From California Pizza Kitchen to Little India's Wet Market...

Quite the contrast from our first lunch at CPK... salads, pizza and mac & cheese...to lunch at Little India's wet market...our meal consisted of interesting i.e yellow hot dogs for Max (its a slow transition to new foods for him), yummy chicken rice & several new fruits for us all to try.  

We have an orientation person who assists with bank accounts, transit cards, community info, and my favorite so far... intro to the best wet & dry markets around!   Max was hesitant (as we expected) to stay behind with an unfamiliar temporary babysitter.  Charlie & Oscar, on the other hand, had a fun day at home playing with their new friend while Max came along for opening our bank accounts (took 3 hours), some first grocery shopping & a visit to the wet market.  

It was fun to have some one on one time with Max.  He's our boy who needs that more than the others in transitions like this.  So I was glad this day outing provided some time for him to hang with Mom & Dad. 

23 hours door to door....

 We survived!! 

 Our last goodbye before we boarded the people mover.  

Can you say style or what???  

With 13 bags, boxes, stroller, pack-n-play to check plus 5 persons...

the people mover was the way to go!!

 Oscar tried out a new mode of transport.  

Wheels on the carseat... worked great and we loved it!!

 The travel 'bridge' between our two worlds took almost 24 hours total.  

Our last hours of packing up our CA home 

and the hours of checking in at the airport, etc 

were so tiring we were happy to be seated for our first 

connecting flight thru Seoul of 12 hours. 

Although Oscar was our toughest traveler, 

he was also the biggest charmer.  

Our most beautiful flight attendant Farah, 

(who warmly gave me her # and FB address 

to keep in touch in Singapore!), 

took Oscar around the plane for introductions.  

 Our first night and days have consisted of three simple things... unpacking & finding all the familiar things from home that we packed (like Max's Lakeside tshirt & Charlie's Zapped tshirt:), 

swimming and walks to get coffee & food!  First lunch CPK:)  

No worries we'll all be more adventurous in our eating soon enough!

We are taking things one day at a time....even a moment at a time.  

Overall we are all doing well and adjusting as best we can.  

Jeff compared this stage to having a newborn...

completely tiring emotionally & physically 

and completely worth the investment of both.

Just never thought we'd be having the 4th 'kid' quite like this!!

Singapore Fling....A last send off....

We are in that 'in between' living.  Those of you who move often know exactly what I mean.  It's a balance of emotions and lives.  Trying to savor each day of life we have here in CA...a life we love so very much, with people we love so very much.  And looking forward and preparing for a new life & adventure at the same time.  We started off our final week with a fun send off party (hosted by ourselves:) that was a ton of fun and great to have one last chance to see so many friends and neighbors all together at once.  It was a lovely al fresco evening with an Asian food truck and good company!

And we're off to pack and sort and organize....

we'll see you on the other side!

In less than two weeks we are leaping into a new adventure with our 3 boys....

We're heading to Singapore to live.

We'll do real life like school, church, time outs, potty training...

We'll do the surreal life like travel to Thailand & Japan, eating new foods, and maybe even learning some Mandarin.

We're nervous, excited, sad, thrilled, you name it...we feel it right now.

Most importantly we BELIEVE in what we are doing, love the adventure of it all and look forward to learning more about how our world 'ticks'.  

We'd love to have you follow us on our blog....and even come visit!!!  Here's to 12 days and counting....

Happy 4th of July!!

Love this day of red,white & blue,

fireworks & flags flying

and playing with my

own little Yankee Doodle Dandy's:)

Two posts in one day!!!

I'm stealing a post because its where my thoughts have been so often lately...

Taken from http://www.lifeingraceblog.com/

But what about all those ordinary days? Where is God then?

He always chooses the ordinary things to do his greatest work.

He chose bread to feed us. Water to wash us. A baby to save us.

He is no despiser of the small days.

It is in them that we see the key to life.

Not in falling in love but in loving everyday, with clean socks and warm soup.

Not in that one blissful day of childbirth but in the birth of each day, one a time, where the daily routine teaches us to depend on our Father, who has made no provision for tomorrow—but only today, in this daily bread.

