Botanical and Orchid Gardens

I love this picture of Grandma! She didn't know I was taking it, so I captured a perfect in-the-moment-happy-genuine-smile :)

China Town. We sat down for lunch just as it started to rain. By the time we were done with lunch, the rain had stopped and I was ready to continue my shopping spree!

Orchid Gardens. We just happened to be close to shelter when it started pouring. We just waited a little while for it to stop before we continued on. It actually rained a lot while I was there, but never for very long.

I took tons and tons of pictures of the plants and flowers because everything was so beautiful, but this is my favorite picture. This little patch of flowers was hidden up behind a tree and other things, but I was able to capture it perfectly :)

Malaysia and Singapore Trip

I'm trying to figure out how to post on this thing, so here goes. Above is Grandma with just a few of the beautiful orchids we saw at the Orchid Gardens.

When we were at the Botanical Gardens, we loved to see the wildlife, especially all the turtles swimming in Swan Lake.

I TRIED DURIAN! Look it up and you'll understand why it's a big deal. Also search for it in youtube with Fear Factor and the Today Show. It's a big deal. I tried to just use my fingers to eat it, but the texture was so wrong I had to use a fork.

Grandma and I posing by a banana tree with a big blossom on the end. Although they were all over, Grandpa and I still really enjoyed finding the little bananas on them.

Super cute little kids. I never even learned the names of these ones. The parents just wanted pictures of their kids with me so little kids were just shoved in my arms this night. I was just as popular as Santa Claus or maybe more. Although if they told me what they wanted for Christmas they probably wouldn't get it seeing as I couldn't understand a word they said ha.

Christmas in Astoria

Here are just few pics of our Christmas in Astoria. We have had so much fun here. It is always great to see family & friends. Plus, it was great having Buffy, Austin, Tyler & Kai join us for a couple of days.


Here we all are at the beach. It was rainy and cold...so...we didn't stay long.


On the way back from the beach Kai rode with us. I love Kai's face here.


My mom has a plethora of holiday head pieces.


On Christmas Eve my whole family came over for breakfast. In this pic is my cousin Billy and Tyler, Kai & Mason. The four of them had fun in the backyard.

Old brother Lucy...

I think the pictures says it all:

Thanksgiving and Lanterns

Here are the lanterns Danna Lee and Adam brought
back from Thailand. It was a very cold Thanksgiving night.

Curt's first date. Ryan let him borrow the Peter Pan costume.

We are in a young couples ward here in Logan, so we had a Halloween party the Friday before Halloween. We went as Peter Pan and Tinkerbell. Make fun of us all you want, but we had a lot of fun! :)

We got everything from the DI except the wings and Ryan's sword. Oh, and I made his hat from felt

He has a feather in his hat but you can't see it

This is our niece, Lily. She is almost 3 months and they dressed her up as a spider for Halloween. She is the first child, and first grand-baby on both sides, so is very spoiled. A lot of the spoiling coming from Me and Ryan.

Our pumpkins that we carved with Brett and Shanelle. (Ryan's other brother and sister in law)

Cuttin' Wood

you will need to start at the bottom of this post. I just can't go backwards, and I don't know how to change it to different way. Sorry, not very savey!!!

Last soccer game

So I've never posted before, and I have a couple posts to do so hopefully I don't mess everything up. But this is Jo-Jo and Dayne's last soccer game. It was while my parents were in Singapore so I thought I'd post a few pics for them to see. It was so fun to watch their games.

I thought his face in this one was so funny! I think he kept trying to show off for me and Ryan since we don't usually get to see their games. He also seemed to notice every time I had my camera up.

I like this one because Jo isn't even worried about the ball, he just wanted to kick the kid down.

They both got medals at the end of their games, which they wore all day, even to the primary program rehearsal.

It was harder to get pictures of Dayne, he was always by the ball, which means he was always surrounded by at least 5 or 6 kids.

Jo-Jo played really great. Their team only had one sub, so he played a lot and ended the game sweaty and red-faced.

Halloween with Carter and Cambri.

Dayne would not touch the pumpkin!!!

Had to throw these pictures in for mom. Chandra and Jo Jo loved doing pumpkins, but I told Dayne he had to clean his out and you can see his reaction.

We brought these bath robes and slippers for all the girl's from Maylasia. Juliann and Ashley each got a very colorful watch, and Chandra got that china doll. Jo Jo got a little hand held video game. By the way, we never saw another american in Maylasia or Singapore. Other than the mission home and the missionaries.

More amazing buildings in Singapore! We can't thank Mom and Dad enough for the wonderful trip! After visiting Mayalsia, Jeff and I both agree that we would have paid ourselves to go there. Can't describe the wonderful saints that are there. The church is sooo young and new, but the people are trying and I can't imagine the life changes they make. The best part for us was meeting the members of the church. It's a memory I will have forever with Mom and Dad. Some of the sibblings can't make it, and that's Ok. I don't want anyone to feel bad, but I wanted you see a little of what we saw and felt.

