Happy Fall Y’all!

I love the word “y’all”. What’s the correct spelling for that anyway??? When we first moved to Singapore I thought of trying to take it out of my vocabulary but it’s just too comfortable. So, I think I’ve decided now to use it as much as I can. Maybe I’ll have it incorporated into the Singlish vocabulary before we leave here.

Now for the post…

It’s holiday time and that usually brings me lots of joyous anticipation. Instead it seems to be bringing more frustration than anything. But… I am determined to maintain some semblence of tradition over here.

I’m having a terrible time finding fall decor. There is no fall season here. Have I mentioned that before? Yes, I think I have. There is no Thanksgiving here except for what the retailers know they can sell to the American expats. Plenty of food items, cranberry sauce, canned pumpkin and such but $10 for a 2 yard roll of fall colored ribbon??? I think not! I still have a few shops to try but I’d love to find supplies to make a door wreath for the fall. There’s already a nail in my door so I take that as a sign that we need a wreath. I thought of getting my mom and sister to bring supplies, which I still might do, but I really want to see if I can find it here first.

I found a beautiful Asian orange/gold table runner, fresh fall flowers, dried Indian corn, a couple of small but expensive pumpkins and a pumpkin Starbucks mug. It looks a little like fall here but it definitely does not feel like it. I think I’m going to make some pumpkin cookies this week and I’d give just about anything if I could be wearing a sweater while I’m baking. I love baking and especially in cold weather. It just feels like the holidays then. Unfortunately, that won’t be happening here. My kitchen has no a/c and the fan can only do so much.

Those of you leaving your hair down and wearing cute turtlenecks, jeans and boots, enjoy! Those of you turning on your heaters and snuggling under a blanket, enjoy! Those of you baking up goodies in non-humid weather, enjoy! Those of you running over to Hobby Lobby to pick up that finishing touch, enjoy! And think of us. We’re definitely thinking of you. And missing you!

Happy Fall Y’all!!

Christmas Already?

Yes, even in Singapore. It’s not even Thanksgiving yet! But Thanksgiving is another story for another day. That’s an American holiday, you know. Anyway, it’s not cold here. It’s not going to get cold here but it’s beginning to look alot like Christmas. Already!! Good grief!!!

For the last couple of years our family has taken a bit of a different approach to Christmas than we were previously accustomed to. Less about consumerism and more about giving back. Less about “me” and more about others. It has proven to be very meaningful for us and the true meaning of Christmas remains the focus, as He should be. Here are a couple of posts from our old blog that can help explain in case you’re interested.

http://stunz.blogspot.com/2008/11/consider-christmas.html
http://stunz.blogspot.com/2008/11/if-it-were-easy-consider-christmas-part.html
http://stunz.blogspot.com/2008/11/2007-letter-consider-christmas-part-3.html
http://stunz.blogspot.com/2008/11/consider-christmas-part-4-what-kids-had.html

This year, Christmas will look even more different for us. “We’re not in Texas anymore, Toto.” We will not be hopping from one family party to the next or getting together with our Texas friends for games or buying a real Christmas tree.  We will be mailing our thoughtful gifts rather than delivering in person and we won’t be there to watch them get opened. We won’t be ringing the Salvation Army bell in front of Walmart like we’ve done for several years now. We won’t be able to make some of our traditional holiday treats. Although I did find my favorite gingerbread cookies  here yesterday!!! We won’t get new matching winter pj’s like we always do and stay in them all day long. (They don’t even have pj’s my size over here! They’d be like an XXXXL or something horrendous like that.) The grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins won’t come over for taco soup and sweets. This is the part of the overseas adventure that will prove the element of sacrifice. We’ll survive but it will not be without some sadness. Some think we’re over here living the high life and although it is an incredible adventure, it’s not all peaches and cream. You wouldn’t understand unless you’ve lived it.

Moving on…..

I did just finalize our plans for a Christmas vacation to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam (Saigon). Should be a fun trip and we felt like it would be good to be busy and away on Christmas day. I never would have thought about going to Vietnam before we moved here. It’s a beautiful place with beautiful people (alot of them!) and a very rich and interesting history. Not to mention some incredible French food! Since we can’t spend Christmas with our family in Texas, we’ll spend it with about 10 million people in Vietnam.

