The GPS Stole My Voice

We bought a mini van with built in GPS. The system has three voice choices. One is a male that sounds like a robot, one is a female robot and the last one is Angie. Well, the display actually calls it USA - Michelle but they stole my voice. It used to completely wig me out every single time I heard her give me directions.

Finally I am getting used to her but yesterday while driving Brian put his hand on mine in the passenger seat and said, "This is not going to sound right but the GPS sounds so much like you I just tune it out and don't realize someone is giving me directions I am supposed to follow. I don't even hear her most the time."

For the Record Books

As this expat season of ours comes to an end we got a little curious and wondered where we had the good fortune to travel. I was amazed my the number of places we had been in this beautiful world. We will sure miss the chance to travel!

Here is where we have been as of 2015 with most of the travel occurring between 2011 and 2013. 

Lived in USA, Singapore and Saudi Arabia

Ben age 11

Madison age 8

Jacob age 6

Lived in Singapore and Saudi Arabia

Ashlyn age 3 

Visited by all six of us:

Nepal

India

Vietnam

Indonesia

Cambodia

Thailand

Singapore

Malaysia

United Arab Emitates

Switzerland

France

Angie, Brian, Ben and Madison visited:

Hong Kong

China

Angie, Brian, Ben, Madison and Jacob visited:

Australia

Canada

Ashlyn visited:

USA (haha)

Angie and Brian visited:

England

Mexico

Brian visited:

Italy

Netherlands

Japan

Belgium

Layovers:

Japan

Turkey

Qatar

It's been a wild ride and we honestly hope to do it all again real soon. 

Heeley Tennis Fun

While Ben had his actual lesson tonight the kids and Brian used the next court over to tossed balls to Jacob and Madison. 

They both wore Heeley shoes with wheels on the bottom like roller skates and Madison seems a bit distracted with kicking her racket. It was funny to watch but they had a blast.

 Ben is making progress in his lessons and seems fairly good with his swing. 

And Ashlyn happily shagged balls.

Called In Again

Welcome back to base plant operations. Ugh. Brian has spent years supporting "projects." Now he supports day to day operations. He has been called in every single weekend to work since we arrived in Saudi. This morning (weekend) he got called and had to go to work at 3am. Poor man. And poor us. And he's late home from work a lot too. We sure had a sweet deal in Fairfax and Singapore! Now we have everyone else's life again and, as Ben would say, I don't love it. 

Dad's Gone

Jacob said he wishes dad could make us sleep, eat breakfast, eat lunch, eat dinner and sleep again really quick so we could just be ready to go together again.

When I returned from a parenting fireside tonight by the Eyres I got Ashlyn from the babysitter and she said "Daddy home?"
"No."
"Daddy home SOON?"
"No. Daddy home JUNE."
Poor girl didn't get my rhyming game. I don't have a good answer for her and it makes me so sad. For all she knows her daddy just disappeared forever.

New Family Picture

Since Ashlyn just turned 2 years old I figured it was time to update our blog header with a picture of her outside my belly. The picture that has been up forever had me only 5 or so months pregnant. Isn't this a cute family picture? Thanks to Nicole Ekberg Photography for getting some great shots of us in September of 2013...6 months ago. That's how we roll people. Always slowly...

Now I need to order prints for the grandparents sent to their respective Wal-Marts for pick up.

Christmas Gifts to Jesus

I’m packing up the holiday stuff today. We have NEVER had the tree up this long. People who walk into our house are actually taken back to see an enormous tree still up and decorated.

 

It made me smile to reread our annual gifts to Jesus as I sorted through everything. For the coming year of 2014 we are giving:

 

Jacob: “be gooder” (not yell or hit)

Madison: “les ProBlems. (Stop! Pooshing)”

Ben: “more time in scripshers” (read daily)

Angie: “a softer voice at home”

 

Compare to last year:

 

Jacob: "Don't touch other peoples bodies. Play with friends one at a time so they feel special."

