Dad's visit and BIG NEWS!

Wow. Even Hannah is on my case to make a new blog entry. Considering how shy she is, I must really be lax in my duties!

So in our last episode, the Percells had visited Kuala Lumpur in mid-November. Since that time we have been very busy with some very mundane things. Boy scouts, cub scouts, and girl scouts have eaten a lot of our time. The kids enjoy the activities and we can see how they are growing through the programs they’re involved with. Hannah is working with the younger girls in scouts. Today (March 4) she is helping with a training program for the overnight camp that is coming up in May. I am on the activities committee for the camp and I asked Hannah to sit in on the meeting to give some teenager feedback to our plans. After the one hour meeting, she said, “Wow. What was that meeting for? Didn’t seem like we got a lot decided….”. I said, “Welcome to the world of adult meetings!” LOL.
A. was recently voted “Assistant Patrol Leader” for his patrol within the Boy Scout troop. He was quite proud and pleased – as are his parents. ☺ He really enjoys scouts and is advancing in rank. He is very close to earning “Second class”.
O. is also enjoying scouts. Their most recent activity was to go watch the Singapore Slingers basketball game. They are also getting ready for the all important Pinewood Derby in a week.

In December, Erin and I passed our driver’s license tests. We were allowed to drive for one year on our Texas licenses, but then had to “convert” them to Singapore licenses. (We got to keep our Texas ones, so I’m not exactly sure what they mean by “convert”.) We watched an American movie last night and I was flinching during the driving scenes – they were driving on the wrong side of the road. Uh-oh!! I think I’m in trouble!

For Christmas this year, we signed up to host a couple of US servicemen. Their ship was going to be in Singapore for a few days. We met the guys and they came back to our house for dinner. Because it was on a Sunday, we bought the turkey and ham from a caterer and fixed the sides ourselves. Turns out both guys were young married men (I’m guessing early 20’s.). They enjoyed calling their wives on Christmas Eve (US time), and using our free wi-fi to catch up on everything. We had them a few small gifts to open. They also seemed to enjoy playing with the kids’ new laser tag guns. The Marines were MUCH better at laser tag than we were – go figure! We weren’t really sure what they would want to do for their day with us, so we offered to take them out to a movie. Turns out we all wanted to see the new Sherlock Holmes movie, so I bought the tickets online the week before. Man oh man was the mall crowded!! I think ½ of Singapore was there! We liked to have never found a parking spot, and when we did we had to walk a mile! But we did manage to pick up our tickets and get to the movie on time. Too bad it wasn’t that good. ☹ After the movie we all went to eat at the Food Republic – which is a lot like a food court except all the food is Asian. We wanted them to get a taste of Singaporean food.

For New Year’s Eve/Day we just relaxed around the house. It was actually very very nice not to have to go anywhere or do anything!!!

For Chinese New Year we bought some new decorations. 2012 is the Year of the Dragon – which is supposed to be a very lucky (or prosperous or whatever) year. In fact, our tour guide in Xian was waiting to get married and start a family so that his child could be born in the year of the dragon. (!) Last year for the reunion dinner I bought many of the traditional Singaporean foods for us to try. Unfortunately, our tastes are more land-lubber than the average Singaporean, so we didn’t eat all of what I bought. This year I bought the “Splendid Western Reunion Platter” from Crystal Jade (a popular Chinese restaurant). It contained: “potato cheese croquette, spicy chicken skewer, deep-fried chicken ravioli, spinach and salmon puff, prosperous pork meat ball with black moss, and garlic pork rib with herbs”. I also ordered: Baby fish glutinous rice cake (glutinous rice shaped like a small fish – fish are a lucky symbol around CNY), 3 different types of pineapple tarts (yum!), some almond cookies, and “chyrsanthemum & wolfberry konnyaku jelly” (sorta like jell-o but chyrsanthemum flavored –yes, that IS a flavor- with little seeds in it), and “roselle and hawthorn konnyaku jelly” (red, thick jell-o, but Jello doesn’t make hawthorn flavor I’m pretty sure.).
I think we all enjoyed the food more this year. It wasn’t fully Chinese, but it wasn’t American, so it was somewhere in between – sorta like Singapore, and sorta like our family is starting to feel after living here for almost a year and ½.

