Uncategorized | Nyan Thomas L's Blog

Nyan Turns 8!

On July 26, 2019, our boy turned eight years old. We kept the celebrations a little on the low-key side this year, but we did manage to have fun and properly honor our fast-growing little man.

It so happened that Cirque du Soleil was back in town, so we paid them a visit for Nyan’s birthday. We posed for a few family selfies on the way:

The show itself was fantastic, of course:

We all enjoyed it, and Nyan especially enjoyed dinner afterwards at a Japanese pub, where he got to drink cranberry juice out of a boot-shaped beer stein:

The birthday itself featured a “double sleepover” — two nights in a row of Nyan and Jayden doing more playing than actual sleeping — as well as a present-opening session and hanging out with Jayden and Lily.

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Posted by Chris L. on August 15, 2019 in Uncategorized

Tags: birthday

Summer Camp: A Star is Born?

07 Aug

Nyan spent a few weeks at various day camps in July 2019. Probably the best was Drama Camp, where they did a sort of modernized telling of Romeo and Juliet, with a performance for the parents at the end of the week. And who’s that young man who was tapped in the title role of Romeo himself? Yep, our boy. Let’s take a look at the full performance, in multiple clips. A little long, but worth it!

Not bad, eh?

His other day camps included math, cooking, and aviation. Aviation was especially fun as he got to bring home various flying objects each day.

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Posted by Chris L. on August 7, 2019 in Uncategorized

Tags: school

June Fun

25 Jul

Some random photos and videos from the month of June 2019, when we weren’t traveling to America and whatnot.

Hanging with Jayden and Jonnie at a sand pit:

Dancing:

A riding toy on a trip back to the old shopping mall where his preschool was:

Some taekwondo fun:

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Posted by Chris L. on July 25, 2019 in Uncategorized

Tags: friends

A Summer Trip to the USA, Part 2

21 Jul

More from Nyan’s summer 2019 sojourn to the American heartland — a.k.a. Grandma and Grandpa’s place!

Sparklers

Nyan had never played with sparklers before, so we took care of that on this trip. He loved them, and they quickly became a regular part of our evening routine.

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Fun with Uncle Mike

One evening we met Uncle Mike and Aunt Sarah for dinner at this big place that has all these games, including tabletop shuffleboard. (We think that’s the proper name?) Turns out that Nyan was very good at it:

There was also a lot of foosball, on an outdoor patio as a summer thunderstorm rolled in:

And some fun outside rolling an old tire around:

Kite

Grandma and Grandpa bought a kite, so we spent one breezy afternoon prepping it and getting it airborne! It was a lot of fun, until it got tangled in a tree (not pictured).

There were some missteps at first:

But we got it up in the air before long. Well, for a moment anyway:

He got it!

Rabbit

Grandma and Grandpa’s friends Dave and Bernie have a pet rabbit, Bun-Bun. Nyan always enjoys a visit.

Travel

It’s not easy to get from Singapore to Iowa; it involves three airplanes and anywhere between 25 and 30 (or more!) hours of travel, including more than 20 hours actually in the air. It’s worth it, of course, but it’s not the easiest.

But it does give one lots of time to take pictures! Here are a handful, taken at various airports and on various airplanes, including a few at the airport as we were saying goodbye to Grandma and Grandpa at the end of the trip. On the inbound trip, we were lucky enough to have Daddy’s friend Phil come out to O’Hare airport on a lengthy layover in Chicago for a meal and a catch-up session; Daddy and Nyan were beyond punch drunk, but it was fun — see video below. And also see a video of Nyan excitedly strapping in for the last flight before our final arrival in Iowa!

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Posted by Chris L. on July 21, 2019 in Uncategorized

Tags: family, Grandma, iowa, travel

A Summer Trip to the USA, Part 1

15 Jul

After school let out in mid-June, Nyan and Daddy hopped aboard a plane bound for Tokyo.. then Chicago.. then finally (after some 28 hours) Iowa, where they spent two-plus weeks hanging out with Grandma, Grandpa, and the rest of the clan. Let’s see what they got up to!

