First week back in Cali

Here we are, day five back in California. Joel keeps turning to me and saying "can you believe we're back here? I feel like we're on vacation or something." It's true. This has been the easiest landing we've done yet. Due, I expect in equal parts, to knowing the area and being really prepared.

Joel did his first two days of work last week from the Venice office and the studios in Manhattan Beach. The commute to Manhattan Beach is a bit of a pain but the office in Venice is walking distance from where we are staying. 

My mother headed home on Thursday and I had my first ever solo parenting day on Friday. It was fine! Really I was nervous for nothing. Then we had our first ever weekend just the three of us. 

We bought a car! Well almost. We still are in the process of transferring the ownership but we are soon to be the owners of a marvelous road trip vehicle. I can't wait to hit the open road and see the golden state unfurl ahead of us as we blast out of town. 

Austen ready to go to the bank with us in his collared shirt and cardigan

What else have we been doing? Well I hit up a farmers market that popped up across the street from our building last week. It was amazing to get produce that fresh again. We've been eating a ton of Mexican food and I've been out for cheap awesome brunches nearly every day. For our first shopping binge we hit Whole Foods, Anthropologie and Petco all in one night. We followed that up with Target the next day. It's just insane how cheap everything is. We have this urge to shop a lot as if we were just passing through. I have to keep reminding myself that these stores are still going to be there later. 

Wild roses along the Venice canals

Lilies everywhere

On mother's day I just wanted to walk. We put Austen in the stroller and did the Venice boardwalk, 3rd St Promenade and all the way back again along Main Street and Abbott Kinney. The whole way we were treated to clear blue skies, a breeze and clean fresh air. It's hard to describe how it's been to live without clean, cool air for as long as we have. You do get used to the humidity but damn! When you get a fresh lung-ful of this ocean breeze it's euphoric. 

Overheard in our household this week

"I can't sleep, it's too quiet"

"Let Kopi-o under the duvet, his ears are cold"

"Hey, a package of diapers is $11, weren't we paying $35 in Singapore?"

"LA drivers are so skilled and... polite" 

"I keep handing people my credit card with two hands"

"Look at all this food! You could fit a whole Cold Storage just in the produce section"

"Look a crane! Just ONE construction crane on the entire skyline"

"Hear that? No jackhammers"

"Oh yeah. Socks"

Our move from Singapore to LA

I know you’re curious. How did three adults, a cat and an eight week old baby do on this 24 hour odyssey? Overall I’m going to say, it went well. Here’s the story as I remember it in my jetlagged state.

Three packers from Altair Global came on May 6^th and spent 7 hours in our place meticulously making custom boxes to fit all the furniture and bubble wrapping delicate things. The din of all that packing tape was deafening and to add to that our neighbours were jackhammering at the same time. Austen loved it. Our helper arrived in the afternoon to clean and by dinner time all the big stuff was done. To celebrate we headed down to My Thai in Holland Village to spend one last night in our hood.

The next day the 20’ container arrived to take our boxes away. The landlord and agent came by to take the keys and officially transfer the remaining year and a half of our lease to our friend, Stefan. We were extremely lucky to have a really nice landlord and a good friend who was willing to move at just the right time to help up out.

Our final night was spent staying with friends and having a BBQ in the humidity we’d soon find hard to be able to comprehend. 

The travel day began at 1:45am. We left for the airport at 2:15 and were at the check-in desk at 3am. Here we are with three baggage carts, the baby in the stroller and Kopi-o in a carrier at my feet.

Even after checking our bags we still had four pieces of carry-on luggage, the stroller and the cat carrier. Walking through the airports was a gongshow. Kopi-o and Austen were quiet and well behaved except for one time that Austen decided in the middle of the Narita airport that he needed to eat RIGHT NOW and made a wail that pretty much confirmed to passersby that we were actually torturing him. 

Kopi-o at my feet

Austen in his carseat on the plane

Between feeding and changing Austen we also had to try to get Kopi-o to eat and use the litter. We did this by taking him in his carrier into various bathrooms and producing a small tray of his litter and a little travel bowl of food. The whole way there he refused to pee and only ate one bite of his food. It was very frustrating but I can’t say we didn’t try. I think he fared ok though. He never panicked and was very happy when a hand came into his carrier to cuddle up to.

