Seattle the Lovely

So I think we'll start at the beginning. Flying in the States is very tedious. I'm not sure we're going to be doing this again. First we have to drive our car to the airport, then park at one of several overnight parking garages. Since we were going to be driving in Seattle, we had to bring both carseats along. So out of our car come two kids (who were not pleased about being woken up from their nap), two carseats and one huge luggage (which was too heavy so we had to pay a surcharge on the flight - $25). Everything and everyone gets loaded into a shuttle bus to the airport. But the LA airport stinks. The layout is lousy, the staff are not helpful, all while we're struggling to manage the two kids and all our stuff. I know the security checks are necessary, but everything's just such a hassle. Everyone has to take their shoes off, all jackets off, all electronic equipment have to come out of our bags. (K wants to me to point out that his pants almost fall off because he has to take his belt off too. So there is he, trying to get the laptop back into his backpack, while keeping his pants on, and struggling with his shoes too. I would be laughing but then again, I'm too busy handling both kids.) Then we wait and wait and wait for our flight on Alaskan Airlines, and eventually we arrive in Seattle an hour behind schedule. A WHOLE HOUR, ok.

The Seattle-Tacoma airport, on the other hand, is much more pleasant. The staff are so much more helpful too. After we had gone through the security checks (on our flight back), one of the staff actually carried our tray of shoes and J's bag over to some seats so that I could get the kids' shoes back on.

Anyway, by the time we landed in Seattle, picked up our rental car, put the carseats in, and the kids too, I was tired out! Thankfully our hotel was just a short drive away, and we got checked in quickly. We could only make it across the road to Denny's for dinner, where J insisted on having breakfast for dinner. Pancakes, scrambled eggs and bacon. Oh well. At least he was smiling.

I love how beautiful Seattle is. We drove on the I-5 very often, to get into downtown Seattle. And here's the view out of the front window of the car.

Lined with green green trees on both sides of the road. Beautiful shades of green: jade, olive, forest. And swirls of clouds in the sky that look like they'd been painted there. I hadn't realised how much I miss the green. It's much more arid and hot here in Claremont, so you see a lot of brown. (Plus, we're in a heatwave right now in Claremont, up to 39 degrees today.)

Seattle Teaser

Hey, all. We got back home to Claremont a couple of hours ago. It's about half past midnight now, both kids are tired out and asleep, and I'm off to bed soon too.

Just a short teaser since I'm really quite tired out and all the photos haven't been uploaded yet. We have more than 80 from our six days there!

Seattle is really really lovely, I lurrrvee it. Such a pretty city.

Unfortunately, we had a tough first three days there because E started teething. She was just cutting one tooth, but it was the most difficult and tedious time with her that we've ever had. She was quite literally crying all the time. She was only ok on Saturday.

Ok, so more details soon!

Oh and Happy (belated) National Day, Singapore! It's the first I've missed and when I wasn't being stressed out by E, I was thinking of and missing y'all back home.

I'm Getting Too Old For This

I came across an ad in a family magazine for the Wiki Waki Funhouse. It's a place with those inflatable bouncing thingies for kids to play on; they usually cater for parties, but a couple of days a week, they open up for drop-ins. So we brought the kids there in the hope of tiring them out some.

Can you see them atop this super steep slide?

Air hockey is super fun! J has pretty good reflexes and can play quite credibly. And he puts both arms in the air and shouts in triumph every time he scores! Quite funny.

Ready for a joust.

Looking for reasons to let us in

We've been attending Baseline Community Church here in Claremont for the last few months, and yesterday, I met someone who was newer in the church than we were! So I thought that was quite a milestone. I've recently been wondering why God directed our steps to this church. In many ways, it's like our home church in Singapore, Changi Baptist Church. It's out of the way, right on the outskirts of Claremont (the property abuts the mountains); apart from a banner on the main road near the church, no one would guess that a church existed on 4552 N. Towne Avenue. It has Baptist affiliations. It has a somewhat tangled history; the current church is the product of a number of mergers and splits in the past, and the most recent merger occurred in 2004. One of the churches that merged to form Baseline in 2004 had a history of pastors resigning fairly soon into their tenures.

But there are also positive similarities. When I first stepped into Baseline in early May, I was struck by how familiar it felt, and I realised it was because of the intimacy of the sanctuary, like CBC's. The congregation felt warm and, for the most part, welcoming (for an exception, see Fiona's earlier post a few months ago). There was a good spread of age groups, though I think, proportionally there are more young adults and young parents than at CBC. The tone of the entire worship service echoed with me too. It was inviting, by no means liturgical but still observant of regular and meaningful patterns, and even though a lot of the music was unfamiliar, it was easy to catch on, and I liked how the great worship team mixed contemporary worship music with older hymns and songs. In His inchoate and intimate way, God connected with my spirit on that first Sunday, and I felt immediately that this was a place where I could learn and grow. I left church that first Sunday with a numinous memory: how wonderful it was that as a Christian, I could slip into a church I had only known about through the Internet and felt immediately as part of God's larger Church here on earth.

*

The sermons over the last few weeks have revolved around the theme, "Life as a Highway". As disciples, we travel on our individual journeys through the challenges and joys of life. And while we journey individually, we also belong to larger communities -- our small groups, our church, and the larger Body of Christ here on earth. Collectively, as we make our small and sometimes painful progress on our journeys, we advance the Kingdom of God here on earth -- often in ways that we do not see immediately. Our smallest decisions count in the eyes of God and the Enemy. What we might think of as a simple act of faithfulness, or honesty, or love, or just habit, could strike deeply into the heart of the Enemy's territory.

