Break time

I've been busy lately because Hubby sprang another last minute surprise! He declared that we should go to Sipadan this Gawai Festival Holidays (which is like only next week!), so I spent a whole day researching, planning and booking flights and accomodations!

Wee heee!!! On Monday we're off to Kota Kinabalu! From there we'll take another plane to Tawau, then a car ride to Semporna to spend a night. The next day, a boat ride will take us to Seaventures Dive Rig (used to be an oil rig), where we'll stay for 4 days and 3 nights.

We have been guaranteed 2 days (= 6 dives) at Sipadan Island itself. The number of visitors to the island is regulated and it's not always easy to get permits. So we're very happy we got 2 days and then there will be another 2 dives to nearby Mabul and Kapalai and also unlimited dives at the rig!!

I'm so excited!! Hubby's been there before and he says it's the best place he's dived so far.

So, I'll be busy preparing for the trip and making sure the kids and the shop will be okay when we're away. Then I'll be underwater for days, and when we get back, I have to start working on my first wedding cake!! scary...

See you guys much later then!! Sayonara!!

Annie & Allyson's party

On Sunday Annie celebrated her birthday together with Allyson at Kung Kung's house. Since she'd already had a celebration at school, this was to celebrate with family. Only Allyson invited some of her school friends. It was a simple affair with the usual kid-safe foods like:
1. chicken nuggets
2. french fries
3. chicken wings... e.t.c.
all processed, fried, oily and yummy! :)

Here are the pics:

Everyone wants to blow the candles!

The little ones want in on the action too!

Annie's 9th Birthday

Annie celebrated her 9th birthday in school on Thursday. Sidekick, Solomon and I went to her school at break time to deliver the cake and some snacks and party gifts for Annie to hand out to her friends.

 I made a simple cake because Annie wanted to decorate it herself. Every time I make a cake, Annie would want to help, so I promised her that she could decorate her very own birthday cake when the time came.

 She stuck on some butterflies and added her name and patterns with a tube of blue sparkling gel icing.

 Thanks to Sidekick and also Sis no.3's sidekick, we managed to churn out thirty of these snack packs.

Solomon enjoying the cake and nuggets at jie jie's school canteen.

Happy Birthday Annie dear!

Pretty girls all in a row

Breakfast with Kung Kung and cousins Amelie and Asa this morning.

Lazy Saturday

On Saturday, Sis no.3 and I brought the kids to the arcade since there was nothing else to do and all the daddies were not around. The poor kids have been stuck at the shop with me the whole week, so I thought I'd better bring them out for a change of scenery.

 

Cloud nine!

Wooohooo!!!

I am so happy!! Hubby's jail term at Papua New Guinea has been cut short! They have urgent business in Bintulu, so they have to come back and go to Bintulu, which is definitely way better than being in Papua New Guinea! It is in the same country for one, and there is internet connection and 3G... i.e: civillization!

No more expensive phone calls with irritating 5 second delays, no more not being able to use WhatsApp with Hubby! Hehehe... my streak of bad luck is over! On top of Annie dropping her tuition money (RM255) and my staff stealing money (RM1K+), I also scratched some idiot's car and was harassed into forking out RM300!! Scratch only, no dent nothing! That was bad luck number three I think!

Only Glee, online scrabble and Jodi Picoult have kept me sane these previous two weeks!!

Anyway, all that doesn't matter anymore, Hubby's coming back and nothing can ruin my day now! Problems will always seem less significant when you have someone to share them with :)

*Bliss*

Katori Maru

Remember the last time we went wreck diving at the Japanese shipwreck? It's a World War II ship called Katori Maru. When we went last year, the weather was pretty bad and I couldn't make out which part of the ship I was looking at!

Anyway, last Sunday, another group went, (we didn't, boohoo... Hubby's still at Papua New Guinea) and the water was so marvelously clear, so they got some awesome photos which did justice to the proud wreck. They managed to capture the grandeur of the enormous beauty!

Breathtaking...

Happy Mother's Day!

Forget, "Have a great day!", or "Best wishes!", or "Wishing you joy, happiness, e.t.c..."!

I know what every mother wants...

Here's wishing you many, many hours of blissful uninterrupted sleep!!
Happy Mother's Day!!

Scrabble babble

Thanks to SIL who introduced me to Words, a Scrabble-like game on the iPhone, I've had my face glued to my phone, 24 hrs a day (okay, almost), for the past two weeks!! :)

It's like Scrabble, only you get to play online with friends. Or, if you're not getting enough action, you can even play with random strangers, most of whom are from the USA who start playing just when you're about to sleep at night!! A word of caution; it is highly addictive.

One good thing about this game, as opposed to the Scrabble board, is that you can try creating any word with your given tiles and will be informed if it is non-existent! In Scrabble, I think you can get penalised if you are challenged by your opponent. It does feel like cheating sometimes when you try, in desperation, to make a word using just about every possible combination imaginable of your 7 letters!

It is however very educational indeed, as you learn new words which you never even knew existed! I decided to look up some of the words we used.

Here are some examples:

What the heck is "nene"? Sounds like "grandma" in Russian or something. Well, apparently, it's a wild goose, native to Hawaii, where it's the state bird!! Hooray! Let's hear it for the nene!