One really funny difference I noted passing from Asia into America is that in Asia people think pets are icky and are all goo-goo eyed over the baby. In the US people think babies are icky and are goo-goo eyed over the cat. Kopi-o is now the number one most celebrated member of our travel party.

So we finally landed in LA and cleared customs. Our first stop was for coffee and then burritos before checking into our serviced apartment. Everyone crashed for five hours while Kopi-o conducted a thorough parameter sweep. After a late dinner out we are now stretched out on the bed playing white noise because it’s too quiet to sleep. We’re also freezing! I somehow never got a chance to finish pulling my winter clothes out to pack so all I have are a few silk sundresses and one thin sweater and it’s 16 degrees at night! Good thing we’ve got plenty of duvets to huddle under tonight. 

That's all for now. We're going to attempt to sleep again and will update the blog as we settle in this new home.

Siem Reap, Cambodia

See the album on Flickr.

We just returned from a 5 day trip to Cambodia. My first trip since New Zealand in November. It was about time! 6 week old Austen was his usual "zen baby" self just cruising along with us.

Pictures are up on Flickr. As always the pics of us are viewable to "friends and family" so make sure you log in and have added me as a friend.

Night Safari

One of our favourite attractions in Singapore is the Night Safari. We took my parents and brother here just a few days before Austen was born. Joel went back yesterday with his co-workers as a team building activity and took our camera to capture some of the wildlife.

The first three weeks

Austen is 21 days days old and growing and changing faster than we could have imagined. He's a strong little guy and can turn himself over and can almost hold his head up already. He's a pretty good sleeper, often passing out for 4-5 hour stretches at night (yay!). Here are a few more pictures from his first weeks.

Week three

Week two

Week one

Moving on

With a mixture of excitement and sadness we are officially announcing our next relocation. Arriving and being an alien in a new land is a big part of the expat experience but so is coping with these bittersweet endings to great adventures. More than anything it's the people we will miss the most. We've built such great friendships in our two years here.

Without further ado, I'll reveal our new location...



Venice Beach, CA!

We used to spend a few months of each year there and feel comfortable with the area. Our families are only going to be a 3 hour little flight away. We're happy to say this is a career centre that works much better for both of us and it will also give us both a chance to get back to working on some side projects that were put on hold while in Singapore.

We think baby Austen is going to be thrilled with his beachside playgrounds and more frequent visits with the grandparents. Kopi-o will eventually forgive us and will hopefully get to play outdoors and hunt something more exciting than tiny ants.

Many of you may have heard through the grapevine that this was in the works but it's taken a very long time to finalize all the details so I'm only getting to announce this 4 and a half weeks before our move! Timing-wise we're right down to the wire. Our visas should be ready in three weeks and Austen should have his passport and Singapore dependent's pass within the next two weeks. He had to get a passport photo when he was four days old! I'm sad that he won't get to have any memory of his life here but he does have a pretty cool birth certificate.

Speaking of Austen, he's been getting some really exciting mail these days and I'm a little worried about anyone mailing stuff beyond this point (mail is very slow getting here). Please contact us for a forwarding address if you are doing any mailing.

It's a boy!

Austen

was born at home in Singapore

on March 14th at 7:03 am

7 pounds 15 ounces, 22 inches

The waiting game continues

I know the hits on our blog right now are primarily to look for baby news so I'll update here. We're sitting comfy at 40 weeks, 4 days and trying not to be insanely anxious to meet this little one.

The really cool news is my parents are now in Bali actually staying in our favourite little Inn and exploring one of the most magical areas of the planet. I'm not sure what date they will fly here but it will likely be next week. If you are Facebook friends with my Dad you can see what they are up to!

My brother is also SE Asia bound and should be flying somewhere over the North Pacific right now en route to Hong Kong where he's staying over for a night and then arriving in Singapore in the wee hours of Sunday morning.

A neighbourhood walk

We sometimes forget we live next to this bustling HDB area with all kinds of hidden local culture. This past week we've been wandering down there for meals. There are some excellent cafes and food stalls we never knew were there. It's also one of the oldest HDBs and the vintage bits and pieces are fun to see. Joel loves the old arcade games and derelict kids rides. There are more from our day of wandering on flickr here.