Singapore Times

Another Year – another Lion Dance….Welcome Year of the Dragon!

teammak — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 12:32:45 +0000

This year’s lion dance was found at a Chinese neighbor’s home around the corner from us. They held a no-holds barred festivity and we were treated to a lion dancing on an elevated platform and a dragon dance as well.

The Lion!

The Dragon!

The music....noooo

....here's the music!

the dancers lined up and waiting to start....

what a show!!

Awesome~!

Gong Xi Fa Cai!

After a hot walk….

teammak — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 10:00:52 +0000

there’s nothing like resting your feet in your water dish!

spa time!

Another Year at Padang Bai, Bali and Lombok

teammak — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 02:45:52 +0000

Back to Padang Bai and White Sands Beach

Lovely waves again this year!

Ben battles the surf!

What a battle!

More Lemon Balinese pancakes for us!

Adi prepares our tunas for lunch

Our villa at Bloo Lagoon

Boys chillin' after the beach

Volcano view

Beautiful Bloo Lagoon

And on to Lombok…a bumpy ferry ride away!

Our boat to Lombok

Some traffic along the way!

Lombok beaches are covered in shells!

How you get around in Lombok - it's quite a ride!

Here's our lovely villa at the Tugu Resorts - we had walls this time

Another fabulous indonesian bathroom

Chillin' by the temple

Fun hike to Gangga Waterfalls

View from the Waterfall back to the ocean looking over the rice paddies.

Close up taken with my new lense (Christmas present!)

Tea time at Tugu

Tugu Tea Time Too

Lombok snow

Private Team Mak Dinner at the Temple

Buddha

Jumping off the dragon boat

Happy New Year!!

I must make one of these for next Christmas (I have enough shells!)

Christmas fun

teammak — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 03:43:12 +0000

I got a new lens for my camera today

Christmas LEGO work to be done!

Racing cars in the street

Christmas Colors - Ben, Nicholas, Nicky and Samuel

Christmas Day

teammak — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 02:43:16 +0000

Christmas Morning before the chaos began...

Here’s Leo figuring out that the scary stocking he’s been walking wide around for the last few weeks actually has something wonderful in it:

The stocking!

Something yummy from the stocking!

And, LEGOS from Grandpa Hassan!

London Tower Bridge for Nicky

LEGO Mindstorm for Ben!

Christmas Eve

teammak — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 01:56:01 +0000

It was lots of fun to have the Marines come for dinner.

Ready for the Marines!

Here’s Jordan who is the son of one of Dave’s partners. These guys came into Singapore on some kind of big boat a few days ago and they are getting ready to head out to the Bay of Aden where they will sit on the boat for 4 months.

Marine Jordan

Our tradition now is to open our Hess Trucks from Grandpa Conrad and Andrea on Christmas Eve.

The boys open their Hess Trucks from Grandpa Conrad while Mike Marine looks on.

Then it was time to say our goodbyes…and we could only get a blurry picture at the end of the night:

Adam, Jordan and Mike - our Marine visitors. All the best to them!

And just before bed we had to leave out the cookies for Santa. Here’s how you do it when you live on the equator:

"Sory, the milk is in the fridge"

Preparing for Christmas….

teammak — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 07:20:56 +0000

This year we’re having three US Marines come to our house for Christmas Eve dinner. So, I ordered a turkey from the SAS school cafeteria in order to have enough food for these fellows.

Dave came with me to pick up the bird:

The ladies help Dave with our order...

Desaru!

teammak — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 04:35:39 +0000

Well, the great news is the E22 highway is OPEN!! At long last! This highway cuts the drive to Desaru in half. Once you are over the causeway and thru the city of Johor Bahru, the drive to Desaru is as short as a half hour. But, getting over the Causeway is still quite time consuming.

The bad news is our hotel – the Golden Sands – in Desaru is GONE!! Competely demolished!!!! We loved our times there and we loved being able to get a day pass to use their beach. Now we can get to Desaru quite quickly but we don’t have any place to go!

For this trip we took this weekend, it was too rainy and cold (yes, COLD!) to care too much about going to the Beach. Also, we think we are too deep into the monsoon season. The water was quite murkey and very wavey. I think it’s better to visit the east coast of Malaysia before the Monsoon has been going on too long. End of October is a good time.

We checked out a new hotel with a nice beach but they don’t do day passes. We enjoyed a warm drink there:

The Pulai Beach Resort - Desaru

The good ole fruit farm. No Desaru trip is complete without a stop here!

Here’s a view of the bridge over the inlet that makes this shorter ride all possible:

the E22 Bridge

Basketball Shoot Out

teammak — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 04:12:25 +0000

Ben made it into the top three of the Third Grade Basketball Shoot Out!! We’re all so proud! The problem developed when we learned that the shoot out between the top three got scheduled for Friday – and Ben was SICK! We had him go to the shoot out anyway. He had to dig deep and ride the Tylenol. He did fantastic and completed the event. He placed 2nd runner up.

Ben shooting!

Leo’s World!

teammak — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 13:08:15 +0000

The Field! The Filipinos! The Friends!