March - On the move!

March started off with Student-led-conference in Esther's year level. Parents are invited to see their child in the classroom. There are four stations in each classroom and the parents and student get 15 min for each station. The first had to do with spelling/writing, Esther and Katrin had to sort words into groups or had to build sentences using as many words as possible from the pile.
The second station was all about maths. Esther had prepared a game called: "I am... Who is...?", for example: 'I am 25. Who is 4x5?' is one card, the second part is read and then both players have to find the answer-card: 'I am 20.' and then read out the question on that card and so on... After that first Esther and then Katrin did the 'Mad Minute', a sheet of Maths questions had to be answered in one minute or less.
Off to the next table: Storytelling. Esther wrote a story about 'Three Wish Fairytale' called "The Winged Horse" complete with illustrations ;-)

The last station was an interview with Esther's class teacher, who was very happy to have Esther in his class and said she is doing well, settling in and contributing to class. Good to hear, it is difficult to join a class halfway into the school year, even though Singapore has a lot of coming and going. (There seems someone to be moving in or out every week in our condo. Many notices about garage-type of sales.) Esther didn't find it that easy to get into the exciting groups (girls!) but after a birthday party at a water park, where all girls of the class were invited, the ice was broken! Thank God!

cubby house

Sophie is being more and more alert. Her smiles light up her whole face, how wonderful and heartwarming a baby can be!

Mozzie (mosquito) combat Singaporean style:

Every week at least those men go around the complex and fog out the mozzies, Dengue fever is of great concern here, there is even a Dengue-alert-website which issues email-warnings about where the latest cases of Dengue fever have occurred. This fog smells like exhaust-fumes. Once whilst in the pool we were called out because they wanted to fog the vegetation around the pool. Instead of going upstairs we hid in the restroom/sauna area. It took a while for the fumes to disappear and the boys had a great time playing around in the sauna. The sauna had a glass-wall through which Katrin kept watch if it was safe to come out.
The first time we encountered this method we were in our unit, level 7 and suddenly we heard this loud noise as if a big swarm of locust was approaching. Then the fog appeared. It was quite surreal. Now when we hear the swarm of locust we check that all windows are closed, one reason being the fumes the other the aggravated mozzies.


Esther's year level showed off their progress with the string instruments (violin, viola and cello) at a concert, which left us very impressed. They played 6 pieces ('London Bridge is Falling Down', 'Super Trouper' and others) and sounded really good, not like beginners at all. Well done, Esther and class!

Sophie had her first dip in the pool:

The pool is rather cold so she has not been in before, despite the heat. But the children couldn't wait for her to join them. So far she has been in the pool only three times.


One interesting discovery we made is McDonald's delivery their fast food here, for only additional S$2.50! ;-) Singaporeans like spicy food, therefore you have to be careful which tomato sauce you take - normal or chilli tomato sauce. We hadn't seen before the seaweed salt either:

This month saw the three oldest boys on the move all over the world.
Jonas spent two weeks in India with his year level. There they built a road or painted a ward in a hospital or filled sand-bags. Jonas was in the paint crew for the first week and then had to shovel sand during the second week. The hospital was in Mundakkayam, Kerala, India. The children flew into Kochi (on the West coast close to the Southern tip of India) and then took the bus for another two hours to the South-West into the mountains.  Apparently the mattresses were only 1 cm thick, so the boys looked around and found a spare room with more mattresses in it, they all grabbed a few. The meals in the hospital were yummy, but back at their quarters they had meat stew each night (40% bones and 40% fat). Jonas had quite a few funny stories to tell. On the weekends the group did some sightseeing.

Here is Jonas' view in his own words:

My experience in India was very unique. My class and I were shown India how it is today, with a boundary between rich and poor. Although we weren’t in the poorest part of India we definitely weren’t in the richest.
We were divided into two groups, one in Velichyani and the other higher up in the mountains. I was assigned to Velichyani where we were divided yet again into two groups, one working on a road and building a house and the other helping renovate the labour wards in the local hospital. I along with my new friends decided to help in the hospital due to the lack of volunteers.
For the first week there we painted the labour ward and in the second week we shoveled sand into 50Kg bags. On the last day we went to visit some waterfalls, which were located a good 2hr drive away from Cochi airport.
India was a very different experience and I am glad to be at home. It was nevertheless a once in a lifetime experience. It made me grateful for what I have.




