A new home

Well, we have been apartment hunting and we have found a place to live. Yay, I'm really happy about it. The condo is called Queens and it is right next to a MRT station which is great for me as the MRT is very easy to get on with a pusher. At the moment, we have been staying very close to buses which are great, but the problem is that I often go out with Tara in the baby bjorn and Alex with his monkey backpack (which is a harness). Then 50 metres along the road, Alex says "Mummy pick up?" and so I end up carrying both of them for some of the way, which is quite tiring. I will be very grateful to be near the MRT.

Here is a link to our condo:

http://condo.singaporeexpats.com/condo-details-QUEENS.htm

We have a 3 +1 apartment which means 3 bedrooms + room for a live in helper. A lot of the places we looked at had very dodgy places for the helper to live in, but this one is actually quite nice. It is still small (they all were) but it has a window (a lof of them didn't) and it is quite private - off the kitchen with a separate bathroom.

Our kitchen has an oven (not common in Singapore) and what seemed to be good storage space. The apartment is 1194 square feet (111 square metres) so it is not at all big and we will have to get used to living in a smaller space, but we have done so for the past month and it will be nice to do so with our own furniture. Alex is very excited to get his cot and toys back - he keeps on saying "Alex cot Singapore". The bedrooms are all OK in size - I hope that our bed fits into the master bedroom though - otherwise we will be buying a new one. It's just a bit of a funny configuration but hopefully it will be fine.

The apartment search has been dominating my thoughts this week. It will be great to have this behind us - it feels like the final step in our move here. The lease will begin on September 1st which is Gary's very busy time at work but hopefully we will get a lot of it sorted out during the week and be ready to move properly by the weekend of Sept 5th.

Yesterday, we went for a playdate for Alex. Lance is a month younger than Alex and I was delighted when I saw the smile on his face - he and Lance seem to play very well together and they were happy running around and having a great time. It's something I'm very conscious of - making sure Alex has new friends to play with. He mentions his Adelaide friends a lot and sometimes says "playgroup, kindergym". When we move, I will look into some other activities for him as I think sometimes when we are housebound due to Tara's sleeping, he gets a bit antsy so it will be good to have other things to look forward to.

Tonight, Gary and I are off to dinner at the Fullerton hotel. We are going to "A Peking Duck Extravaganza". It's 7 courses of duck prepared in a number of different ways. Yum! I'm so looking forward to it - but my biggest issue - what to wear? I don't have anything dressy but will venture out of shorts as a concession to the evening. It's Gary's 40th birthday on Sunday. I have a couple of presents for him - this afternoon the kids and I need to go searching for a card and also wrapping paper. As the apartments here provide a cake on birthdays (great result - given we have 2 birthdays in our time here!) this is covered, so I just need to work out what we are doing for the weekend to celebrate too. We are considering going on the Singapore Flyer which is the big observation wheel that goes around Singapore. Apparently great views - but we will get a great view every day in our new home - the agent pointed out that we could see Malaysia on a clear day (our apartment is on the 22nd floor).

Tara is fully crawling and getting into lots of mischief now. I smile everytime I hear Alex say "No Tara, that's Mummy's" or "No Tara, no touching 'puter" We will have to ensure everything is childproofed in our new abode. Tara's eating is also phenomenal now. She is so into food - she protests if her brother is eating and she's not. She is on 3 meals a day now plus snacks and I think the quantity she is eating is around what Alex was eating when he was at least a month older. Hopefully it will continue and she will be a good eater going forward.

Must sign off now as I expect Alex will be waking soon from his sleep. I have put some new photos on facebook but also on this post is a photo taken in the airport courtesy of my brother being there to bid us farewell and a photo taken at Queens Condo when we went to take a look last weekend. Hope everyone has a great weekend.