We live about a 10 minute walk from the beach. It’s not the kind of beach where you really want to go in the water — too much garbage floating in there, we’re very sad to say — but the beach and the adjacent park are simply lovely places to hang out.
Farther up the beach — a good 20 minute bike ride or so — is an officially designated sand castle spot, complete with a little shop that sells buckets, spades, and little knight figurines. We headed up there one blazing hot Sunday afternoon and spent a good hour building and destroying various castles, towers and cities. Nyan’s already making plans for his next sand castle adventure. Here’s a bunch of photos from that fun sunny day.
You’ve seen pictures and video of Nyan at his Saturday Lego robotics class. Here’s some more from February.
Check out how he uses a motion sensor to trigger the robotic baby birds:
Look at this, uh, spinny thing. (Oh, it’s a dragonfly!)
And….goofing around a bit. Okay, so he does have some issues focusing at times. I suppose that’s to be expected with a five-and-a-half-year-old boy, eh?
He’s not yet able to build and program things on his own, but he’s getting there. And what great formational training for his possible future career as an engineer!
Nyan’s BFF Kyle’s parents always throw great birthday parties (see 2015’s edition here), and this year was no different. It was at one of those indoor playgrounds where kids can run riot on slides, trampolines, hamster cage-like tunnels, and the like. This one also featured climbing walls and a high-flying obstacle course of sorts where the kids had to be strapped in to safety harnesses and wires!
Here’s the birthday boy, along with his mommy, his sister and our hero:
Some random running around and bouncing:
The staff at the party place did a great job trying to herd all the kids and play games with them:
Nyan bravely gave the climbing wall a shot. He didn’t quite make it, but look at that effort! Well done.
Random fun and cake:
About that obstacle course. Here’s our boy, bravely getting suited and booted:
And off he goes. A little unsure at first…
Swinging tires. But he persevered:
Fancy footwork and intense concentration on the rope ladder bridge:
Really proud of his effort on the entire obstacle course.
The birthday boy and his pals again. Another successful party. Thanks, Kyle!
BONUS: Here’s the boy just before the fun, doing his goofy dances as we wait for our taxi to take us to the party.
If you’ve spent any time around this blog, you know that Nyan loves his school (Modern Montessori International, aka MMI) and his teachers and his classmates. Let’s take a quick look at some of the random bits of fun he gets up to at school, often at the end of the day.
Watch Nyan pull a rabbit, or something, out of his hat.
And it’s always a party when there are puppets involved:
Action shots!
Here’s a group shot from a field trip the class went on:
And telling stories about the field trip (it was a place with lots of adult-job scenarios the kids could act on, such as airline pilot, doctor, etc.)
And finally, just random bits of fun.
Gonna miss this place when we move on to ‘real’ school later this year!
Our boy loves music. And he loves to dance. And on a lazy Saturday (or maybe it was a Sunday?) morning, there’s nothing better than throwing on some tunes and letting Nyan bounce, twirl and bump his way around the apartment. Enjoy!
February was the month of birthdays. Multiple parties at school, and nearly every weekend brought one or more party at someone’s house. First up was Abi, who threw a lovely pool party at her condo down the road.
It was an iffy day, weather wise, and in fact we got caught in a shower walking to the party:
But the clouds cleared out and the party went on. Abi’s parents had hired a company that brings giant inflatable pool toys, and they were a huge hit.
Nyan didn’t quite get the concept of the waterslide:
He started to figure it out though:
Adriana, Nyan and Kyra enjoyed floating on a giant inflatable rainbow popsicle:
And (trying to) row a row boat across the pool:
Or just chillaxing in the water.
And of course there was cake
Mostly thought, it was about good times with good friends
A special surprise was Teacher Faiza, who had been Nyan’s teacher (and Abi’s, too) for most of the last two years.
We said farewell in January to an old friend: the rocking chair we had bought when Nyan was on his way, some six years ago. The chair was showing its age, and not really needed, rocking-wise, so we upgraded to a nice blue thingie. That meant the chair had to go.
Nyan gave it a warm send-off as we took it downstairs to be taken to a farm upstate. Or the recycling truck, whichever.
What other bits of random silliness and fun did we get up to in January? Let’s take a look.
Here’s Nyan singing “happy birthday” for a video message to cousin Kiki:
Skipping for joy in a local shopping center:
He *really* likes this cartoon called PJ Mask:
Cartwheels at the end of a long school day. All gymnasts may be equal, but some are clearly more equal than others.
Henderson Waves is this funky pedestrian bridge that soars high over a roadway in south-central Singapore. It’s part of a system of trails through the jungle. It all sounded good to us, so one Sunday morning we laced up our hiking boots* and headed out.
(*Not really. We wore our usual sandals and Star Wars crocs. It was a very tame jungle hike.)
Here we are on the bridge itself:
And here’s Nyan in the jungle, pointing out a tree stump for some reason.
We saw some nice scenery of Singaporean developments on the hike (click to enlarge):
The section of the trail we were on ended up at Mount Faber, a hilltop restaurant overlooking Sentosa Island and the harbor.
They also had a bell – the Bell of Happiness – for anyone to ring. It sure seems to have made Nyan happy!
Every autumn, Nyan’s school puts on a song-and-dance concert at a local auditorium. In 2015, Nyan wasn’t exactly the star of the show… well, he was in a sense, but only in the sense of everyone was looking at him because he just stood there glowering on the stage, not moving or singing. (You can reminisce here.)
But this past November, there was no such problem. He was awesome. Check out this official video of the performance. (Note that there’s 90 seconds or so of introductory remarks before the fun kicks in).
Some stills from that performance:
There was also a finale piece, featuring all the kids from all the schools taking part:
Everyone was all aglow afterwards:
And some more backstage pictures, also featuring the proud parents:
Finally, a couple more videos of the performances. The ones above are the ‘official’ videos — these were shot by Daddy and so focus solely on Nyan. The quality isn’t quite as good either, but still worth a look:
Nyan takes part in a pretty good variety of individual sports — taekwondo and swimming especially — but he didn’t have any team sports, and we noticed that he was perhaps a little lacking in the teamwork department. Happily, we found a group that teaches soccer* to kids around Nyan’s age, at a school field just around the corner from our place every Saturday in the late afternoon. Perfect. He’s been going for a couple months now and, well, he’s not showing a whole lot of natural talent, let’s be honest. But he works at it, and it’s great exercise, and he’s showing some signs of improvement we think, and it’s good to interact with a different group of kids…and best of all, he has a blast.
*We are aware that the game is called “soccer” pretty much only in America. We are using the term “soccer” here not because we are being chest-thumping, flag-waving #MAGA types. Rather, it seems to be called either soccer or football here in Singapore. The word “soccer” is even in the formal name of the group he’s in. So, we call it soccer.
Some pictures and video: He loves to hang out in front of the net:
Some videos from his very first session, in early January. (The hope is that we look back in months or even years to come and marvel at how far he’s come!)
Kicking:
Various drills:
A little one on one with a smaller kid:
And a scrimmage that first week:
Let’s fast forward to February and see if he’s made any progress.
Some warmups:
Dribbling practice:
Here’s a one-on-one drill against his pal Neeil:
And let’s look at some game action. Here’s our hero, celebrating a goal, of sorts:
More live action, with Nyan protecting the net:
And a bit more. This is the most recent game of this current batch. See any improvement?
Well, whatever; it’s not about skills. It’s about fun, and teamwork. And it doesn’t hurt that it’s a pretty nice little field. We’ll keep it up; check back for more videos – and perhaps even more skills – later.
Nyan Thomas L's Blog 