‘One more time, we’re gonna celebrate!’

Many of you have kindly asked how the packing is going.

In short…. it’s not!

But thank you for asking anyway.

So what have I been doing?

Tone would say procrastinating. Rubbish I retort. I’m doing what I love to do. CELEBRATING! (one more time…)

(Apologies if you have Daft Punk’s ‘One More Time’ playing in your head. It’s my anthem at the moment.)

A little over a week ago,  we celebrated Mitch’s 7^th birthday, and Tone’s 40^th in Krabi, Thailand; which we sadly suspect will be our last Asian getaway before returning home.

This past week, we celebrated National Women’s Day.  In South Africa,  the 9^th of August every year is a public holiday set aside to celebrate women and the role they have played in the democracy of the country.  

We have also been celebrating Singapore’s 51^st birthday, the anniversary of independence from Malaysia and its emergence as the Republic of Singapore in 1965.  The streets are adorned with flags for weeks leading up to the public holiday, many shops celebrate by having promotions offering 51% off,  and the actual day (the 9^th August)is super festive. The majority of the nation wears red and white. There is a grand national day parade culminating in a spectacular fireworks show. Singapore celebrates in style! And now that the country has its first ever Olympic gold medal thanks to the remarkable Joseph Schooling (who beat out our very own Chad le Clos and the legendary Michael Phelps in the 100m butterfly), I suspect the festivities will continue well into the month ahead!

One of our cycles from East Coast to Gardens by the Bay.

On National Day this past Tuesday,  for just “one more time”, we cycled from East Coast Park to Gardens by the Bay. It’s my favourite thing to do as a family in Singapore, with spectacular views of Gardens by the Bay, the iconic Marina Bay Sands and the Singapore Flyer. We cycle to the ‘Satay by the Bay’ Hawker Centre, for delicious satay and fresh mango juice.

I will miss this. In fact there are many things that I will miss about Singapore. We have been doing a number of things  “one more time”, celebrating all that Singapore has offered.

Tones and I walked through the Botanical Gardens one evening last week ‘one more time’. I have spent hours and hours in the beautiful Singapore Botanical Gardens. When we first arrived, I remember squeezing all three boys into our double pram and going for long walks. A sanity saver! We now take them there to run around and expend their boundless energy.  Another outing we love doing (for similar reasons), is walking from Labrador Park to Keppel Bay. The boys zoom ahead of us on their scooters and always arrive home exhausted & ready for a nap. Bliss!

This past weekend, we went to Universal Studios one more time. I’m nervous that watching and listening to the boys (including the hubby) squeal with delight as they hurtle upside down on some crazy rollercoaster ride is a prelude to the adrenalin junkie activities that lie ahead for me as a mother of 3 boys as they continue to grow! (To our new Singapore friends, it’s worthwhile to get a Universal Studios annual pass - you have to go 2.5 times to get value for your money).

We celebrated the end of the summer vacation with an outing to Benjamin Browns at The Forum in Orchard Rd for their famous OTT milkshakes! Take a look at these…

The new school year officially starts tomorrow. Mitch moves to Grade 1, Jonty to Kindergarten 2 and Hudson to Pre-K. We are all excited. It’s been wonderful having the boys with me for almost ten weeks, but I will indeed celebrate surviving the holiday.

After school drop-off, I can really put my head down and, you know, focus on PACKING!

“One more time, we’re gonna celebrate!”