Madison: "PRAY for PeoPLe By NAMe FROM MMZ"

Ben: "be nice to Maddie and Jacob"

Angie: "Show my love by using a quiet, happy voice."

Brian: "Have more patience with my kids"

Sleep Troubles and Brian's Surgery

I was a very wise wife to not encourage Brian to get the surgery until all the babies were mostly done  with middle of the night wake up stuff. I have tried for at least ten years to get him to have his sleep troubles checked out by a doctor. About two years ago while pregnant with Ashlyn I decided to lay off. If he didn't care enough to go then I was going to capitalize on his night time awareness just one last time with this baby coming along in a few months.

I didn't mention going to a doctor for about a year and a half. Score. He helped with Ashlyn just like all three other kids. I did all the feedings but he did most of the middle of the night baby rocking for a few reasons. First because he's awesome and a totally involved dad. Second he can sleep perfectly well sitting up in a soft rocking chair (or couch or floor or kitchen chair) because he gets such bad sleep he's is exhausted. Third he can fall asleep within two minutes no matter where he is, what time of day it is or what is going on around him, it is seriously just like flipping a light switch. This is not good in business meetings, driving or at church when your wife is going nuts with four rowdy kids.

With the impending move to Saudi Arabia always on my mind I realized that I ought to start pressuring him again because it isn't something he can do while living in Saudi Arabia. Moving without doing anything would only guarantee another three plus years of bad sleep and physical exhaustion. I also wanted to check out LASIK for myself and get a final answer once and for all so I could either do it or let it go forever. (Doc says no on LASIK by the way.)

I got an appointment for a LASIK assessment and asked Brian to come along because I didn't want to make big health and big money decisions without his buy in. He arranged to go in to work late one Friday so he could join me. That week I went to yoga on Thursday morning and yet another friend had had the nasal surgery and couldn't say enough about how it had changed her life. She had energy, she slept well, she could breath. We talked a long time after yoga and she sent me the doctors phone number. I called Brian at work right away. The ENT doctor was in the same building as my LASIK appointment just three floors away. I asked if I could arrange an appointment for the same time as mine and if he didn't have to take any extra time off work would he be willing to see the doctor. He agreed, though there seemed to be a little reluctance in his voice still. I was pretty sure he only agreed to get me to shut up. I uttered a quick prayer that they could squeeze him in and called the doctors office and that started the ball rolling. Twenty four hours later we had a diagnosis of how to spend half of all our money. He did the overnight sleep study that night and at our Saturday morning consult we found out how to spend the rest of our money. So thankful we have insurance to reimburse us!

The ENT scope and sleep study revealed a bunch of things. He had a deviated septum shaped more like an S than the straight line it should have been, his uvula was so long that it rested on his tongue (explaining the feeling he said he always has that something is stuck on the back of his throat and he can't get it off), enlarged tonsils, enlarged adenoids and a few other things. The sleep study revealed that he wakes up 97 times during the night because he stops breathing. Scary. The doctor said he would fix seven things while he was under general anesthesia.

Because he couldn't take work off during plant start up he waited about a month before scheduling his surgery. He had all the work done on Monday December 23. It made for a very toned down Christmas break for sure. No trips. No awesome food. No anything wild or crazy away from the house. The procedure was outpatient. Checked in the hospital at about 8am and left around 4pm. Surgery took just about an hour and I did not like seeing him come out of the anesthesia. He was so weak and disoriented, it made me tear up to see him like that. He had his uvula taken out, tonsils lasered, nose straightened, the back of his mouth sliced and stitched open to expand the opening and a few other things.  

About the time he was ready to check out to go home the nurse asked us, two white people with American accents, "Don't you celebrate Christmas?" We replied in the affirmative. "Then why did you do this NOW? You will have a bad Christmas." We had to laugh and explain it was very unfortunate timing but that he had to work before now and that in three weeks he was moving to Saudi Arabia. Not much window of opportunity for it to happen. 

