When The Moon Disappeared...

The Bees had always been fascinated by space and the universe around us. We started learning about the solar system and outer space since Little Bee was in K1, creating mini fact books, a rocket craft, singing about our planets and sketching the solar system.

We have had numerous conversations about the possibility of life in outer space. Hubby and I are strong believers that life exists in other galaxies, and maybe because of our beliefs, the Bees are starting to acknowledge the possibility of aliens, although the concept is totally creepy to them.

2 months ago, we observed the April total lunar eclipse with our close friends at home. We took out our telescope in a bid to observe the movement of the eclipse but were more successful at observing the red hues of the blood moon and the path of the eclipse with our naked eye. After the eclipse, when the moon was rising and shining bright, we observed its mysterious craters through the telescope. It was intriguing to look at the intricate craters and shadows on the moon through the telescope, and we adults had crazy conversations about potentially observing signs of life on the moon! We also discussed the moon landing conspiracies, and wondered about the state of the universe and the first creation of life.

It is apparent that the adults were more fascinated than the teenagers and big kids, who were holed up in the bedroom, gossiping about books and pop music on their own! These days, it is interesting to observe what teenagers and big kids do when they get together. These 4 kids had been hanging out since they were babies, and it is really heart-warming to see them maturing together from active kids who ran all around playing with toys to sedated teenagers who would rather lounge around the house, chatting about books and music.

As for the adults, we are excited to catch the next lunar eclipse!

Lunar eclipse in action! 

The mysterious surface of the moon

More moon pictures - these were all taken from our mobile phones through the telescope! 

A Month Of Free Rein

The June holidays had been gloriously unfettered. I took half the month off to spend time with the Bees, and the days were long, luxurious and languorous. We went on a very short trip to Cambodia, and then spent all our time back here in Singapore. Although I always enjoy new experiences when travelling overseas, I discovered the beautiful virtue of leisurely days spent at home. No agenda, no hurriedness, no deadlines to meet. And I don't just mean me. The Bees had the time of their lives not worrying about their school schedules and homework as well! 

However, this is the PSLE year after all, so Big Bee - being the disciplined girl she is - did immerse herself in some light revision. But no drilling, whatsoever. I believe in letting her enjoy the June holidays to the fullest, before the intensive PSLE revision this coming term. Play helps to boost brain power, in my opinion! 

This holidays were epic in the sense that we had plenty of playdates with different friends of the Bees. There were trips to the malls, outdoor playgrounds, movies, concerts, Adventure Cove, Universal Studios, Starbucks - just plenty of opportunities to bond with friends. We spent loads of time with the cousins as well. Little Bee attended an amazing zoo camp with a close cousin of hers, and there were play dates where the 2 generations of cousins gossiped incessantly. A very close cousin of ours got married, and we had the time of our lives bonding and having plenty of fun and laughter at the wedding. 

On the family front, we played lots of board games, we had many lazy mornings spent at Starbucks (Big Bee has a latest teenage addiction to frappuccino, and could not stop drinking them!), we read plenty of books and watched home movies. Simple activities but plenty of bonding. 

Life is leisurely and carefree, days are long and beautiful - and we could forget about the usual hassles of living in a fast-paced society for a while. Here's to more holidays with zero agenda! 

Pure Energy

My little darling turned 7 last December! Little Bee, thank you for being such a burst of brilliant sunshine. Thank you for being a sweet, understanding soul who always knows how to comfort me and makes me feel fuzzy, warm and beautiful. And thank you to all her close friends who spent her birthday with her! It was so memorable for her, and she was truly, truly elated!

I had never seen a little girl with such indefatigable spirits and such positive energy. You chatter incessantly and are always in a constant motion of energy. You are fearless - never hesitating to talk to complete strangers, even if they are adults. You have a curious soul, always asking questions endlessly. Most of all, you are always generous with your smiles, oh, how brilliant they are! 

With such energy flowing in Little Bee, it is only natural that she requested for a gym party....right at the same venue where she celebrated her 4th birthday - JWT Kids Gym! I know she relished the perpetual movements of vivacity and felicity - the pure freedom of carefree abandon. And that is just like my baby...sparkling, unfettered and buoyant, with nary a worry in her jubilant mind. 

Around 15 of her classmates celebrated her big day with her. The day that she is officially a big kid at 7 years old! They romped around in gym contraptions that I shudder to be in. 