Perhaps this thing I’ve come to dread—-this daily drudgery—-is in fact my greatest teacher, in disguise.

Teaching me to live in this moment. With these children. And this sacred work. It’s really all there is.

Today is the day of salvation.

So, I hold on tightly to little hands. And I stir the soup. And I fold the towels.

And I say thank you for this work.

And for this blessed ordinary day—where grace and mercy rain down and turn water into wine, drudergy into vocation, and curse into blessing.

THIS is what I have been doing since my last post in April....

Growing, delivering, feeding, cuddling, chasing, and keeping these 3 monkeys safe and healthy each day!! Perhaps someday soon I'll get back to more frequent postings...

New Life...

I love Easter.

Such a lovely day to remember new life,

both in creation and of our Creator.

After a rough Sat that had me going to bed in tears,

I had very little hope left for an Easter day of peace and happiness.

But what a gift today was...

this was one of the best holidays I can remember in a long long time.

We were truly a happy family today.

Today was a tangible reminder for me of 'new life'

even in our own little family.

It IS possible to start fresh and

there IS always room for hope at the end of a hard day.

Easter 2011

Happy Spring!

We had a moment of sunshine in the midst of all our rain....

Merry First Day of Spring!

And after hearing about this cute idea TWO years ago,

I finally did Muffin Tin Monday for dinner.

I didn't make anything out of the ordinary for the boys.

But they did get excited about how it was served! Cute idea...

Daddy's School....

It's been raining A LOT lately.

More rain than we are used too....

So Jeff got creative over the weekend.

And instituted Daddy's School...in the garage.

The boys loved it!

Maybe Mom's off the hook now...

after 18 years of attending 'Daddy's School'....

Sweet Max is Three!!

It was all about cupcakes.....

A new train from Charlie...and a train table from Mom & Dad....
Riding the train for Sat breakfast and fun at the park...

And a birthday snack with Max's little playgroup...

A fun and simple birthday for our big boy.

Summer excitement....

We've been planning to plant flowers in our front yard. We've never done this before and Charlie is so excited. We've been picking out our favorite colors from neighbors yards on our way to school each morning.

We got to talking about the summer the other day on the way to school. Charlie was saying how exciting it would be to finally have our flowers planted. I reminded him we were also going to have some more excitement by having a new baby this summer too.

Charlie made me laugh saying..."Wow!... a new baby AND new flowers, I can't wait."

Not sure which one he's more excited for.

probably the flowers:)

Babymoon...

How LONG will it be before this happens again?

We had a wonderfully relaxing time away!

A moment...

Picking up Charlie from school.

'Ever running away' Max has a choice each day...ride in the stroller or hold Mommy's hand. It's pretty much 'hold Mommy's hand' every day but WHEW what a battle that is the whole time. The other day Max decided after we picked up Charlie and started our walk back to the car, that he wanted to hold Charlie's hand not Mommy's.

Most of you Moms may see this daily or even several times a day. It was a first for me. With my rough and tumble boys, I have never seen them calmly holding hands, walking together. They even had a little conversation about the toys they wanted to play with when they got home.

So simple but wow... I truly felt my heart expand in that short little walk:)... the mental photo keeps running through my head as one of my greatest blessings right now.

A great combination....

Max is particular about a few things.

His shoes. (Can we say just like Dad or what?)

And his love of RUNNING, not walking.

In the shoe department it has always been less is more for Max. He has pretty much lived in Crocs for his entire 3 years of life. In the winter, we just add socks on the coldest days. That is until Max discovered running shoes! A old pair of Charlie's hand me down Adidas shoes were put on Max's feet and it was like peanut butter & jelly....bread & butter....Love at first sight!

Two of his favorite things combined.....comfy shoes that can make him run even faster.

I'm having an even harder time keeping up now.

Grooming a romantic....

We put away Christmas at our house this weekend. And ushered in one of my favorite holidays....Valentine's. Since kids have arrived, this season of the year seems to be one of endless sickness, antibiotics, breathing treatments and interrupted sleep. So Valentine's Day has become such a fresh taste of something fun in my life. Little spots of new color, hearts and the hope of spring in our house.