Now, Q is a good letter to have, because it is worth 10 points! Placing it wisely can put you in the lead. However, if you have a Q, but you do not have a U, you're basically dead meat. In the English language, Q and U go together like Siamese twins. But do not fret, thanks to the wonderful Chinese, we now have the word "qi" in the English dictionary!

"Qi", pronounced as "chi" is what you call an energy field or flow or something like that. (You don't have to know the meaning, just know that it exists and it will get you a minimum of 11 points!!)

Here's "qi" again... it's just so darn handy!

"Frig" means to waste time and there are also other meanings which you will have to look up for yourself! :)

"Elan" is a noun meaning: dash; impetuous ardor: to dance with great elan.
(Eh? Whatever, like I said, just know it exists...)


Alrightie, now here's my favourite:

"Catbird" comes to save the day!! Actually, even with this supercallifragilistic word, I still lost the game!! Boohoo... SIL's friend is just so hard to beat! Actually, he's the one who got SIL addicted to it in the first place, so he's the one to blame for all this madness!

Oh yes, catbirds. Several unrelated groups of songbirds are called catbirds because of their wailing calls, which resemble a cat's meowing. Well, whaddya know...

And they're cute too!


Okay, I have to go, my phone is beeping...

Power rangers

Kids no.1 and 4 are down with bad wheezy coughs. I brought them to the paediatrician this morning and she put them both on Klacid and ordered them both to use the nebulizer machine (vaporizes medicine for you to inhale) . 

They usually try to trick kids who are scared of the machine by telling them to put on the 'Power Ranger' mask! Little do they know, 'Power Rangers' went out of fashion ages ago! I think the smaller ones don't even know who they are! 'Power Rangers' was all the rage way back when Little Brother was a kid! He adored them and I bet this trick would've worked on him! 
hehehe...

So anyway, Annie of course was okay with the procedure, but Solomon had to be held down by two people! Poor boy... Well, at least his cough sounds much, much better after the ordeal.

Timmy's birthday

We celebrated Cousin Timothy's birthday on Sunday. May is the most loaded month in terms of birthdays! Coming up is Ah Bi ee ee, followed by Annie and Ben 10, then Cousin Allyson. Did I miss out any?

 The Pikachu cake I made for Birthday Boy.

Well, Timmy invited some of his classmates and it was funny to see an assortment of boys, all of the same age yet varying in size! They were all 11 year-olds and some were well into their growth spurt, while others had yet to begin!

They ranged from Timothy, (on the small-sized end of the spectrum) who I think is not 30kg yet, to one boy who was taller than him by a head and weighs 80kg! (that's only a few kilos shy of Hubby!!) The two of them standing next to each other reminded me of the Doraemon characters Nobita and the big bully boy!

 Nobita is the small boy in green and Bully is of course the big yellow shirt one :)

disaster magnet

I am right now full of negative energy!

*sigh*

Just found out that one of my staff has been stealing money from the cash register. I suppose it is also my fault, for trusting them too much and not checking the paperwork thoroughly. By the time I realized what she was doing, she had already pilfered more than RM1000 over the past few months.

This has happened before, many years ago. The last time one of my staff did this, I closed one eye and gave her another chance. I improved the cash handling procedures and also installed a CCTV system. She has since become my most trusted and efficient worker and has been with me the longest.

Well anyway, this time round, I got really 'hot', because I confronted this other girl and she made up more stories! So, I fired her on the spot and now I'm left short-staffed and will have to stay at the shop until closing time myself! I could have lodged a police report if I wanted, but I don't think it's necessary to go that far.

I've already faxed a vacancy ad to the newspapers, so hopefully I'll get a replacement soon!

I must get rid of this negative chi, otherwise I'll attract more disasters! I think it started yesterday, when Annie dropped an envelope containing RM255 for her Kumon tuition fees! We went back to look for it but it was gone! Gone with the wind...

Or maybe it started when Hubby lost his BB. If so, and if it's true what they say, that bad things happen in threes, then hopefully this streak of bad luck is over.

Okay, it's just money. I'm happy and blessed that all my loved ones are safe and healthy! I'm grateful that the current protest in Papua New Guinea (where Hubby is right now) is a peaceful one and not like the 2009 anti-Chinese one!! *shudder*

Kids no.1 and 4 are sick now, but I'm grateful it's just a seasonal flu thing and that my kids are all basically healthy, smart and able-bodied.

I'll count my blessings...

Cousin Ethan

Meet cousin Ethan. Claire is so happy she's got a buddy who also wears glasses. Cousin Ethan lives in Singapore, but when they're back here, Claire and him get along very well.

Once, when I brought Claire to the hairdresser for a trim, I asked her how she would like her hair to be cut. She said she wanted her fringe to be an "M" (think Mc. Donald's) like Ethan's!!  
Hahaha.. refer to picture above.

Although Claire is a year younger than Ethan, she overtook him in size a couple of years ago! I remember this one time, 2 years back, we overheard Claire saying to Ethan:

"Why are you growing smaller and smaller?!" 

Hehehe...