They showed true physical resilience as their little bodies contorted, jiggled and boogied to loud, rambunctious music. They went through countless obstacle races, showing fine determination in the face of some heart-dropping challenges. Most of all, they giggled, guffawed, squealed and laughed together as if they had known each other forever. 

The goodies for her friends

The rock-climbing wall was a huge hit!

The start of the obstacle courses! 

Finally ended with an exhilarating flying fox to bring the kids to the dining area! 

The latest craze in her class right now...

Bubbles everywhere!!! 

Even Big Bee enjoyed herself thoroughly! 

It was a very gratifying evening for Little Bee indeed. She went home, basking in the warmth of her friendships, grinning ceaselessly. 

Happy 7th birthday to the most radiant angel in my life :) 

The Edge Of The World: An Australian Adventure!

Highly unpredictable weather, sometimes with 4 seasons in a day! Undulating hills and mountains. Endless meadows dotted with hundreds of puffy sheep, elegant horses and grazing cows. Boundless cerulean skies that take our breaths away. This is Tasmania and Victoria, where we spent 2 weeks in December. A gorgeous, untouched land that is teeming with magnificent and rugged wilderness.  

Churchill Island
There were multitudinous new experiences for the family in this trip. We practically lived side by side with wildlife that is so tame because they know naught about the harsh and evil nature of men. We observed thousands of wild penguins at very close range, walking beside them and gazing at how they lovingly feed their chicks after hunting for food all day long. Parental love at its peak. 

We trekked for hours in ancient forests and vast bush lands that are rife with very venomous snakes, wild wombats and wallabies. 

A cute and very tame wombat that is way more ferocious than it looks!

We saw this adorable wallaby that seemed to be communicating with us with its beautiful eyes and tame gestures - right outside the front door of our cabin!

We were farmers for one morning where we picked out succulent cherries, uncommon berries, apricots and strawberries in a fruit farm. We flew in a helicopter high above the stunning coastline of the Great Ocean Road, captivated by the beauty of the 12 Apostles. 

Can you spot where the Bees are? The low, bushy button grass land around them is rife with venomous tiger snakes *gulp*

And we took a roller-coaster adventure boat ride in the tempestuous and freezing Southern Ocean, alongside albatrosses and gleeful dolphins! What an adventure!

But most of all, we enjoyed the company of ourselves as a family, together with another family of close friends, over Christmas - high up in a secluded mountain lodge, without any mobile signals, TV sets or internet connection. A cosy, intimate and heartwarming Christmas! 

I will be updating with more entries (and I know it is crazy, because I had not even completed the blogging of our Europe holidays in June! Terrible me.)

Ghoulish Glee

Halloween this year was once again spent with good food, yummy treats and even better company! LP and I brought the kids to PF's house where there was a huge gathering of little ghouls and monsters for tricking or treating.

Before the gathering, Hubby spiced up our day with a trip to a costume shop in Arab Street. And boy, was the shop crowded with everyone looking for the right costumes for themselves! The girls had fun rummaging through costumes that ranged from the bizarre to the most enchanting.

Eventually, the three of them became the following characters: Chucky the freakily scary doll, a kind pumpkin witch and a young ghoul with snow-white long hair!

At PF's place, the kids had lots of fun going around the different houses to have a feel of the ghoulish experiences. Some houses were really decorated elaborately, while others created a haunted ambience just to challenge the kids. The bunch of them were lured into a pitch-dark house with candies strewn on the floor deep in the house, and were scared silly with white figures lurking around the house! That was so funny!

While the kids chilled out together, playing games like trading the candies they received and hide & seek, the adults had a whale of a time chatting over great food! With the kids so much older now (2 of them are into their teens and tweens!), this is the best time for us adults to sit back and relax, and spend good bonding time with friends!

The gang back in their "normal" clothes!

The loot

Of Felicity And Gatherings

One of the best things last month was that we managed to catch up with lots of family and friends for fun gatherings. The Bees are lucky in that they have lots of cousins and childhood friends to play with - other children who had stuck with them since babyhood, and who had grown up together with them. I thought this gives very special meanings to their first understandings of friendships - that friends grow and blossom together, and that - try as they should - friendships should really be all about long-term cultivation and sustenance.

We were lucky to have connected with our usual 3 groups of friends and families last month.