A few days after Jonas, Karsten flew to the US on a business trip, he also did some shopping:

The children got new sport shoes and sandals and Esther also received new outfits, beautiful! Karsten resisted the temptation to buy another Apple electronic gadget, but came home with black Apple t-shirts for all including an Apple bodysuit for Sophie (in pink)!






Karsten came home in the middle of the night. Noah was counting down the whole week. The morning after Karsten's arrival, Noah went to check for the daily free newspaper and sat down to 'read' it as he usually does. Karsten came up to him and greeted Noah, who didn't react. Where upon Karsten said "I am back, Noah!", to which Noah replied without looking up "Yes, I saw you!"

Michael and his friend Mika

The day after Karsten arrived, Michael went off to his school camp, 3 nights in a resort in Malaysia (Lanjut Resort, Kuala Rompin, 4-5 hours to the North on the West coast of Malaysia)! He was quite thrilled that he would be sharing his room with his friend Mika. All the other rooms had three students. Wow, what a different world, Karsten and Katrin's Year 5/6 camp was a week in a youth hostel a few hours drive from home away. Well, in a way Michael was also only a few hours drive from home away, but in a resort!!
He had a good time, that's all we got out of him and that he didn't really enjoy the seafood BBQ on the last night. ;-)



We had a few typical German dishes, the German shop receives every Thursday a fresh/frozen delivery from Germany including "Maultaschen". This South-Western speciality is like ravioli, pasta filled with meat or vegetable. Traditional it is cooked in broth. Any left over can be fried in butter, this tastes even better.


The other food item came by post, Karsten's parents send over original Black-forest ham.

To stay with the food theme: The other day we bought a Malaysian watermelon and got a surprise when we cut it open: bright yellow! But it tastes the same as the red ones.

Karsten started to have special nights out with the children, they usually go to the restaurant around the corner and have a cocktail. But sometimes it gets a bit more special like the quick trip to Sentosa Island.

Karsten took David, Noah and Yannic with him to work, they loved it there!

The last week before the holidays, while the older boys were still all over Asia, Esther's year level and the younger ones had project week. They made some great constructions: marble-towers and bridges out of paper/newspaper:

Another project was reproducing Singaporean landmarks out of paper while being inspired by the late Hundertwasser, an Austrian artist, who is well known for the usage of bright colours. Esther's group recreated the Helix-bridge a la Hundertwasser:

Once again we were impressed by the artistic ability and creativity those student displayed.

We ended the month with a visit to the Marina Bay Sands Shoppe, a very posh and new shopping centre opposite the Marina Bay Sands Hotel, which has the amazing pool on the roof top. What money can buy!

We have been there before and shared pictures of the Narnia exhibition. This exhibition was on the grounds of a iceskating rink next to the food court. Now it's back to iceskating rink. Well, it's more a plastic oil skating arena, but works very well. The children had a great time, one hour flew by. Isn't it a convenient concept to keep the children busy exercising while the parents can supervise and enjoy yummy food. 

Ice-princess Esther enjoys herself!

February - Celebrations

 February is the month of celebration for us. It begins with Karsten's father's birthday and ends with Karsten's birthday and in-between it's Valentine's romance. The 22.02. holds special significance for us, 22 years ago we met!
This year Karsten could not attend his father's birthday, he has been the surprise guest a few times before ;-)

Valentine's day we were on the road regarding Sophie's dependent pass, her 'visa' for staying in Singapore. We had 42 days to get the paperwork done: Obtaining her birth certificate and with it her Australian passport and then her Singapore dependent pass ("green card" due to the light green colour). For  that we had to get passport photos done, the Australian High Commission recommended a photo shop and as mentioned earlier they did a great job. It just took time to get the photos back (initially one week, but after Katrin asked it took 'only' 5 days), not like at the post office or Kmart where you get them straight away. Sophie is Australian and German  by descent, her birthplace is Singapore, but she is not Singaporean citizen because we are foreigners, not citizens nor permanent residents. Since we could only apply for the passport after we had her Australian birth certificate this all took time too. So now on Valentine's day we picked up her passport and drove on to the Ministry of Manpower branch. On the second floor were almost hundred people queueing up, but luckily that was for Singaporeans :-) On the next floor were also hundred of people waiting, but the ladies handing out the waiting ticket send us to a booth were we had to wait only a short time. The lady gave Sophie's passport a stamp - in a way proofing her arrival in Singapore like at the airport. Then off we went again, Karsten to work, where he will further the application of her dependent pass, and Katrin with the 4 younger children back home.
After we had left the Australian High Commission Katrin mentioned to the children that we just have been to Australia which let to a discussion regarding citizenship. David explained that when Katrin feeds Sophie, the milk coming from an Australian mum makes Sophie Australian! After a moment of thinking David added, that the left side makes Australian and the right German milk/citizenship!