This weekend, Charlie and I had fun making Valentine's to decorate our front window, we went shopping in search of 'hearts', and slowly began to transform some of the corners of our house. Charlie asked why it's one of my favorite holidays and I admitted "It's the one time of year I get to use as much PINK in our house as I want!" He thought that made perfect sense.

This morning, after a pretty sleepless night which I'll blame on the pregnancy:)...I hear extra morning noises, not so quiet whispers, doors opening and closing...all at a dark hour of 6am. Charlie had decided it was time for 'breakfast in bed' for Mommy. It's something that goes hand in hand in his mind with Valentine's Day. Jeff couldn't get him to wait the several weeks until the actual big morning.

So I got my tray of dry toast, old grapes, oranges and pineapple with orange juice. At the crack of 6:25am.

Excuse the closed eyes, dark early morning, flash on the camera:)

It was sweet and thoughtful. Even if Charlie ate the whole breakfast himself:)

Happy Halloween!

A fun night with our fireman and cheeseburger. Canvasing our new neighborhood and seeing how its done down here. We hit Steve Job's house...what a crazy show that was....the lines were literally out the door. Our first and last time going there. We hit a few of our other favorite houses that we've been admiring from a distance. Fun but again the crowds were a bit much for us. Next year we'll stick to the less popular houses and not get run over by the masses:)

One of the funny things about the evening was Charlie's monitoring of what candy Max was getting at each house. His line over and over through out the night. "OH MOM! Max got another candy with coconut!!" The horror!

The boys were in the full swing of yelling 'trick or treat...thank you!' But I had a tired little fireman after about an hour. I think the crowds got to him too....he said "Two more houses and let's find OUR house!" A few nibbles of candy and C&M were both sawing logs about 10 minutes after we got home.

Now onto November and enjoying another month of lovely fall weather.

The cobwebs, bats and jack o'lanterns are down already at our house.

I'm ready to head into a season of being thankful for all our many blessings in life.

Everything's about his Daddy...

sorry for the horrible quality of this photo...too cute to pass up though...

I've been noticing lately with Max when reading books, driving in the car, watching tv, at the park....He's always talking about Daddy's. If its a little boy who's sad at the park, he's missing his Daddy. If a dolphin is swimming in the water alone on tv, he's lost his Daddy and is sad. If there is a big dinosaur and a little dinosaur in the book, it's always the baby and his Daddy (NOT the Mommy). and again today while walking home from school, the little pumpkins on the porch are sad and missing their Daddy.

It's pretty sweet and I'm all for it...

a little boy and his Daddy.

Denver Girls Weekend....

These ladies are 4th on my list of life's greatest blessings.

(Jeff, my sons, my family are 1.2.3 in case you wondered)

To be ourselves together with flaws, outspoken minds, baby fat, and colon issues (We're getting old!) and yet still LOVE being together.

I feel the weight of being apart on a daily basis...wishing we could have that cup of coffee together more often than once or twice a year. And still we feel so loved, accepted and with Ann's never ending stories, LOTS of laughs around the edges whenever we are together.

19 years and counting....

Count your blessings...

As Jeff put it recently....
'your Grandma is the toughest (strongest) lady I know'....
that's the truth for sure...
and she has fought the good fight for 97 years.

And my Grandma, while being 'tough'...
spent most of her life in the background.
Cooking, sewing, nagging, cleaning, caring....

She was the Grandma of....
you must have a second helping...
let me rub your back...
you must sit down and rest for a while...
you've going to get a sunburn.

She was the Grandma of...
'honey & vinegar' solved the worlds troubles....
just 'count your blessings' and all would be fine....
She loved to hum her favorite tunes, in her own unique way...

I love my Grandma dearly.
We were the two red heads.
I was her only daughter's daughter.
It was a special thing we had.

She was always in the background
of my Grandpa's strong loving presence.
But she was always THERE.
and we all knew it and loved her so much for it.

She will be missed.
and very much welcomed tonight by Heaven's angels...