Tonight, Tonight

Our Friday playgroup was supposedly meeting at the zoo today. The rsvps showed little to no interest though. Not sure if anyone actually went. We passed on the zoo today, as we will probably be going next week with the grandmas.

Instead, we decided to go to Go Go Bambini this morning with Wendy and Sofia. One more playdate before they leave tonight...

This afternoon, we took it easy. We played at home, and then took a walk to grab a few items at the grocery. I was craving some fresh mozzarella, but I couldn't find it at either of the two grocery stores we stopped at. Bummer!

Brandon is asleep, the toys are picked up, and Mommy is ready for some sleep. I want to get some rest before the phone rings in about four hours letting me know that our guests have arrived!!!

Another One Bites the Dust

This morning, Brandon and I walked over to Wendy's again. I offered to watch Sofia for a couple of hours while Wendy ran some last minute errands. Wendy and Sofia will be leaving Singapore tomorrow night. Their six month stay in Singapore and Sydney is over... As it goes here, another one bites the dust...

Wendy went to Chinatown, and she brought back some souvenirs to take home. She also bought Brandon the neatest dragon kite. Handpainted and very colorful! Wendy needed to do her last minute shopping as the packers came this afternoon to pack and ship their belongings back to the States.

This afternoon, Brandon and I visited Arch and Arya. I love seeing Arya. She is nine months older than Brandon, and it is amazing how much she can do. She speaks in sentences. She says her own name. So cute. Hard to believe that our little man will be doing this soon. Brandon is picking up more words daily. He says "thirsty", "book", "milk", "water", and more. Hard to keep track of all of the new words. He also says "shoe". Sometimes it's hard for me to tell the difference between "fish" and "shoe". Today, I told Brandon that we were going bye bye to see Arya. Then, he kept saying "ish". Well, that's what I thought he was saying. I realized a few minutes later that he was talking about getting his "shoes" for going bye bye. Wow.

Yummy Kenny Rogers

Today was one of those days with not many clouds in the sky. The sun was up, and there was no hiding from it.



Brandon and I walked to Royce Gym with Jo, Stella, and Sam. I was sweating even at 9:30 am.



At Royce, I met another friend, Tammy. I had met her and her son, Jimmy, at Royce awhile ago, and we had lost touch. I ran into her at the Paragon a couple of weeks ago. After our hour was up at Royce, we went down to Starbucks in Liang Court with Tammy and Jimmy. She is so nice and friendly. I hope that we can get together more in the next couple of months.



This afternoon, Brandon and I walked to Wendy's. Brandon and Sofia played, fought, and then became friends again over some Cheerios.



Before walking home, we stopped at the grocery at Great World City, and then picked up some take away dinner at Kenny Roger's restaurant. Brandon loved the chicken, mac and cheese, and mashed potatoes. Good American comfort food. Maybe the grandmas will cook for us when they get here. :)

Three More Days!

Three more days until the grandmommas arrive in Singapore! I can hardly wait!



This morning, Brandon and I walked to the Forum with Jo, Stella, and Sam. The kids had a great time playing there. Jo left the Forum to do some errands and walk home, and Brandon and I took a cab home. It was quite hot and getting near Brandon's nap time.



After our naps this afternoon, Brandon and I met up with Amanda and Kate. We walked down Orchard Road hitting up the Gap and Borders. Brandon and I also grabbed some cheese prata at the Ion food court. I crave the curry sauce. Yummm!!!




We walked home from Orchard Road.



Before bed, we gave Daddy a call at work. We often try to get Brandon to talk to Daddy on the phone, but he's just not very interested. However, tonight Brandon really listened when I put the phone up to his ear. After a few seconds, he said, "Dadda." He kept listening and saying "dadda" over and over. He recognized Steven's voice. So, so sweet...

U.S.A. 234, Singapore 45

Happy Fourth of July, U.S.A! (Sorry that this comes a day late. Or, maybe not... Maybe just a few hours late, U.S. time. :) )



As the U.S. celebrates its 234th birthday, Singapore is preparing to celebrate its 45th birthday.



Singapore was founded as a British trading colony in 1819. In 1963 it joined the Malaysian Federation. However, two years later Singapore became independent. August 9th is National Day, when Singapore celebrates its independence.