Another funny comment: Yannic was sitting in the front of a taxi and was curiously looking around. Upon studying the gear shift, he asked if "R" stands for 'racing' ;-)

A few days later Katrin realised after eating ice cream that a part of her tooth is missing. She got a dental appointment the following day. In the GP practice is a dental surgery as well. That's where she went, but was told she hadn't made an appointment, after a moment of confusion the receptionist said there are two other dentists in the centre, one is right next door. So that's where Katrin's tooth was patched up (it cost S$65!), apparently the tooth had a big and old filling, after some time those fillings destabilise the remaining tooth and especially after hot-cold foods (like coffee and ice cream...) the tooth can crack and break. The dentist was were friendly and patiently explained to the boys what he was doing. He had written some booklets for children regarding caring for your teeth. We bought three of his 12 titles which the children read straight away.

Friday afternoon Esther had a friend from school come over. Her parents are from Germany, but they have been living here for many years, Natasha was even born in Singapore. Katrin had a good time chatting to Andrea, Natasha's mum. They have met since for a lovely morning chat. The girls have had a get together a week later as well, at Natasha's place, where Esther enjoyed their dog! When this family rented their current home, the maid came with it, not binding, but it makes life easier for the helper if she can stay. An agency sometimes keeps the helper's salary for three or more months as fee. Some helpers work for many months before they see money. At the moment a new law is being discussed to guarantee them one day off per week! Yes, most helpers work nonstop, they are even not allowed out of the house or are being abused. Some children can't tie their shoe laces or do their hair because the helper does it always. In some families both parents work, so the domestic helper does all the household chores including child minding. But there are also the voices saying domestic helpers earn so much that well educated woman leave their countries to clean for other families.
A feature article in the newspaper reported on families who make do without helpers. The main reason being they want their children to do their share in the household.

Another feature included the cost of weddings: One couple spend S$ 600K, they had an engagement party (theme 'fairytale'), a solemnity ceremony (theme 'Western style wedding') the next day and then a traditional Chinese wedding the day after. In contrast a friend is on a mission trip to another Asian country and reported that A$ 200 gets a child one year schooling. How close together lie those two worlds but on the other side they are aeons apart. We could do so much and often choose only ourselves.

On Saturday Jonas and his class fundraised for their trip to India through car washing at their school. They were not allowed to advertise outside the school community, and even though they raised S$800, mainly through the cake stall ;-)

Jonas has an interesting way with words, that's why he reminds us of a lawyer, he just doesn't say "Yes" or "No", it's either "Maybe" or some other wishy-washy wording. He toped it recently when we asked him if his Spanish tutoring helps for school. His answer in German was: "Ich beginne ein klein bisschen dem Unterricht zu folgen." meaning: "I start to be able to follow the class a little bit." Not sure if he could have been a bit more unprecise?!

Karsten's company has bought two electric cars. Karsten was able to borrow one of them, so Karsten, Katrin and Sophie could do the groceries shopping one night. It's so convenient to have a car and be able to get straight to a shop and straight back without waiting ;-) It's quite a change to go out, since most buses have not enough room for a pram, we carry Sophie and also all the stuff we need like nappies, drink bottles etc. To store all these items in your own car makes life easier. All in all it's a good experience to make do without the luxury of a car, at least we have great public transport and inexpensive taxis here.


 Sunday we finally visited Singapore Zoo.

There are many interesting animals: Have you heard of the Mousedeer? It is neither mouse nor deer, it has no antler, but is rather small in size:

 Or the Pigdeer/Babirusa?

But there were also quite normal animals like White Tigers:

On the picture below you can see a rhino horn, which is made up of hair! There is also an antelope horn, which has a dark colour outer sheath inside is a bone! The next item (yellowish colour) is one elephant tooth - an elephant has four of those. At the bottom of the picture you can see a lion skull.

Karsten holding one elephant tooth!

 Monday marked Karsten's birthday - HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

 And the month almost ended if not for the leap year  with Captain Noah on the hunt - Hunger Games?:

Time flies when you are having fun!

