Happy Birthday EngSoon

We celebrated ES birthday at Sun With Moon @ Central. It's my first time at this particular restuarant so I wasn't too sure what to expect.

We arrived a little after 7pm due to the heavy traffic at Central caused by the many activities being held there. I must say, the variety of food on the menu was rather limited. So I took the Unagi set & Daddy took the Salmon Terriyaki & Chicken set. We also ordered a Tonkatsu Toji for Baby G. Not much pictures as the lighting was quite low & my camera doesn't take well in low lighting (hmmm.. that reminds me, time to upgrade).

Here are some of the pics for that evening.

Kate was showing her sticker book from HKG Disney to us. Though she admitted she didn't quite like the climb of 200+ steps at Lantau Island.

Zac was a little cheeky boy that evening. He kept teasing me by touching my back and then pretended that he didn't. He drew on the paper napkins which I must say, looks really nice. He's got the arty juices in him. By the way, I found out he likes the Taiwan serial "爱" and both Chloe & me tried to get him to sing the song, but he was so shy about it. We must try again harder next time, Chloe.

This is little Ashley, the youngest in the dinner group. She gave me such a sweet smile that I couldn't resist taking this photo of her. I even asked her if she wanted to take a pic and she allowed me to take a 2nd shot of her with her daddy.

My 'new' friend for that night. Most of the time, little Gwyn doesn't give me the time of the day. But that night, I actually managed to play with her and sort of became my friend of the night. See, she even allowed me to snap a shot of her.

The one thing I forgot.... is to take a photo of the birthday boy... opppsss.... anyway, have a great birthday.

San

No more Sun with Moon.

Happy Teachers Day

It's Teachers Day so I decided to give something to the teachers in recognition of their day. I decided to bake cookies... again. Last year I think I gave chocolate cookies, so this year, have to try something different.

Found this receipe (Cheese cookies) on the back of the Corn Flakes box and decided to give it a try. First attempt, failed.. cause the receipe included curry powder and Alex wasn't too keen on spicy-tasting cookies. So I did it a 2nd time but omitting the curry power and I think it fared much better. Made some slight adjustments and 3rd try was much better. It passed both the boys' taste test.

Overheard Baby G talking to his dad :-

Baby G : Daddy, mummy's cookies are nice. U wanna try?

Daddy : I tried them already.

Baby G : When? How come I din see?

Daddy : Earlier on

Baby : Oh, I see. Mmmmmm.. nice.

Of course, not just Mummy did all the work, Baby G also needs to put in some effort too. So in the end, I got him to write all the teachers' names onto the cards. A job well done, don't you think? He did the words all by himself, but of course, I pre-wrote the names on another piece of paper for him to copy.

I did not have time to buy nice bags from Daiso so in the end, had to make do with the normal plastic bags. It's not a beauty, but I think it's the effort that counts. Hope the teachers like it.

San

Baked til almost midnite

Sentosa & Universal Studios

We were supposed to have a trip to Sentosa and visit the Universal Studios since last week. But I was down with a cough & Daddy had to work at the very last minute, so we delayed it til this week. After Baby G's classes & lunch at home, we set off for Sentosa.

It started out sunny, but the moment we exited from KPE, the rains came down hard. We were still contemplating if we should just abandon our plans but Daddy decided to take the risk. We continued on and parked at Beach Station. As it was raining and we can't do much, we decided to have some drinks and wait for the rain to stop.

We got our lucky break and soon the rain stopped to almost just a trickle. We finished our hot chocolate & cake and started on our journey.

-> waiting for our bus

Our frst stop was the bird enclosures where we got up close and personal with a cross-breed macaw. The macaw was really loud and Baby G was really scared. He didn't dare to go near and Daddy had to carry him, even so, he still was very cautious.

<- The closest that Baby G dared to venture

As the next show was another half hour, we took a walk along Palawan Beach and walked the shaky suspension bridge to reach the southern most point of Continental Asia.

The Bird show started and I believe Baby G enjoyed himself so much. I enjoyed the show too and forgotten to take photos of the show. Haha. At the end, they allowed us to get up close to Lucy, the python. I think Baby G was really brave, he asked me if the snake would bite and I told no. Then he slowly put his hand on the snake and rubbed it gently.

After the show, we asked Baby G if he wanted to go to the beach and play. He didn't want to at first, but then he saw so many kids playing around the water features, he relented. In the end, I believe he enjoyed himself so much that he didn't want to leave.

Soon, it was dinner time. We decided to go to Universal Studios as one of my friends told me that it's only $2 per entry after 7pm & you could use the $2 to offset on your dinner. To our surprise, it's $5 per entry and there was only a 20% discount on 2 of the restaurants. Oh well, since we're already here, we might as well go in. As it was almost 8pm, we decided to go for dinner first. Dinner was at Mel's Drive-In which basically was kinda like Billy Bombers concept with it's jukebox & vinyl records & sixties music. It was really crowded and we ended up sharing seats with another couple.