So, how will you approach Christmas in Singapore or wherever you happen to be in this world? Especially if you’re away from your family home and familiar environment. Anyone want to come over for taco soup?

September 2009 Recap

In a lame and lazy attempt to catch up on our September 09 adventures in Singapore, here is a photo post of a clothes swap fundraiser that I went to with Jennifer, Anna’s teacher/our friend, Jakeb’s mean volleyball skills, our first trip to Botanic Gardens where we saw 150 weddings going on celebrating the Garden’s 150 years, friends who came to visit from Indonesia (Shane, Lindsay and Judson), how many plates can we eat at Sakae Sushi, a trip to Vivo City Mall where we saw the Vivo City Drummer Boys perform and Anna’s teacher joined us for dinner, and mooncakes for Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival. Whew, that was all one sentence. English teachers, are you cringing about now???  I’ve got some great videos to share too. I think next week will be video week. Yipee for video week!!

There are many photos in this post so if it doesn’t load in facebook, you might need to go to the original blog.  www.thestunzfamily.wordpress.com

Crossing The Border

In September I had the priviledge of meeting Leone in person. She is another new friend that I met through cyber world. She is a wealth of information and an incredible tour guide. Leone has posted very detailed instructions on how to get over to Johor Bahru, Malaysia here.

She offered to take Jennifer and I over to Malaysia for the day. It’s amazing to me that I can be in one country and then in another in the matter of an hour or so.  Yet another stamp in my passport. Fun stuff!

So Jennifer and I hopped a bus from my house to an MRT, met Leone and another new friend, Suzie, caught another bus, walked a little (all indoor!) and voila, two Texans and two Aussie’s were across the border. 

It was a quick trip through a foreign country but we found some great buys, ate a yummy and cheap lunch, shared coffee and a donut, and enjoyed our day together. I’ll definitely be going back.

BTW, I did not eat those eggs for lunch. I only took a picture of them. Gross!

Stories

We’ve got many stories to tell. I’m way behind on blogging because we’ve been pretty busy living the stories over the last few weeks.

We spent our last week in Nepal. What an amazing experience!! I’m behind on stories about Jakeb’s life at school and his plans to fundraise for his Kenya trip next summer, a tour that I took to Little India, the kid’s school UN (United Nations) night, Anna’s school UN day, stories about how Tori is doing, how we are doing in general (we’re fine btw), and of course lots of stories about our trip to Nepal.

I’ve posted a million pictures on facebook that will never make it to the blog so if you know me and I know you and you have a facebook and want to see them, let me know and I’ll add you as a facebook friend.

This week, I will try to catch up a little on telling you some of the stories that we’ve been living out on our big adventure. I’m sure you’re sitting on the edge of your seat…..

China Town Singapore

So here are a couple of videos of China Town for you. We went last Saturday which happened to be the celebration of Mid-Autumn Festival. Just Tommy, Anna and I went. Jakeb had a volleyball tournament all day and had a track meet the day before and was too tired to join us.

In the first video we heard the guy singing and had to go find him. We found him just in the nick of time for the grand finale. Anna LOVES giving the singing guys money so when the camera sits still for a sec or two it’s when I was digging out money for her. She has standards, though, as to who she gives to – they have to be good. You can hear Anna say so on the video. Then if you listen close, you can hear the singing guy say “xiexie” (pronounced shae shae and means Thank You).

The second video was quite a trip! We have no idea what that guy was yelling at the other guy for. He pushed the guy he was yelling at and almost plowed Anna down. We just kept walking. We definitely didn’t want to get in the middle of that! This was one night where we wished we’d known Chinese but then again we are probably glad we didn’t.

Our dinner experience took up most of our time (2 hours). It was crazy busy and they lost our order and we didn’t realize that until after being completely ignored multiple times, Tommy physically made his way to the manager guy and pretty much demanded and explanation. We were trying to be nice because we were definitely the only Westerners in the place and honestly it was their celebration and we felt like we were sort of imposing on that in a way. But our money is as good as theirs and when people that came in way after us started getting some of the same things we had ordered we started to get a little ticked. But the food was still amazing (garlic spinach, spicy eggplant, beef noodles, sweet buns) Oh, and another dish that they brought us that Tommy took a bite of and realized it wasn’t what we ordered so they took it back, fixed it right up and brought it to the people at the table next to us – we had to laugh. The guys next to us saw the whole thing too and didn’t seem to care. As we waited, we got a large portion of entertainment from the restaurant staff yelling back and forth at each other and many of the customers enjoying a few too many. It’s one of those “you had to be there” moments and one of those times when we’re pretty sure we didn’t want to know what they were yelling. I’m sure the grandparents are wondering what we’re exposing our kids to at this point.

