Time to cease operation?

I've so many things I wanted to blog but I am getting lazier. I do not like my blog to have full of paragraphs but no pictures. Pictures speak a thousand words. However the thought of selecting and resizing the photos puts me off.

I do not like to see my blog stuck at an entry for many months with no new updates but once I start to type, it will end up in draft for few weeks till I come back and post it.

I have been blogging since Jan 2005 with a total of 238 entries. Include this will be 239.

Now we have facebook, twitter, 4square to keep my friends updated of me. Do I still need to blog?

Maybe blog #240 will be the announcement of removing this link until I get back to the mood and blog again....Let's see.

Sent from iphone email.

Sunday Dayout - 24/10/10

Again, we went back on Saturday to my mum's house so Sunday was a free day for ourselves. After the last session of kite flying at Marina Barrage, I decided to buy a better kite because the one we had now is not good for flying. :(

Coincidently, there was a BP selling kite in the SMH forum. I quickly placed my order. After 2weeks, the kite finally can collect. In the morning, Hui went to Tampines Mrt to collect the kite from the seller. We can't wait to fly our new kite! Hence today's activity was decided. FLY KITE!

Intitally had wanted to go Marina Barrage again but sky started to turn dark. Therefore we stayed at home and wait till the rain stopped. By the time we could leave house, it was already 4+pm. Venue was then changed to Sengkang open field for the kite flying session.

The grass were quite wet due to the rain. But luckily we were all prepared! We brought a mat along and a inflatable ball for the girls to play. However, we missed out the bubbles!! Arghh...

Our new kite was so much better than the previous. Without much effort, the kite was flying up, Up and UP! From a big big size that we could see with our eyes, to a teeny weeny one high above us. It was so much fun and the girls got so excited when they saw the kite flying higher and higher.

Our new Angelfish kite!
(Hui chosen this pattern while I choose the color)
Mummy flying kite with the girls.
Kite comes together with the red reel at additional $5.
Chloe kept pointing to the kite as it gets higher & higher.
About 6pm, we decided to pack up and head for dinner. Dinner was at Changi Airport T3. While waiting for Hui's sisters and BILs to arrive, we let the girls had some enjoyment again.
A mini cars amusement park located at B2 carpark
This ride cost $7 for 4 rounds!
Hui & I switched place after 2 rounds so the adults both had a share to sit on it. It was automated by stepping on a pedal.
Elsie dare not sit hence Chloe conquer all 4 rounds!
2 rounds up. Now mummy's turn with Chloe!
This car ride cost $3 for 10 mins. (Cheapest price among the selections)
It's automated by pressing the pedal with the right foot.
Elsie's turn after 5 mins.
Yes, again both shared the ride coz we were not sure if they dare to sit anot in the first place since it's their first time. But end up seems they enjoyed it!
Elsie found this bike and insist want to sit on it.
Does she look cool on it?
Dinner was at Xin Wang HK cafe (My favourite!). We left the airport around 9+pm. Ended the Sunday feeling happy and satisfied!

4th Year Wedding Anni

We decided to celebrate 1 day earlier on the 14th Oct (due to some reason) and both of us had took leave on this day. We had planned for a couple spa session together and appointment was made. Dinner was planned at Demsey in a Korean BBQ restaurant.

All these plans were CANCELLED because I fell sick! I was having fever on Wed evening and went to a doctor. Hoping I would recovered by the next day but it did not get any better. After taking the medicine in the morning and had some sleep, I was feeling better in the afternoon. As I was not in the best state of body and my nose was killing me, we decided to cancel the spa appointment. Dinner plan was also shelf aside since I would not get to enjoy the food. No point wasting money on such expensive food when anything went into my mouth seems tasteless to me due to block nose/running nose!

Around 2+pm, we went out to Tampines Mall. I didnt want to waste my leave just by sleeping away. Why Tampines Mall? No idea, just wanted to go out for a walk. Intended for a movie but nothing seems nice. End up walk here and there and settled down for early dinner. Dinner was at Ajisen Ramen. After dinner, went back home because I am starting to feel hot again. Damned It!

