Eiler Visit III

Gila Monster

Albino Peacock

A Friendly Turtle????

The Male White Tiger

We went to the zoo on Friday. It was a fairly hot day and the Singapore Zoo requires a lot of walking. They do have a lot of beautiful shade trees which makes it all bearable. Despite the weather we still had a really great time. The trick is to go early when it is still cooler and the animals are still active. They also have a new water park that is included in the price of the ticket. Next time I'll bring Ana's swimsuit. This zoo does a nice job of letting a great majority of the animals be out and about. You see very few enclosures. Even the monkeys are kept on islands where there is no chance of them getting off. (They have a big moat around with huge biting fish in them!) Some of the cats and the snakes are caged. There is also a night safari which showcases nocturnal animals. It was too late at night for Ana, but the Mike Eiler family went.

Eiler Visit II

The first Sunday that they were here we dedicated Analia (notice how coordinated we were with the Pastor). She didn't cooperate too well and was squirming all during the prayer. She did give a loud AMEN when the Pastor finished! Fred also got to share for a few minutes in church and talked with lots of people after the service. After church we went to a Swiss restaurant called Marche. You can go around and pick what you want to eat at different stations. I had a ham and cheese crepe with baby spinach. Matt always gets rosti (like hash browns) and sausage. Analia was so tired that she fell asleep at the restaurant and missed the great food!

Analia had nothing dressy to wear, but fortunately my friend gave me a 2T dress that was small enough to work. Notice the shiny black shoes and lacy socks--it's about as girly as you can get! She likes the shoes because they tap on all the floors.

Eiler Visit I

Wow! We really did a lot of different activities while the Eilers were here. One of them was the Bird Park. Having never been there I had no clue what it would be like, BUT it turned out to be really neat. They have vast collections of tropical birds. Many of these are in aviaries. It is nice that they are free flying. One of the aviaries has the world's largest man made waterfall. It was big! We also got to see a birds of prey show. It was pretty interesting. In one part the birds would fly right over the audience's heads! Ana likes fish. The one pictured was in the pelican pond. (Looks like it's about to eat her!) It was a lot of walking--some of it uphill. Next time we'll go the opposite way around and have more down hill. The cousins were a great help in keeping Analia around. Too bad they could only stay for a week!

Cinnamon Rolls

Ana and I made cinnamon rolls today for the Eilers arrival. We got quite messy, but had a great time. I have a little cooker--she peels garlic, stirs, and can now roll dough (sort of )! Hopefully she'll like to cook and can prepare one or two meals a week!

SILLY

I don't know what you do when you play with playdough, but we try to suck up our nose!

Multi Purpose Post

Well, we've been running all over Singapore trying to get our medical stuff done for the next adoption. Hopefully, we will be finished before the six Eilers descend on Singapore! Anyway, this has left little time for taking photos or posting--Sorry!

Analia has started to enjoy to pull the metal bar down on her mosquito net. It makes me laugh to hear her calling for me to come fix it. Maybe one day she'll learn.

Next my mom sent me this dress that she had made for me. Although she doesn't have pictures of me in it, she suggested I take pictures of Ana in it. All I can say is I tried. You can see what kind of attitude I got! I probably took about 50 pictures and not one of them was even fairly good. They were either terribly blurry because she was flinging her duck around or she was just plain grumpy. She is getting her two bottom molars (six months early and at the same time).

In other news I started teaching a college student piano--just for a few months. It's been pretty fun. He's really big and Analia hasn't warmed up to him yet--so she doesn't provide too many interruptions.

I'm doing a talk on Hinduism on Thursday (to our week without walls team). It should prove pretty interesting as a couple of the students are Hindu!

Have a good flight Eilers!

Music to my Ears

You always hope that your child will enjoy things that you enjoy. Well Analia has really taken a liking to our Clavinova. Now granted, a lot of this is due to the fact that she can push the beat buttons and get it to make lots of noise. But she also dances whenever she hears music--be it someone's ringtone, music in the store, or songs in movies. I'm glad she's having so much fun with it--even though it will be a while before she can reach the pedals!

My Retreat

A very pretty sunset!

It's all in the details!! This is the top of a trash can!

My small group--women working in Cambodia, Thailand, Philippines, and the US.

I would have had this up sooner, but I have a sick baby. She's kept me up for the past four nights!

Anyway the retreat was great. The resort was nice and quiet, had excellent buffets, and had a super view of Patong beach. (Hint, hint Eilers--this is where we're going!) They had a great speaker who spoke on living passionately. She was a good storyteller and used a lot of humor. There were two professional counselors. I talked to one about strategies for staying open to new friendships when everybody around you is leaving. I had my hair cut. It's not that different--just shorter. There were also people to pray for you. Donna prayed especially for our next adoption. I got a lot of time with my friend Geetha. It was good for me to start talking about her leaving. They're moving to Canada in July.

The women of the harvest brought lots of treats: chocolate chips, candy, cereals, macaroni and cheese, maple extract, and more. They had everything decorated very nicely. Someone spent days crafting gift bags, thank you cards, and other small treats.

It's humbling to remember that someone not only donated the money for your trip, but others gave up three weeks of work to come and serve me. Still others worked hard to purchase and package all the goodies. What a blessing!