The recovery has been, from the observers perspective, not so terrible. But it hasn't been fun either. I suppose it is basically what we expected. A very, very sore throat. Tired body, foggy head and blocked sinus. He has to do salt water flushes many many many times every day in both nostrils to clean out everything. Then it drips back out unexpectedly which understandably makes him nuts. We now think there must be secret pockets in all our heads that hold stuff like that. He has had nothing but very soft soups for two weeks and one more to go before he can try real food again. Swallowing has been terrible so eating has been no fun at all. About day eight I could see that his usual happy self had worn down. He just looked so depressed. He felt plain rotten and there was nothing he could do about it. Now, at fourteen days later he is back at work again and seems to be mostly back to his old self.

In the end, the up side is that in just two weeks he sleeps through EVERYTHING now. I have been up with Ashlyn many nights in the last week. He did get up tonight with Ashlyn but it does appear that his good sleeping means I'm on night duty solo from here on out. So glad he was an insomniac for the first 15 years of marriage and more importantly the first 9.5 years we had kids. He did a lot of crying kiddie nights for me. 

Now it's my turn to wake up and on this particular night I can't fall back to sleep after Ashlyn has been asleep for hours now. That's the main reason it was so nice having Brian do nights. If I wake up after four hours sleep I can't get my body to go back to sleep. Ashlyn woke up at 1:30am tonight. Screamed until 2:30 (after Brian finally got her breakfast downstairs). At 3:00 I caved and got on Facebook because I couldn't sleep. Now it's after 4am. It's gonna be a long day with 4 kids on winter break today with a very tired mama. The good news is after 3 hours awake I can usually fall asleep again. So I will try to count 9.5 years of sleep blessings and be grateful for the surgery that has hopefully helped Brian finally see what it means to have a good nights sleep like the rest of us in the world get.

Teleconference Helper

ExxonMobil has recently hired a new young consultant to help daddy with his work. Ashlyn happily consults on a 9 pm teleconference. She's silently listening, ready to give her input on pressing issues at work.

She thinks the best part is the pay. Extra snuggles. Especially on a night she has a fever from her imminizations so gets to stay up with the grown ups.

Famous Day

June 26, 2013

It's Famous Day! As per Brian standard protocol we arrived bright and early at the commercial shoot. 45 minutes early to be exact. Good thing there was an outdoor playground to keep Ben and Maddie Mae happy while we waited for go time.

Science Class

June 14, 2013

At dinner we often answer weird questions over dinner with the kids. Tonight we were discussing light and how eyes work. Ben started the discussion by telling the other kids what he had learned about light waves bouncing off a surface and what is absorbed to create color to our eye. When Brian began as he usually does, "Weeeeeeellllllllll when you....." and Ben exclaimed, "YES!!! A science lesson!"

I love our happy science dinner nights. 

Cash Drain

May 19, 2013

Outta gas on a Sunday morning when we are running late already. Made it to church and since Ashlyn won't go to Sunday school I'll run out and fill up during class. Asked Brian for $50 cash just in case. "You take my money lots faster than the lunch lady does!"

Our Growing Trophy Collection

Jake was so upset that only cub scouts got a trophy at the pinewood derby. The patch and ribbon I provided siblings didn't cut it for him. He was ready to cry so I told him that he would get a trophy for playing t-ball in a few weeks. I hate all the silly trophies we are accumulating in our house and I think in general so does Brian.

Brian had a work team building dinner and bowling last night. When he came to bed after 10:00 I asked how it went. He proudly told me he won the game. And he got a trophy. Yippee kio kia. More trophies for the house. I think maybe that one should be proudly displayed at work.

Good Day for Mom

Today I did not submit insurance claims.

I did not attach the mountain of mess in the office.

 

Instead I went to yoga. Came home and played with Ashlyn for about two hours and had her giggling and read her a book or two and played quiz games about her feet and nose and ears and such. She's such a delightful smiley little bundle of happiness.

I repaired a high heel shoe at school with masking tape when the entire bottom came unglued then went to lunch in the cafeteria with my style conscious Madison Mae.

