Housing found, schools narrowed, trip put on hold.......

Our week long house hunting, school hunting trip may be for not. Xerox is digging their heels, I'm sure economy has something to do with it, but we may not be going to Singapore. They strung us through a few glitches while we were over there, so it's not a surprise to get this news after we came home. Time will tell. I have prepared myself for this possibility and we still haven't canceled our June vacation! Just wish we could make plans and get on with whatever is in store.

The trip was hectic but fun. Found some great local eateries and open markets. Talk about warm climate! It's like living in Hawaii but warmer because it's less breezy. You just walk around and sweat. No moisturizer needed. Thank goodness for the afternoon thunderstorms to cool things down. What a great city.....so clean and easy to get around. You wont find any chewing gum, guns or rude people. But it's expensive. Wow. Would love to rent my house out for what prices are in Sing dollars.

Having the girls go to school there would be a dream! To get a global perspective and quality education that is offered in the international schools would be fantastic. We'll keep our fingers crossed.

I'm in a good mood so I'll only vent this one thing. The glitches Xerox has been putting us through is pretty ridiculous especially since this whole process started in early February. You would think they would have had things figured out before sending us over there to look for housing. The faucet has been turned on and off several times in the last week. If we don't go, we're wondering what Rob's job will be???? He already has a replacement!@!

More later......

Mandarin anyone?

Does anyone know anything about Rosetta Stone software for teaching foreign languages? Rob and I are going to take some Mandarin while living in Singapore and wanted to know if this "as seen on TV" kind of product was worth a try.

I'm leaving for Singapore this Friday to join Rob on a house and school hunting trip. This is our 3rd week without Rob and we are ready to have him around the house again. He's been busy this week setting up appointments with schools and securing a car for us for when we move over, perhaps in May.

Parrish seems to be embracing the idea of moving to a foreign country. She is talking about this more and more with her school friends and teachers. Her excitement just might be because I told her there were a lot of swimming pools in Singapore. :)

Things are really moving along and we're getting pretty anxious about the move. We still have a lot of issues to work out with relocation and schooling. Hopefully everything will work out over the next month so we can enjoy our vacation to Hawaii at the end of April. Ahhhhhh........

February?

Where did January go? Usually January is the slow down, catch up time of the year. How did I miss it? I think I might have a clue......

Big news. We're moving! We're going over to live in Singapore for a year and a half starting sometime this Spring......probably May. We're very excited and anxious at the same time. Right about the time we heard this news we had completely demolished our master bath shower. This started one day when Rob went to put something on the soap dispenser and it fell off! We discovered the tile in the shower was glued to drywall and plastic sheeting. Thank goodness no dry rot discovered yet, but what a headache.

For about 10 years Rob and I have tried to think of ways where we could do some expatriate work in some foreign country. Rob has put his name in a hat a few times at work when the possibility came up. Although nothing came of it at the time, some managers remembered this so when the opportunity for going over to Maylasia/Singapore came up, they thought of him first. There is also a big possibility there is contract work for me if I want it. We'll see.

We we're off to Singapore in March for a school and house hunting trip. Rob will be gone the entire month of March and I will join him for the last week. We have very little time to prepare, but we are getting things done. We'll be renting out our house while we're away and will soon be looking to sell a car. Lucy is going to stay with my sister and we know she'll be in great care.

More later.....I need to go pick up Parrish!

Snow update

We woke up to an additional foot of snow this morning. We now have about 18 inches in our yard!

You can tell the difference by looking at the snow level around the mailbox.

Merry Christmas Family and Friends!

As I sit down to type this greeting, I am in awe of the season. Even though all our Christmas parties and gatherings with friends have been mostly canceled, I can't help feel the joy of the season because of what I see outside my window. Parrish, Rob and Lucy (our 10 year old black lab) are outside somewhere sliding down hills and throwing snowballs. I'm here at home while Sabrina takes her nap. Can't wait to join them.

This snow reminds me of Christmastime in Colorado during my childhood. There's just a peace and nostalgia there for me that makes me feel at home. We live on a steep hill which has enticed many kids and adults to sled down this past week. This makes it nice and slick so we have to chain-up just to get out onto our street. However, Rob had a thrill ride one morning when he didn't chain-up and slid down the hill sideways and took out the neighbors mailbox. Good thing they're out of town. Maybe he can get it fixed before they come home.

