeer float in sing, but you better believe we shared one on the plane. yum! 

and then it was back to laundry, bills, work, mopping, and the usual show.

 even though our original plans didn't work out, i'm so glad we got to meet up with these fun friends.

nate and i both agree that we'd be happy with foot massages and mango sticky rice daily for the rest of our lives :)