Photos from our Royal Celebration

A Celebration with British Friends

The highlight of our celebration was being together with our British friends, the McMahons. We watched the Royal Wedding together last night and enjoyed eachother's company. Lee, Christine, William and Emma live across the street at Casa Merah and we met at a birthday party of a mutual friend. William and Emma also go to local schools so it has been great knowing another expat family who can understand some of our challenges. Our helper was busy all day preparing lasagnas, an Asian chicken dish and a fresh fruit medley. Pit found "Royale" chocolates the other day while we were shopping at the FairPrice. There is a chocolate in the shape of a crown and another one with the profile of...I think...Princess Diana. We enjoyed some bubbly and toasted the bride and groom before the kids went outside and ran around in the dark for awhile to let off some steam! Lee's parents, Rob and Elaine, flew over from London and brought lots of fun party items to make our celebration complete! Congratulations to the newly married couple and best wishes for a peaceful future together!

Happy Easter!

Nice moustache, Papa! We LOVE it! "It's the best!!!"




We wish you all a joyous Easter! We enjoyed a church service at the Good Shepherd at 10am. At the end of the service, a little angel (an 8 year old boy) beautifully sang "I Dreamed a Dream" from Les Mis. Afterwards we had "special drinks" (fruit freezies) at the Singapore Art Museum's cafe called "Dome". We came home to find that the Easter Bunny had hidden Kinder Eggs. Our boys cheered! We had a big, delicious brunch made more beautiful by orchids and gerberas from Papa, Frunty and Pit. Our helper, Ailene, joined us too on this special day. Now it is time to stop blogging and start decorating some eggs! Here are photos of our lovely, tropical Easter in Singapura!

Photos of Captain Mrs. Thankful at TPS

Photographer Frunty takes some great pics of Captain Mrs. Thankful. I am sure glad we leant him the camera today so he could catch some of the action on film. Well done, Frunts! Check out Mr. Potato who is able to stick his tongue out too! Thank you to Mdm Rahimah for inviting Captain M.T to the class today to help the students with their pronunciation practise and good job Tampinesians for saying "thank you" properly!

Captain Mrs. Thankful vists TPS

Captain Mrs. Thankful visited TPS's P3 Love class today! But not to fight crime because everyone knows that Tampinesians are very well behaved. Captain M.T was sent from Planet Standard English to assess the strength of the students' muscles and to solve the case of the Lazy Tongue. After thirty minutes with the P3 Love class, Captain M.T discovered that there are no lazy tongues, only multi-coloured tongues belonging to the adorable third graders. Why? While practising the "th" sound, the students had to do various exercises. One exercise was to sing a Thankful song with a lollipop microphone. Every time the students got to the word "thankful", their tongues would touch the lollipop! At the end of the lessons, the students wrote "thank you" notes to friends or family. Captain Mrs. Thankful was thrilled to receive several notes herself as did Mdm Rahimah, the form teacher who invited Captain M.T to visit today. It was a lot of fun and hopefully the students will practise using their tongues to make the "th" sound!

Boys train our helper!

The fun of getting a new helper means lots of time in the kitchen, teaching her all our cooking methods. For some recipes, like lasagna and pumpkin risotto, I tell Ailene that the boys will help and when it is time to prepare the dish, I hear her call them over and I know that they are indeed teaching her. I hear Frunty say, "no, not like that, like this!" In a nice way. Ailene made our favourite, peanut butter cookies with Pit's help. Basically, I can sit by the pool and know that our new helper is being trained and it is great! It can be extra work having a little one in the kitchen but I always say that it is worth it because then they know what to do! What goes around, comes around! And watching the wee ones lick the spoons, always fun!

Photos from Friendship Day at TPS

We enjoyed celebrating Friendship Day at TPS and introducing our beautiful homeland to the children. In order to win a flag, I asked questions about Canada. Here are a few questions and answers: 1) Canada is on what continent? A: Australia
2) What is the capital of Canada?
A: Canberra
3) What is the name of the leaf on the Canadian flag. A: Ottawa

When one student got one answer right, I cheered! We served rice crispy balls with maple syrup which we called "Maple Beaver Droppings". One boy took three by accident because they were stuck together and then he ran off. About ten minutes later, he came up to me and asked, "Can I eat these?" We noticed that almost all the children asked before taking one and one mother who was volunteering at the Indian booth asked if they were really droppings. We gave the children Canadian word searches and they made Maple Leaf Birds. Papa took the morning off work to come and help and Ailene, our new helper, was there too. It was great fun and we enjoyed learning about Myanmar, India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and the Philippines at the other booths. The mother at the China booth gave us a gift at the end. Although we cannot communicate much our smiles show we are friends. And that is what counts. We are grateful for all our friends out there and to the Canadian Embassy for lending so many nice posters, flags and balloons to us to make our booth so beautiful!

Friendship Day at TPS

Today we celebrated Friendship Day at Frunty's school and Pit and Papa took the morning off to participate and help with the making of a Maple Leaf bird! Last night, the boys and I showed Ailene how to make rice crispy balls and we threw in some Maple Syrup to make them Canadian. We served these balls to the students but called them "Maple Beaver Droppings". One student took three as they were stuck together and about ten minutes later, came over to me with the balls in his hands and asked, "Can I eat these?" to which I replied, "Can."

The children also completed Canadian word searches at our booth and visited the other countries' stations as well: India, China, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and the Philippines were also featured. It was a fun morning although very loud and crazy with so many excited students running around. Our family dressed in our Canadian t-shirts. I had hoped to wear my native Indian costume which I had ordered on e-bay but it did not arrive in time. I'll have to wear it on Racial Harmony Day in July! It's good to have friends from around the world! And we are very grateful for it!