Food we ordered
The usual taking-photo-with-food photo
15th Oct 2010
We proceed to work as usual on this day. We had actually planned for a good dinner together after work but our girls were sick. I simply do not have the mood to have a good dinner anymore since my flu/cough did not get any better and I wanted to go over MIL house to pick up the girls earlier so they could come back home and rest.

When the girls were asleep, we went outside to watch TV. To my surprise, Hubby had actually bought a cake to celebrate this event. I remembered during our 2nd Yr wedding anni, he bought me a surprise cake as well. That time was Lychee Martini favour from Pinegarden. This year, it was Cherry Brandy favour from same cake shop. Pinegarden was our favourite cake shop and we always patronise them.

Yummy cake. Totally gone by next day.
Though it was just a very very simple celebration with a cake and a candle on the actual day, plus all the plans cancelled the previous day due to my illness, I am still delighted - for the surprise cake he gave. For not complaining about the plans on 14th Oct being cancelled due to me falling sick. For not minding about the simple dinner, window shopping and going home early where we supposed to have a more eventful day.

He is the man I want - a husband that I want to spent my life time with.

Superstar Virgo - Last Day

Day 3: 1st Oct 2010

We missed the sunrise on this day. By the time I woke up, it was almost 8am. The girls woke up about 10mins later while I was brushing my teeth. We had a tight schedule today as the ship would dock by 2pm so we only have 1/2 a day to eat breakfast, swim, buy T-shirts for FIL/MIL, lunch and ice-cream! So packed!

We had our western breakfast at Bella Vista. It was yummy, best breakfast we had onboard the ship. Guess western breakfast still suits us more with the variety of breads, omelette with choice of fillings, sunny sideup, hashbrown, baked beans, cornflakes, orange juice etc.

After breakfast, Hui & I decided to split the task. He would get back to room to changed the girls into their swimming costume and pack the luggage while I head to the shop to purchase the T-shirts. This would save us time for the rest of our planned activities.

We left the room around 10+am and head to the Parthenon Pool and got chased away by the crew. Why? Because no kids allowed in this pool even with adults supervision. We were directed to the 10th floor for the baby pool instead. Stupid us then realise there were actually another pool that was meant for the kids! So off we went to the Neptune Wet 'N' Wild!
There is a mini rock-climbing wall for the kids just beside the pool. Cool!
Sad thing, we did not let the girls do the rock climbing as we were rushing for time.
We had alot of fun playing with the girls and I'm sure they enjoyed themselves alot too. When it's time to go, they refused to get out of the water and kept saying they want to swim. Hui & I tried all ways and our final resort was to tempt them with ice-cream! Yes, we will head for ice-cream after we bathe and the girls finally willing to get up!
Everyone going "wild" in the pool.
That timing no one came and so we had the mini pool all by ourselves!SHIOK!
Went back to room to bathe and do all last minute packing up. At this point of time, we could see many ships and overlook Marina Bay Sand and our big Singapore Flyers from our balcony. We are reaching HarbourFront soon! We speed up and get out the room by 12pm for our ice-cream at Gelato. Spent 30mins there and head back to the room for final inspection of our luggage to ensure we packed everything and nothing was left behind.
Bill offset from our dining credits
Just when we thought we could have some time after 1pm to have our lunch, we could see HarbourFront already and the ship is moving towards it! The ship reached earlier than 2pm. Hence no lunch for us but from the heavy breakfast we had and the ice-cream, we were not that hungry actually.

The ship had docked. We disembarked from the ship by 2pm. This marked the end of our Superstar Virgo to Redang 3 Day 2 Night trip. Holiday always ended so fast. We bought the tickets 1month+ ago. It seems like we waited for ages for the time to come, but it was only split seconds and the trip is over!
Some last shots before we left the room to disembark.