*

Last Sunday, the speaker, David Bixby, the Executive VP of Azusa Pacific University and one of the church elders, spoke. He recalled something that he had once heard from Dallas Willard: God stands at the gates of heaven and looks for reasons to let us in. David preached lots of wisdom on Sunday, but this particular thought struck me right between the eyes. So often, we conceive of God in precisely the opposite terms, standing at the gates of heaven looking for reasons to keep people out. Although I might not espouse such a view explicitly, my thoughts and actions demonstrate it all the time. I look for people's faults, instinctively zooming in on one weakness as representative of a person's intentions and true self. I jump to conclusions about people's intentions and actions, quick to ascribe a negative connotation to these. ("Oh, X must surely have an ulterior motive if he's being so thoughtful.")

Left to our own devices, our minds take on an exclusionary perspective; we are the chosen, the good, the ones who are trying hard. Others not in our group are always outside. How deeply these attitudes must pain the Father's great and gracious heart.

I wonder what the Father sees when he looks at each of our hearts. I sometimes think I glimpse a sliver of what He must feel, when I look at my own children. They exhaust us, stretch us, weary us; they make us mad, furious, even incendiary (try telling a whining, crying three-and-a-half year old that he's not going to the toy shop for the twentieth time -- no exaggerations -- and you'll see what I mean). And yet, and yet: When we look into their eyes, we see ourselves. We see a heart and a spirit filled with vitality, with life, with so much hope and potential for growth, for renewal, for blessing. God definitely sees the times we fall and fail, and He must certainly grieve. But He looks into our eyes and hearts, and I hope He sees a desire to press on through this journey, even if we do not know the way.

Afternote:

Off to the Land of McDreamy

We fly up to Seattle Wednesday afternoon!

But first, we have a busy busy Wednesday morning planned. Both J and E have separate activites in the morning. J has gymnastics class; there's supposed to be lots of jumping, bouncing and running around. And I've signed E up for a free trial Gymboree class (also lots of physical activities for her) to see how she'll take to it before committing to proper lessons. We still only have one car, so K will have to do some pretty nifty driving to get us all to where we're supposed to be on time! And after these classes, we'll head off to the airport for our flight.

We're hoping the kids, but J in particular, will be really tired out by all that physical activity. (His afternoon naps are becoming a vague and distant memory. E, on the other hand, actually fell asleep in front of the TV again this afternoon. And not a fell-asleep-sitting-up kind of nap, but a full out lying-down-and-sucking her thumb-on-the-couch nap. She hardly stirred when I carried her to her bed.)

I suspect K and I are the ones who'll be collapsing in exhaustion on the plane though.

How She Loves Bak Kut Teh

E is a HUGE HUGE fan of Chinese soups, if you don't already know. She practically foams at the mouth when we bring out the soup bowls for dinner.

So I made bak kut teh for dinner tonight. And it was a stressful, messy dinner. Near the end E insisted on feeding herself. (Because clearly I wasn't feeding her fast enough.) The mess almost happens in slow motion. I see her spill the soup all over the table, the floor and herself. But I don't know how to stop it.

So then she sees the puddle of soup on the table. Looks so inviting right? So she plonks her hands on it, and pats it on her hair!!?? We can only look at her aghast. Argh. By the way, the part of the carpet that her highchair sits on is now several shades darker than the rest of the carpet, thanks to the drippings of different types of food.

Needless to say, there was a huge cleanup after dinner. Of the dining area, and of E.

Train Heaven, Part Deux

We drove down to the Travel Town Musuem today, the second time in four days! Special reason though: they had a Thomas Play Day today, so there were four big mats laid out on the ground with plenty of train tracks and two Thomas playtables with assorted accessories. You can see that the children were hard at play. There were a few tense moments though - naturally, when there are so many children and only so many toys. But they managed to share or take turns for most of the time.

They played for more than an hour before we managed to get them to leave. We had wanted to check out another railroad musuem next to Travel Town (LA Live Steamers Musuem, which is only open on Sundays), but we got there five minutes too late and they had closed for the day already. J was terribly disappointed! Poor thing. So we have to go another time.

Sunday School today for J, and he remembered what happened last week, because he was quite hesistant about going in. He asked me to let him stay with me in the service today. But after some reassuring, he agreed to go the Sunday School. Thank God, it went ok today and he said he had fun.

Train Heaven

We took the kids to Travel Town Musuem yesterday, located in Griffith Park in LA. We finally found a musuem that J would enjoy. It's basically a collection of vintage trains that have been restored. Quite cool; there are some interesting stories behind some of the coaches they have there. One of the coaches we saw survived a train derailing. Some of the coaches are open for the kids to clamber up into, so they explored a bit.


Unfortunately, J seems to be having a stretch of temper-tantrum-throwing days, so he's been a bit hard to handle lately. Even the trip to Travel Town Musuem was marred by a tantrum. A little tiring for K and I.

Don't Leave Me Out, Daddy!

K was trying to finish up some work for school today when E decided that she wanted to join in too. She somehow managed to worm her way onto his lap and pretended to type on the computer just like her Daddy.


And then she gives me a cheeky smile when I call out to her.

A Visitor

K's friend from his Princeton days visited today, and spent most of the day with us. The kids took to Auntie Janice really well, and were very interested in her gift of two kiddie books to them (one of which was "Green Eggs and Ham"). K and I enjoyed the adult company too! So it was really fun having her with us today.


Just before bedtime this evening, we found High School Musical showing on TV, so we caught the last 45 minutes or so with the kids. And here's what we found out: E is a natural dancer! Every time a song came on, she'd get up to dance: spinning around, waving her arms, trying to snap her fingers to the music (when she heard us doing the same), stomping her little feet. Too cute. J, on the other hand, was sprawled on the floor - too tired to get up because he skipped his nap, although he'd never admit it. (He seems to be outgrowing his naps! I'm so dismayed.)