Andy & Athena's wedding

The very tall and gorgeous couple!

So Athena, or Nana as we affectionately call her, is our cousin. One of the 'littler' ones, who just got married, which means we are getting old!! *scary*!

Anyway, Athena and Andy got married at Holy Trinity Church last Saturday and prior to that, we were all busy with the preparations. Sis no.2 was making the flower girls' dresses, while I was doing the dessert table and wedding cake. Hubby and I also had the honour of being their witnesses.

It was a grand and festive affair with lots of family and friends; it's always wonderful to meet up with mum's side of the family again. There were uncles from Canada and KK, and Aunty Jo (mum's BFF) from KL and Cousin Ann Ann from Penang. Sis no.1 even came back at the last minute and surprised everyone. Kung Kung took a while to register when an extra grandchild suddenly appeared! (only Benedict came back with mummy)

Anyway, here are the photos of the wedding at church, the tea ceremony at home, and the dinner reception at the Hilton.

The girls were excited to be flower girls! (Sis no.2 made all those amazing dresses!)

the pretty little girls with the beautiful bride!

Splendid photography by Edwin Lay at edwinlay.com

The traditional Chinese tea ceremony

went to the hotel to set up the dessert table ( notice my assistants in the background)

the wedding cake on stage

It was a fun night! The kids enjoyed themselves!

The Aunty club! lol!

The loudest and longest 'yamseng' from our table! Hahhaha...

Congratulations Nana and Andy! Here's wishing you a long, blessed life together, full of love, joy and laughter!

Ben & Von finally got married! ;)

Took this lovely pic off your FB Von, hope your friend doesn't mind! :)

We have a couple of friends, Ben and Yvonne, who, like Hubby and I, were high school sweethearts! Since they have been together for so long, everybody have of course been wondering when they would finally tie the knot!

So last month, everyone was excited when they finally got married and held a wonderfully fresh and casual reception at Damai beach that night. Quite a few ex-high school classmates from good ol' St Teresa and St Joseph's came for the event, with a few travelling from KL. It was nice to catch up with "teenage-hood" friends and reminisce the good ol' days as well as marvel at how fast time flies!

Anyway, a lot of the guests spent the night at Damai Beach. In anticipation of alcohol-induced incapacity to drive (among other things), we also booked a room for the night. Kids stayed over at HQ, so we had the night to ourselves.

At first we had a hilltop room, but found out that they still had a Baruk suite left, at a special rate for the wedding party, RM300. The Baruk suite usually goes for around RM4-500 I think.

I used to work at Holiday Inn Kuching, as a First Choice Club telemarketer, (that's a whole other blog post right there!) so I've seen the Baruk suite before during a room inspection. It's a gorgeous round shaped bungalow, in the style of a Melanau round house. The beds face glass doors which look out onto the sea and there is even a jacuzzi. So we changed to a Baruk suite, even though they only had one with two queen sized beds left.

First thing we did when we got to the new room was to push the two beds together, then promptly went to sleep! (It's not often that we get to have afternoon naps!) Oh yes, before that, I got stung by a wasp on the balcony! Luckily it was not Hubby who got stung, because the last time he was stung by a wasp at the golf course, he ended up in the ICU!!


Anyway, during our afternoon siesta, the doorbell rang twice, and both times, there was no one at the door! After another mysterious ring, we called maintenance to come and have a look. A guy came and could not find the problem, so we requested that he just disconnect the wires of the doorbell button.

Even though the day started out gorgeously sunny, it soon started raining and quickly escalated to a strong, windy storm! The doorbell went crazy (even after disconnection!) and even the lights flickered! With the 'poltergeisty' activity, the high ceiling and creepy enormous urn behind the bed, the room was beginning to take on an ominous feel...

Then, I noticed that the doorbell ringing coincided with lightning, so I mentioned it to Hubby and he figured it was a short circuit somewhere and then it dawned on him that we must have disturbed something when we moved the beds!! Duh!

So we pushed the beds aside, and sure enough, there was the stupid doorbell speaker, among other wiring! Hubby happily pulled out the wires of the speaker and placed it on the bed head. Now, if that wireless speaker rang again, it was definitely time to change rooms!! lol!

After all that doorbell drama, the room never felt comfortable again, and I don't think we'll be staying at Baruk suites in the future! (We both had nightmares the next night at home.... coincidence??)

I digress... back to the wedding...

So they had a wonderful set up of tables at the clifftop poolside for the dinner that night. It was a beautiful location, with a magnificent view. Unfortunately, as I mentioned earlier, the weather took a sudden turn for the worse! So everything was moved to an indoor location a little further down the hill. It was still a lovely place anyway.

At least the weather didn't turn into mini typhoon proportions as it did the night before! The night before, there was a storm with winds so strong that trees were uprooted, and there were flash floods and electricity blackouts everywhere! Even the big old mango tree behind my dad's house was uprooted and crashed into the fence and neighbour's awning!

Daddy's poor mango tree

So luckily it was just a normal rain which let up when the dinner was about to begin. Here are some of the photos of the fun night:

Looking decent (-ish) pre-alcohol...

with the gorgeous (and very tall) bride :)

Bride & groom with the St Teresa gang. This is right after Hubby (taking the pic) called us "Aunties"!!

and so it began...

nope, definitely not a conference meeting...

these little boys always love a good party...