Aqaurium

This was at an aquarium place. These sting rays were huge! Bigger that I've ever seen! you could pet them. I chose not to. they flipped water on you when you got close, because people were feeding them as they came up.

This was a ship/boat on the ocean. My camera was zoomed all the way. It was clear out there.

Thought this was interesting! Mom and Dad

on the side. Poor Dad sick, and walking all over with us.

More buildings in Singapore

This building in Singapore had a replica of a ship built on top. You can go to the top but it cost $25 a person, so opted out of that one. If anybody else goes up, take pictures for us. Very tall!

We went the The Lion King in the theatre right across from this building. By far, the most amazing production I've ever been to! Loved it!

Bird zoo

Bird zoo

While at the bird zoo, it rained. Came down hard for a few minutes. Can you see the rain coming off teh tent?

Bird zoo

This was at the bird zoo thing. I'm not sure what to call it. We thought it was well worth the money. Dad was sick and didn't go. Anybody else goes, take Dad.

In Singapore at the night safari. It opened at dark and had lights shining on the animals. Interseting place!

Mom and Dad have told us about the motorcycles, but it was amazing to see them zipping in and out of traffic for ourselves. If I were to ever drive, I would never change lanes!!! (Therefore I would never drive)

This was typical scenery on the way to Singapore

Some shops in Maylasia where we bougth a few souveniers

This is Fifi's cousin. In the background is an Aunt boucing a baby in that sling thing. All the homes have these screwed into the ceiling, and that's where the baby sleeps.

This is Fifi, and her grandpa. The whole family lives in this house. I can't remember, but it's like 15 to 20 people. Tiny house! The missionaries were always where we were. It's a good thing because they interpreted. They rode there bikes though, and I can't imagine riding bikes in that humidity and heat.

A restraunt in Mayalsia by the ocean. You pick things out of these bins (They are alive) then they cook them for you. We never actually ate here, because there wasn't time. Everybody in the branch kept calling mom and dad for us to come eat with them. We ate a couple times with members, but just didn't have time to go everywhere. Mom kept telling them that her other children were coming and they could eat dinner with them. Jeff and I really wished we had stayed another day in Maylasia instead of Singapore. We liked Singapore, but loved visiting the people and seeing their homes and families. Singapore is like most huge cities, but Malaysia is like nothing we've seen before.

These are the little shops. Everything is hooked together.

A little street eatery. You pick what you want to eat from the little round bowls you see on the table. Then they stack your bowls and put them in boiling water. I thought is was yummy. Never knew what I was eating, but it tasted great!

Party after seminary at Mom and Dad's. I think the kids liked playing rummikub. Jeff and I tried to stay awake on the couch while watching them play. They all spoke English. The girl closest to the camera was a sweet heart. Very nice manners, and probably will visit America someday.

These are really nice homes in Mayalsia. All the homes like this are hooked together. There is no place for children to play. Behind the gates is where their car is parked. the children play in the very narrow streets. this was during the day so the people are at work and no cars are home. This was just a neighborhood we drove through. You can see 3 different homes in this one picture. Like I said, these are extremely nice for maylasia.

This is the Singapore airport. nobody was there because it was 2 or 3 am. I can't remember the exact time. It was so nice to walk to a glass wall and see mom and dad on the other side. Big hugs, and a relief to be there. Singapore is so modern, and beautiful. Nothing like Mayalsia!

The walls in the airport were total glass. It's too bad it wasn't day so we could have seen more. Don't ask me what time it was, because I have no idea?

These beautiful flowers were all over in the Korea airport.

We flew to Korea, but it was the weirdest thing. Korea is 6 hours from Singapore. We landed just long enough to get off the airplane with all our carry on luggage, go through security in the airport, then get back on the airplane. We did pick up new passangers, but I can't understand why we had to go through security with all our stuff, to just get right back on. Weird! It was nice to walk and get a cool picture of the Korea sign.

I haven't written about Singapore yet, and I keep needing to, but with jet lag and Halloween it's been difficult. The jet lag when we went to Singapore was pretty minimal, but coming home was much harder! This is the airplane we flew on from San Francisco, to Korea, to Singapore. It was huge, a 777, or something like that (?). I can't even begin to tell you about the airplane experience! Long, but amazing. Singapore Air was incredible. They brought us pillows, blankets, hot wash clothes, toothbrushes, ice cream, candy bars, the most delicious hot food, including appetizers, drinks every 10-15 minutes, and many, many snacks. They had about 20 new release movies you could watch, audio books, all kinds of video games (I played tetrus a lot), and none of this costs. We were on airplanes for over 19 hours, but it really wasn't that bad. We flew economy, but I can't imagine what 1st class was like.