Christmas Around The World

We just came back from a wonderful Christmas Service at our Church. (By the way, there are over 35 different nations represented in our Church) The program was called Christmas Around The World. It was so amazing. Its hard to explain in words what I felt. The Sanctuary Choir (45 men and women) sang wonderful songs from all over the world. They were all dressed in clothing from their own nationalities. Beautiful Japanese outfits, Korean, Chinese, Indonesian and Filipino. They sang in Chinese, Korean, Spanish, German, French and English. The Filipino Choir sang in Tagalog and The Children's Choir sang in English and Spanish. Natalie had so much fun. She loves doing Choir. The most amazing thing was seeing all these different nationalities come together for the same purpose. GOD. A pastor from Hong Kong prayed in Cantonese, we were sang to by a Korean lady who has the same love for God as I do. There were scripture readings by people from the congregation in Italian and South Afrikaans. How wonderful to see it does not matter what we look like and what language we speak. To God we are all the same. Its not about the decorations and the gifts from Santa under the Christmas tree. Its about The Gift! The Gift of the Savior! I understand the excitement about Santa who comes once a year, but I love being able to be excited about God everyday!!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We went to Krabi last week for Thanksgiving Break. Missed the turkey and everything that comes with that, but had another amazing vacation. I think this is my new favorite place to go, when it comes to beaches. The sand is so soft you are not sure what you are walking on. The water so clear you can see the bottom when you are waist deep! Fishes so friendly you get fish kissed constantly. The people in Thailand are just nice to begin with and our experience this time was again the same. Friendly and helpful and not pushy. Most of the time their English is not so great, but if you are lucky they understand what you want. When we arrived at the airport on Wednesday we saw one of Natalie's friends named Natalie from school with her family (her parents and her sister who is 9 and a sister who is 3. The 3 year old is actually in the morning class with the same teacher that Thijs has. The kids are so exited to find out we are all staying in the same hotel, planning all day play dates and hotel sleepovers and switching seats on the airplane. We stayed at the Sheraton Hotel. It was very nice, but not neccesarily a kid hotel. No pool slide for example. But a beach that was great. They had a huge section roped off where you could swim and snorkel. Watch little crabs run around, build sand castles and collect shells.

Little crabs roll sand out of their tunnels and create these

beautiful star shapes on the beach.

Rara the elphant comes out in the morning and afternoon

to play with the kids. They would feed her fruit and wash her.

Up close and personal to get some elephant kisses.

A local fisherman had just emptied his net on the
beach. Natalie enjoyed playing with the fish.

Longtail boats waiting on the beach in front of our hotel

to take people to the islands for some snorkling.

The second day we rented a longtail boat and went to Hong Island for the day. Our guide did not speak any English at all!!! Very tough when you are trying to figure out where you are going and where he is taking you.

Hong Island as we are getting closer

This friendly monitor lizard climbed down from the rocks and swam across the cove to dry off on the beach.

The cove on Hong Island. Natalie and Colin are snorkling in the warm water. There were a ton of fish!

Feeding the fish or fish food?? They nibbled your legs as you were feeding them. Not a pleasant surprise at first.

Thijs and Colin trying to catch a snack...

Relaxing

The last day we rented a speedboat and hit several of the Phi Phi Islands. Phi Phi Ley Island, Maya Bay Island (where they filmed The Beach with Leonardo DiCaprio) was very busy, we drove by and went on, Monkey Beach (monkeys are running around the beach) we snorkled right off the beach there, Bamboo Island, Viking Cave. We went by Chicken Island (rocks looks like a massive chicken).

Viking Cave

Bamboo Island, a deserted place. Sand so soft and and water so blue, like on t.v. But we were right there. I took a little walk by myself to take it all in and once again I remembered how fortunate were are to be able to travel like this.

The kids are trying to catch the fish in their buckets... and it works if you have some bread in it!

Proud owner of a new ... FISH! No worries.. we released him.

Monkey Beach.... too far away to see the monkies in this picture.

After spending this summer on "T"'s boat, Thijs is hooked!

One of the lagoons we went in.

Thijs and Amanda

Natalie and Natalie

A Happy Family

Vertical Marathon 2007

Swissôtel The Stamford, Singapore

"Take up the challenge of climbing Southeast Asia's tallest hotel - Swissôtel The Stamford, Singapore! Challenge yourself to the grueling 73-storey vertical race up the 1,336 steps. "

It all started last Christmas when Esther and Jean-Philippe were here with the kids. We took a DuckBoat Tour. On the tour they told all kinds of interesting information about Singapore. We drove by the financial district and the guide pointed at a tall building. That is The Swissôtel, it is the tallest hotel in South East Asia. It has a great restaurant called the Equinox on the 69th floor, with beautiful views of Malaysia and Indonesia. The tourguide also informed us that every year they have a Vertical Marathon in that hotel. Well..... not shy about a challenge, I was all ears. So for months I have been looking for a partner in crime to do this insane race. Blythe moved into our complex over the summer and we have since become great friends and running partners. One day this Vertical Marathon came up in conversation and it was a done deal. We signed up and I recruited my friend Lisa to come along as well.

