You want to pray or not?

Every night, after her bedtime stories and before going to bed, Charis will come running to me and ask a very rhetorical question. "Daddy! Come! You want to pray or not?!?" We will always have a time of family prayer.

Recently, she has started to pray for many of her loved ones.... like Asher (to get well soon and play with her), Pastor & Auntie Cecilia, Aunties Rebekah and Angeline (for their babies to be well and be able to play with toys), Uncle Caleb, Auntie Eleanor, Uncle Ben (to be busy(???)), her grandparents, Aunties and Uncles, etc. Although we sometimes don't understand her prayers, we know that God knows.

Link to some photos

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I love my new hair-cut!

TK gave Charis a hair cut when he got back from school. It's the first time we're chopping off her baby hair at the back. She liked her long hair but it was getting tooooo long... almost reaching her waist... so...

Anyway, she liked her new look =) It doesn't look like a lot but it was about 3 inches off!

Dancing in the "rain"

Had an outing with two new friends this morning while TK went to school. First to the library... their collection of children's books is great! Charis loved the story-telling time as well as the books we borrowed. Thereafter, we had a simple picnic lunch (was told to pack peanut-butter jam sandwich, quite an American thing huh) then the children were off to play! It was a rather hot day but they had loads of fun! Don't you wish you could join in the fun...

School Begins!

Today is officially the first day of school for TK. Stress? Anxious? Nervous? Excited? Blur? I would say it's everything, even for me!

A few days back when he went for orientation in school for several hours, Charis and I found ourselves quite alone and not knowing what to do with our time! I kept looking at my clock but time seemed to tick by really slowly. Well, I must say that I'm more prepared today. Both of us went out for a short walk by the pool side before lunch and it was pretty enjoyable. Well, time still passed quite slowly but we were able to relax and take in the cool air and blue sky. We even sat outdoors, under an old oak tree, to read! Something I'll never dream of doing in Singapore... we'll burn. We picked acorns and leaves, beautiful red ones, that have fallen on the ground... signs of the coming autumn.

Just when I began to fret once again about what to do with our time, the telephone rang. Our new friends invited us to join them for a pinic at a park near the university in the evening. I drove! (alone with Charis to fetch TK from school =)) The children had loads of fun eating and playing at the playground after dinner. Although I think TK would have loved to spend the time catching up with his readings, I hope he enjoyed this time too... spending time with us and our friends, enjoying the cool weather and God's wonderful creation! A little time of rest and relaxation would help one journey further and better, wouldn't it? I certainly hope so.

Please pray for added understanding, wisdom, perserverance and joy as he embarks on this journey, of which I can only be a support at the side. As for Charis and myself, pray that we can spend our time fruitfully each and every day.

A home at last!

After all the packing and unsettling over the last few months, we can finally unpack and call a place our home for a while. It's actually quite a comfortable place. It's a 1 bedroom apartment, newly carpetted and re-painted, big enough to fit in a play area with a rather big space for Charis to perform her somersaults! That's a new trick she learnt in Pitts!

Thank God for everything! We know that God has been watching over us and keeping us safe.

1st photo of (some of) us in Pittsburgh

Having lunch at a bagel outlet (Boon Siong said bagels here in Pittsburgh are good - so we must try them out...). Connecting to their free wi-fi and posting the 1st pix of Charis and Elaine.

OIF

Today is our 2nd Sunday in Pittsburgh. I'm starting to miss family and friends at home as the "holiday mood" wears out. However, we're blessed to be able to attend a church, called the Oakland International Fellowship (OIF), on both Sundays. It's a Chinese church and has both Chinese and English services. We, of course, attend the English service, which has a much smaller group. There're also many Singaporeans attending it. The family that has so kindly taken us in for the last 2 weeks attends the church too. The people are friendly and they do make us feel quite welcomed.

I'm glad that Charis gets to attend the Children's Sunday School with many children her age. We told her that she may get to go to school in the US so she has been asking me about school! Well, I meant preschool but for now, I can tell her that she attends school on Sundays! She likes it, especially the art & craft time, but she's really not such an attentive student... she gets distracted by the toys in the room... haha. She's also quite silly, she get her toys or chair taken away... I think she needs to learn some survival skills too!

Generally, Charis has made good progess since we arrived. After getting over the jet lag, she has been eating quite a lot. TK thinks that her face is looking a little rounder =) We've also trained her to seat at the back of the car by herself in the safety seat so that I can eventually take the driver's seat. It seems that she has taken a liking to it... often talking and singing to herself along with the CD that is playing, many times with one leg placed comfortably on the window. She has even fallen asleep in her safety seat a few times!

doing as the locals do

It's a strange feeling... we drive around in our car, go to local supermarkets and malls, live in an apartment, eat in local fast food joints, just like when we were in Singapore (guess, doing what the locals do)... but when we look around us, things are just not the same! Almost everything is in plus size!

Actually, since we arrived, we have not done anything touristy, like visiting the museums, parks or taking photographs. Guess we're too caught up in wanting to find a home to settle down before TK's school term starts. The shopping is mainly to get grocery or find furniture. Well, at least Charis and I visited the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh today, which is next to the Carnegie History Museum and Carnegie Music Hall (erm, for those concert lovers out there, this is not the same famous Carnegie Hall in NYC =P).

I must say that Pittsburgh may not be too difficult to get used to. People are quite friendly, pace is relatively slower and malls are huge with much less crowds. Only problem - they're closed on Sundays and we found ourselves quite bored. Fortunately, Walmart is open 24/7 and near where we will stay... have a feeling it's going to be one of our fav haunts being so Singaporean!

We'll have lots of time to tour Pittsburgh... so we'll take it slow for now...

Finally here...

After so many months of anticipation, we have finally arrived in Pittsburgh! It's quite surreal... I guess the reality of it all hasn't set in fully. "How did we end up here?" was one question we asked ourselves when we first set foot in the country, especially after the "flight adventure" that we experienced =P

Can you believe that the computer system at the LA customs hanged for almost 20 mins?!?! It happened while we were in queue and worried that we may miss our flight. Oh well, it did happen. We actually missed our connecting flight from LA to Pittsburgh... even after running like crazy with 2 trolleys (3 huge luggage bags and 3 carton boxes) and a toddler in tow! At that moment, we felt like refuges. Our hearts dropped when we saw that the counters at the US airways were closed. We were stuck in transit for 24 hours... in LA (you may be thinking that we should have taken the opportunity to tour the place, but our jet lagged bodies were unable to take us anywhere... sigh).

Now, we are thankful that it's OVER! At least, we only missed the flight but not lost one another or our luggages in transit. The real journey has begun!

PS. We will try to put up some photos when things are more settled here. Take care everyone!