After CNY was over we were all starting to really get excited about my Dad coming to visit. He was planning to come for about 3 weeks, during which time we would go to Thailand for 4 or 5 days. We were making lists of all the places we wanted to take him and all the food we wanted him to try. This was his first real trip outside the US (other than a cruises in the Bahamas), so we weren’t sure how he would do with the jet lag. Turns out, he did real well. I guess those decades of shift work helped a lot! ☺ We took him all over Singapore – the Botanic Gardens and Orchid Garden, the wet market across the street, The Singapore Flyer, the Hop-On Hop-Off tourist bus (found the right stop this time!!), the River boat cruise, Chinatown, Civilians War Memorial, several malls, Singapore Science Centre (where the robotics competition was held – more on that later), Sentosa, Images of Singapore, the Luge, Segway ride, and the “Southernmost point of Continental Asia” (– which ironically is an island connected by bridge to an island connected by bridge to an island connected by bridge to the mainland of Malaysia – but who’s counting? It has a sign and everything!). I’m sure I’m leaving out some places. He kept a journal though, so maybe he’ll start a blog. ☺ We really enjoyed having him here. It was nice to play cards or other games with him just ‘hanging out’ at our house. We also had a terribly exciting day called, “Waiting in vain for the new dishwasher to arrive.” I know you’re jealous. Of course the store called late in the day to say it would actually come the next day. But by then it was too late for us to go out and visit any attractions. Ah well. At least we got the new dishwasher and it works GREAT! Woo-Hoo!!!
On Tuesday, Feb. 21 we left for Phuket (“poo-ket”) Thailand. We arrived and negociated a driver to take us to our hotel. He asked us if we wanted to go ahead and book his services for our return trip to the airport on Saturday. We said, “Sure.”. So after a few minutes he pulled into a little shop and got out. Soon a lady came out and I thought, “Oh here we go, what is she selling that our driver is getting a percentage of?” But as it turns out, she was the booking lady and we paid a deposit for our return trip to the airport while our driver went in and had a break. Pretty smart of them to get you to pay ½ down so that you don’t hire someone else. As it turns out their rate was the same as the one offered by the hotel anyway.
So when we got to the hotel we were informed that they didn’t have any rooms left (!!!) and they were going to upgrade us to their sister hotel around the corner. I was a bit perturbed that I’d booked the hotel on expedia and yet it wasn’t reserved for me. Also, I spent a LOOOONNNNG time picking out a hotel that I thought was family friendly, close to the beach, and reasonably priced. The sister hotel was the “Sugar Palm Grand Hillside” and when they say “Hillside” they MEAN it!! If you’re familiar with my house on Greenwell Dr., this was like walking from the road up to Papaw’s shop to get to our room. Only I think the hill in Thailand is a little steeper. Seriously. We finally found some elevators. The first elevator would take us from the lobby (already a steep walk up from the beach) up 4 floors. Then we walked 50 yards to the second elevator that took us up 6 stories. Then we had to walk up about 4 more stories up very steep ramps, and finally up a flight of stairs to our rooms. We planned our outings pretty carefully so that we didn’t have to come back to the room much.
Other than the hotel mix-up, things went pretty well in Thailand. Dad took us on a deep-sea fishing trip. We enjoyed going out on the boat. Erin caught a Wahoo. He didn’t mean to, but he was sitting in the special reel-‘em-in chair when the fish got hooked, so the 1st mate handed him the rod. We all thought the kids would do the reeling, and they were stationed next to the rods. After we got the system figured out, we let the kids take turns sitting in the special chair. They each got to catch a tuna. Papaw was so happy to get to help them reel it in. At lunch the captain asked us if we wanted fish with our lunch and then he proceeded to fry up the wahoo on a small grill. We had pulled into a small bay with a bunch of other boats, so while he was cooking lunch, we went snorkeling in the bay. It was cool. There were lots of colorful fish to see and some coral. The pictures don’t do it justice. At one point I saw a 6 foot dark object moving 20 feet below me and to the left. After .25 seconds of sheer panic I saw that it was a scuba diver investigating the coral. Hey. I like to swim, but I’ve seen Jaws too many times to be reeeal comfortable in the ocean.
The only bad thing about the day was that Erin and I had a miscommunication about the sunscreen and it got left in the hotel room. Fortunately, all the kids had applied it before we left. Only Dad had not. But being from my family, he tans and doesn’t burn easily. So he was careful not to sit out in the sun too much and escaped with just a little pink on his forearms. O. was not so lucky. He really wanted to sit in the special chair and was hoping to catch another (bigger) fish. All he got for his trouble was sunburn. H. also had a pretty good burn. Neither was bad enough that they didn’t go to the beach the next morning, but by the third day they didn’t want to be in the sun anymore.
Our second day there we dedicated to playing at the beach. The kids dug holes and built sand castles. Papaw Fred and Sheri swam in the ocean. Erin read his book in the shade. We rented two chairs for the morning. When it got time for lunch, the kids decided to buy hotdogs from the stands on the beach. The stand directly behind our chairs advertised several offerings, but not hotdogs. So they went to the next stand over and bought hotdogs. Little did we know that we’d violated some sort of beach etiquette!! Oh the owner of the stand that rented us the chairs was NOT happy. He came out and told us that we could NOT buy food from any other stand. This confused us poor Americans to no end. I mean, had we unknowingly signed some sort of contract when we rented the chairs? After a bit, another lady from the chair stand came out and fussed at us some more for good measure. Then, most confusingly, they tried to return our chair rental money. Weird. We didn’t accept it of course, because we saw that money as chair rental and we’d actually used the chairs. Maybe some food was included in the price of the chairs?? We never did really figure it out. Erin had not ordered his lunch yet, so he tried to make peace by ordering from the chair stand. I came back there and bought some pineapple from them as well. As I’m paying the lady said, “See! We have everything here! No need to buy from over there!” I wanted to say, “Lady, do you want to give me the food, or do you want to keep fussing?” Well, we’ll know better for next time. :-P