Our kids:
Parrish has grown into a size 6 already and spends her time teasing her father and showing her little sister how to take things out of peoples' hands. Occasionally she will try to physically pick her up (even though mom says no). But she loves her sister and fortunately they stay in good company with each other. Parrish LOVES kindergarten, but not as much as riding the bus. Playing with friends and pretend play with her ponyville figures are the latest craze. Although we've brought out all Parrish's old toys for Sabrina to play with, she has taken another liking to weebles. After begging mom many times, she finally got to take some dance and swim lessons this past summer. She continued the swim lessons through the Fall and will hopefully pick it up again in the Spring.

Sabrina has learned to hold her own with big sis around. She also has many conversations with us in which we try hard to understand her language. She knows just enough words to get by and keep us all entertained. She extremely affectionate and loves to give bear hugs....the baby version....big squeeze around the neck. I think I could handle that all day long. She has also become quite the fish in water. Mom and Sabrina joined Parrish in the pool last Fall for a class at the same time. Sabrina loves it. Both girls are perma-grin for a straight hour on swim class day.

Rob turned 40 this year. He wants me to tell you all he has managed to stay vibrant and devastatingly handsome. ;) I think he's been watching too many Frank Caliendo impersonations which has distorted his mind. But we love him anyway because he stays employed and helps fund our activities.

Heidi finished up another contract at Xerox this year. Her last day was just in time for the holidays. She has no idea when she'll pick up employment again (working part time is still the goal), but is excited to put in more time volunteering at Parrish's school and hopefully getting the girls out to the ski slopes in 2009.

Our travels this year led us to Montana, Hawaii, Colorado and many wonderful trips to the coast. We will be looking forward to a trip to Mexico (Ixtapa area) this June and hopefully something special for our 10th anniversary in July.

May you enjoy this season with all the warmth and comfort that the holidays bring!
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Love The Noce's

Check out what we were up to later on tonight! It's not very often you can ski right from your front porch!

Cute bum

Yesterday as I was trying to get Sabrina dressed (have you ever tried to snap a onesie while the toddler was crawling away?). As we were pulling shirts out of the drawer, she kept saying "cute". Then she sat down and started playing with the diapers by her dresser. As I was trying to figure out how to get a shirt over her head without her screaming or running away, she surprised me with another word. She pointed to a diaper on the floor and said "bum".

Our latest wanderings

We spent Thanksgiving week at the coast and had such a nice time. We relaxed plenty! Each morning we slept in as late as possible (7:30am with the kids), ate breakfast, slowly cleaned up and pulled ourselves together for an outing, took afternoon naps and stayed up late playing games. I've been feeling under the weather for about 3 weeks now so Rob was kind each morning to let me sleep in about an hour more than the rest.

The weather was nice but very foggy. We hiked a nice trail around Cascade Head (North of Lincoln City) but couldn't see much at the viewpoint. That's ok because Parrish had such a fun time tromping through the mud on the path and asking all sorts of questions like, "why are there trees?", "are we going to get lost?", "why do we have grass?". She's really inquisitive these days. In fact, the other day we were contemplating the meaning of Christmas and she said, "Christmas means carnage". I thought, "how did she come up with that?" Apparently she's watched the movie "Babe" too many times. However, in light of what went on this year on Black Friday, she's not that far off, sadly.

Back to the beach.......we also had Uncle Russ and Aunt Janell with us for half the week. While they were with us, the annual Nelscot Reef tow-in surfing Classic was going on. This event is world renowned and is called 48 hours in advance (read about it here: http://www.nelscottreef.com/). People from Brazil, Hawaii and other parts of the US come here to compete. The past 2 years we have been lucky enough to be at the beach when the event has been called. This year there was a lot of fog so it was hard to see the surfers from the shore. However, there was some burn-off by the afternoon so Russ and Janell watched for awhile. It's amazing the size of these waves. I get scared watching. The winner takes home $7500. Prizes for 2nd and 3rd aren't bad either.

There is always something I forget to take with us to the beach no matter how much we plan. This time it was the camera. I thought Rob packed it, he thought I did....that happens a lot. However here are some photo updates of the girls. Parrish in her usually goofiness and Sabrina showing us a big smile. Life is good. We hope yours is to.