the fast & the furious

november 20th,2008- welcome baby crow!

don john crow IV is here- november 20th- 8lbs 5oz

congrats meggan & don

so i finally decided to try driving.... let me start off by saying i am not sure dirk wants me to ever try again. sitting on the other side of the car is not hard... but the person sitting next to you yelling "you almost hit that car!" is a little hard to take. it is the depth perception from the other side of the car that takes getting used to, along with the various types of traffic flying by or stopping in front of you. i think i did a good job but dirk almost had a heart attack. you should see his driving... we get honked at constantly. so i drove to a favorite bar of ours, the handlebar, which is a biker bar. it has western food like hamburgers, hot dogs, chicken tenders without bones, and mash potatoes! they even have a gas blender... basically a blender with a weed wacker motor on it... they bring it to your table and blend a pitcher of margarita or strawberry daiquiri right in front of you... will only cost you $60 SGD.

watch out singapore- another note... i rarely wear makeup here, too hot, and no one you know can see you out... probably why there are few pictures of me too... hehe

handlebar

happy husband- probably glad to get out of the car with me driving

heineken time

november 15th- beers on the patio

this is how i found them when i came back from the gym

Heineken Time

so friday when i came back from the gym i found my boys on the patio drinking their heinekens waiting for me to join them. the weekend consisted of going over to dirk's boss house for pizza, miller lite, and taboo. it actually felt like we were at home in the states. the next day we set off to find some teak furniture once again... but this time was a little more adventurous. we had directions to all discount warehouses in singapore to find the best deal possible but getting to these warehouses proved to be a little difficult & scary... think another country, lots of rice rocket chop shops, and add the warehouse atmosphere. we found one warehouse with good prices but still no patio furniture,. the perfect deal will come to us, hopefully before the three years is up. so still in need of patio furniture, coffee table, tv stand, and dining room table.

so on sunday we woke up early and headed to sentosa, similar to galveston, and took otto with us. it was an overcast day which meant it was not as hot. on the beach there were inner tubes stacked up with paddles scattered around them... something was up. shortly after we got there a large group of people, who looked like they were participating in some sort of team building activities, showed up ready to play a game. the game seemed to be which team could build a boat and paddle across the water the fastest.... LET ME TELL YOU... it looked like something right off that show where they mute what the aisan people are saying and ad lib the words in... it was hilarious! whatever happened to that show... extreme game shows? wasn't it on the comedy channel?

another adventure of the weekend was finding somewhere for otto to stay while we take holiday in december to bali. we went to the first kennel and was nearly knocked over by the horrible smell. the next was much nicer and no smell... so otto will stay at the pet hotel decmeber 5th-8th.... hopefully he will survive this. meantime i am in a desperate search for a maid that will stay at our house while we are away from town.

http://www.pethotel.com.sg/

the pet hotel- nice & clean

rain, rain, go away

november 14th- happy birthday ashley!

so it has been raining for the past week straight and today it finally stopped :) singapore does not have seasons, only rainy and rainier seasons. it is suppose to rain until february. i almost forgot all my november birthdays because it feels like summer around here 24/7. it wasn't until we got an invitation in the mail from the dunlaps to thanksgiving dinner at the frio... that we are in the month of november. oh... about the mail. letters are not too expensive (almost a dollar) and it takes 5-7 days. not too bad for half way around the world. i have discovered hallmark.com that will mail cards from the states, it is the best thing (http://www.hallmark.com/).

so to update: we have holidays coming up in december and january, but not your usual holidays. we are going to bali, indonesia in the nusa dua area from dec 5-8th. we are staying at the melia bali hotel & resort which is on the nusa dua beach. then in january we are traveling to thailand and staying somewhere in phuket (have not booked a hotel) from jan 23-28th for chinese's new year. we will be diving in both areas but bali will be the most adventurous for me. the water there is 55-65 degrees which is really really cold! i get cold in 80 degree water... so we will see how that goes. we are excited to use dirk's new camera and underwater case to capture all the underwater goodies.

nusa dua beach, bali- staying on this beach

phi phi islands, phuket- plan on scuba diving here

on a more challenging note: dirk wanted the first person who came to visit to try and figure out how to open the hood to the ford mondeo we have. i don't know how long it took him but we were going to have a good laugh watching someone else try and figure it out. here are some pictures:

now how would you open the hood?