This morning, Brandon and I took a cab to Sonia's house for our Monday playgroup. Brandon was in Heaven! Sonia has two dogs. While she kept the dogs in the kitchen during the playdate, Brandon stood at the baby gate in the doorway saying, "Dog, dog, dog!" The dogs kept him quite preoccupied.





Later this afternoon, we walked to the grocery store. When we returned, there were some kids playing on the tennis courts. One of the kids had their friend's dog with them. Brandon ran around the courts chasing the balls and the dog for a while.



What an exciting day for little Brandon. Any day with dogs, fish, birds, or balls is super fantastic! :)

Phuket, Thailand

On Wednesday morning, Steven left for work while I finished packing for our trip to Phuket. We had an early afternoon flight, so Brandon and I left in a cab to pick Steven up from work a couple of hours before the flight left. There was some traffic on the way to Steven's work, and Steven was late getting out of the office. We were in quite a rush to make our flight. By the time we checked one bag and went through customs, we had to run to make the flight. We made it to our gate about 5 minutes before boarding closed. Ahhh... The exciting life of a Bierly.











Brandon slept most of the 1 hour 45 minute flight from Singapore to Phuket. I was able to enjoy some beautiful views from the plane as we arrived. Georgeous blue ocean. Lush green land. A new country to experience. What a thrill!


It was about a one hour car ride from the airport to our resort. We were staying at the Movenpick Resort and Spa located on Karon Beach. A driver from the hotel picked us up.

Upon arriving at the hotel, we were each greeted with a jasmine lei and a cup of tea. We checked in and were escorted through the hotel grounds to our room via a tuk-tuk.

We spent a little extra money to get a suite in which the bedroom had doors which closed it off from the main living room. Soooo worth it! We put Brandon's crib in the living room, and we had our own separate room. I could hear Brandon talking and making noise several times each night. However, when he woke up he didn't see us so he just went back to sleep. We all slept well!!!

Plus, our room was huge! It was 72 square meters, which is 775 square feet. About the same size as our apartment (if you don't count our maid's room). Amazing!

www.moevenpick-hotels.com/en/pub/your_hotels/worldmap/phuket/overview.cfm

In the afternoon, we had some lunch at one of the seven restaurants at the resort. Yummm... Pad Thai.... Then, we went for a swim at the main pool. The resort has three pools.

Brandon enjoyed the pool even when it started to rain. We let Brandon experience his first play in the rain. He went wild as the rain came down.

After all of the exciting swimming, we took Brandon to the kid's Play Zone. Since Brandon is so young, we had to pay about 240 Baht per hour for him to play in the playroom. That's only about $7 (U.S.) per hour. We left Brandon in the playroom for a while. He loved it, especially since it had a ball pit. Brandon cried when we picked him up for the night. This made us feel quite good. Now, there was an even better chance that all three of us would love Phuket. :)

When we got back to the hotel room, Brandon cuddled his puppy dog before bed.

On Thursday, we took it easy at the resort. Steven and I put Brandon in the Play Zone in the morning after breakfast, and we took a walk down the beach. When we returned, we took a swim before picking Brandon up so he could join us at the pool. Most of this day it rained. We found out that it is Phuket's rainy season from May to November. The afternoon also involved some Play Zone and reading and relaxing for Mommy and Daddy.

Steven and I had scheduled a babysitter to come to the room after Brandon was asleep that evening. As we were getting Brandon ready for bed, we noticed that he felt really warm. Luckily, Mommy was prepared and had packed the baby thermometer. Brandon had a 101.1 degree F temperature. He was in a good mood and acting normally, so we gave him some ibuprofen, put him to bed, and left him with the sitter. We went ahead and had dinner at the resort. They have a Brazilian churrasco restaurant. Delicious. Not quite Fogo de Chao, but it was good to have some meat. Meat is expensive in Singapore, so we haven't been eating too much of it.

When we got back to the hotel room, we checked on Brandon. He was still warm, but not any hotter than he was. And, he was sleeping peacefully.

We checked on Brandon again in the morning, and his temperature was down quite a bit (99 degrees F). We decided that we were still good to go on our morning island excursion.

We rode a van from the hotel to the shore where we took a 15 minute speed boat out to two very small islands, Khai Nui and Khai Nok.

Whoa! Brandon wasn't quite sure what to think of the strong winds on the speed boat!

A picture of Khai Nui as we neared it.

Brandon felt much better when Daddy held him close.

