Good-Bye Singapore - Hello Phuket!

Pretty in Plaid!

"Good-Marnin' Good-Marnin" my family always says.  (No special reason - We just say and do some wierd stuff!)  Anyhow!  Well, today is the day we leave Singapore and head to Phuket Thailand.  Unintentionally, when I had laid out the kids outfits for the morning (marnin') - There was a sea of plaid.  Erica quickly made the observation that she was the ONLY child without plaid shorts and PROMPTLY dug through her suitcase to find something to make her look more like one of "The Fam."  Well, as it goes, we had to "check out" of our hotel a few hours before we actually needed to be at the airport. 

Good-Bye Goodwood Park Hotel

Hmmm...now what shall we do!?  We staged our bags at the hotel and then set off on foot to determine how we wanted to spend our time.

As we walked, we hit the jackpot and found candy canes for Daddy.  No Cheez-Its for Mommy though.  Drat.  Guess I will have to wait and get those when I get home to the US.  (Blessed Day that shall be!)   As we walked, nature called.  (That happens a lot when you've got four kids that never seem to synchronise their bladders to the same elimination schedule!)

It never ceases to crack me up when you find "signs" in the public bathrooms.  Sometimes they are lovely "pictorials" on how to use the "closet"  (see my post from October entitled Toilet Etiquette) other times just a simple note gets the point across.

   Well put.

They've seen the other two Chipmunk movies and were psyched when we told them we had enough time to see Chip-Wrecked!

After heeding the advice written here...

They all jumped in line to take their turn to pose with Alvin, Simone (you'll get that joke it you've seen the movie!) and Theodore. (I think David might be assaulting Alvin...or maybe he's just giving him the Bird!? Hahaha)

The Movie Theatre was into the theme of things, aye?!

TIME TO SHOP!!

Thank You.  I plan to!

Really!?  I Mean...Really!

Maybe they should've posted a sign for this woman that said, "Belts Sold Here"  or how about "Don't Do Crack!"  My poor children had to have their eyes bleached after being eye witnesses to this woman and her thong-tha-thong-thong-thong.  I MEAN REALLY!!!  (But aren't you so proud of me that I walked by her like a champ and got a picture!?  Head facing west.  Arm extended to the east.  Apply steady pressure to the little silver button.  With a click and a flash & the use of my super zoomie lense....I got my photo!)  Instead of being all secret agent I should have just yelled out,  "Hey You!  Yeah, You!  The one with your Keester hanging out - Can ya get your Happy Hiney to say Cheeeeese for me?!"

Break Time

Lunch Time

Merry Christmas!!

It's the little things that mean sooo much!  DD we miss you so!

David's Tree!

From the moment we arrived in Singapore - David was in love with this tree.  Love at first sight.  Whenever we would go whizzing by it in a taxi he would ask, "Please can we take a picture of that tree?!"  SO!  When you've got plenty of time to kill waiting for your flight to depart - You go find that tree by Golly and get him his picture!

Wouldn't ya know it - It rained every afternoon while we were in Singapore.  Not for a long time but when I say it rained...well, that's the understatement of the YEAR (and the Year was almost over...so that's a BIG statement!)  It was a POURING, SOAKING, DRENCHING rain and wouldn't you know that when we were about a two minute walk away from the hotel to collect our suitcases and head to the airport...YEP!  You guessed it - The Heaven's opened and the buckets came rushing down!  Now what?!  There's no way you can make a dash for it even though you can see the hotel right in front of you!  Matt ran into a 7-11 and purchased a big green, orange and white umbrella that said 7-11 all over it!  (Sa-Weet!  Always wanted one of those puppies!) and proceeded to give each and everyone of the kids a piggy back ride up the hill to the hotel.  By the time it was my turn - I opted for no piggy back ride (that mighta just killed the ole boy!) and so I happily hoofed it next to him but that umbrella was showing signs of fatigue now as the rain was starting to seep through the material as well.  The kids were shocked to see I didn't melt in the rain (wicked witch thing, ya know?!)  We went to the bathroom and used the hand dryers to try to dry off our duds a little bit and then we hopped into the taxi and off to the airport we went. 

