A look back

Sorry I haven’t posted in a while. In fact I was looking through my photos and I have absolutely nothing new to post. So until I have something new, and I promise that that will be soon, let’s take a trip down memory lane with some of my favorite posts on Sawin.com

Sawin.com started in 1998. As young programmer, I’d like to think I was at the forefront of the Internet and “blogging” with the introduction Sawin.com (link). You notice the layout… feels pretty blog-like huh? One of my favorite pictures on that site was the picture from when we went as the Village People on the Halloween Pub Crawl (link). Seems that Halloween is a theme as this was the first post after I moved over to Blogger in 2002 (link). I was Emeril Lagasse.

Love this post of Grace in 2004 in front of the Children’s Museum in Chicago (link). And the record for the most posts in a month on Sawin.com is 14 in December 2004 (link). And one of the most talked about posts was from the “Tower of Tonkatsu” post in 2005 (link). I still love the post when Jean went to the Watson’s Water Tennis event in Hong Kong and ended up on ESPN.com behind Serena Williams and Kim Clijsters (link). And the one of me playing cricket for the first time (link).

Too funny. Here is a post from 2006. My first trip to Singapore to play a friendly Hockey match (link). Who woulda thought we’d move here. Here is probably one of my longest posts about our trip to Macau for our 7th Wedding Anniversary (link). And you can’t get a cuter picture than this. Grace holding Riley right after she was born (link). I love the pics and video of the elephant ride in Phuket, Thailand (link). Speaking of Thailand, I enjoyed my longest birthday starting in Pattya (link).

And who can forget Riley’s First Birthday (link). One of my favorite posts was from a Christmas Holiday Down Under (link). One of my favorite pics of all time is from Chinese New Years last year (link).

Anyway, enough of me flipping back through some old posts. Time for new posts. I’ll get right on it.

USA Holiday

Riley’s Baptism

Yesterday, we went to Grandpa and Grandma’s Community Church and Riley got baptized. Both girls did really great and Pastor Jim was awesome.

First Snow

After 27 1/2 hours of travel which involved trains, planes and automobiles, we made it the USA! Upon arrival, Grace and Riley were excited at all of the presents that Grandpa, Grandma, Aunt and Uncle Carlson had for them. Santa was also nice enough to stop off in Kalamazoo. The first full day here, there was still snow on the ground. Riley got to experience her first exposure to real snow.

Little Turkey

I took Grace and Riley for their first time bowling last week. They just refurbished the lanes at The American Club. It took about 5 minutes for the ball to reach pins on each roll. We made it through 5 frames though!

Pajama Party

Jean had a great idea to buy a special pair of Christmas pajamas each year. The tradition has continued the past 5 years.

Christmas a Day Early

Since we are heading to the USA tomorrow morning (Christmas morning), Santa was nice enough to come to Singapore a day early before we headed out. The girls got up early excited to see what Santa brought them. We followed up present opening with the traditional breakfast consisting of breakfast burritos and Buck’s Fizz. Check out the pics.

Thanksgiving 2008

We had a great Thanksgiving dinner this year. We had some English/Scottish friends over who wanted to see what Thanksgiving was about. They quickly learned it was basically about hanging out and eating some food. They brought a British flair to it as we spent the rest of the night, after the kids went to bed, drinking beer and wine. Grace helped Jean make an awesome cake. Check out that expression on Riley.

Schools Out

Grace’s school had their Christmas Concert last week. The theme of the show was “Education Rocks” and each grade did a number. Check out the Kindi 1 Rockers with their rendition of Alice Cooper’s “Schools Out”. Pay special attention to the Hula Hoop skills. Amazing. (p.s. Grace is wearing the purple bandanna.)

Palm Trees and Polar Bears

Since it is November and still 87-degrees here, The Sawin Family headed to Snow City for some indoor winter fun. The girls loved sledding on some innertubes. This was the first time Riley has ever seen snow. It was pretty cool. We’ll have to go again to help prepare us for our trip home over Christmas.