This past Sunday was the big day. I had not really trained for this one. Just my basic running routine, getting ready for the 10K and the 1/2 marathon in December. I did not sleep at all the night before. I could not eat dinner. I was so nervous. There were about 1200 participants, separated by age in catagories and every minute they would "release" 6 runners. Category by category. We were among the first 6 runners of our category to go off. Including those 6 was the girl that won it last year and one of her prizes was that they sent her to do the race at the Empire State Building in NYC. Which she also won by the way. Shotgun went off and the race was on. It was not as "fun" as I had expected. A boring stairwell... and a very lonely run to the top. As we ran there were medical people every few floors in case someone got unwell. The air in the stairwell was very dry... lots of dust from the first thousand people that had past before us. It was really hard to breathe and at first I thought it was my nervous breathing that I could not regulate. When we got to the top we ended up with a medal and a wonderful view of the city and Indonesia and Malaysia. We got to spend 10 minutes on the Helipad before we walked down to the 69th floor to take the elevator down. Fun was over....

Well, not entirely.

As we were leaving I told Lisa to just check to see if maybe she placed.. her time was really good. And she did... 2nd place. We drove home (Lisa had a brunch with friends from China at 1130am) for her to take a quick shower and while in the car I got a call telling me I had to come back because I placed 3rd!! But,.... someone had filed a complaint against my time. Supposedly I had pushed them and they should be in 3rd, I should be 4th! WHAT????? I just came for fun! Why would I push? To make a long story short they told me I had to return asap to argue for my 3rd place, before the ceremony at 12pm. Imagine the screams in the car. We got home, picked up Lisa's family and returned to the hotel. We dropped her family off at the Hyatt to start the brunch and Lisa and I raced on the pick up our prizes! What would the prize be????? We ended up getting stuck in traffic and I really had to argue my case before the ceremony began or there would be no prize. I received 3 more call on the way to tell me to hurry! I jumped out of the car a few blocks before the hotel and ran my way over as I left Lisa with my car to deal with traffic and parking!!!!! Turned out the girl realized it was not me, I was told I placed 3rd, sit down fast, the awards ceremony had already started. Meanwhile still no sign of Lisa. Was she stuck in traffic, where would she park? She made it just in time. As she sat down they call my name and I received my prize. A night at the Swissôtel and a 200 sgd voucher for a Swatch watch.

12 minutes 51 seconds of my Sunday morning was worth it. YEAH!

Blythe, myself, Lisa

Made it!

Happy Birthday Natalie

8!!!! Can you believe Natalie turned eight on October 28th? I know I say it all the time, but its so true, time flies and we have to enjoy every minute!!!

Because of Halloween being right after her actual birth date, we decided to have a party for her friends on November 3rd. Theme: Diva Party Where: at home Who: 10 girl friends

Colin and I removed most of the furniture from the family room to make a dance area, complete with disco ball! We had stations set up for hair, make-up and nails to be done. I hired two teenage girls to help out with that. Natalie had her last soccer match that morning and while she was at soccer I decorated the whole house with streamers, 50 pink balloons and banners. The girls had a great time playing games, dancing and getting dolled up. After the girls sang Happy Birthday in English, they continued with another Happy Birthday song but this time in Mandarin. Very cool! I wish I had videotaped that. Sometimes I forget we have such a diverse group of friends and live in such an international environment, so multi cultural. I love it!

Waiting for the friends to arrive

Hair Station

Make-up Station

Nail Station

Her friends, 3 did not want in on the picture

Best friend Hannah who lives in our condo complex

Cake!

qu ni sheng er kuai le!

Happy Birthday to you!

Halloween 2007

Another year went by and here it is Halloween again. It seems like yesterday that Thijs broke his nose and he had to wear his Superman Costume with a big bruise on his nose. He wanted to wear the same outfit this year so that was easy. Natalie was a cute purple witch. Both Natalie and Thijs had a class party and a parade at school. That same evening we had a pool party with a parade around the pool and trick or treating right after. The kids had a great time.

Thijs with some friends and his teacher

Playing the "eyeball relay" game

Eating the cookie he decorated by himself. YUM!

Are you a nice witch or are you a mean witch??

Her gang

The mummy wrap game

Pool party with pizza and icecream for the kids

Look what I have!

Thijs and Dutch friend Zita eating pannekoeken (Dutch pancakes)