would you have thought? the hood release

lastly november was an eventful month for birthdays! most of the babies have arrived and half of them being with dirk's cousins. so happy birthday:

sarah marie boytim- october 24th- 7:31PM- 6lbs 4oz

dean andrew dimmitt (drew)- november 8th

hailey joy heafner- november 4th- 11:44AM- 7lbs 7 oz

don john crow IV (sonny)- should be here november 20th

the heafners

big happy family

november 11th- first family picture in singapore

saturday before the dinner party

one big happy family... things are great here in singapore! come visit soon.

weekend fun

november 8th- the weekend walk

so we started the weekend with dinner at holland village and a night cap of skiing. on saturday... we did our usual workout and morning swim then headed out to scourer the city for teak patio furniture at dempsey hill. the evening plans included a dinner party at the de Jong's including many of dirk's coworkers and of coarse otto was invited too. it was a great night with good conversation and tasty american eats. the weekend was topped off with a sunday stroll to the park, checking out the neighborhood and the new mall down the street. the new mall (aka, my new home) is called west coast plaza... everything from grocery store to coffee bean!! Here are some of the picture from the walk...

a float being made by the park

middle school- also on our street

what townhouses look like here- has nothing on 5722 Maxie

still a little anxious when we leave- RIP blue pillow

november 7th- friday night

dirk and i decided to leave otto for a little bit and go to holland village for dinner. we ate at el patio, a little mexican restaurant with good margaritas... it is funny... their version of queso is the baseball park nacho cheese. it beats living without queso. during dinner we got a call from dirks boss to meet up at the ski park for some night skiing.

ski360degrees (http://www.ski360degree.com/) at east coast park where you can do any kind of skiing you can think of but everything is done with cables, no boats. dirk decided to wakeboard along with his boss... i decided to watch with otto. the pictures are kind of dark but you start outside of the water and they throw you a cable which pulls you up. it looked like fun and i am sure i will try it next time.

ski park with cables only

dirk and his wakeboard

about to do a jump start from the dock

a tribute to otto man

november 7th- breaking out of the pen

otto made it out of quarantine and was delivered to our house by the pet movers before dirk came home for lunch (dirk comes home for lunch almost everyday). so the first thing otto does is check out his toy basket... second thing he did was pull the stuffed Eeyore out (i gave dirk this stuff animal on our first valentines day) and played with every single toy until he was all tuckered out. lastly he curled up on his beloved bed and took a long nap.

now all these details of otto might seem weird to some people reading this blog but otto is a very popular dog in houston and when people talk to me, they always ask about otto first. these otto updates are for my parents, all are neighbors on maxie street (most importantly brandon & doug), and everyone who offered to take otto for the three years we are going to be gone. come to think of it, otto would have been easier to give away than our 42" flat screen which i had to beg someone to come and pick up... one popular dog here.

digging in his toy basket playing with Eeyore
so tired- notice the empty toy basket

otto is adjusting well... he is still a little weirded out about the elevator but spends most of his time on the patio outside sunning. we have a park within in walking distance and a dog park not too far from there. otto and i will be walking to the new mall down the street quite often once the starbucks & coffee bean are open. people here are either really scared of otto or really fascinated with him... i am guessing they don't see too many boxers in this part of the world either that or he looks like a pitbull to them. he is still quite popular and has already made a trip to the ski park, kim & kaes house, and holland village for some coffee bean. next up... otto is going to the vet because he might possibly have mange mites. stay tuned for more of that popular dog....

home sweet home

november 6th- decorated house (sort of)

living room-dining room

master bedroom

master bath- too small so we use the guest bath

new house with all of our belongings in it... still need things hung on the walls but since they are concrete walls we will have to wait for someone to drill holes for us. we did not bring all of are stuff in fear that it would not fit in the condo so we are looking to purchase all tables and some patio furniture. teak and rosewood are fairly common here so we will be checking out getting tables made to fit our space. to update, we have a working grill with propane (only cost $105 SGD), converted wine refrigerator, the biggest and BEST a working slingbox (thanks to preston & michelle)... i can watch grey's anatomy, the hills, cold case, and most importantly FOOTBALL (mind you... all these shows come on in the morning or strange hours).

the only complaints would have to be the size of the showers, no closets (hanging wardrobes instead), and the washer & dryer take too long (it takes all day to do laundry that took me maybe 2 hours in the states)

the upside of singapore living... very very clean, our condos make it seem like we live in a resort, the patio has been a big hit with otto... oh and we don't have to pay utilities which is good because paying bills here is a little odd. to pay our phone and cable we walk to the 7 eleven convenient store and pay the cashier... easy to do because there is one right across the street.