The kids were all delighted to find these "free" foot massagers in the airport.  Well, as you can see only having two massagers and four children was creating a problem.  Matt and I rose to the occasion and you will witness firsthand some of the BEST parenting on the block.  Yeah.  No.  We sat idly by and acted like maybe we were kinda-sorta-maybe gonna get involved but in all honesty - We just let the chips fall where they may and let the children take matters into their own hands. 

FANTASTIC FOOTAGE!

David bracing himself for a Brotherly Beat-Down!

We all boarded the plane without a hitch but before we even took off - Things took a turn for the worse! :/  Matt, Michael and David were seated together.  The aisle separated us and then me, Rachel & Erica sat together.  David made some comment about not feeling well and without really even giving it a second thought (Kinda like giving out the token band-aid just to pacify a whiner) I opened up a motion-sickness bag and handed it across the aisle to him.  Next thing I know, he's doing the pre-puke-cough.  Hack Hack YACKKKKK!  Oh Gosh!  Luckily, he was a very quiet puker - I slapped Matt on the arm and gave the assertive directional head nod to indicate LOOK DOWN AT DAVID and as I am holding his puke bag I mouth to Matt..."HE'S PUKING!!!"  Matt looks at me in disbelief and says, "Oh my word!   How'd he get a puke bag!"  (Just call me Magical Momma!)  Truly.  It was an act of God b/c I honestly have no legit reason why I passed him that bag.  Thank You Jesus for allowing me to listen to that soft sweet voice in my head that said, "Give the Boy a Barf Bag!"

Not to bog you down into too many of the details - I don't want anybody to find themselves dry heaving as you are reading this!  Haha!  I would say he proceeded to puke no less than another 5 times while on our flight to Phuket.  We had one REAL close call where he told me he wanted to go to the bathroom.  I walked to the back of the plane with him and of course we are greeted by the red OCCUPIED light.  "Oh, Please People!  This kid is going to toss his salad again!"  He's moaning and flops down on the floor.  I'm thinking, "This is it.  Here he goes, again."  Luckily, he made it into the bathroom but within seconds I could here him crying.  I pried open the door and through sobs he managed to tell me, "I pooped my pants!"  "It's okay Son.  It happens to the best of us" ;0) Then I had the delightful feat of trying to wedge my ginormous hide into that wee-little bathroom along with David.  It was a moment I shant soon forget!  He was doing 180's (comin' out both ends)!  One minute he's hugging the bowl the next he's King on the Throne of this little closet! ;0)  My Poor Baby!  When we were finally able to leave the bathroom and made our way back to our seats - Matt looked at me with ghostly eyes and said, "WHAT HAPPENED?!"  To which I replied, "Do you really want to know?!"  "I know it's not good b/c you were back there WAY too long!"  I flatly replied...."We had to leave his underwear behind."  "Ooh!  THAT bad, huh?!"  Yup!  THAT BAD!  Thank God it wasn't a "commando" day or then we really would have been in trouble!

He spent his moments sleeping, then puking, then sleeping, then watching t.v., then puking....It was NUTS!

As we departed the plane Matt and I were snatching up barf bags from the empty rows we passed.  All six of us stopped in the taxi hallway outside of the aircraft to let the other passengers go by while David dry heaved and then hurled into his bag....again!  THANK GOD we grabbed extras bags

 on our way out!

 Late Night Arrival In Phuket

We managed to figure out transportation and switch some of our Singapore $$ into Thai baht & then we were off to the hotel.  David sat on my lap and hurled ONE MORE time into one of those

fabulous-life-saving-airline-bags & then slept the remainder of the 45 minute drive to our hotel. 

Gone-Zo on one of the sofas in the hotel lobby.

I am happy to report that we whisked Little Barf Boy into the shower upon check-in and tucked him snuggly into the extra bed in our room and never heard another peep out of him & most importantly, that was the END of his puking!  PHEW and WELCOME TO PHUKET!