After our tummys were satisfied, we proceeded to walk along the streets of Universal Studio sans the cartoon characters. Daddy's comment "Very small".

We stayed til 10pm for the Pyrotechnics show. Baby G was really scared of the loud noises and kept blaming me for scaring him. He said to me, "I told you I did not want to watch the fireworks, but you didn't listen". He kept repeating this to me while we walked back to the train station. He only stopped when we got to the trains.

<- Some of the stuff I bought.

What a wonderful (though tiring) day.

San

"I like to move it, move it" - Song from Madagascar

Happy Birthday, Daddy!!

The day did not start out great as Daddy's leave was not approved. By a stroke of luck (or miracle), Daddy managed to take the afternoon off to celebrate his special day.

We started with lunch @ Holland Village. It's been quite a while since we last went to Holland Village. Those were in our poly days where we used to hang around that place for drinks or food. We walked to a few restaurants but in the end, we decided on NYDC.



Actually the food was simply so-so, but the ambience more than made up for it. Dinner was at Ding Tai Fung (Bishan Junction 8). This time the food is much, much better. Delicious. Baby G even slurped the xiao long bao's juice and ate it entirely.

Prior to Daddy's actual birthday, both sides of the family also celebrated his birthday on different days.

1st celebration was with his family.

We had fish steamboat dinner @ Delta Industrial area. Service so-so, food overall ok. Although I liked the chicken dish.

After dinner, we went to Great World City for desserts. Ben & Jerrys was the choice & a treat from GuGu.

2nd celebration was with my family.

Dinner was a simple affair. But I bought a cake to celebrate. Baby G commented that Daddy was 2 years old because he had '2' birthday cakes (1 here and 1 at Ben & Jerrys).

Daddy had 2 presents from my parents which Baby G helped him to open. It seemed like it was Baby G's birthday instead.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DADDY!

San

Happy Birthday Alan, Alex & Chloe

On Saturday, PH & VT invited us over to their place for a gathering-cum-birthday celebration for the 3 July babies. It was a pot luck arrangement & there were lots & lots of yummy food.

Some of the contributions (sorry if I missed anyone/anything out) :-

(1) AY / H => wine / cheese / pie kia

(2) BT / AK => Old Chang Kee

(3) DY / SL => Cake

(4) ET => Pizza

(5) ES / YP => Tidbits

(6) BL / PT => mashed potatoes / salad

(7) VT / PH => cod fish, prawns, chicken, siew mai

(8) AT / SL => homemade barley / chrysantemum drinks

The children enjoyed themselves very much, they were running up and down the place, playing hide-and-seek. It wasn't even necessary to provide toys for them. Initially PH was worried that her place is not child-friendly (i.e. no toys), but in the end, I think the children enjoyed it even more given the amount of space that they were allowed to run freely. If all else fails, there's always the i-Phone to keep them busy. Gwyn even asked PH if she could borrow her i-Phone to play. Such is the lure of the i-Phone.

Soon, it was cake-cutting time... the children were the most excited. All wanted to be the one to blow the candles.

It's very rare for us to actually be able to have a group photo. This is one of the rare yet precious photos.

Thanks to VT & PH for their wonderful hospitality.

San

Still flushed from the wine... heehee

Singapore Flyer

On Sat, Shu Shu had 5 free passes to the Singapore Flyer, so we all decided to make a trip down. Also since Shu Shu has not been there before.

That day also happened to be the NDP & YOG rehersals, so we got quite an eyeful of the activities. We even managed to catch the fighter jets fly past & even the helicopters carrying our flag. Baby G was very excited to see the planes.

After the ride, we walked down to Marina Square for our dinner & to celebrate YeePo's birthday. Dinner was at Pu Tien. Food was not bad, we enjoyed ourselves.

Goodbye Flyer, hope to see you soon.....

San

Our Day Off

Baby G's school was closed on Friday for their teacher's retreat so both Daddy & me took a day off to spend some quality family time together.

We went to the Jalan Sultan Prawn noodles near Kallang for our breakfast. It's been a long time since we last went there for a meal. As it was still pretty early, there were only a few customers there. Verdict : Standard of food dipped, but atmosphere was wonderful because of the rain that cooled us down.

After our lunch, we drove down to Marina Bay Sands. We did not actually park there due to the outrageous parking charges, but parked at Marina Square instead. We took a long walk over to MBS. The place is not fully completed, there were lots of shops that were either empty or still under construction.

We had lunch at Macdonalds @ Kallang cause I wanted to continue with my Coke glass collection. Baby G surprised us by finishing up the entire Fillet-O-Fish on his own, so I ended up with the fries as my lunch.

After lunch, we decided to drop by City Square Mall near Farrer Park MRT. It was practically deserted. Good too, cause we managed to rent a Kiddy car for Baby G. I must say, he was the envy of any kid who saw him in the car.

It was definitely a relaxing day for us and the most important was having the opportunity to spend quality family time together.

San

Enjoyed herself tremendously