1) The Cousins
They had been hanging together since they were infants! Not only did the Bees have lots of girly cousins to play with (we need more little-boy cousins!), the grandmothers (all sisters!), who are usually chaperones of such gatherings, can use these beautiful opportunities for well-deserved gossiping and chatting!

We met up on the Thursday of the March school holidays at my house for a day-long of playing and swimming. Everyone was so reluctant to leave each other at the end of the long day!

2) PF and kids
These children literally grow up together from babyhood. Playing with baby toys like building blocks, bumbling baby gibberish together, exploring the world together and building sandcastles as pre-school kids, and now, as 3 of them are trundling into their teens, their idea of play is now playing chess and sitting around, chatting and gossiping. I am glad that the tiniest one amongst them - Little Bee - is being accepted wholeheartedly and is holding her weight very well with these big guns!

We had a great playdate on the last Friday of the March school holidays for a whole afternoon of Kinect and chilling between the girls. By evening, the hubbies as well as Eugene were back for a cosy steamboat dinner where the adults were busy chatting and eating on our dining table, whereas the 4 big kids ate rambunctiously and talked amongst themselves in another table! Talk about independence!

3) The Clique's kids (wow, it rhymes!)
The mothers (us!) had been very very good friends for 27 years. 27 YEARS!!! Oh my! And although our busy lives sometimes prevent our kids from meeting all that often, we still hope our kids will continue to hang out with each other until we are old, toothless grandmothers. I am glad that we are all meeting a little more frequently as our kids grow older.

On Good Friday, all of us trooped down to LP's house for a sumptuous dinner as well as fun and games for the kiddos. The adults had such a wonderful time catching up and gossiping, whereas all the kids (7 in total!) screamed, ran, chuckled and had a blasting great time in LP's house. We vowed to have more of such gatherings in future!

Tweening It Out At Universal Studios

7 girls in their 11th year. 2 little sisters. 3 mothers. This was the group that descended unto Universal Studios last Sunday. And what immense fun we had!

Big Bee and a bunch of her best buddies had been planning for an outing to Universal Studios for quite a while. It was a gathering that the girls organised entirely on their own, with minimal parental supervision and maximum peer involvement.

The anticipation from the girls was inexplicably dense throughout the entire CA1 week, just before the big day. In fact, they were already planning the routes to explore and had even printed out an itinerary! What precise planning! This excitement really helped them tide through the CA1 week blithely. I guess this was a coping mechanism for the girls who were managing a much tougher primary 5 curriculum for their first formal assessment in school.

We were in Universal Studios from 10am to 3 plus pm. Some of Big Bee's friends were hanging out until almost 7pm! Little Bee and I spent time by ourselves in the first 2 hours upon entering Universal Studios, as Big Bee had already rushed into different rides with her friends, and started the whole momentum going.

Meanwhile, Little Bee and I ambled languidly around, taking our time with the Transformers ride, the new Sesame Street ride, interacting with Ernie from Sesame Street, and the Madagascar ride. We could even squeeze in time to eat lunch in an almost-empty food court at the Jurassic Park section! It was gratifying to be able to spend some quiet, quality time with Little Bee, listening to her never-ending sunshine-like chatter.

As this was the weekend just before many schools' CA test week, the entire Park was not crowded at all. So the restaurants were empty, the queues were short, and there were lots of spaces around the Park to stroll around. Lovely. We eventually joined Big Bee and her friends when they had lunch in a restaurant in Far Far Away, and then hung around with them as they dashed to all the different shows and rides in the Park.

Chilling out with tweens is thoroughly enjoyable - especially when they are happy, and not feeling moody nor temperamental! Big Bee's friends would chat incessantly and excitedly with me as if I am part of their group, and I am thankful that they treated me more like a friend than another stuffy adult.

One of the biggest achievements for Big Bee was taking the Battlestar Galactica (Human) ride. She had been wanting to take this ride for a long time, and was elated when she was able to do it with her friends finally! That exhilaration and thrill on their faces after their ride was priceless.

We left early at 3 plus pm because we had to walk Big Bee's best friend out of the Park. What a thoroughly enjoyable day!

The Amazing Race

*Very backdated post*

I really enjoyed my time at the Bees' kindergarten. It is a school that encourages creative thinking, curiosity and love for learning, as well as articulate expressions of ideas. The Bees flourished in their pre-school, and I was somewhat sad to see them regressing in the learning and expressive curve as they stepped into primary school, which still reinforces too much rote memory and the relentless push for good examination scores above the fundamental need for expression and creative thinking.

