Hurricane Gustav

I just looked at the latest update at 11 pm eastern time, for Hurricane Gustav.


If you will look on the Louisiana map and follow the line along the Louisiana Coast, you will see a small dot of yellow.

Do you see it?

Guess what folks? That, my friends, is Morgan City - Steph's house is in Morgan City, ours just west of it 7 miles in Bayou Vista.

I do know it can and will toggle until it comes in, but damn! They have said Morgan City since it was in Cuba!

This projects it in at 120 mph, catagory 3 - the same catagory as Hurricane Andrew hit us in 1992. We had horrific damage in 1992 - shredded every leaf off the trees, broke them, then leveled them. Houses were torn up or off the foundations, roofs ripped off, flooding, no electric for 5 weeks, water was not safe for 3 weeks.

Please pray for it to loose some punch!
Jeremy and Cheyenne just gave me this link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26295161/
We are right at Atchafalaya Bay in the highway showing - west of Houma.

Keep on praying and blowing. It is not looking good for our area. I am getting off the computer for a while, washing laundry and cleaning. The tv is off... lol... I just can't think about this for a while! haha.

Sentosa Island

This weekend we went to Sentosa Island - finally my tropical paradise! It is very beautiful and we had a wonderful time - I think the best time we have had in years.

We went with friends, Kimberly and Alex. 
 

Kimberly was with us for a while in Tulsa when we did our project up there, but she is from Singapore. She invited us to watch her play volleyball, but she didn't play after we got there :-(

She spent the rest of the entire day making sure we had a wonderful time. She spent her time explaining traditions (I love that I feel free to ask her and she answers), taking us to the fun places and making us laugh.

On the way to Sentosa, we rode a gondola from Singapore. As we came near the island, the Merlion, the symbol of Singapore (half lion / half fish) came into view

We got several shots of it so you could see what it looks like - here is a side view:

and of course one with us in front of it:

We went to see the pink dolphins:

We found where Jeremy got his love of dragons (from his Japan adventure): 

There are dragons everywhere here.

We even went down a luge: 

 
 Oh darn, we didn't get pictures actually coming down - but I promise, even I did it!

We saw sand competitions which we heard were school competitions:

I drank a Tutti Fruiti Drink - yes, it even had rum in it!
 

With a jealous peacock looking on for a treat - he was very patient for over 15 minutes!
 

We saw string competitions:

We saw a beautiful water show:
  

With beautiful women watching over it:
  

And of course it had a beautiful ending:
 

 We finally got to see the real beauty of Singapore:

Thanks for a great day Kimberly and Alex - we had a blast! We are sooo sorry we wore you both out. Next time you should be ready to keep up with the 'old' folks - we think you were not so 'young'!

Notes from Today's Walk...

How confident I am in the electricians in Singapore...


The back side of the same pole - our Condo on the right in the background.

There are thousands of bikes on the island.

Most are not so lucky...

And even less lucky:



and finally, some just make you wonder - and yes it moves daily. The grounds keeper's supplies at a nearby hawker stand:


Everything is recycled. This is the gardener's area around the corner from our condo.

Nearby his transportation and his supplies:He is very friendly. He asked me if I lived in the new condo - I was embarrassed to say yes. He said smiled, bowed his head and went back to work.

This is the transportation some take if they are lucky enough to ride to work:
The dark circle with the 70 means he can go 70k (around 45mph). Trust me he goes faster and often on two wheels. The 13 means he can carry 13 passengers.
13 men in the back, often on two wheels, doing over the 70k suggested - on the same highways the taxi drivers are on.


Hundreds of these on the island, maybe thousands. They are everywhere.

Sobering walk today, but pleasant. Everyone is friendly.

Punkin' is the WINNER :-)

She is the first person I recieved mail from! Do you know how much MAIL means to us?  Really?  I think you have no idea - we need to hear from our family and friends - my biggest fear is we will lose touch with you.  We are so far away from everyone and everything we know and love.





We were so proud to hear from her we posted her pictures on our refrigerator.




 
Here are some close-ups:








Then papa skyped all but one:



Doesn't our little refrigerator look pretty? It does have some bare spots though...


Maybe my grandsons can fill in the empty holes? AND we could get their pictures and letters for our NEXT snail mail!

Chijmes

I was so excited (and yes nervous about not knowing again where I was going) I left early to go to Vivo City Mall and browsed for a few minutes getting oriented. I cannot tell you how huge these malls are! In all my years of going to malls (or trying NOT to go to malls) I have never seen such HUGE ones! Enormous does not even begin to describe them.
Anyway, the shopping person I am, I saw a beautiful scene out a back window I decided to check out. Imagine my surprise when I wandered out into this:

There was a cruise ship with the gondola to Sentosa Island above it: 



 
Do you want to know where all the US train box cars come from?


 
Is this the Merlion I keep hearing about?

 

If so, that thing is HUGE!
 
 
Look at all the building going on - they say Casino's. What a way to mess up a place.

After my adventurous day today, I came home preparing to cook, and a handsome man comes in and says we are going to Chijmes to eat supper with the guys! Go me, I don't have to cook :-)


So we went to the hotel to wait on a couple of guys and I got to look at the moon pie sales area:



Finally, we made it to Chijmes where we ate and the guys are talked about work stuff:



I am in perfect view of our security:


 
Actually someone very important was getting married at the Chijmes Cathedral and every cop in Singapore must have been there - and their metal detectors. It was complete with the paparazzi out side, but I was a little intimidated with my 'tiny' camera and their mighty ones!

 
So I distracted myself and played with my camera:



On the way back to the Grand Plaza Hotel, I couldn't resist taking a few pictures:



And I am going to park my car here why?


This is me trying to convince the guys to break up the party - or rather the conference of the night:

 
Maybe it is actually them trying to get me to leave them alone :-)
"TAXI?"