Went to recess and played basketball with Maddie and her cute little girl friends.

Walked her to music class where I joined Ben in his lunchroom. He told me about his day and explained what kind of cards the boys were trading at the lunch tables. Then I arm wrestled some darn strong third grade boys.

Visited Ben's art room to see his cool bowl project he's been working on for a while and telling me all about so I could tell it was a big deal. It really does look awesome.

Then I told him I could play tag with him at recess because I played basketball with Maddie and he laughed at me. Silly Mom, he doesn't play tag anymore, that's so last month. He practices soccer by kicking a ball against the kindergarten wall. Since I only had flip flops on today, we settled for a game of ping pong in the Intermediate School Lobby. Someone came by near the end of recess and asked who was winning...we both laughed, "We don't know!" We hadn't even thought to keep score. We were having such a great time.

When the bell rang he went off to art class to finish his African bowl and I headed home. Jake arrived shortly after my return from a play date with his best buddy. The mom warned me he was getting cranky and just wanted to lay on the couch. She said he reported about school, "I had a good day at the start, but then it got bad at the end part."

So I cuddled my little boy who is not so little anymore and asked him about his day. The first part was good, but then Kaiden called him "stinky" and the day was bad after that. His lip puckered out and his head sunk down as his shoulders did his classic sad posture. I assured him that he wasn't stinky and that I loved him lots and lots. Keeping his body slumped in the deflated position he looked up at me, thoughtfully, over the rim of his glasses and after a minute he asked, "Do you love all of me, even every single one of my teeth?" Then the smile broke through.

I tickled his tummy and we counted every single one of his teeth to which he proclaimed, "That's a lot of teeth! You love me a lot!"

Then I took my cute little man upstairs and snuggled him on the futon couch while he drifted off to sleep to rest his body so he wouldn't be sad anymore. And I drifted off too for about ten minutes of a power nap.

Not so very long later it was time for a surprisingly pleasant day of homework with Ben at the kitchen table, then pickup Madison from swimming and hear all about how tiring it is to swim from one side of the pool all the way to the other side. We got her a snack and headed to her second violin lesson.

Violin I thought went well, but she said it was worse than last week because the teacher made her work. Go figure. She's seeming to enjoy it most of the time though so I'm not worried.

After dinner everyone changed into pajamas and brushed their teeth and came to family scripture time and prayers and then even tidied up the play room without a single tear.

Oh yeah, Brian is good too. He helped the kids put the wheels on their pinewood derby cars and held down the fort while I was at violin and tutored the neighbor in chemistry for a test tomorrow and got the kids dressed this morning and breakfast. Super dad is now, at 10pm, prepping for a birthday party magic show he donated to the school auction for the PTA.

It was a great day today with my cute family. So grateful they are mine. Each one is such a blessing and a joy.

I'm Thinking About It

I have a long and colored history, so I've been told, of weird things said in a groggy sleep. Tonight was finally the night I caught Brian. He rolled over in his sleep, propped up on one elbow and boldly declared, "I've been thinking about it." As the last word came out he began to look confused and I burst out laughing. Totally lost he laid back down and went back to sleep. I'm glad I finally have just one simple thing to throw back his way when he teases me about making soup in the garage in college to earn enough money to pay rent...

Motivation Part I

What motivates you to do something? I mean, what really gets you up out of your seat and moving toward an end goal--especially when that goal may be somewhat difficult or time consuming to accomplish?

I recently made it through the nearly six-month process to obtain a new motorcycle license in Singapore.  Singapore has a strict course structure that anyone desiring a motorcycle license must complete before they can take the final police tests for riding theory and practical skills.  I will describe the entire process in another post.  I knew going into it that the classes and tests would not be easy.  This knowledge delayed me a bit in starting--I debated whether it was worth going through the process.  I finally decided to do it.  I kept pushing through the process and am glad to say I came out a victor!

