Random shots and video from the final month of 2018:
One afternoon, down by the pool, we ran into the little two-year-old girl who lives across the hall. She was on her way to the playground, so Nyan decided to play Big Brother and play with her a bit. It was a nice blast from the past, returning to the playground where he used to play every single night.
More photos:
Lego robotics:
Still more photos:
And finally, a trio of videos showing our boy at his happy-footed best.
Some of the creative endeavors Nyan got up to during the December break from school.
He did lots of drawing and writing, of course, as always. Including a get-well card for Uncle Iain, a letter of explanation to the Tooth Fairy, and some school work.
Nyan enjoys playing around with Daddy’s electric guitar.
He also had a blast when we went to a local music store one afternoon. He found his “dream guitar” — a $7,000 sparkly Flying V. Save your pennies, kiddo.
He also did a number of scientific experiments, many of them with Mommy. Here they are in various science garb:
The masks were when they were doing geology, including pounding on various rocks with a hammer. Gotta filter out the dust!
Here’s an experiment on the viscosity levels of various substances. Peanut butter, honey, and olive oil.
And the creme de la creme: We took some pencils, connected them to a battery, put them in water. See those bubbles? That’s electrolysis!
There’s never a White Christmas in Singapore, of course, but we still manage to make the most of the festive season.
We got together with Jayden and his family, and another family, for a Christmas dinner and gift-exchange for the kiddos.
It ended up as a sleepover for our hero, of course.
We also enjoyed the various holiday decorations around town:
On Christmas Day itself, we went over to Kyle’s house for a lovely dinner with his family, and other friends. The kids had a blast with various playtimes:
There was a newborn baby there, which Mommy had a blast with:
We opened presents on Christmas morning, of course. But we somehow managed to not take any pictures during the unwrapping! Oops. Here are some photos of the tree and various gifts, before and after opening:
And some videos of Nyan opening other presents: Grandma and Grandpa like to send over a big box full of presents for Nyan to open, one per day, every day in December. It becomes a fun morning tradition: bound out of bed and head to the tree to open that day’s pressie. Here are a few examples:
And finally, a couple of lousy-ish videos of Nyan’s class performing at the school holiday show. They did a song about “Santa’s getting fit for Christmas.” You can see Nyan near the front, off to the right.
Every Christmas, one of our favorite local parks — Gardens by the Bay — puts on a holiday extravaganza. There’s a skating rink, there are Christmas decorations, there’s caroling, there’s even fake snow! We went a few years back — see here — and this year made a return. It was great.
We took lots of family selfies:
We enjoyed a local school choir’s performance:
And let’s not forget about the (fake) snow.
Gardens by the Bay is lovely any time of year, any time of day.
And finally, our goofy boy being a goofy boy in front of one of the decorations.
Nyan’s still taking part in soccer practice, pretty much every Saturday late afternoon. It’s always a sunny, humid, sweaty mess, and it’s always a fun time.
Here he is at practice in early December:
Soccer practice isn’t just about kicking the ball. There’s also sprint races:
And drills to try to score past the goalie. He didn’t quite make it here, but he tried!
Then there’s taekwondo, every Thursday for two hours. There’s stretching and fun-and-games:
But the real fun is in sparring:
He’s getting better by the week!
We close with a few stills from sparring practice:
In December, a bit before Christmas, we flew up to Thailand’s Krabi province for a little beach R&R. (It was a pre-Christmas holiday to avoid the crowds and inflated prices over the actual holiday week.) Our destination was the island of Koh Lanta, about a two hour drive, and a car ferryride, away from the airport. It was a lovely time. Let’s take a look!
Here are some random shots from the car ferry. It was only about a 20 minute sail.
Our resort was built on a bluff overlooking the Andaman Sea, with its own little rocky beach down a flight of stairs from the hilltop. We had a room facing the swimming pool, and it was all quite nice.
There was a big pond by the lobby filled with fish, which you could feed. Which we did.
