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Staycation: Marina Bay Sands! 

20 Oct

Anyone who knows Singapore knows that Marina Bay Sands is this fancy hotel complex on the edge of downtown. Three 55-story towers, topped with a long structure thats home to bars, restaurants and the world’s most photogenic infinity pool. The place ain’t cheap, but we decided a while back that, at some point while we live in Singapore, we would splurge on a one-night stay at the hotel.

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That point came in late September. We’d wanted a quick escape somewhere, but schedules didn’t allow; so a staycation it was! The fact that it was Daddy’s birthday was just icing on the cake. Anyway, one Saturday afternoon we checked in.

Let’s take a look at the property itself – the room, and the giant casino, which Daddy poked his head into later that night (nope, he didn’t gamble a penny).

Plus here’s an excited six year old doing “The Marina Bay Sands Dance” soon after arrival.

Our room was on the 47th floor. The “Sky Park” — home to an observation deck, the pool, some hot tubs and a few bars and restaurants — is on the 57th. Either way, in whatever direction we looked, whatever time of day we looked, we were guaranteed some spectacular views. Here:

What about the pool, you say? Why yes, we did spend a good amount of time in the pool:

Nyan, especially, loved it. Check out his skills!

In the evening, we had a delicious meal at a restaurant in the fancy shopping mall that’s attached to the hotel, and then went out along the waterfront to catch the nightly light/laser/water fountain show. It’s on every night at 8, and while it’s a bit over the top, perhaps, we loved it.

Nyan was captivated:

Near the end, they released a bunch of bubbles. Kids – and Mommy – did their best to catch them:

The main point of our staycation was, of course, family time. Mission accomplished. We even managed to take a few photos with the boy!

To be honest, we were a little dubious of the hotel going in. Could it really be worth the cost? Could it really live up to the hype? But, as it turned out, it was great. We really enjoyed it, the staffers were friendly, the facilities were great. We just may have to have another staycation there someday.

 
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Posted by on October 20, 2017 in Uncategorized

 

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Nyan Thomas, Reader

16 Oct

Did you know that our boy loves to read? Yeah, of course you do. Check him out in various reading poses during the month of September:

His new school doesn’t give much homework, but one thing they do demand is that the students read out loud for 10 to 15 minutes every night, and that the parents listen in, record in a logbook what the student is reading, and of course help out with any tough words or whatnot. Nyan obviously took to this assignment like a fish to water. Here are a few videos of the boy showing off his reading chops.

Not bad at all. And he’s only gotten better since then.

 
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Posted by on October 16, 2017 in Uncategorized

 

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The Great September Soccer Challenge

12 Oct

The coaches who run Nyan’s Saturday afternoon soccer clinic thought it’d be a good idea to have teams from another soccer clinic come by for a few games. A good idea for sure – see other kids, get the competitive juices flowing, learn the value of teamwork, and all that.

Unfortunately, the kids that showed up were a little bit older and a lot bit better.

I mean, Nyan’s team wasn’t *terrible*. Not really. They just weren’t quite as experienced, I guess.

Nyan showed more interest than we might have expected, though he clearly doesn’t quite have the proverbial eye of the tiger.

Yeah, Nyan’s fairly easily distracted. Oh well, he’s having fun:

And fun is what it’s all about, really. Even though Nyan’s team lost their games by several goals – about 3-0 for each of three games, I think, though Nyan’s team did manage to score at least once — the kids had fun, as you can see from these group shots at the end.

 
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Posted by on October 12, 2017 in Uncategorized

 

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Back to MMI, Briefly

08 Oct

In mid-September, we got word that Nyan’s old school, MMI, would be taking class pictures. We thought it’d be nice to get one last picture of Nyan with all his classmates, since he spent more than half the calendar year there, so we headed over to MMI one morning before Chatsworth (his current/new school).

This being the last year at MMI for this group of kids, they put on graduation gowns for both individual and group photos. Here’s Nyan getting set for his host of individual shots:

And prepping for the group shot:

There was some time to goof around with his pals, too:

A few weeks after that, Chatsworth was closed for teacher meetings, so Nyan went back to MMI to spend the day. Had a blast too:

They were doing a unit on space and planets, and the teacher used some app on her smartphone to make it look like the kids were holding planets. Pretty cool:

And, yeah, more goofing around with, and hugging, his classmates:

Want to see how those class photos came out? Sure you do. Here you go:

 
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Posted by on October 8, 2017 in Uncategorized

 

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Weekend Fun

04 Oct

This blog has multiple themes. One of them is that our boy leads a rich and varied life – especially on the weekends. Let’s take a look at a couple of recent weekend events.

First up: Kara’s birthday. Kara is the younger sister of Nyan’s bestie Kyle. She was turning two, so her folks threw her a party at their condo, with a lot of time in the pool, lots of great food, and of course cake and general running around.

Oh, and goofing around with selfies, along with Kyle and his mom Sara:

Another day, Nyan and Daddy went to a Lego exhibit downtown. It was a traveling show of some of the world’s greatest structures, made out of Legos.

Pretty impressive. But Nyan, frankly, was a little bored with this section of the exhibit. Probably because he knew that, around the next corner, there were large rooms full of Legos he could play with. So off we went.

Just look at all those Legos!

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So Nyan built a racecar, and raced it down the sloping track. Not bad.

Finally, in the last room of the exhibit, there were still more Legos — but all of them were white, and there was but a limited selection of shapes. The idea was to challenge the kids to construct their own buildings. So construct Nyan did:

And when all was said and done and built, Nyan got to place his engineering marvel on the big table with all the other constructions.