Uncle Scott

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One of Nyan’s favorite things to do in Iowa is visit Uncle Scoitt and Aunt Maggie. They have a big grassy yard for him to run around in… and best of all, Scott has a huge wood-working workshop!

So he spent a lot of time in there, building a nice little box.

Great Grandma

We spent a lot of time with Great Grandma, including hanging out at her apartment…

Goofing around with her walker…

And feeding the fish in the pond outside her apartment:

Model Train

Nyan also spent a lot of time down in the basement with Grandpa, working on the model train layout.

Chicago

Nyan and Daddy drove over to Chicago for a couple days to visit Daddy’s friends. Nyan had a blast hanging out with other kids, the adults, and (especially) Pearl the dog — his first canine love!

Nyan and Pearl:

Hanging out on Chicago streets with Daddy, Uncle Phil and Uncle Todd:

Being goofy:

Random photos:

Dogs and being goofy:

Dogs and adults:

Miscellaneous

Some random pictures, and a video of a playing Nyan, taken at various points across our US travels:

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Posted by Chris L. on July 15, 2019 in Uncategorized

Tags: family, iowa, travel

Another Trip to the Sports Store

10 Jul

Our neighborhood Decathlon, the sporting goods chain store, lets you try out pretty much all the equipment right there in the store. So whenever we stop by to pick up whatever, we always spend lots of time playing around, as we did in June. Check it out:

Messing around in the kayak:

Working on his dribbling:

Working on his free throws:

Bouncing:

And finally, a little rock climbing!

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Posted by Chris L. on July 10, 2019 in Uncategorized

Tags: sports

End of the School Year

05 Jul

June 2019 saw the end of Nyan’s Year 3 — that;’s the equivalent of 2nd grade to the US; not sure what it would be in the UK, sorry! Here he is on the first day of school (August 2018) and the last (June 2019)

Y3start-finish

Some pics from the waning days of the year. Here he is around the apartment complex, waiting for the bus or happy to be home at the end of the day:

Some shots of his classmates:

And various moments around the school:

On one of the last days, Nyan’s teacher tipped us off that he was to receive a “certificate” of merit, for making excellent progress in his Mandarin class, during a full-school assembly. Nyan didn’t know about it. So Daddy went to the assembly, hid in the back, and took a shaky video of the award.

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Well done, Nyan!

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Posted by Chris L. on July 5, 2019 in Uncategorized

Tags: friends, school

Fun Times in the Month of May

28 Jun

A bunch of random photos and videos from the month of May 2019.

A proud moment in his swimming career: first-ever underwater somersault without complaining!

Walking along with Jayden on a rainy yet sunny morning:

Enjoying music and showing off his dance moves:

One evening we had dinner at a local mall, Suntec City, and found in the lobby a display from a local architectural school. They were just starting a lecture of sorts, and Nyan insisted on sitting in and listening.

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Posted by Chris L. on June 28, 2019 in Uncategorized

Winding Down the School Year

16 Jun

May 2019 was a busy month at Nyan’s school, which wrapped up for the year in early June. Let’s take a look.

He enjoyed his time in music class, learning to play — or at least get familiar with — a wide range of instruments.

Waiting for the bus to school one morning:

A class field trip to the zoo!

Showing off his skills to Mommy at a year-end parent/teacher conference

And finally, sports day! Hanging out with Arav, looking cute in his floppy hat, and running a race, all while planes from the Republic of Singapore Air Force zoom overhead on final approach to a nearby airbase.

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Posted by Chris L. on June 16, 2019 in Uncategorized

Tags: school

Live Music on a School Night

05 Jun

Nyan’s daddy has been playing in a rock band for a little while now, and one weeknight in May, his band had its first-ever live performance. Mommy and Nyan were there, of course; Jayden showed up with his family too!

Nyan gave himself a front-row seat and had a great time. But he arguably had even more fun hanging out with Jayden, hanging out with Daddy and Mommy before the performance, and watching the bar TV which was showing a muted video of Mr Bean.