We have a house!!!!!

It is official!  As hoped, we officially took possession of our new home this past Thursday.  All went extremely well and was smoother than I could have hoped for.

Polo field outside our living room

I think all of us were excited to be able to check out of the temporary apartment Thursday morning and load our things into a 13 passenger van that transported us to our new home. We had done the takeover and key possession Wednesday night so this allowed us to walk straight in the door on Thursday morning and start the settling in process.

Thursday was really just a blur of deliveries and keeping Halie entertained.  The sea shipments were delivered at the exact time our rental furniture arrived so for about 2 hours the place was chaos.  This did allow us to have the rest of the day to quietly unwind and unpack. 

I returned to work on Friday and John handled the delivery of the TV and TV/internet installs with Dannette and Halie.

Saturday was an interestingly long day as we went to IKEA to try and do one bulk shopping trip of all the things we needed to purchase.  It took over 4 hours and we were all exhausted by the time we got home.  The worst part about that trip was that we had so much stuff, the cashier kept getting confused on what he had scanned and we ended up having to be checked out three times!  To make it almost comical at that point, we then rolled the three very large carts over to the delivery company that delivers for IKEA and they had to re-key every item as well to ensure it was all accounted for.  Thanks goodness for delivery and assembly services.  After all that it will only cost us $75 for the complete delivery and assembly of the four large items we purchased!  Some times there really are bargains to be had in Singapore!!!!

Eating dinner at home.  The wall of doors opens up to allow the outside in!

Sunday was very laid back.  Dannette, Halie and I went to explore the local shopping mall and John had some time alone to relax in the house.  All in all, a very nice weekend.  It really is great to see our things again and we are all enjoying the space.  Best of all, we are ecstatic to be able to cook for ourselves again and have eaten dinner at home every night for four nights!  Groceries are extremely pricey here so we will likely need to start mixing home cooked dinner nights with eating out as eating the local cuisine is far cheaper than purchasing food at the grocery stores.  I learned that the reason its so cheap to eat out here is that all of the local restaurants receive a food subsidy from the government which allows it to be so cheap.  This of course does not include any Western chains etc.  From the positive side, this will force us to get more adventurous and likely we will find some places that we would never have tried and will love them!

We officially have confirmation of our first visitors!  I am so excited that Dan and Anna are going to come stay with us for a few days at the beginning of January as they will be in the Phillipines.
Dannette is back to school day after her 10 day fall break and things are going well.  She went to a friends house last week for the day and is having a friend over this Saturday.  Halie is doing fabulously.  Since the move she is quite enjoying having so much space to explore.

Work is going well.  I will be heading to Germany for a week in November.  This will likely be my only trip this year unless something unforeseen comes up.  Next year will be packed with trips I am sure as the offices in Egypt and Saudi Arabia are quite keen for me to come and assist.  I do not have firm dates yet but I do know that I will be going to South Africa with my team in January or early February! I am quite looking forward to that. 

Now that we are moved in our next task is finding a helper. In Singapore it is quite common, to have full time help at home. Few families don't have help. All homes and apartments are fitted with a helpers room and bathroom.  We have started working with an agency and should be interviewing this coming weekend.  I want to get her selected and started before my trip to Germany so that John has help.  For interest sake, I thought I would give you an idea of how much work the helpers are expected to do here for little money.  To start with, helpers are only guaranteed one day of per month by the government, most families give their helper every Sunday and Public Holiday off.  They live in, so you provide them food (from what I have been told by others, most help only requests rice!) and a place to live as well as one trip home to the Phillipines each year.  Over 80% of the helpers are from the Phillipines (only four countries are legally allowed to work here as domestic help) and the vast majority of them have children at home that are being cared for by others so that they can come here to earn a living.  Earning a living to them amounts to approximately $300 USD/month!!! That is like a car payment for us in the US.  I am grateful that it is so affordable though as it will give us the time to really enjoy our time here and not have to focus on laundry, cooking, cleaning and all the other little details taking care of a house requires.

Well that's all for now.  We enjoy hearing from all of you so please leave a comment to let us know that you are reading : )