Quite proud, and understandably so.

So that’s just some of the recent weekend fun our boy got up to.

 
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Posted by on October 4, 2017 in Uncategorized

 

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Hot Fun in the Summertime

30 Sep

What a month August turned out to be. New school, a great beach trip, Monster Jam… But of course there were lots of smaller moments too. Let’s take a look.

First, though, let’s look at some art work from the month of August. He’s getting ever more detailed with his drawings. And he decided he wanted to “make his own book” which means copying the pictures and words from one of his books (“The Snail and the Whale”). Did a pretty good job too!

Let’s see some other random fun:

We found an Italian restaurant with a huge play area outside. Including this trampoline:

More pictures:

Bouncing and babbling on the elevator:

And one last batch of photos. What a month, indeed!

 
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Posted by on September 30, 2017 in Uncategorized

 

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Monster Jam!

27 Sep

Monster Jam, for the unaware, is a touring spectacle of monster trucks and motorcycles that go from arena to arena, doing jumps and stunts and generally making a very loud mess. Kids (and kids-at-heart) seem to absolutely love it, so when the Monster Jam tour came to Singapore’s National Stadium, we decided to take Nyan.

As it turned out, Jayden’s folks decided to take Jayden and his younger brother Jonnie, so we made a night of it. (The respective mommies stayed home.)

It was loud, it was chaotic, it was a blast for the kids.

We got there a few minutes late because we had soccer practice just before, so we were still on the outside of the stadium as the muffler-less trucks started revving. But we found our seats soon enough. Here’s some shots of what we saw, plus our two heroes:

Check out this monster truck:

And this one:

There was a lot of music and foot-stomping to add to the general din:

More foot stomping. And check out that souvenier drinking cup Nyan got. It wasn’t expensive at all, and didn’t fall apart two days later at all. Sure.

Did the kids have a blast? They did. Not just our kids; all of them. In fact, when we returned to school the following Monday morning, just about every kid at the place greeted all their friends with the same words: “Did you go to Monster Jam?” Seems like nearly every kid in Singapore did indeed go.

 

 
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Posted by on September 27, 2017 in Uncategorized

 

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New School: Chatsworth East

24 Sep

Nyan is now a student at Chatsworth International School (East Campus), which is conveniently located pretty much across the street from our apartment. It’s where his best pal Jayden goes, and they’re even in the same class! (They’re in Year 2 by the school’s count; that corresponds to 1st Grade in the U.S. and Year 1 (I think that’s the term) in the U.K.) He’s made a ton of friends already and generally taken to the school like a fish to water, or a monkey to the jungle.

Rewind a bit though, to a couple weeks before school started, when Nyan stopped by Chatsworth for orientation on his way to school at MMI. He checked out his classroom, found the peg where he’ll hang his backpack, and goofed around a bit in the music room:

On his first day, we of course took a lot of photos.

That’s his main uniform. A couple days a week he has physical education, so he gets to wear his PE uniform:

Class starts at 9 a.m.; if we get there earlier, Nyan has time to run around the playground with his friends.

Most days after school he walks home with Jayden. And sometimes with Nadia, another classmate who, like Jayden, lives in the same apartment complex as us.

Sometimes he hangs out at Jayden’s for a bit. There’s some sort of recording function on Jayden’s TV, which led to this classic video. Watch the boys playing for a bit, and then realize they’re being recorded (apparently by seeing their image on the TV screen) and responding appropriately.

Finally, some items on display at his school: classroom photos, and some art – a very stylized self portrait, and a drawing they did in class about being happy.

Expect many more pictures and videos from Chatsworth in the weeks and months ahead!

 
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Posted by on September 24, 2017 in Uncategorized

 

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Soccer Skills

21 Sep

Nyan’s soccer club had a skills competition one day in August. Let’s check in on how our boy’s football/soccer skills are coming along.

Here, he was supposed to do some footwork, some dribbling exercises, some passing, and then grab a pass-back and kick it in the net. He did pretty well!

Here’s a grainy look at Nyan doing some more drills:

Working on his defense with some fancy footwork:

At the end of the session, the coaches gave the kids little paper airplane kits. Nyan put his together and had some fun:

In September he signed up for an after-school soccer club on Monday afternoons, but wanted to stick with this Saturday afternoon club as well. Does that mean his skills will start to improve twice as fast? Who knows. Stay tuned!

 
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Posted by on September 21, 2017 in Uncategorized

 

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Pool Parties and Abacus

18 Sep

A couple of things Nyan did during the month of August:

One day, he went to his abacus grading exercise. See, he’s been taking an abacus class on Saturday afternoons for about a year, as a way to help him with his math. And in August, it was time for him to be graded, to see about moving on to the next level. Mommy and Daddy couldn’t be with him in the testing room; here are some pictures from outside the testing room, just before. Nervous? Nah.

And not nervous for good reason. Here’s the results:

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That’s right: 100%. Well done, Nyan!

Another afternoon we attended a birthday party for Daniel, Nyan’s playground friend from the apartment complex. There was food, balloons and a clown show:

The big attraction, though, was the kiddie pool. Nyan of course has spent many, many, many afternoons in this pool and always manages to have a good time.

He had such a good time in the pool, in fact, that after he came out, dried off, put his clothes back on and got some cake, he wanted to get back in the pool. But didn’t want to take them time to change back into his swimsuit. No matter; in he went!

 
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Posted by on September 18, 2017 in Uncategorized

 

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