What an adventure!

 

If you’re reading this on facebook, you will need to go to the original blog to watch the video’s.  http://thestunzfamily.wordpress.com/

What’s going on over here?

Actually, ALOT is going on over here that you may not be aware of and it’s not all good. The earth is rumbling and causing all sorts of trouble in nearby countries and thousands have lost their lives. As a result of those lost lives, many have lost their mother, father, son, daughter, friend not to mention their homes and their jobs.

“The Philippines, Indonesia and the Samoan Islands have seen their share of events over the past several days, including previous Tropical Storm Ketsana and a series of earthquakes that has left potentially thousands dead.” Leone Fabre

This is the blog post of a new friend here in Singapore, Leone. She tells about it much better than I could and includes some helpful maps to put things in perspective for you. Thanks, Leone. You made this post easy.

Please at least pray, or maybe do more, for the people in these areas. I can’t imagine the suffering they are going through. If anyone would like to do more, I can hook you up. Below is an email from our school here if you would like to donate.

Dear Parents, Staff and Students of ISS,

On September 26, 2009, Typhoon Ketsana brought a month’s worth of rainfall to Metro Manila and nearby areas in just a few hours, causing severe flooding which resulted in the killing at least 140 people and displacing nearly half a million people.  The nine-hour deluge left some areas of Metro Manila, a sprawling city of 12 million people, under six metres of water, with poor drainage systems and other failed infrastructure exacerbating the problem.  Eighty per cent of the city was submerged and with parts of Manila remained underwater on Monday, local television reported that some people remained stranded on the second floors of their homes.  Adding to the chaos, telephone and power services in some parts of the city remained cut, while local government officials said survivors in makeshift evacuation camps were desperately short of food, water and clothes.  Meanwhile, there were fears the number of dead could soar past the official tally.  Many of these people are left with literally nothing, no clean clothes to wear, no food to eat, no clean water and nowhere to go.

I hope you can help by making a small donation to this cause and help a neighboring country in need.  ISS is setting up a charity collection through the Philippine Christian Foundation, which will help victims of this tragic event.  You can visit their website at  http://www.pcf.ph/

If you would like to donate, we are making collections in each of the Elementary, Middle and High School offices.  Any amount you can donate will be much appreciated.   

This recent event clearly puts into perspective how lucky some of us really are.

Scoliosis Side Trip

Today, I’m taking a little side trip away from our Singapore adventures to catch you up on our scoliosis adventures. If your new to this adventure, here’s some history.

http://stunz.blogspot.com/2008/07/scoliosis-family-affair.html

http://stunz.blogspot.com/2009/04/good-news-friday.html

Jakeb needs xrays every 6 months to watch the development of the curves. Jakeb’s dr. in Houston told us that if we could get the xrays done here in Singapore and send him digital copies via email, he’d review and we wouldn’t have to establish a new dr. here. We love the one we have! We were able to get the xrays, I sent them on to Dr. Hanson and this was his ever so welcomed reply:

Hi Andrea,
  His radiographs show that the curves haven’t progressed at all, which is very encouraging.  I would continue as is for now and just plan on seeing me in March.
Thanks,
Darrell Hanson

This is terrific news!! Those who are praying, please keep it up! It’s working. If the curves stay where they are, surgery won’t be recquired. The curves as they are would not cause any long term damage or damage to his internal  organs. He has a little bit of growing left so we just need to get him to that point without it getting worse.

 

And yes, family and friends, we are hoping to make a trip back to Texas in March 2010. The kids have 2 weeks off from school and Jakeb needs to see the doc and also renew his driver’s license or he’ll lose it. I may even schedule surgery for my foot. It’s becoming quite a pain. It’ll be a quick trip no matter what we do! We’ll probably stick around Asia for the summer “holiday” and travel as much as we can while we’re over here. Plan on coming to see us!!