I have several motivating factors that helped me make it through this process.  First, I have always wanted a motorcycle license.  As a teenager, I drove my dad's motorcycle off-road in the bushes near our house.  I enjoyed the feeling of freedom and excitement that driving a motorcycle gives.  After I got married, we moved to Houston, where the weather supports riding a motorcylce to work for most of the year.  It took me several years to convince my wife to support me in getting a license.  However, before I had a chance to act, we moved to Virginia.  I ran into two new obstacles--the warm weather period is much shorter and we lived in a townhome with limited parking.  I considered getting a license for six more years, but apparently this motivating factor was not quite strong enough.

My second motivating factor is the cost of ownership.  A motorcycle costs considerably less than a car (yes, there are motorcycles that cost more than a car, but I am not talking about those).  A motorcycle also consumes much less gas and costs less to operate. 

The motivating factor that finally pushed me to take the plunge was the reduction in commute time I could achieve.  We have one car here in Singapore.  On days that I drive the car to work I can make it from our front door to my building in 40-60 minutes, depending on traffic.  If Angie needs the car, then I take public transportation.  This means a 15 minute walk to the train, a 20 minute train ride, a 5 minute walk to the company bus pick up point, followed by a 30 minute bus ride to the Jurong island checkpoint, where we disembark the bus, pass through the badge and thumbprint activated security gates and metal detectors, and then climb back on the bus for another 15 minute ride to the front gate of the refinery.  At, the refinery we pass through another badge activated gate and wait up to 15 minutes for the next internal shuttle followed by another 5 minute ride to my building.  This full process takes a minimum of 90 minutes if everything lines up and traffic is good, and a bit longer if when it rains or we experience traffic problems.  At the end of the day, I get to go through the same process, only in reverse. 

I tried accepting the fact that public transport is a normal part of life here and that many other people are doing the same thing every day.  However, I could not get over the simple math--I waste around one and one half hours each day I take public transportation to get to work.  If I could drive every day, I could be with my family that much longer.  What's more, my daughter told me several times that she wishes we were back in Virginia so she could see me more time every day.  Purchasing a second car here is financially unviable--we wouldn't even have the first car if the company didn't provide it.  I saw a motorcycle as the only workable solution. 

I finally made the decision to go for it and asked Angie for her support.  She was not (and still is not) thrilled with the idea of me riding out in traffic on a motorbike, but she did give her consent as long as I agreed to ride safely and not dart between the cars.  I started the motorcycle course in May and passed the Singapore's final skills test on November 1.  My excitement to stop relying on public transportation built as I progressed through the classes.  This excitement kept me looking forward to the successful completion of my goal.

Even when the rain is pouring down (as it does so many days here in Singapore), riding the motorcycle is so much better than relying on the public transportation.  I love getting back home earlier and having some time with my family before dinner and bedtime.  I love the feeling of freedom as the wind whips past on the expressway.  I also love pulling up to the pump and purchasing a full tank of gas for only $10 compared to the $100+ to fill up our car.  This was one goal that was well worth the commitment required to reach the end.

Motivation Part II

What motivates you to do something? I mean, what really gets you up out of your seat and moving toward an end goal--especially when that goal may be somewhat difficult or time consuming to accomplish?

In "Motivation Part I" I wrote about the motivation factors that moved me to obtaining my motorcycle license.  While I was working toward obtaining my license, I met another person on the same path.  I told Angie about this person and she made me promise to post about this encounter and this other person's motivating force, so here it is.

The first class I was required to attend was an orientation class.  During this class we were introduced to the training center and the Honda motorcycles we would be learning on.  The instructor taught us useful information such as how to use the motorcycle controls, how to start the motorcycle, and how to get the motorcycle back on its wheels after a fall.  We had not yet obtained our learner's permits so we were not allowed to actually get on the motorcycles--that would be covered in the first real skills class.