Photos fully loaded HERE

Superstar Virgo - Day 2

Day 2: 30th Sept 2010

Although I am really tired, but I was awake by 4+am! Tried to get back to sleep but only lasted for 1hr+. I was fully awake around 6+am and decided to get up to see sunrise.
It was beautiful to view it over the balcony with a full view of the sun raising above the sea! Just when I was feeling pity to myself for viewing this natural beauty alone, Hui came out to the balcony too! Glad we had these few minutes of romance ourselves with the kids still sleeping soundly.

See our blur blur look
The girls woke up shortly and we prepared ourselves to go for breakfast. It was a Chinese breakfast at Pavilion Room Restaurant. Once we sit down, food was served right away to our table. We need not do any ordering as it's a standard set meal. Food includes a big bowl of porridge for all to share and few plates of variety of dim sum. Not bad!

After breakfast, we took tons of photos around the ship and enquired over the reception counter about the boat ride out to Redang. Timing includes 1pm, 1.45pm or 2.30pm. We choose the middle. We went to the arcade to play a round of Daytona with the girls and then proceed back to room to rest awhile. Left the room around 1pm for lunch.

Lunch was western at Bella Vista. 2 set lunch for the adults which comes with appetizer, main course and dessert. Ordered a kids meal for the girls to share too. It was yummy! Food was definitely better than the dinner we had yesterday night. We seems to gobble down the food in order to rush for our 1.45pm boat ride to Redang.
Click to enlarge to see the wordings
The boat ride was not that bumpy as I thought and the sea was not that choppy. I have seasick problem but glad I managed to survive the 15mins boat trip from the ship to Redang island. The girls fell asleep even before we board the boat and were feeling quite cranky due to inproper sleeping position.

When we landed on the island, it was already 2.30pm. Elsie was sleeping soundly and Chloe was awake. In order not to let Elsie miss too much of the fun playing with sand and water as we need reached back to the ship by 6pm, evil me decided to disturb her and wake her up from beauty sleep! Well, I succeeded! :p
Welcome to Redang!
As expected due to previous experience, Elsie was enjoying herself getting dirty with the sand while Chloe was crying away refused to get down! She wanted to play yet say the sand is dirty! End up she had to take turn to sit on Hui and my leg to play with the sand without her leg touching the sand!
Notice our t-shirt? We bought it right at this same island 6 years ago and glad we still managed to fit it in for this trip
We packed up by 4pm and proceed to More More Tea Gift Shop for some souvenirs shopping. Price of the T-shirts had increased alot since the time we went 6 years ago. Everything in there is so expensive now! Since it got commercialise due to that movie "夏日磨磨茶", this island is really not worth visiting anymore if you are looking at some decent resort island. I'm glad that I visited this place 6 years ago with Hui during our Pator time. During that time, Redang island was still considered quite OK. But now even cruise goes to Redang, you can imagine how much the corals and island had been "damaged". Anyway, I spent almost 20mins in the store going round and round finding gifts for the family. When I came out of the shop, I got a shocked. A little story to tell here...

An Ah-neh woman walked over trying to carry Elsie away right infront of me!! I immediately stopped her and she gave an idiot act cute face telling Elsie to take photo with her! Smart Elsie shake her head and pushed her hand away. Ah-neh tried AGAIN and this really irritates me! I told her cannot carry as Elsie is scared. She walked away and back in split seconds standing beside Elsie and asked her friend to take photos with my girls (Chloe was just sitting beside Elsie). After one shot, she exchanged position with her friend and another shot was taken. After understanding more from Hui, then I knew this woman had approach Hui that she wanted to take pics with the twins coz she find them very cute. But because the girls did not want, she walked away. But she came back again few mins later which at this time I happened to be out of the shop. Stupid idiot persistant ah-neh!!