The last two weeks have flown by, but how come, what did we do?
Well, there is work for Karsten, school for the children and Katrin and sleeping, feeding, burping and nappy-filling for the youngest. All that mixed with fun ;-)

We are sad that Katie's time with us has come to an end and she flew back to Australia 10 days ago. We do miss her!  Katie has been a fantastic help, she cooked, cleaned and looked after the children and therefore made our life much easier. Now you probably wonder what Katrin did at all ;-) What a blessing to have had such a godly woman in our midst! THANK YOU!

Jonas has a busy time in school, lots of tests are written, which is quite challenging since he missed the first half of the school year here and most of the test cover this time. An advanced lesson in resilience, endurance and learning to learn. He is walking every day to and from school, with a heavy backpack. We have brought his bike, but he has to cross heavy traffic in front of our condo: Bukit Timah Road is 4 lanes oneway from east to west, then there is a fenced flood water channel and then Dunearn Road (4 lanes oneway from west to east). To cross all those there is one of many overpasses close by with lots of steps, so it's easier to walk than haul the bike plus backpack up and down that overpass.
Yesterday in Sports he jump over 5 m in long jump and ran 9.9 sec over 75 m, not bad for warm up, eh?!
Jonas has made friends here, but also keeps contact via Internet with his friends back home. Just recently he had a Skype session with his grandma in Spain, going over some Spanish questions he had in preparation for the Spanish test. That is multi-cultural globalisation in practice.

Michael has also found friends and goes to school happily. One of his friends, Mika comes also from a German background. For lunch he eats at the school canteen and tries out new tastes, which is brave since he doesn't like hot spicy food and that is one of the most common ingredients here. He loves the tropical fruit and encourages us to buy this or that to try it out. So Katrin googles a lot ;-)
We have discovered quite some tasty new fruit like rose apples (also called plum apple). This native fruit is pear shaped, rose-purple in colour (the darker the colour the sweeter the taste apparently, unripe fruit has bright green colour) and waxy. The core contains of inedible fluff and once we had an inedible seed the size of a cherry tomato, but the skin is edible. The flesh is crisp and watery (similar to a watermelon), so very refreshing and juicy. It tastes like a cross between nashi pear and capsicum, there is a hint of rose water. They are in season now till the June. Rose apples are rich in antioxidants, calcium, fiber, Vitamin A and C. It is regarded as tonic for brain and liver in India - so we bought a few! The fruit is eaten like an apple, but is also served in salads,  pies or made into juice. The court we live in is called Chempaka, the rose apple is also called 'champakka'.

Michael also loves nashi pears, which are available now too. These fruit are shaped like an apple and have an apple like texture, but they are quite watery, which makes them less suitable for baking compared to European pears. They are best eaten raw and taste like a cross between pear and melon. The nashi pear is ripe even though it's firm, but should be handled with care. It can be stored for a while in a cool and dry place. This pear is a great source of fiber and Vitamin C. Nashi pears are the oldest known cultivated pear and a symbols of spring around here.

Esther is settling into school, the teacher said her reading and spelling level is top of class - she loves to read aloud at our nightly Bible reading time with a lot of emphasis on intonation. Last week she had a friend over, they played with Lego for a long time and then hopped into the pool. Next week another friend will come over, Katrin talked with her mum for a while on the phone and learnt that this mum talked to a friend of hers about Esther as in 'a new girl has come into my daughter's class, she has 6 siblings'. To this the friend replied: "I think, they live in our condo, there is a family with 7 children".... We are definitely being watched and it's great to know that God watches over us with love and joy ("The LORD your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing" or in another translation: "Your God is present among you, a strong Warrior there to save you. Happy to have you back, he'll calm you with his love and delight you with his songs. Your God is present among you, a strong Warrior there to save you. Happy to have you back, he'll calm you with his love and delight you with his songs." Zephaniah 3:17)

Esther loves Sophie and is very glad to have a little sister, she enjoys carrying her in the pouch (Baby Bjorn) or just to carry her like that.

Katie doing Maths with the boys (aka baking)

