Aggie Muster

"We gather today, Aggies all, to recall our past, to strengthen our ties, to honor those who have passed before us....We come today to affirm our commitment, our love for this place and all that it represents."

Jack M. Rains, Muster Speaker 1984

Aggies gathered together on June 26,1883 to live over again their college days, the victories and defeats won and lost upon the drill field and in the classroom. By April 21, 1903, this annual gathering evolved into a celebration of Texas' Independence on San Jacinto Day. These early meetings included field games and banquets for Aggies to reflect and celebrate their memories of Aggieland. 'Let every alumni answer a roll call' wrote the former students. It was not until 1922, however, that April 21 became the official day of events for all Aggies, thus, the annual tradition of Muster was born. The March 1923 Texas Aggie urged, 'If there is an A&M man in one-hundred miles of you, you are expected to get together, eat a little, and live over the days you spent at the A&M College of Texas.

Still remembering and honoring the time spent in Aggieland, the tradition of mustering has grown in strength, meaning, and spirit. By 1929, meeting had grown worldwide, and in 1942 Aggie Muster gained international recognition. Twenty-five men, led by General George Moore '08, mustered during the Japanese Siege of the Philippine island of Corregidor. Knowing that Muster might soon be called for them, these Aggies embodied the essence of commitment, dedication, and friendship- the Aggie Spirit. They risked their lives to honor their beliefs and values. That small group of Aggies on an outpost during World War II inspired what has developed into one of our greatest traditions.

Muster is celebrated in more than four-hundred places world wide, with the largest ceremony on the Texas A&M campus in College Station. The ceremony brings together more Aggies, worldwide, on one occasion than any other event.

I just had the pleasure of attending my first Muster outside the great state of Texas. (Unfortunately Matt is in Perth this week so he had to miss out.) I went for 4 years on campus and once while living in the Dallas area but I have to say that my favorite was just here in Singapore. It felt like home more than anything else I've attended on this side of the world! 40-something Aggies met at the bar at the American Club and spent the evening drinking beer, eating great American food, and talking about the things that connect us even though many of us are 10,000 miles from home. Just one more thing to love about Texas A&M and the Aggie Spirit. Gig 'em!

Gone Fishin'

It's always a treat around here to go to McDonald's but now Alex has found a reason to get excited, too! (nevermind that he ate a french fry before I could pry it out of his hand...he can wait a while before that's the reason he wants to get a happy meal) Both boys got balloons last week and have had so much fun playing with them.

Alex will crawl all over the floor after his balloon and Ben was doing the same. I asked Ben to crawl and he was doing the army crawl with just his arms exactly how Alex is doing it.

They were so cute playing together!

Ben imitates everyone! If I'm on the phone, he's on his phone repeating every word. If I'm cooking, he's cooking on his kitchen. If Daddy goes barefoot, Ben goes barefoot. If Alex wears a bib and tears up the train every day, Ben wears a bib and tears up the train.

The highlight of our weekend was a trip to Bottle Tree Village. It's an interesting place where you can fish for prawn, ride paddle boats, drive little remote controlled race cars, or kids can catch tropical fish. It was so much fun that we all had to do it!

Ben caught a few fish right off the bat. These little guys are fast so I was pretty surprised, then I realized he was catching all the dead ones. We told him what a great job he was doing, then quietly threw out the poor goners without him noticing...

Surprisingly, he actually managed to catch several on his own. I forgot to bring a change of clothes for him so we stripped him down because there was no keeping him out of the water.


We finally called it quits when the diaper reached its limit! It must have weighed 5lbs...can you tell?

And here are all the lucky new members of our family. We are getting an aquarium next week so hopefully they can hold out until we get their spacious new home...we've already had several go toward the light but that may have something to do with being netted by a 2-year old!

ESL

It's a (*gasp*) post about something other than the boys! I do get out of the house some and I'm hoping to do a little more now that we have a new maid and she's fantastic with the kids. I started teaching English as a Second Language at church with a friend and it's been a really interesting experience. We have women from Japan, Myanmar, Korea, India, Mongolia, and China. Some of them are expat wives like us, some are here so their kids can attend better schools, and one lady was here as a drummer in a girls' rock band. She unfortunately moved back before I got to see her band perform. It is a lot of fun learning about their cultures and home countries and then explaining things about American culture (since our textbook is from the US) to them during the lessons. Last week we did weather and one of the words was "foggy" and several women had never seen fog so we had to describe it to them. It's just not something you see around the equator. Another week we had to explain prescriptions because in Singapore the doctor's office dispenses the medication when you pay. Really handy. But not helpful to describe to women that have never had to take a piece of paper from the doctor to the pharmacy and had to wait around for their prescription to be filled. They didn't understand why that was necessary and now I really don't either!