The resort also featured a “reggae bar” (a bit odd in Southeast Asia, but hey) tucked into a cliff, where you could get decent food and drinks and watch the sun go down. The seats were basically cushions on the floor of a private room; they also had a few seating areas up a steep staircase in a treehouse.
Koh Lanta has lots and lots of gorgeous beaches, which we spent a lot of time on.
Who loves long walks on the beach? Nyan does.
Nyan also spent a lot of time at the resort’s rocky beach, which featured lots of amazing rock formations. He also met a little boy from Malaysia who was staying at the resort, and they became fast friends.
They built contraptions out of rocks and driftwood:
And dug in the sand, as kids will do.
Nyan also spent some time swimming in the calm, shallow waters of the little cove.
One day, Daddy took a kayak out for a blissful spin in the sea.
Mommy found a great open-air yoga studio on the island and visited several times. When we learned they also offered a kid’s yoga class, we signed Nyan up. His little beach friend joined as well. Nyan had a blast and did great!
He also practiced some yoga moves at lunch one day.
While Mommy and Daddy were doing yoga, Daddy went scuba diving. And what diving! Cuttlefish, turtles, pufferfish, and more. The dive boat had a professional photographer taking shots, so here are a whole bunch.
Another day, we hired a driver to take us around the island, including a visit to the little fishing village on the far side of the island. It was mostly tourist-free and had a few little shops on the nicely-maintained main drag.
It was, in general, a lovely little island (even if, like so many places in Southeast Asia and the world, it had a pretty bad litter problem in parts).
We leave you with a few random shots of our goofy little family, enjoying their holiday.
Nyan had been to Pulau Ubin — a sparsely populated island just offshore from Singapore, home to numerous nature preserves and hiking and biking trails — once before, back in 2015, but that’s more than three years ago. So one Sunday morning, we loaded up Grandma and Grandpa and headed over for some outdoor fun.
To get there, you have to take a 15-minute ride on a small, rickety wooden “bumboat.” It’s quite pleasant.
Once you’re there, you can wander around the tiny port town — which is home mostly to local seafood restaurants and bike rental shops — or you can go hiking or rent a bike. Outisde of the town are monkeys, waterfront trails and even an old Tudor-style house that’s now serving as a slightly run-down museum. We skipped the bikes and took a taxi van to an area called Chek Jawa Wetlands.
Among the attractions here is a somewhat rickety lookout tower, maybe 200 feet tall, offering very nice views over the jungle canopy and the water.
The highlight of Chek Jawa is the boardwalk itself, a couple miles of trail through tidal flats, mangrove forests, jungle and open water. We saw crabs, lobsters, fish, lizards and birds. It was lovely.
Pulau Ubin is definitely a place that should be near the top of the list for any visitor to Singapore. Residents too.
One day in mid-November, Nyan took the day off from school and went to the aquarium with Grandma and Grandpa. He wasn’t feeling that well, so they came home early. A couple hours later, during dinner, he got sick! Poor little guy. He started being feverish a couple hours later; he’d caught a virus! So the next day he called in sick to school and spent most of the day sleeping.
He did manage to get up later in the day for some light food and light reading.
By the next day, the fever was gone and he seemed fine, though we kept him home just to be sure. By the afternoon, he was full of beans and life. Whew. Just a quick 24-hour virus, apparently.
Another day during November, we took Grandma and Grandpa to a Singapore Slingers basketball game. It was, in fact, their opening game of the season, and a fun time was had by all! Even though the team lost.
We also did some swimming during the month, including a lesson with Pang:
Nyan also decided to become a swim instructor himself, helpfully giving extensive tips to Mommy while she swam.
One of the many activities that Nyan did with Grandma and Grandpa was an evening at Fun Siamo, the baking studio in the mall that’s attached to Mommy’s office tower. Mommy and Nyan did it earlier in the fall, you’ll recall, and Nyan couldn’t wait to do some baking with his grandparents.
Even Grandpa got into it.
Check out Nyan’s concentration. He’s becoming a great little chef!
Putting on the final touches (complete with licking the spatula).
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