Signing off from Singapore!

This will be my last post from the great country of Singapore! My computer is getting packed up and shipped out tomorrow morning. :( I hate to be without it, but we'll have Ben's laptop to check email with. Anyway, we're excited to head out on Saturday! We're heading to Hong Kong for 5 days where we'll check out the Temple, do some sight seeing, buy even more souveniers and spend 2 days at Disneyland! We're really excited! And then a 16 hour flight from Singapore to LA a 4 hour layover, another 2 hour flight and we'll be home around midnight on the 16th! We can't wait!

I am so grateful for the time we've had here in this beautiful country. It's been challenging in some ways, but so much fun. The Lord has truly blessed us and our little family has grown in so many ways. I would never trade this experience and hopefully it has made me a better person.

So look for some fun posts from Hong Kong, our trip home, a wedding 5 days after that, and getting back to "real" life. It will be at least 3 weeks before I get my computer back and internet again.

The Pool

We love the Pool! It has been so fun to go down and swim whenever we want. Thursday Ben had the day off for Singapore's Labor Day. So we took full advantage of the beautiful weather and spent the morning at the pool. I haven't taken any pictures at the pool yet, so here they are.

Grace is a maniac in the water. She is fearless and will jump in by herself. She even swam the width of the pool all by herself (plus floaties!).

She met this little girl, April, on Thursday and they hit it right off. They played so well together! We saw them again this morning at the pool. We're all here another week so hopefully she'll have a friend to play with for the next week.

(This is the little playground they have right next to the kiddie pool. Grace spends as much time out of the water as she does in it.)
Riding the bouncy horse.
Playing with Ben. She loves to swim with him. I'm more of a lay in the sun till it gets hot and then jump in to cool off sort of swimmer. Ben loves to jump right in and take Grace all over.
It was April's birthday on Thursday. Lucky for us they loved Grace and shared her birthday cake. Grace dove right in and ate all the frosting, leaving the cake of course. (the other peice in the picture was hers. When April's mom saw how much Grace loved the frosting she let Grace lick the extra off the serving plate. mmmm sugar!)
This is Grace and Ben floating on their backs. Grace will lay back and kick. She can move around pretty well.
We will seriously miss having a pool to go to whenever we want, but hopefully we'll spend lots of time at the pool this summer! I'm trying to sign her up for some little swimming lessons, so hopefully her love of the water will continue.

20 Weeks

I figured I should take an official Pregnant picture of me. So here I am 20 weeks and half way!

It's A.....

....Boy?.....maybe.....The Dr said it's an 80% chance. But his ultrasound machine is ancient and he wasn't confident. Maybe it's there, maybe it's a shadow. He couldn't guarantee anything. So I'm not buying blue yet. I'm actually still a little in shock, I was so sure it was a girl, and I'm working on getting my excitement up to par. So I've scheduled with a Dr in Utah and will hopefully have another ultrasound shortly after I get home and then we'll know for sure. I'm excited to get home and see a normal Dr. I scheduled my appointment last night and they said to bring in any lab results, and I was like, "um they haven't done any lab tests". The receptionist was a little shocked. At least at my next ultrasound if it is really a boy I'll have prepared myself to be really excited about it. I'll keep you all posted.

A River Cruise and Clarke Quay

Ben took Monday afternoon off work, just for fun. So we went and had some fun! We decided to take a Cruise down the River since it's been on our list and is one of the last things to cross off. We headed over to Clark Quay where one of the boat docks is. Here's Ben and Grace patiently waiting for the boat to come.

The ride was only about 30 minutes long, but we saw all lot of the famous buildings and landmarks of Singapore. Here is a good shot of the Merlion.
Grace loved riding on the boat, even though it was loud and kind of stinky.
Our pretty girl
After the River Cruise we walked around Clarke Quay. Grace ran right up to the fountains. I could tell she was just dying to play in them so even though I didn't have a change of clothes for her we gave in this time. Thank goodness Pampers are so absorbant! The water was freezing but she had a blast running through it.Ben joined in on the fun, but he managed to stay dry.
After the water fun, and my vain attempts at trying to dry out Grace's clothes I was hungry. Ben told me I could choose. I was really in the mood for some good American Appetizers. My choices for American Food at Clarke Quay was a little limited, but there was one option- Hooters! So yes, I chose to eat at Hooters. Ben wanted me to make sure I made that perfectly clear that it was my choice. Honestly I didn't see anything wrong with it. Singapore women don't have big boobs anyway. So we had some yummy wings, fries, and Rootbeer Floats. Mmm Mmm! (I did order a salad so we had something healthy!)

Making Cookies

Ben loves homemade cookies. He usually says, "Sweetie, lets make cookies." Which interpreted means, "Will you go make me some cookies?" Well after a week of asking for them, and me refusing, we finally compromised and decided that we would all make cookies together as a family. And he really did help! I, of course, did get stuck with the scooping and baking but we all enjoyed some homemade cookies last Sunday. Grace loves to eat the cookie dough, and who can blame her? It's my favorite part too! We shared the beaters.

Day 7

We decided to spend the last day of the trip finishing up our shopping at Chinatown. Yes, 3 times in one week, but something new to see everytime! We found some good souveniers and got everything they wanted. Here we are at on of the shops bargaining over some chopsticks.

Grace was so great and actually took a nap in the stroller while we shopped! That's the way to do it. Shopping is much more pleasant when she is sleeping.
We found this shop that sold Bamboo chairs. Grace loved them and they were surprisingly really comfortable. Ben's parents bought two little ones for the Grandkids to fight over.
After Chinatown we headed home for a swim to cool off. After Ben got off work we went to Dinner and then home for more Games. We tried to go to bed early since thier flight left at 6:00 am. We were up again at 3:30 to send them off. Grace was so sad that morning when she woke up to find their room empty. She moped around for about 20 minutes and she misses them. It was so fun to have them here, even if we did need 2 days to recover our energies. Thanks for the Visit!