What a trip!

The McMillan's have come and gone, but we were able to have lots of fun during the time in between! We explored Singapore, headed off to Indonesia in a ferry, then jetted off to Malaysia. It was so good to have a touch of home, even if we didn't leave the Asia Pacific.

We started the trip off by showing them the sites of Singapore. We went to the usual places, China Town, the flyer, Orchard Rd, etc...and a few of our favorite hangout spots!

Hanging out at East Coast Park for some local specialities!

Having a Singapore Sling at the Long Bar (where it was created).

One of our favorite Mexican places Cha Cha Cha.

After showing them the sites of Singapore, our first stop off the island was to another island in Indonesia. We took the 55 minute ferry ride to the island of Bintan. We really didn't know what to expect (since all of the reviews I have heard from others were pretty mixed), but we decided to try it out for ourselves. We rented a private villa that was a stones throw away from the beach and had a private pool. It ended up being a great choice! The view was amazing, and it literally took us 30 seconds to get to the water. Since we were in a villa, we had to option of having someone come in and cook for us. We decided to have them cook the first night. The food was wonderful, and it was nice to sit back and relax while someone else did the cooking and cleaning! The rest of our trip was filled up by a mangrove tour , some shopping, and a little bit of lying around! Here are some photos of our trip to Bintan Island.

Our awesome villa, and view from the top balcony!

Getting ready for our feast, and photo from the mangrove tour.

From there we took the ferry back and hopped on a plane to Kuching, Sarawak; Malaysia. This was by far the best part of the trip! The people were so friendly, and the food and shopping were amazing. I can't wait to go back! I'm already trying to figure out a reason for a weekend trip. Here we went rainforest kayaking and took a sunset cruise. There were so many other things we could have done, if only we had the time!

View from our rooms and photo of hotel from river

The rainforest kayaking was great! It was so peaceful and you couldn't beat the scenery. During the trip we made a stop at one of the villages along the river. The people here were so welcoming and didn't mind showing us how they live. If anything, I think they were excited to show us! Most of the people here are farmers and they sell the items to the city. They farm all types of fruit, black pepper, rice, curry leaves, and they make rubber! They showed us how they dry out the pepper and rice, and what the rubber looks like before it's cut. The little village looks deserted when you first enter, but there are still about 250 people that live there. At one point they had about 700, but most have moved into the city.

Photos of our kayaking adventure! The sign says "Welcome to the village Kampung Danu"


A sign that life does exist! This person is a pepper farmer,you can see it drying out on the deck.

Photo's from the water.

The sunset cruise was a great way to see some of the sites and learn a little bit of history about the city. There are several small villages along the river. The people here are so friendly. They would stand outside and wave to you as you went by! The town was also in the process of getting ready for a festival that's coming up soon. We were told that one of the things they do is a dragon boat race and that a group of kids from each village participates. We were able to see several of them practicing.

A few sunset photos from our cruise.

Here's to the end of a wonderful trip! We had a blast and found a new favorite spot in the process. It was nice to finally have someone to share the experience with!

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!

Update

It's been a little while since I've blogged, but there really hasn't been too much going on. I have semi-started my new job and things are going well so far. Right now I am learning the computer systems, dispensary, etc, until the nursing board gets everything straight with my license and transfers it over to my new employer. Until then, I'm stuck with the basics!

Jamie is also doing well. He has been busy pretty lately, and seems to be enjoying his job more and more. At the moment, he's in the middle of a contract signing and awaiting another bid to be awarded so that they can move on to the next phase of bidding. With these two going on at the same time, he has had to spend some late nights entertaining or making calls after hours. Sometimes that little blackberry annoys the crap out of me, and I envision myself throwing it off of our 25 story balcony! Then I remember that we didn't pay for it, and that he will just get a new one. What would be the point.....right?

On the home front both girls were sick this weekend. On Friday, Budder started having belly issues. Punkin had something similar the day before, but was doing fine then so we thought maybe just a 24hr bug and decided to let it go. On Saturday she started pooping blood, and I don't mean in small amounts (sorry to be so graphic, but I really don't know any other way to put it) so we decided she needed to be taken in. I ended up spending ALL of Saturday afternoon at the vet office. After running some tests they still had no clue what was wrong with her. We thought that maybe it was amoeba again, but nothing on the smear indicated that.

In the end, she was put on antibiotics because of the bleeding, and we were told to return after 5 days if it did not clear up for additional testing. By Monday afternoon there was no sign of blood so I guess the meds are working. Still a little scary not to know what was going on, but we're just thankful she's better!

Then on Sunday while trying to get a treat from Jamie, Punkin jumped up and landed on her right front leg wrong. She couldn't use it for the rest of the day and I was just sure she had fractured it. We decided to wait it out until Monday before I took her in, as this is my accident prone dog and she injures herself quite often. By lunchtime on Monday she was able to walk on it with a slight limp, and by that evening she was completely weight bearing. I don't know what I'm gonna do with these two! They will surly be the death of me, if they don't drive me insane first (....sigh).

On a better note, Jamie and I leave for Krabi in two weeks and two days (but who's really counting?)! For 4 days I plan to do nothing but sit on a beach (including Leo's beach from the movie "The Beach"), shop, and eat! I may even throw in a massage here and there, depending on my free time of course!

Cable Ski 360 - Take 2

This weekend we went back out to the cable ski area. Jamie was so aggravated by his last performance he was determined to do better this time.....and he did! He did so well out there he looked like a pro! I was so excited for him! We went at night this time and there aren't many lights, but I still managed to get a few good photos of him.

Way to go babe!