On Friday we booked a sea kayaking tour with John Grey.

http://www.johngray-seacanoe.com/thailand/hong-by-starlight.htm

If you ever get the opportunity, you should do this! They took us out in the bay and we got into little 3 person kayaks. They paddled us around and showed us all the little flora and fauna. Then when the tide was right we paddled into and through a cave. The cave opened up into the interior of the island. Very cool. We explored a couple of caves and then returned to the big boat. We then had 45 min. of ‘free time’ to either swim or paddle ourselves. O. and Papaw decided to swim, the rest of us paddled around the last cave we’d visited. Only one problem: the tide had fallen rapidly and we actually had to portage the kayaks for 20 or 30 yards! Erin apparently got bitten or something during the 60 seconds his feet were in the water, because he came home with an itchy rash on one ankle. After supper on the big boat we waited for the sun to go down and then got back on the kayaks to see the bioluminescent plankton. Very cool. If you splashed your hand horizontally in the water, it looked like there were little sparks between your fingers. I also really enjoyed the one hour boat ride back to the dock. In front of us the sky was clear and you could see the stars. Behind us a lightening-in-the-clouds show was going on. It was beautiful.

On Saturday we came back to Singapore. After church on Sunday we went out to the Chevrons (a resort) to eat and do some bowling. We had a good afternoon. Monday we went back out to Sentosa and rode the luge some more. We did a little more shopping and then it was time for Papaw Fred to pack up to go back to Tennessee. ☹ Three weeks sure did go by fast!
So I mentioned the robotics competition. H. & A. started preparing in December for the competition that took place Feb. 10 and 11. They worked really hard! They had to come up with a presentation on how robots could make food handling safer. The second part of the competition involved using the Lego NXT to perform assigned tasks on a competition table. We don’t know what they scored on the presentation, but after the first round of table competition they had the 4th highest score! I’m very impressed considering that they were up agains the very best schools in Singapore as well as 5 teams flown in from China! They also received a special “Judges Award” for ‘Managing Diverse Personalities” or something like that. At least two judges came up to me (o.k., it was easy to tell who the Mom was because we were the ONLY non-Asians there.) and said that they gave that award to H. specifically because of how she handled a difficult team member during the presentation competition. They were very impressed with her management skills. I’m very proud of BOTH of them for their hard work! A. was a huge contributor to their 4th place score. Proud Momma!

In other news, we found out that our 15 y.o. cat, Jockey, has diabetes. He is now on insulin twice a day by injection. Did you know that cats who have diabetes can go into remission? Neither did I. Seems like this would be a very beneficial area to research…… Anyway, we had to make special arrangements for a sitter for him while we went to Thailand. But he seems to be happy and ‘normal’, so I’m glad we decided to treat him and not just arbitrarily put him down. We’ve already decreased his insulin dose, so hopefully he will go into remission in the next month or so.

If you have read this far, you must really be bored. Uh, I mean interested in the goings on of the Singapore Percells. So perhaps this would be a good place to break our biggest news of the decade……

We are going to be parents again! Woo-Hoo! No, it’s not what you think. ☺ We’re adopting a boy from China! We are so excited! We knew when we got married that we wanted to adopt someday. We wanted to wait until our youngest was old enough that we could adopt a potty-trained child who would still be younger than our youngest. By the time O. was of the appropriate age we were in the process of moving to Singapore and knew we would have to re-do the home studies and paperwork. So we waited to get started until we were settled here in Singapore. We have been working on the paperwork for this since last summer. It has already been an up and down roller coaster of paperwork and scrambling for signatures, notaries, reference letters, etc. So just this past weekend we accepted the referral for a little boy!! We are waiting for approval….. We can’t yet post his picture or name until everything is finalized on the China end. (Our paperwork is making its way through the US Customs and Immigration office. After that it will be sent to China for their approval.) Since we don’t have approval yet, nothing is certain. But we are hoping and praying that all goes well. I can tell you that he just turned 3 years old in January. We have been told that it will most likely be November before we get to meet him. So we would appreciate your prayers as we continue on this journey – both for us and for our new son as my nephew, E., says “that you haven’t met yet”. ☺