While walking to take the boat back to the ship then I knew another family of ah-nehs had taken a pic with my girls too! Hui said he find it hard to reject them since they had asked for his permission. Sigh.
Hui took a pic of them too from the side. They look like a decent family. Unlike the other two zabors!
Oh did I mention? This cruise trip think 70% population are indians! And that group of family who took pic with E&C were from the same cruise too! My girls seems to attract alot of attention in the ship because as usual, they like to Hi-Bye to strangers. This makes the people wana stop-by awhile to interact with the twins more. Especially those waitress/waiter who would standby our table and play with the girls awhile when they serve our food.

Whatever. We board the boat and reached back the cruise by 5pm. At this time all 4 of us were damn tired. We cleaned up ourselves, changed to new clothes and rest in the room for some time before went out for dinner at around 7+pm. Dinner was BBQ food at Mediterranean Buffet but food was bbq-ed by the pool side. Gave this place a second chance but end up the food was disappointing again.

We head back to our room after the dinner, played awhile with the girls and all knocked out by 11pm!
Again, another goodbye to the camera before we concuss!

Superstar Virgo - Day 1

Day 1: 29th Sept 2010

We almost miss the trip because boarding time closed at 6.30pm but we check-in at 7.04pm. The confirmation slip wrote ship depart at 8pm but did not write the boarding time. Hence we thought we should be safe to reach at 7pm but end up almost got rejected to board the ship!

Guess we were the last 4 passengers to board the ship. But still, we were onboard! Luckily.We were directed to our room at the 10th floor. Room 10050.

Feed the girls porridge (which I cooked and brought out) in the room before we adults went out for our dinner. As we booked the balcony room, it came with SGD$100 dining credits in the ship pass which we could use it for those non-free restaurant located around the ship.
Eager to take some photos at the balcony once we entered the room!
Followed by shots around the room
And some last few round of shots before we leave the room for dinner.
Dinner was at the Mediterranean Buffet Restaurant and the food sucks! After dinner, we toured around the ship from 13th floor downwards to 8th floor and then called it a day. On the way, we took a number of pictures as we walked around. Shall conquer the other floors next day as it's almost 11pm already. It's time for the girls to head to bed as they were yawning a few times showing signs of tiredness.
The orange juice is damn expensive. Drinks are not included in the buffet and such a glass cost SGD$8!
Luckily it was covered by our dining credits
Everyone changed and proceed to bed by 11.30pm. Day 1 ended with 2 snoring and other 2 quietly tucked under the blanket sleeping soundly.
Saying goodnight before we knock out

Marina Barrage

It was a long weekend and since there were no lesson on Saturday due to Term break with Julia Gabriel, hence we went back to Clementi on Saturday instead. This made Sunday free for us to have our own time.

Around 2+pm, we decided to plan for a fly kite session at Marina Barrage together with SIL and BIL. The girls' took their late nap and only woke up by 4+pm. After they woke up, we quickly changed their clothes and diapers and left the house. Reached there around 5.45pm and there were many people, cars and kite flying above us.

The girls got excited upon seeing so many kites flying high up above their head. We brought our bubble gun along too so the adults could play with the kites while the kids had the bubbles to play with.

It's a nice weather and not too hot since we reached only in the evening. Played for around 2 hours before we called it a day and head to Suntec for dinner. Had dinner at '汤点王', a Crystal Jade similar restuarant. Food was not bad but the girls' didnt had much of their Ee-Fu noodle. Probably was due to the dounut they ate right before the noodle was served.

It's a nice Sunday spent with nice weather, nice view of so many variety of kites flying in the sky and nice food. Most importantly, the adults and the kids had alot of fun to end this long wkend before we get back to work again on Monday!

* Mummy is now tempted to get a decent kite with a good reel and line from the forum BP and go for kite flying again..:) *

Select pictures shown here. Rest can be found over HERE!

Having fun with bubbles
Kite flying activity starts...
Curious kids spotted a dog in a bag!
E&C having fun with Daddy
Elsie having fun with SIL
This Giant Octopus WON the crowd being the largest in the sky!
Dinner time at suntec 汤点王!