Last November, a month before graduation from K2, Little Bee's kindergarten organised an exhilarating Amazing Race in Sentosa. This was a family-friendly activity which involved a parent teaming up a child, and we were given clues to dash around various pit stops around the island a la Amazing Race style!

The children had a whale of a time looking for clues and learning so many new things about Sentosa! As for me, I relished the opportunity to participate in this fun bonding day, and shared plenty of laughter with Little Bee, as well as her classmates and their parents. And I love that we got to see Sentosa in a different perspective thereafter! I also cherish the bonding sessions with her classmates, teachers and other parents, knowing that the end of her journey in kindergarten is nigh, and that we would be meeting new friends and new parents in the next chapter of her life.

I think the easiest way to document the Amazing Race is through photos! Enjoy!

Challenges for the day!

One completed station, whew!

We dashed all around Sentosa (lumbering at some points when we parents were fatigued!), and one of the challenges involved taking the trams, fun!

Some of the classmates managed to congregate at this point, much to Little Bee's delight

Busy writing down what she had discovered...

Notice Little Bee's tense expression as she handed a completed sheet to one of the teachers at a pit stop? Heh.

The best way to take a Sentosa tram - face outside and enjoy the view! 

Everyone was a winner! MacDonald's vouchers were prizes for the day.

Bewitched By Bali

I do apologise for the long radio silence. Our little family of four had been enchanted by the allure of Bali from 6 to 13 June. 7 luxurious days of gorgeous beaches with spectacular waves, of breathtaking cliffs and emerald rice fields, of nestling deep in the rainforests and hills of Ubud, and being woken up by roosters and birds, of boisterous days with friends and quiet moments with ourselves. We are back, but our spirits are enlivened by the spirituality of magical Bali :)

This is my 3rd time in Bali, and the family's first time - and I am delighted that Hubby was totally captivated by the sheer beauty and serenity of Bali, especially Ubud. The girls enjoyed the company more - we were joined by PF and her family in the first leg of our trip, with 4 nights together in Intercontinental Jimbaran Bay. The Bees had the most gleeful moments playing ceaselessly with their childhood friends, Eugene and Claire. Thereafter, they enjoyed the deep tranquillity by ourselves in Ubud, bonding tremendously as a family, where we stayed for 3 nights in a stunning villa deep in the virgin forests of Ubud's remote villages.

Unfortunately, I am experiencing some difficulties transferring my digital images from my camera (hence my silence as well), so I am going to use some photos from the Internet to illustrate where we stayed.

The sunset cafe of Intercontinental, by the beach and the crashing waves of Jimbaran Bay, where our 2 families spent much time chilling by the beach.

The splendid villa in Ubud that we stayed in, complete with a private pool where monkeys drank water from!

...with astounding views high up in the hills of Ubud, a plunging valley and a gushing river through the valley

We have our own private bale (gazebo), complete with deck chairs, an outdoor living and dining area, and a marvelous four poster bed in the bedroom

I will be writing more about this trip soon...

The Warmth Of Christmas

Christmas came a little early for us last weekend with a couple of celebrations and gatherings. On Friday, we attended our estate's annual Christmas party, and the Bees were excitedly wondering if Santa Claus would think they are good little girls and give them presents. Of course, Big Bee is a cynical girl by now, and kept insisting we parents gave the "fake" Santa Claus our presents, but we kept telling her we did not interfere with Santa's choice, preferring to keep the fairy tale alive :) 

It was a fun party from 6.30pm to 9plus pm, complete with a nice dinner and lots of games and shows. I kind of like such camaraderie between neighbours and this was a good way to infuse the elusive holiday mood into everyone. 

And most importantly, the Bees had proven that they were good girls this year, and got their presents from Santa! 

On Sunday, our group of secondary school good friends gathered for yet another annual Christmas lunch, this time at LP's house. We feasted on mouth-watering pizzas and ambrosial nasi lemak. More importantly, we had plenty of chances to catch up and yak with each other! Given everyone's busy schedules during the rest of the year, the year end holiday season is a beautiful period for all of us to slow our paces, take a look around us and appreciate the myriad bonding with family and friends.  

The kids were playing with each other, and we had a simple gift exchange for them, much to their happiness. It was amazing to see how fast kids transform year after year...soon they will all tower over us! 

We are definitely looking forward to more festivities in these last 2 weeks of a very eventful 2011!