January 2010

So let's start where we were this time last year. We were staying at Red Wharf Bay, waking up to some beautiful dawns. Sometimes jet-lag is not so bad :) especially when you wake before the kids to views like this.

We drove up into the mountains looking for the perfect place for the kids to experience snow for the first time. Some of us loved the snow....

some of us ... not so much...

In fact, four of the five were crying in under ten minutes. I suppose when it looks so nice out of the window, you don't realise that it really is cold. People were smiling as they passed us. 'Aw, poor little things' kind of smiles. And chuckles. We were really, really lucky in our timing though. We didn't stay there long, but it snowed on us. That lifted the kids' spirits for a bit, trying to catch the snowflakes on their tongues like mummy. They were even more happy to be back in the car, having changed their soggy cold socks for new ones. Because I'm prepared like that. We may not have had all the proper gear, what with actually living in the tropics, but we were as prepared as possible.

We all loved the New Year fireworks, including the Canadian cousins, with the possible exception of Daddy who burned a hole through his shoe right down to his big toe, with that deadliest of fireworks ... the Sparkler.

Then all too soon, which comes even when we stay for months, back to Singapore for us. And for the triplets first day at school.

The kids settled back into school ... we grew peanuts ...

(I don't like to leave you in suspense, but when I get to December 2010 you'll see amazingly exciting photos of the bananas we grew this year too :) But first ... the peanuts -

Elisha was posing with them because her Unit Of Inquiry (UOI) at school, was something like 'from the farm to the table' - or from our garden, to the bin, sad looking peanuts, we'll have to try again. I guess at least they did grow.

And to round off January - here's a photo of making friends - triplet style.

The little girl is actually Alex's friend - you'd never guess would you? The triplets well and truly adopted her. (I blurred out her face on purpose for anonymity - what do you think? Blurred enough?). This lovely little girl and her family have now moved on from Singapore and we all miss them all. And yes, Matthew is only in underwear, a recurring theme here, still! At least he's at the back of the photo or I wouldn't be able to share it. So that was January - hope you liked the photos and enjoyed the memories.