Our Utah House, we can't wait!

The front of the house.

The back yard, a nice size such a change from the 2000 sq ft. lot we have here in Singapore! They already had a play structure and the cement pad on the right has a basket ball hoop.

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Chinese New year Block Party

This is our block party we started off with a Posperity salad. 

This the prosperity Salad which is a Singaporean tradition. It is mostly shredded vegetables with some crackers and sometimes some meat (salmon was in the one I actually ate). I  really like the one I tried somewhere else.

You all toss it and the higher it is tossed the better luck you have.  We didn't get to eat this salad since most of it ended up on the ground.

We went in together to pay for a lion dance for the party. Ours costs around $500. Our neighbor I posted earlier had 2 lion dances and a dragon dance so they really wanted to have good luck.  Hayden is in the back in the blue shirt and red shorts.  The plate has oranges and lettuce for the lion.

Chinese New Year

These guys are doing a lion dance and dragon dance for our local neighbors.  You are supposed to have good luck if you have a dance done during Chinese New Year (CNY).  Most stores, places of business will pay to have them done.  

These pole were used to dance on. Tyson said they jumped (there are 2 people in the lion costume) from the poles to the ground. I missed it since I was cleaning up after Ashton b-day.

This is the same house these people are doing the dragon dance.  That is Ashton with his helmet on roller blading.

Here they are going into the house.

Here we are watching.

This is the dragon dance.

Forgot to flip this one. It is the year of the rabbit so this pore kid had to walk around in the outfit. Remember we are always around 90 degrees +/- 5 year round plus major humidity.

Happy Birthday Song

I tried posting this earlier but had problems.  I figured out that I was trying to load it in the picture mode vs the video.  Duuhhh. So this was Ashton's class singing to him.

Ashton's Birthday, he turned 7

Feburary 1st

Note the date on the board, 1st day of the 2nd month, then year. Remember most everyone else does the dates that way.

Ashton turned seven this year and we ended up have his birthday party on a very busy day.  He wanted to have it at home this year even with my encouragement of doing it else where.  So I tried to entertain ten 7 year olds for over 3 hours.  We survived!!!

The original plan was to cut this cake and create a large broom.  It cracked into at least 5 pieces so we switched to an alternative plan.  Ashton got some harry potter legos so he built those and I created a grass field to place them on.

This reminded me of the days that I had to try to keep Ashton out of my cakes.  Such a sweet look, just waiting for me to turn my back.

Activity 1, was making door hangers as they showed up.

We then ate lunch (pizza rolls) then had cake.  Here are all of the kids with Ashton's face in the bottom of the picture under the cake.  Look closely.

What to wish for????

They played a spin off of Fuse-ball in our spacious front yard.  Collin got right in there.

Collin was that extra "Challenge" variable in the game.

 This is what we took to school.

 

Sweet Ashton and his Mommy

This is Mrs. Clark, his 1st grade teacher who is from Australia.

Here he is the B-day hat they get to where all day.  I got on video the class singing to him in English and Mandarin but I guess my video isn't compatible with blogger (it ends with .avi instead of .jpg or what ever video needs to be, if anyone knows how to help me please let me know)

We had Tacos for dinner and leftover cupcakes for his actually b-day.  "He always tries to out eat dad when we have tacos.  How many tacos have you had Dad?" He can't wait to get back to the US for Taco Bell, that's my boy.  Gotta love taco bell.

Raising flags at the US Embassy in Singapore

The boys had a really cool experience this weekend with Hayden's cub scout troop. They got to go to the embassy and learn about flags with the marines. Hayden's den leader is the Officer over Security at the Ebassy. The boys learning the proper way to fold a flag.Ashton very interested and right in there.All the boys got to raise and lower a flag they got to keep all long with an official certificate declaring it had been flown on the embassy grounds.

The boys with their own flags.

Ho Chi Minh, more pics 3

This was a boat you could have dinner and a cruz (I think, annyway).
Here is the view from our hotel, also the siagon river.

This is a post office there, very pretty.

A catholic Cathedral.

Lots of french archetecture.