David, Yannic and Noah are at home and settled well into homeschooling routine. It's great to have this opportunity to address minor issues. At the moment David is quite fast with his number facts whereas Yannic is more confident in regard to spelling. The English ABC is a bit confusing regarding the letter name and the sound it makes, especially when it comes to "E", "I" and "U".
Quite often they sit in their room and play with Lego. Noah is very creative when playing, he takes his Lego and uses highly coveted 'Blu tac' to tie the man up or help him to abseil...
We have been to the Science Centre while Katie was still here, in three hours we covered only parts of the first floor and it has 4 floors or even 5 with 1000 interactive displays. They say in their flyer: "Even if you spend a mere 5 minutes on each exhibit, it will still take you at least seven days to see all we have to offer here!". It's fantastic that their family year pass only costs $50, Katrin bought one pass for  herself and the 3 younger children and once we all go we could buy another pass for the rest of the family. The options for the pass included also a pass for 3 adults and 2 children, accommodating the domestic helper. Outside of the centre are some special gardens: Ecogarden, Kinetic Garden and Waterworks. In future we have to bring our togs regardless of where we go, the Jurong Bird Park had a water park included and now the Science Centre too. Both attractions are less than ten minutes apart (by bus). Another good thing is the direct bus connection between our condo and the science centre, it only takes 20 min and all the buses are air conditioned ;-) Outside the Centre is McDonald's, so guess where we had lunch!

The boys cope well without the school social network and take their turns at time alone. But we are all glad that we have a great garden back home and everybody misses their friends, which is good to realise. David and Yannic are asking a few times if they could send an email to their class or to Mrs. Spencer, but look a bit confused when Katrin tells them that Mrs. Spencer is no longer at their school and that their class has moved on to Year 2 and is been reshuffled... I guess it's their first year at school and maybe after Prep they didn't realise the changes over all the novelty of being a big school child in Year 1?





Sophie is doing well, she feeds nicely and sleeps well at night only waking once for a feed. She started to smile, which is greeted by a lot of excitement from the older children.

 Sophie had her first bath, alone in the basin and then just to make sure also with her brothers:

This week we went for Sophie's 1month-check up, she has gained 1kg. Well, as I said she feeds well and still has cubby checks ;-) All is fine.
We also have obtained a certificate stating that Sophie is Australian by descent. Now we have to get an Australian passport, which needs to be stamped by Singaporean authorities (a sign for her entry into the country) and then we can apply for her dependent pass. As foreigners who aren't tourists we need this check card size pass as ID.


All the children love to cuddle her. Noah came a few times shouting "The baby is awake, she wants milk!" because Sophie dared to move or blink in her sleep... He doesn't mind holding her even when she is upset. Yannic also makes sure he get his share of holding and cuddling her, he especially likes to hold her hand. When Katrin feeds her or she is in the pouch Yannic comes and looks for Sophie's hand to hold it.

Chinese New Year lasts for two weeks. The management office of our condo organised a dragon dance group to come and perform. It was interesting to see it from close by. The band makes a lot of noise to scare the evil away. Then two person are under one dragon costume and it looks like hard work for the second person. There were two dragons, I guess it has to do with the balance of Yin and Yang, two is very important. Towards the end of the performance one of the dragons climbed up a pole. First he walked up to the pole then the frontman started to climb up while the second man elegantly slipped away. It was a very artistic climb and when he finally unrolled a scroll written in Chinese (probably: Gong Xi Fa Cai!) a small firework started at the bottom of the pole.
The dragon also gave mandarines to the spectators as well as chocolate coins.

Last Saturday we were treated to a tour of Singapore through Karsten's work. We were driven all over the island and if we hadn't stopped the lady after a few hours we would probably be still driving! She gave us a lot of advice what to buy where or what to visit. Katrin tried to take notes and Karsten changed seats ;-)
In the East there is a huge park (East Coast Park) where you can hire bikes, nothing unusual here, and ride along the coast for miles. The beach is not the nicest, especially not when one is used to the Gold Coast, but another reason not to swim there is the long queue of ships. They line up from Changi in the East all the way to the harbour, tons of container ships. We were told that a ship at the end of the queue will be in and out of Singapore Harbour in 24 hours or less - wow!

We stopped at McDonald to give the children a break from sitting in the minibus. One exit led towards the beach and still inside Maccas we found this 'Feet-washing Point':

Last night, Thursday, we took the children to Marina Bay and watched "Wonder Full", a laser show over the bay. It "uses electric light and laser effects to tell the universal tale of the journey of life" (their website: http://www.marinabaysands.com/Singapore-Entertainment/WonderFull/) accompanied by an orchestral soundtrack. It was very entertaining. For 15 minutes the skyline was the backdrop to a colourful show, when the flame thrower came into action it got really warm, even though we were 30 m (?) away. Afterwards we went into the shopping centre and ate ice cream at Cold Rock, which is next door to an exquisite toy shop. They sell bamboo baby clothes, these are amazingly soft and light, very tempting! But at the moment Sophie has a lot of clothes (THANK YOU for the loving parcels!) and toys ;-)