Today we had a potluck lunch with most of the ladies. It was a terrific meal because everyone brought something from their home country so we got to enjoy quite a spread of Asian food, from sushi to glutinous rice balls to chapati with chicken curry. And of course one tex-mex dip from yours truly. ESL has been a great opportunity for me to meet some interesting women from across the continent and hopefully do something to help them out.

The ladies are (L to R): Hee Kyung (Korea), Miharu with Mana (Japan), Nu Nu Sein (Myanmar), Poo (India), me, Hisae (Japan), Aimi (Japan), Kaoru (Japan), and Anne the other teacher (US). It's taken me since February to learn and pronounce several of the names!

And I can't have a post without a few pictures of the boys. Alex is still army crawling on his tummy but he gets where he wants to go, no matter how long it takes....meaning he's already into things he shouldn't be touching!

Ben has been having a blast at the pool lately. It's been raining almost every day for the past month so we haven't been swimming much but I'm trying to take advantage of the pool during our last couple of weeks in the condo.

Ben can go all over the pool now with just his floaties so it's finally freed me up to either take Alex for a swim or play with him on the side. Today I never even got in the pool with Ben because he was having so much fun with his friends.

I was just about to return the exersaucer to the friend who was kind enough to loan it to us, but it just became popular again. All it takes is a handful of cereal in the little cup and Alex is occupied for half an hour!

Happy Easter!

We had a wonderful Easter weekend here and hope all our friends and family had a great celebration as well. Matt and I started off with a Good Friday service at church. It was a Tenebrae (Latin for darkness) service with a choir singing, readings from the Passion story of Christ, and progressive darkening of the church to symbolize the fading loyalty of the disciples and friends of Jesus during his trials and the diminishing light of the world as Jesus was departing from it. It ended with Christ's death and the congregation left a dark and silent sanctuary, a very somber evening which made the resurrection celebration Sunday morning even more uplifting.

Good Friday is a national holiday here so Ben had the day off school. We went to Fidgets, a huge indoor playground, where he played for 2 1/2 hours and I finally had to drag him home for naptime. He had the most fun this time in the toddler area playing bumper cars (even though that's not exactly the idea of this car area) with some other kids.

On Saturday morning we took Ben to Sentosa via the monorail for the first time. Ben enjoyed riding the train, especially when it went through the huge construction area of the new theme park. I understand that it's a Universal Studios resort and park that should be completed in 2010, but that's all I know. The huge resort and casino should also be done in 2010 so Singapore will be a pretty exciting place to visit....unless you're Singaporean and you have to pay a $100 fee to gamble in the casino. The government is trying to discourage the locals from gambling too much because they don't want to have problems with addiction.

Once we got to Sentosa, we took the chairlifts up through the jungle.

The view was really nice so one day we may have to ride back down to enjoy this scenery...

...but on this particular day we went to ride down on the luge. Ben isn't quite tall enough to ride alone so he got to take a trip down with each of us.

It was so much fun! We all had a great time cruising down the hill and these little luges can get pretty fast.

Then it was back on the monorail for the trip home.

On Sunday morning we met our good friends Scott and Lou Anne at church and then they took us to the American Club brunch with them. It was a nice brunch with some wonderful food and one special guest! Miss Lou Anne is one of Ben's favorite people so he was on his best behavior the entire time...it may have something to do with the fact that she always brings cookies and he knows to ask for "Miss Lou Anne's cookie" when he wants a treat.

Yesterday afternoon we visited the Diamond family. They were kind enough to include us in their Easter dinner with delicious ham, mashed potatoes, grilled vegetables...good traditional food that we don't eat that often here. Ben and Ainsley are close in age and have so much fun playing together. It's nice because they can totally entertain one another and leave the adults some time to talk or take care of the babies, because the Diamonds have twins Alex's age! The older kids decorated some eggs. There was no egg dye or even plastic eggs to be had on the island this year so everyone had to make do with what they could find. I was surprised that Kim managed to find white eggs to decorate because most local eggs are brown.

Alex and Kara were checking each other out. Kara is crawling so I was hoping Alex would learn some tricks from her.

Ben and Ainsley had a little date at their own table.

Later we all went outside to blow bubbles and let the kids hunt some eggs.

The babies were taking everything in. This group will be pretty wild in a few months, I'm sure!

Ben and Ainsley did a good job finding the eggs and had to collect them in their hands or Ben's favorite shopping bag because there were also no Easter baskets here this year. They didn't seem to mind!