We could see Khai Nok from Khai Nui.

The georgous Khai Nui. Such a small island! We didn't actually go on the island, but we anchored near the shore for some snorkeling. The water was so blue. However, it probably would have been even more blue and clear if the weather hadn't been overcast.

The snorkeling was great! Steven and I took turns while the other stayed on the boat with Brandon. We saw coral reefs and lots and lots of fish.

Mommy waved "hi" to Daddy and Brandon.

Brandon watched Daddy snorkelling from the boat.

Brandon and Mommy fed the "ish" while Daddy snorkeled. Daddy was surrounded by beautiful "ish"!!!

After the snorkeling, we spent some time on Khai Nok island. Brandon got to swim in the water while he fed the "ish". We enjoyed a couple of hours on the island. We were served a great lunch there too before left.

Such a busy morning. We spent the afternoon at the resort. Reading, relaxing, and the Play Zone. The weather was still rainy. :( At least Brandon's fever was gone and never returned. :)

Before Steven put Brandon to sleep that night, I told him "night night" and "I love you" as I always do. This evening, Brandon not only said "night night", but he also said "Ah Uh Ooh". Melt my heart!!! Just these three little, almost indistinguishable words, made the world perfectly right. It just gets better and better, even when you don't think it can get any better. Wow.

We had another babysitter come to the room once Brandon was asleep. Steven and I took a cab to Patong. The Patong beach area is supposed to be the crazy part of Phuket. It was! Shops, restaurants, bars, bars, and bars. Did I say that there were bars? Crazy bars.

Saturday morning we left the resort for some trekking through the jungle on elephants. We took a bus from the hotel to the safari base. From there, we took Land Rovers up into the jungle to meet the elephants.


















We saw an elephant show. Three elephants performed tricks. Brandon really liked when they tossed around the soccer balls!

Steven fed the elephants. Brandon didn't want to take part in this. A little scary.

It was a little frightening boarding the elephant, but once we were on I felt pretty safe and stable. We trekked through the jungle, and we saw a couple of amazing views of the ocean. I enjoyed sitting up high. Something peaceful about the ride.

Brandon enjoyed the elephant ride. I am glad, though, that we chose the short 30 minute ride. Brandon was getting a little antsy near the end.

After our safari, Brandon and Mommy were both brave enough to pet the elephant.

When we returned to the resort, we could tell that it was the weekend. It was very, very quiet at the resort the first couple of days we were there. On Saturday, there were so many more people out at the pool. We even had trouble finding lounge chairs at the pool when we went for a swim.

In the late afternoon, we put Brandon in the Play Zone one last time. While he liked playing there, he was starting to not like Mommy and Daddy leaving him there. He cried when we left and cried when we returned. I think he was worried we were leaving him again. He clung to our necks.

When we picked him up, we took a walk to the beach. The resort was very spread out. Very private. While the resort was located "on" the beach, it was really across the street from the beach. It was this way for all of the resorts in the area.

The beach was nice, but it wasn't as impressive as the beach in Bali. It wasn't as clean, and it didn't seem as popular. Still, it was beautiful to look out at the ocean and the mountains as the breeze blew through our hair.

After the beach, we took a walk on the streets around the resort.

For our last evening in Phuket, we had one last babysitter in the hotel room once Brandon was asleep. Steven and I walked to Bamboo House, a nearby restaurant. I had some amazing massaman curry. Yummm... I miss Thai Aroma...

Before we left the hotel Sunday morning, we took Brandon to see the "ish" in the hotel pond one last time. Each day while we were at the resort, Brandon wanted to see the "ish". He remembered them every day, and he knew where to go to find them! He also saw lots of birds wondering around this area of the resort. "Bird!"

We left the hotel at 7 am for the airport. We survived the ride to the airport with one small stop at a gas station to change a dirty diaper. Ewww... The plane flight back was a little more difficult than the flight to Phuket as Brandon was awake and squirmy the entire time. Twenty minutes of a Baby Einstein DVD on the computer really helped...

Brandon fell asleep in the cab on the way home to our apartment.

In the late afternoon, we took a walk to the Forum for some play.

What a great long, long weekend! Such treasured memories made...


One of Brandon's new interests - Elmo!!! We have been singing the Elmo song, and Steven showed Brandon the three minute Sesame Street clip of Elmo's song on YouTube. He loves it!