Haircut by Ah Ma@Clementi

Elsie's Fringe Cutting Session
*click to view larger*



Chloe's Fringe Cutting Session
*click to view larger*


No final picture of Chloe's fringe because she ran off before I could get a photo of her! Humpf!

Barney! Barney! Barney!

It is a public holiday (Hari Raya Puasa). Everywhere is crowded with people especially Expo! There are many fairs going on at Expo and worst is the Barney show is also held there! We had expected that the traffic at Expo will be horrible and the carpark will be FULL. We planned to leave the house 1 hour before the show start but the girls' were still taking their nap! End up we left the house around 3.15pm and reached Expo 30mins later.

Carpark was full and the queue to enter the carpark was damn long! We had to park much further away from expo and walked over. Rush like mad as the show starts 4pm.

We managed to enter the premise on the dot at 4pm and Barney just came out to the stage. The seat numbers were not very clearly stated and many people took the wrong seats. There were different sections with the same seat number. Eg: B3 section seat 4, B4 section section 4. When we found our seats (B3 section seat 4-7), it was taken and sitted by other people. We had to match our tickets and then direct them to the right section. We had some arguements here because they kept insisting they were correct as the seat number was stated clearly on the chair. Can't they read their tickets properly? The seats were divided by SECTIONS too and it was the Section that was not that obviously noted. The organiser only pasted a piece of paper on the 1st row stating this is which Section so if people do not see that piece of paper, they just simply took the seat number thinking they were at the right section! It took us at least 5 mins (with Barney singing behind us!) to get these people move over to the next section before we were able to sit down and enjoy the show.

About the show, overall we adults did not really know how to appreciate the show. Haa...guess it was really for the kids because I see many kids were enjoying themselves singing and dancing away together with Barney and friends. However, I could also hear a minority of kids crying and parents bringing their kids out of the hall.

My girls gave me a big surprise too as they were so well-behave. I had thought that probably after 20-30mins of the show, they would start to get bored and cranky and wanted to leave the place. But it's not! They stayed throughout the 1.5 hours show focusing on the stage entirely. There were a 15mins break in between and the girls were sitted down munching the popcorns and drinks.

They still kept asking where is Barney/BJ/Baby Bop! I told them they went toilet "shh shh" later will come back...:) When the lights went off and show started, they said "Neh...Barney go toilet come back already" and stood up with eyes glued to the stage again. How innocent are they to believe me. :P

The cost per ticket (even though I had 20% disc due to Friso receipt) is not worth for the show I would say. But it's definitey well-spent to see the girl's so well-behave and enjoyed the show clapping and swaying away for the 1.5 hours! This was probably the first time I see them able to concentrate something for so long! Even better then they were in their Zoophonics or Julia Gabriel class!

Show started...
Paying full attention to the songs and dance
Break time...Manage to catch the crowd. It's almost full house!
Waiting patiently for Daddy to buy back the popcorn..
Happily munching their popcorn while waiting for Barney to reappear again.
While eating, they kept asking me where is Barney/BabyBop/BJ!
About 15mins later, lights off and the gang were up on stage again!
Last finale song is Barney's trademark song "I love you..you love me..."
After the show, we went to Changi Airport T3 for dinner. We gave the maid off since it was Hari Raya Puasa and so this day was truely a family day for the 4 of us. Had dinner at Xin Wang HK Cafe, walked around the premise for awhile before heading back home to rest. It was a really enjoyable day for the 4 of us, especially when the girls' were not cranky and behave themselves throughout the day!

Dinner at Xin Wang HK Cafe. Mummy's favourite HK cafe. The others HK cafe in Singapore majority food cannot make it.
The girls were eating mummy's Ai Xin porridge.
Daddy & Mummy were still quite full, hence just ordered some Dim Sum to share.
After dinner, caught sight of this playground in the airport.
Some execise for them after their full dinner.
And then running wild, catching Daddy in the airport before heading back to the carpark for Home Sweet Home!