While we are in Singapore...

Things back in Wollongong have been running on their own set of
wheels while we struggle to pull our life together here.

The Kluger was offered for by 3 people and at the highest offer they can
part with, we sold it to a gentlemen to cover the leasing company as well
as all our advertisement costs. If we had gone to the
car dealers, we would end up having to give them money to take our car!!!

Our townhouse (I recently had a look at the pictures I took before we
went and had a good cry over it!!) is now officially rented by the
company who runs/manage the Wollongong basketball team (Wollongong
Hawks). They are importing Americans to play for their team and the
house is for one of the players and his family.

Two of our biggest worries are now off our hands and we'll just have to
maintain the expenses properly and continue to be diligent with our
finances.

The house search here is nearing the end...all in all, we saw a total of
12 homes, condos and apartments. We have decided to get full condo
facilities seeing that the kids will be home quite a bit and swimming is
something we'd like for them to upkeep. We can also do a lot fo stuff "off
peak" and not be tied by the opening and closing hours of sports
facilities. The tough bit is to find somewhere not too far from the city as
well as not too far from public transport. In Singapore, it is easy to say
that the place is small and crowded but the condos are all design very
specifically to fit all sorts of lifestyles. One street further/closer from the
MRT can mean $200 less/more in rent money. The further away, of course
the rents dropped considerably. We have short listed 4 and by Sat, we'll
have to decide.

Letitia still has her boughts of tears and homesickness. Poor thing,
she misses home and her school the most. We even tried to call her
teacher to have a little talk to her but failed. Her school friends are
emailing to say "we can't wait to return to school" but she internalises
it to say that she's not going... we still have our moments and I am
trying to make her life here as happy and as comfortable as possible.
She is such a sweet treasure at heart and we truly see the beautiful
side of her.... in contrast to the 'Gozilla-Mathena' (sorry Meryl, it fits
Mathena to a "T" as well!)

During play at home, they both love role-playing in "fairy story" or
made up ones, Letitia will usually be the princess while Mathena will
"volunteer" to the the wicked character and she'll even have a growly
voice to act it out. Often, just observing, we cannot decide whether to
cry or to laugh!!

Mathena's now in a single bed and she's happy to climb in
and out anytime...so the going-to-bed process now involves a lot of
"false starts"..."go to wee-wee, go to toilet,.." but when we say a big
"NO!", she'll quickly go in to tell Letitia "mommy says No, cheh-cheh!"
She makes it sound like it's Letitia's idea while in fact she's the culprit.
Mathena now freely visits to our room in the middle of the night asking to go
toilet or asking to sleep with us. When denied, last night, she chucked
a full-on 100% tantrum and woke up the entire household. Yikes! At 3am
in the morning, I left her to scream and asked Letitia to close her
ears and go to bed. I have REALLY half a mind to split them up in their
own rooms so that my sleepy-head Letitia gets enough sleep. On BAD
nights, Letitia wakes up with rings around her eyes and is sooo tired in
the morning.

So, this is our update...so far. Letitia will have her first ever
playdate with a 7yo American girl and her 5yo brother. She's been left
out a lot as all the "caucasions" avoid her and we had to make the "move"
to create some social life for her. She's excited for tomorrow...

We might have a church-free Sunday this weekend. We have houses to see.
We have friends who wants to catch up, all the way from KL etc

People here have no family life...they work late, very late. We pray that GOD
will make Alex stand out and be accounted for in his field. I want him to
do well, I want him also to be recognise for his good work...as any wife would, I
guess! So, pray for Alex, pray for GOD's mercy and favour on him.