Bits and pieces

September is half over - where is this year going?? Thought I'd catch you up on some bits and pieces of news...no photos, just news...

Darrell is off to England (near Norwich, to be exact) on Tuesday night to be part of the committee that organises the auditioned international school orchestra events that he has participated in for the past 3 years. It's quite an honour to be asked to serve on the committee and is a twice-a-year committment for 2 years. He'll be away for nearly a week (and will miss my birthday!). Two days after he gets back to Singapore he will then head off with all the year 8 students and teachers for a 2-night trip on a cruise ship up the coast of Malaysia! Can't say I envy him the company of all those year 8's, but the cruise sounds pretty exotic :-)

Have I told you that Lachlan is learning the trumpet this year? He continues to learn the violin from Darrell (this is his 5th year!) but all 5th grade students are required to choose an instrument or join the choir as part of their music course for the year. He had the opportunity to try out a number of instruments last year and apparently was quite well suited to the trumpet so that's what he chose. He seems to be doing OK and quite enjoys it, but is finding that practicing 2 instruments daily as well as managing the homework load can be quite challenging at times. Fortunately academics come pretty easy to him so it's more a matter of staying organised and not procrastinating. In typical 10-year-old fashion, the best part of his day usually seems to revolve around what he did at recess, but he loves school and has great friends, so he is happy and thriving. He continues to be an avid reader and also loves to type stories on the computer. He still wants to be an archaeologist when he grows up but would also like to be a published author one day.

Caleb is loving 1st grade ("it's even better than Kindergarten"!) and is also coping with the daily homework load. He has to read to us every night and is also given weekly homework on a Monday which is due on Friday. Unlike his older brother, he tends to be fairly motivated about getting his homework done earlier rather than later which makes it a little easier on his mother :-) Caleb is now into his 2nd year of learning the piano and is doing really well - he absolutely loves to practice (I am constantly amazed at his enthusiasm and actually have to ask him to stop playing at times!) and has recently started using the pedal which was very exciting for him! He also enjoys making up his own songs so we are constantly treated to interesting compositions. He is quite the budding cartoonist and seems to have a flare for drawing. He is an avid cartoon reader (Garfield and Calvin & Hobbs are favorites) but his pet dogs continue to be the favorite things in his world. Caleb turns 7 in eight weeks time and has aspirations of being famous when he grows up. When pressed for how he feels he will achieve this goal he has decided that acting is the way to go. We've always said he was destined for the stage (dramatic personality, big voice) so maybe our predictions will come true after all! Time will tell...

I am 7 weeks away from the final deadline of my last subject for my M.Ed (TESOL). I can't wait to finish but have a lot of work to do before that deadline. Working full-time, studying and helping with the boys homework (!) seems to keep me pretty busy and I can't really remember what I used to do before all of this! I am really looking forward to finding out once the Masters is finished :-) I have recently joined Facebook if any of you happen to participate in it - for those of you who don't know about it, it is another online way of keeping in touch. Just google 'Facebook' then type my name in and a photo of us should appear!

That's about it for us at the moment. We seem to be constantly busy but we are happy and enjoying our various work/school/study committments. Yesterday we felt tremours at school from the massive quake that hit off the coast of Sumatra but nothing came of them - fortunately! We plan to visit Bali during our December/January break so hopefully all will be stable there at that time.

Hope all is well wherever you are!

Sharon

Holidays are over!

Our 2-month holiday is but a distant memory - school started for all 4 of us this past week and life is once again full of classes, planning, study, students, friends, music lessons, karate lessons, homework, and early mornings! Caleb has just started grade 1 and has a lovely teacher by the name of Ms. Goldhammer. Lachlan has started grade 5 and has another lovely lady by the name of Ms. Lopez - who also happens to be an Aussie :-) Darrell has a busy schedule of strings classes for grades 6 - 8 and I have an interesting group of ESOL students in grades K-2 who come from all over the world. We love our jobs and the boys love school - Singapore is a great place for us to be!

The months of June and July were happy ones for all of us. The boys and I attended Summer School for 3 weeks before heading off to Australia for a 3-week holiday. That was a wonderful time - I had lots of time to catch up with my family and the boys had lots of fun with their cousins, enjoying - amongst other things - their first trip to the snow and a Wiggles birthday party to help cousin Jasper celebrate his 3rd birthday.

Darrell studied hard and enjoyed his bachelor time while we were gone but seemed quite pleased to have us back in town after 3 weeks apart! On August 1, Caleb reached a milestone with the loss of his first tooth. We happened to be on a short 2-day trip across the border in Malaysia at the time, but the tooth fairy managed to find him and left a small monetary gift in exchange for the lost tooth!!

Unfortunately, August also brought with it the sudden death of our dear Aunty Val Brinsmead at the age of 68. Although we have not seen her much over recent years, she was a warm and special lady of whom we have many fond memories. Much as we love our life here in Singapore, it's hard being away from family at such times and our thoughts are with Uncle Bob, Judy, Sally, Paul, Daniel and their extended families as they deal with the loss of their much-loved wife/mum/grandmother.

That's the past couple of months in a nutshell. Here's us out the front of our house...

Sharon

Doggie Birthday

We celebrated the birthdays of our dogs today with a cake especially made for them. Apparently it was delicious as you will see in the last photo. Cookie was a lady and licked her icing off first then neatly ate the top layer of the cake but left some for later. Muffin simply demolished his entire piece then tried to eat Cookie's - but decided that was a bad idea when she bared her teeth at him!

Sharon

The cake...

...with the boys and dogs.

Cookie the lady - licking daintily.

Muffin gobbling as fast as possible so no-one else can get any!

The final result: Cookie's on the left & Muffin's on the right :-)

Family photos

We recently had some family photos taken by a professional and are delighted with the results - considering none of us like getting our picture taken, and Caleb was a bit of a beast the entire 2 hours of the photo session, we think the photographer was a genius!! He cleverly gave us all our photos on contact sheets that we cannot print individual photos from, but we can use them to choose which photos we want printed & show them to friends and family to remind them how handsome/beautiful we are :-)

Here's an example of a couple of the contact sheets we have to choose from - sorry they're a bit small but this is the biggest I can make them:

Sharon

Blogger addict

Back again...I've already changed the template, adjusted the font size, read my first comment (thanks Tania!) and am now about to try adding a photo. I'm hooked on blogging!...

...Did it! Here's Caleb and Lachlan with their two best friends - Muffin and Cookie. We are celebrating the dogs 'approximate' birthdays on the weekend with a bone-shaped, beef-flavoured cake - it will even have their names inscribed on the top of it. Can you believe that such things are even available?! Oh, and in case you're interested, Muffin will be 4 and Cookie will be 3...

Sharon

Beginner blogger

I've been wanting to set up a family website for ages but my clever computer-whiz sister, Tania, has just told me about blogspot so...here goes...some trivia from the Townshend's!!

We are currently into week 4 of our long 'summer' break here in Singapore. Lachlan, Caleb and I have been attending summer school at SAS and Darrell has been enjoying staying home, catching up on sleep and study :-) Next Monday the boys and I are off to Australia for nearly 3 weeks while Darrell will stay in Singapore. We're looking forward to catching up with all my family in Canberra, especially our new nephew/cousin, Baxter, whom we haven't met yet!

Will hopefully add photos and more interesting dialogue soon...

Sharon