Trampoline and water play

At the end of last month I finally managed to take the boys to the trampoline park in Katong. It is only 15min drive away from our place. Lots of my friends have told me about this place and I was looking forward to going there. We picked the perfect morning - slightly too early maybe... 8am. Hence there weren't many people there and it was not too hot! Bonus!
Oliver had a really good time with his friend Liam. They jumped and they giggled and they jumped forever!

So I thought it would be a good activity for Tomo's boys too. Unfortunately the only slots available were at 1pm, which in the end wasn't too bad but according to Matthew it was so super hot! Tomo was brave enough to join in. I just sat back and watched everyone jump...

We planned well. From trampoline to an empty water play area at the top of Katong i12 :)

This boy never runs out of energy...

All of them were exhausted by the time we got home. It was such a perfect afternoon for the boys. What else can we do to get all the energy out of them? 4 boys in an apartment, we need to be planning ahead!

First project of the new year

It still feels wrong to start your new grade in January. This year Oliver is in the oldest class K2, and Luca in Nursery. Oliver is not starting till midweek but Luca had his first day today. There were some new kids starting so the classes were only for half as long as usual. Well he only goes for 3 hours a day normally which meant he only had an hour and a half there.

But he was very proud to come home with his little project. A worm on a leaf.

He loved being back, hopefully another great year ahead for him!

Afternoon at the playground

Jin left Singapore late last night. But Tomo and the kids are still here and are staying with us for another 5 days. They have done so much of the touristy thing already: Universal Studios, the Aquarium, the Night Safari, Marina Bay Sands etc etc. Hence I made an executive decision for them. For the rest of their stay I will get them to experience the "everyday life" we have here. To start off we went to Pasir Ris Children's Park - one of our favourite places.

It turned out to be such a beautiful afternoon. When we left it was raining hard. I am glad we didn't cancel the outing.

Loads of equipment, beautiful big trees and a nice breeze from the sea - such an awesome park.

Oliver's rugby buddy Liam came along too:

Halfway though I lost Ashley for a while - guess where she was? Somehow she followed her brothers climbing up the hill.

Yes, she is very keen and tough!

Wonderful way to get rid of excess energy! I'm sure we will be back there again soon.

Such a big girl

Ashley HAS TO BE same as her brothers. When we talk about going outside she is very quick. She puts her shoes on, carries her shopping bag or gets ready on the scooter...

You are growing so fast my girl!

New Year BBQ

Our 1st day of 2015 kicked off very social. We put on a BBQ by the pool. We had a good turn out of people even tho some were heavily hungover from the previous night.  The weather has been nice and cool which made the pool water too chilly for some kids unfortunately. At one stage we had some rain too but it cleared very quickly - lucky! Our Japanese guests enjoyed a REAL BBQ very much.

Meisha and I:

Jin and Ashley:

Everyone had a great time except for this boy. At the very last minute of the BBQ he fell in a drain...
I hope this will be the only injury he will get for the year - I know, I know there will be more :(

The last day of 2014

Our last day of 2014 was filled with fun activities. We took Jin and the family to the ECP for some bike riding and beach play.

As we have done in the past with other visitors we hired a family bike and headed towards the airport. The weather was marginal but we only got a few drops and the rest was nice and cool :)

We stopped at the halfway point to watch people fishing and have a little play on the beach. 

Then back on the bike for some more exercise! Well Tomo and I didn't do much peddling... but to get this photo I ran so fast to get ahead of the bike! Oliver was behind Matthew :( 

But I got this smily one of him alone when we stopped :)

The kids were fascinated with the remote control car track.  

We kept going until we could be just under the flight path to see some planes come in to land. It was quite far way and then we realised we had to bike all the way back to where we started!! Such a mission...
When we returned the bike it was almost lunch time. Jin and Tomo wanted to try some local food so we had lunch at the hawker center. They had famous Laksa and some stingray.

Of course we got them some sugarcane juice and coconut juice too :)

We then continued to Mana Mana Beach Club for the rest of the afternoon. 

Ayaka and Eiji came to join us too, we had 7 kids in total! People are asking me if we don't have enough kids - No we do have enough of our own thank you. 

We rented out a paddle board. Both Matthew and Jin had a go. 

It was so worth getting it just to see the kids getting on and jumping off the board. They had so much fun!  

Happy kids and some cold beer, perfect way to finish up the year! 

In the evening we had a plan to go into the Marina Bay area for the countdown. Tomo's sister's family was also in town for a holiday so we tried to meet up with them. BIG mistake. What a mission! They got the perfect viewing spot for the fireworks as their hotel was just around the corner. We tried to get to the exact spot they were waiting. We left here slightly too late so as we walked towards the spot police were starting to block the road more and more... I think in the end we almost walked 2 hours but couldn't make it. The crowd got bigger and bigger and we just simply couldn't move any more. We ended up watching the fireworks standing on middle of the road with millions of people around us :(  

Oliver deep asleep in the buggy, Ashley crying and Luca almost asleep... Well, as a family we can get through anything!?

Good bye 2014 - Matthew and I are feeling very positive for 2015. BRING IT ON!!