4th of July Weekend and Things On our To Do List

I'll start with the pictures. These first few are of our new place. It was previously the show flat, so this is not our furniture...

Looking from the dining room into the living room...at the far end are the bedrooms.
Entry "hallway" and bedroom doors...(the lady in the pink skirt is our realtor, Ann)

Jack and Jill bath between the boys rooms...there's a shower behind the doors

Master bedroom (you should see the built-in closets...quite big for here in Singapore! Not walk-in or anything, but a whole wall of closet space w/ a built-in light.)

The pool (office/gym/lounge area is in the two-story building).

Our unit is on the 4th floor and we asked them to install plexiglass on the iron railing on the balcony so our children cannot climb up on it! There are locks to the balcony with keys, so the keys will be hidden from the kids for sure! My mom was so concerned about us living in a high-rise building w/ our boys who like to climb! (So was I!)

I'll post new pictures once our stuff arrives and we're unpacked.

Here's Caleb upset because there were too many kids playing on the bouncy house at the 4th of July celebration.

There were people everywhere at the American Association's 4th Celebration...can you spot Justin in the background? This picture doesn't do justice to the thousands of people at this place!

This is as far as Caleb would get in to the bouncy castle. The other kids were running into him and knocking him down, and he kept getting upset. Plus it was really hot and humid!

We've had a great holiday weekend...although the 4th of July is obviously not a holiday here in Singapore!

I started the weekend by getting a pedicure with my friend, Andrea. It was much-needed (the pedicure and the girl time!). It was a tiny place with only two chairs, so it was just the two of us. I mostly understood what the girl was saying to me, and definitely understood when she asked if I wanted to add the scrub as part of my pedicure and that it would be an extra $20. Ummm...no thanks!

We had a BBQ Saturday at lunch with the other expats from Justin's company here at our temporary housing (where almost everyone is still living). We ordered meat from a butcher that Andrea had heard of, and it was SO yummy! Even with very few seasonings on hand (salt and pepper), the steaks/hamburgers/kebas was really good. We'll definitely be ordering from that butcher again, and they deliver, which is ALWAYS a plus! Andrea also got the number for the "Chicken Man," who delivers chicken breasts to your house at a really great price. Once he's delivered to you, you can just text him your future orders (or SMS him as it's called here). Cool, huh? I'm definitely finding all the places who will deliver instead of dragging the kids everywhere.

Saturday night we headed to the Terror Club (named after a British ship, the HMS Terror) for the American Association's 4th of July celebration. They had bouncy houses/castles/slides, face painting, hot dogs, balloon animals, etc. It was SO hot and there were SO many people that we didn't enjoy ourselves very much. Caleb wouldn't even lay on the bouncy things because there were tons of kids on each one...they were regulating how many kids were on there. We also waited in line for an hour and 15 minutes for a nasty hot dog. Then a balloon popped and Caleb thought it was fireworks and he started freaking out! We hadn't told him there would be fireworks because we were trying to test the waters and see if his fear of fireworks was still there. Apparently, it is. So, we promptly left before the fireworks began.

This morning we tried church #4. :-) It was great! The pastor and his wife are from South Africa, so we loved listening to their accent. It was a wonderful church with very authentic worship and great Bible teaching. We haven't made a decision yet on which church we'll attend on a regular basis, but this one seems to be a great fit for our whole family.

The next thing on our list is preschools for Caleb. It's quite an undertaking to find a preschool that is close to where we'll be living, or at least close to a bus stop w/ a short walk after the bus. Sometime this next week Justin and I will be visiting preschools to find the best fit for Caleb. There is a Christian preschool close to where we'll be living, so I hope that one will work (I'm afraid they have a long waiting list, though). Levi is too young to attend there, but I hope to find a good place for him to attend a couple of days a week as well. I love that they will be going to school with children from other countries!

We now have a car, so I'm hoping that will help in getting to some places and with trips to the grocery store! Justin will have it at work most of the time, but if I need it he can ride with someone else.

And next week we move to our permanent place! We'll get the keys on Saturday and then the movers will bring our sea shipment and unload it on Monday. We are SO excited to not live out of suitcases anymore! And we're excited to sleep in our OWN beds!!! Asian beds are really hard.

That's it for now!