Random Thoughts

A few weeks ago an article came out about the most expensive cities to live in the world. Singapore ranked 10th on this list. The newspapers around here made a big deal out of it at the time, but even then I didn't pay too much attention to it. You would have to be dumb, deaf, and blind not too notice how expensive things are if you live here! As I walked around the grocery store today, I thought to myself "I don't need a stupid list or article to tell me how expensive it is here, I just need my receipts!"

So, to give you an idea, here's a short list of some of the things I buy and how much I pay for them. These prices are in US dollars.

1 gallon of low fat milk $8.50
1 pound lean ground beef $9.24
1 8oz Ribeye Steak $12.34
Small box of Cheerios $8.05
12 pack Diet Coke $6.76
1 can Cinnamon Rolls $9.62
1 pint Dreyers Ice Cream $6.76
1 pint of Haagen-Dazs $10.54
6 pack Miller Lite $15.91
8oz block of Kraft Cheese $9.92
1 lb bag rice $3.40

It's been a while since I've shopped in the US, but I'm sure some of these prices are a little high!
To give you an idea of how expensive it is here in general, the US cities on the list were New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles which were all tied at 23 along with Hamburg. Think of how expensive it is to live in those three cities, and how far ahead of them Singapore ranked!

On another note, the photos from the girls "mini vacation" were uploaded and emailed to me. If you are interested, or just bored you can view them below.

http://www.supercuddles.com/video/lets-wrestle.html
http://www.flickr.com/photos/24531431@N06/3448890019/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/24531431@N06/3449704524/in/photostream/

Over Easter, my sister took her kiddo's in to have their photos taken. Here are a few of my favorites. Dylan (brown hair) is 4, Mathew (the blonde) is 2, and Morgan is 4 months.









I just found out that my sister is getting married when we come home in Aug! Our little trip home is starting to get really busy! We now have a stop in Houston, a wedding and family time in Florida/Alabama, and a wedding in Connecticut! All this to cover in a week and a half! We'll need a vacation after our vacation!

My nursing license FINALLY got approved (again) last week! Woo Hoo! I'm now back to working as a full nurse. So far I'm really enjoying the clinic. The McMillan's arrive in exactly 1 week, and it will be nice to have a touch of home in Singapore.

I'll update everyone on our fun adventures soon!

Krabi, Thailand

The trip we've been awaiting finally arrived! For this trip I found a new place to put the girls and I didn't even cry when I dropped them off! They spent their vacation at a pet sitter, who keeps them at her place. I was so relieved to know that they would not be in a cage all day and it made leaving for the trip that much easier. We had a day visit on Monday to make sure they were okay with the place (and the other dogs) and everything went great. She took some photos and video of them while we were gone, and when she gets them posted I'll post the link as well.

Our trip was off to a great start. The girls were in good hands, and we made it to Krabi with no problems. The car was there to pick us up when we arrived and we were off to our beach resort. It was not until we were filling out the check-in paperwork that I noticed the problem.

When they asked for our flight info to go home I noticed that my flight confirmation said Tuesday May 12th, not Sunday April 12th. I could not believe that I had made a mistake! Out of all the trips I've booked for us not once have I ever gotten a date wrong, for anything! I spent the next hour trying to speak to someone about fixing the date. I ended up paying more for the fix than I did for the original flight. I was so upset with myself that I just knew the trip was ruined! Jamie told me not to worry about it, and that he wasn't upset just as long as we got it fixed. He told me to relax and enjoy the rest of the trip. So, that's what I did.

The place was amazing! I would venture to say that it was one of the best trips we've been on. The resort grounds were very well kept, and the service was impeccable! By dinner time everyone knew our names and we were always addressed as Mr. Richard and Mrs. Erica. The resort had a private beach as well as a restaurant and spa on site. It was so peaceful! We had plans to go on a few trips to the surrounding islands (including the Phi Phi islands where The Beach was filmed) but we liked the resort so much we ended up staying there instead! We ventured out only once and that was to have lunch and do some shopping at Ao Nang Beach.

Most of our time was spent lying on the bean bag pillows and having drinks on the beach but we did make it to the spa for a couples Thai massage. I was SO sad to leave, and can't wait till we visit again! Here are a few photos of out stay, you can see why we loved the place!

Our Villa


The bathroom (This is one of the coolest bathrooms I've ever seen! The bathtub is outdoors and at night you can take a bath under the stars!)


Restaurant in Ao Nang Beach


Jamie on his bean bag! (In Krabi there is a law that states you can not have lounge chairs or umbrellas on the beaches, so our resort got around that by putting out large bean bag pillows to lay out on)


Jamie and I on the beach. If you look at the photo on the right it was taken in the same spot we were that afternoon. You can see how drastic the low tide it!


The gorgeous sunsets with the Hong Islands in the background!


Our last day!

6 Years

On April 5th Jamie and I celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary! Wow, it's been 6 years since I went from Erica Marie Hunter to Erica Marie McMillan!  I was so busy getting everything together for the trip and the dogs settled that I didn't have time to make a post.

Jamie and I have been through so much in the past 6 years it feels like we've been together forever! We've been through 9 moves (including Singapore), buying and selling our first home, my graduation from nursing school, and three major dog illnesses just to list a few of our adventures! It's been all of our adventures that have made us the the couple we are today. We've both grown so much and I can honestly say that neither one of us are the same people we were 6 years ago. If you would have asked me on my wedding day how I thought our lives would play our over the next 5-6 years I would not have been even close. Real life has been so much better than I would have guessed!













Even after these past 6 years I can't imagine anyone else I'd rather go through life with! It's been a great 6 years and I can't wait to see what crazy adventures the next 60 have to offer!