I looked around my classmates and noticed something--I was a bit out of place.  First, I was the only "ang moh" (Caucasian) in the class.  Second, I was a bit older than all of the other people in the class.  In Singapore, the minimum age for a drivers license is 18.  Since cars are so very expensive, the first license many people get is a motorcycle license.  Therefore, all of the other people in the class were probably very close to 18 years old.  Well, almost all--I noticed there was one other person that appeared a bit older than me.  I have not quite learned how to judge an Asian person's age, so I had no idea how much older he might be.  His was a larger man with his head completely shaved--so I couldn't even use his hair color as an indicator.

A couple of weeks later I was able to attend the first theory class.  When I entered the classroom, I recognized a familiar face--this same person that was in my orientation class.  Happy to see at least one familiar face, I waved hello.  He smiled and appeared to recognize me as well.  I sat down in the desk next to him and we began to talk.  I found out his name was Christopher.  Like me, he had a car license and several years of driving experience.  Christopher has a couple of dogs.  He is Singaporean and has recently retired--turns out he was quite a bit older than I had originally thought.

A few days later, I attended the second theory class.  I entered the room and sat down.  Within a few minutes, Christopher appeared at the doorway.  Seeing a familiar face, he walked over and sat down next to me.  Again, we started talking.  This time about why we were gettting our motorcycle license and what type of motorcycle we wanted to get.  I told Christopher that I wanted to get a cruiser style bike and that I was getting a motorcycle so I could still drive to work when my wife needed the car. 

Christopher then told me that he wanted to get a bike with a side car.  I found this a little peculiar because the motorcycles with side cars are usually smaller bikes.  Christopher was quite a bit larger than the typical Singaporean and seemed to me to be disproportionate to the bike he was describing.  When I asked him how he planned on using the side car, he told me his motivation for getting a motorcycle.  Christopher wanted to get a motorcycle with a side car so he can transport his dogs.  At this point I was envisioning this large man on a small motorcycle with two dogs in the side car with their riding goggles over their eyes and riding scarves waving in the wind trailing behind. 

Christopher continued his explanation by telling me his dogs suffer from motion sickness.  When he has to take them somewhere in the car, it turns out to be a messy experience.  If he can transport them in the side car, then he will be able to clean up after them much more easily--he can simply hose off the side car and let it air dry.  I found this a very peculiar motivation for a retired man to decide he needed to get a motorcycle license after all these years of driving a car.

I continued on with my classes as fast as the class and test schedules would allow.  I ran into Christopher a few other times, but he seemed to be progressing through the classes a bit slower.  I hope he was able to make it through to the end.  If you see a motorcycle travelling down the road with a couple of dogs in the side car, wave hi for me.
 

Happy Birthday Brian

 

Happy birthday to Mr. Zufelt. We love you!

Quality Daddy Time

There has been a pink VHS tape on the shelf in my room since we unpacked last April. No label. No clues. Today I finally took it downstairs to see what exactly it was. To my delight, and Ben, Maddie and Gina, it was a video recording of one of Brian's first paid gigs. It was a birthday party for the daughter of a friend and coworker. Maddie was instantly glued to the screen. I was ready to take it out, label it and put it away. It was obvious though that this magic show had a recorded audience as well as a live one. So Maddie is spending some quality time with daddy even though dad is actually at work.

Some Things Take a Minute to Process

Sitting across the room reading blogs I hear Brian walk out of the kitchen and holler, "Maddie come here so I can cut your face." Uh. What? I look up to see her smile and skip across the dining room. By the time she arrives I realize what's going on so I play into the game.

"STOP! Maddie! Don't go by your dad! He's a dangerous man! He's going to cut up your face!"

She just laughs and smiles at me. "He just wants to cut my pizza face."

When we first arrived in Singapore I didn't get my mixer for three months, then a transformer to run it for another two months. An American family simply cannot live without pizza so we started buying the frozen premade crusts and they are a total hit. I might be converted. It's so easy!

My kids are totally predictable though when it comes time to make their own. Maddie always makes a face out of whatever ingredients we have around the house that day. Ben loves breadsticks so much that he always makes half a cheese pizza and the other half becomes breadsticks. Jacob always makes the huge one that Brian and I share. (We give him pieces of Maddie's because, well, she never finishes hers anyway.)