Hi!

At Alex's checkup this week, the doctor asked if he was waving yet. I said no and asked if he should be and the doctor told me that most babies are able by this age. I realized I'd better start waving to the little guy and it only took him a few days to pick it up. Such a precious baby! I'm not sure I'm ready for him to grow up and do these things on his own...

Good Times

These boys keep me on my toes all the time! They're always into something...

Matt was in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam last week for meetings and brought back some fun hats for us. Ben immediately had to check out the entertaining accessory. He's not as obsessed about wearing things these days which is nice because we can leave the house without beads, a hat, and sunglasses most days. Instead he has a brown gift bag with keys and a phone that he carries everywhere like a purse. sigh. It's been very traumatic the past two days because we can't find his phone (my old one from the US) and he won't accept any substitutions.

Alex is just the chowhound, as usual. He's a little tank and needs fuel constantly! He got a great report at his 9 month checkup yesterday:
10.1kg (22lbs 4oz) - 75th percentile
74 cm long (29 inches) - 75th percentile
head circumference 47cm (18.5 inches) - 98th percentile!
The good news at this checkup is that everything grew at the same rate over the last 3 months so the doctor saw no further reason for concern over the big head.

More brother time...only on this day Ben wanted to sit in Alex's chair and wanted Alex to sit in his chair. It lasted just long enough to get a picture and then Ben wanted his chair back! We're definitely going to have to get a second chair.

I also thought it was really cute that Ben wanted to put his kitchen inside the playpen so he and Alex could play together. Once Alex started ripping everything out of it Ben had second thoughts.

Matt, Ben, and I toured Changi Prison Museum over the weekend. Singapore was invaded and occupied by the Japanese during WWII and Changi prison was used as a POW camp for thousands of people from Singapore and surrounding countries. We found it even more interesting because we've been to the POW museum in Kanchanaburi, Thailand, where many of the POWs from Changi were forced to build the railroad to Burma and thousands died. It was pretty heartbreaking to read some of the stories and think of the atrocities that people endured but also inspirational to see how some people clung to hope and to God during their imprisonment. This is a replica of the chapel that some of the men built and the colorful garland hanging inside is actually thousands of origami cranes made by present day Japanese wishing their best to the former inmates.

The walls of another chapel were preserved because of their beautiful murals. One British man did them with paint and billiard chalk and actually came back to Singapore 30 years later to restore them in the museum. Overall it was an interesting museum but I didn't feel like I learned a thorough history of the time. I guess I'll have to do a little reading on my own to fill in the blanks.

The biggest event of the week just happened today. Alex started moving forward! I'm so ready for him to crawl because he's just dying to get moving on his own. As soon as he can coordinate those legs I think he'll be unstoppable.

Brothers

Ben has suddenly taken an interest in Alex. I'm not sure if it's because Alex is a lot more interactive now (especially since he can roam about the house in his walker, meaning he can follow Ben everywhere) or if Ben is imitating the things I do, but either way it's really cute. Ben is quite the cook these days on his little kitchen and he loves to share his creations. Yesterday while I was feeding Alex, Ben came up with some "nuggets" and fed Alex as well. So sweet! He also started making pretend calls to him on his phone and likes to say goodnight. Maybe they really will be friends one of these days.

These two are having so much fun rolling around the house together. I'm not sure which one enjoys it more!

Ben was wearing his hat and asked for a hat for Alex. It says 12-24 months but I'm thinking it's already too tight because it left a red ring when I took it off....Alex has one big head!


This is not a happy face! Alex can scoot all over the living room but hasn't gotten out of the reverse gear yet. Once he discovers his legs can help I think he'll be able to crawl pretty quickly. He was so unhappy to get stuck in the corner.

And he finally just gave up...

After all that work he conked out in the stroller that afternoon. That's a far cry from the tiny baby that used to sleep in the stroller all night! Check out the next picture...

This is just 8 months ago and about 15 pounds ago...That's a preemie outfit!

Both boys were up at the same time yesterday so I let them play in bed together. They both love Ben's bed for different reasons. Ben just loves to have me in there with him, Alex loves to chew on all of Ben's toys. Ben gets so upset because he hates the drool on his toys. Can't say I blame him there.

Alex is such a good-natured little guy. I don't know if it is because he's a second-born or just his personality (or both) but we're so fortunate to have such a sweet, patient baby. He's great to take shopping or to a restaurant because everything entertains him and he loves people. I'm probably a better mom since I have some experience and made plenty of mistakes with Ben, like taking him out to lunch at MY lunchtime instead of HIS. I guess that's one advantage of not being the firstborn.