Congratulations Ben and Yvonne! You guys make a dashing couple! Here's wishing you a wonderful life together, filled with an abundance of love and laughter!

Jerome and Belle

Another of Hubby's close friends got hitched this month! :) Jerome (Ah Lu) married Annabella (Belle) on the 9th of December, 2011, at St Joseph's Cathedral. It was followed by dinner that night at Sarawak Club.

Hubby was assigned the job of bride's driver and also witness. I was helping out with the ushering, as well as cake and desserts. It was nice that everyone had a part to play to help make the celebration a memorable and meaningful one!

Jerome is one of the last of their 'gang' to get married... Hubby is running out of friends' weddings to crash! lol!

these guys love weddings!!

I think after all our friends have wed, next to look forward to are our kids' weddings!!! Then Hubby can play 'embarrassing Dad'! Hahahahaha....

Anyway, after the dinner, there was more partying at First Floor, Soho. The boys seemed very well behaved this time around (relatively speaking) ... possibly because they were upstaged by the younger guests of the bride??!! Hahahaha... move aside old men! Lol!

Anyway, Congratulations Belle and Jerome! Here's to many years of blissful marriage ahead!

Alexis & Lana's wedding

Alex, Lana and their handsome son Rafi

The next wedding was Alexis & Lana's in Miri. Hubby went a day earlier to 'happy' with his friends. I stayed home to finish up the cake and cupcakes I promised Lana and Alex for their wedding dinner.

Altogether, I made a small chocolate cake with a topper, 28 regular sized chocolate cupcakes and 80 mini red velvet cupcakes. The delivery was the hard part! I had Hubby bring over the finished regular cupcakes and the un-iced mini cupcakes while I brought over the rest. All the while I was praying that the components survive the plane ride in one piece!!

On the morning of the wedding, I flew over and Hubby brought me to the Marriot where the wedding was going to be held and where we were also staying. Hubby got us upgraded to a really lovely room which even had a kitchenette! The best thing about the Marriot is the wonderfully soft bed with plenty of plush pillows!! There were quite a few other friends who flew in for the happy occasion.

But, first things first, we went to the banquet hall to set up the cupcake tower and I did some last minute piping. Thanks to Hubby, we managed to get everything assembled in no time. I'm really happy that Lana and Alex loved the whole thing! :) I especially loved the penguins on top!

So anyway, back to the wedding. Lana being Australian, the whole event was very modern, and not the strict, traditional Chinese ensemble. It started with cocktails behind the hotel, by the sea, followed by the exchange of vows at sunset! It was a beautiful and touching ceremony.

This was followed by the traditional Chinese dinner at the banquet hall. Everything was well and pretty much civillized for the front part of the dinner. Once the formalities like the speech and toast were done, everyone started to loosen up!

There was drinking...

It started with the loud 'yam sengs' which were promptly replied with even louder, "Ozzie ozzie ozzie oi oi oi's!"!

After the dinner, some of the older guests left, and the rest partied on until the hotel staff started giving dirty looks way after they turned up the lights at 1am!! :)

dancing...

singing...

what wedding would be complete without the 'boys' singing their school rally, "Sons of St. Joseph". (FYI that is a St Thomas boy being 'manhandled' at the bottom of the pic!)

and plenty of love all around!

The next day, there was a lovely lunch at the Piasau Boat Club right in front of the beach. The guys started drinking from 2pm and we stayed until night fell, waiting for the gorgeous, romantic sunset. This is one of the reasons the guys just love a buddy's wedding, it's an excuse to start drinking early in the day without running the risk of being called an alcoholic! :)

We bumped into Elena, an old classmate who's supposed to be all the way in New Zealand! Fancy that!

babies' day out; L-R: Jaeden, Rafi and Evan

Aunty club :)

The lovely day ended with a fantastic crab dinner and more drinks (of course) at a pub near the hotel.

The next day we met up with SIL and adorable Hughie for brunch and some cold desert. Then it was back home on the lunch time flight.

Now I'm gearing up for the next trip to KL for our cake workshop!! Just feel a little guilty leaving the kids behind so often these two months... I predict I will be assuaging that guilt with lots of presents soon!

Lih & Kelly's wedding

September has been pretty fun for me, cause Hubby and I had two out-of-town weddings to attend. Then next week, SIL and I are attending our first ever cake art workshop in KL! We are extremely excited!! We will also get to see a wedding cake decorating competition and be able to squeeze in a trip to a huge book fair (Big Bad Wolf book fair)!

Every time we travel, the kids will stay over at Grandma and Grandpa's. Luckily my current maid is quite good with the kids, so with Grandma, Grandpa and the maid, I can leave them behind without any worries! We're really blessed to have this option!

So the first wedding was Song Lih and Kelly's in KL. Song Lih is Hubby's buddy who also happens to be my kindergarten classmate!!

Hubby was in KL earlier for work, so I met him there two days before the wedding. We decided to spend the first night in Genting! Plenty of yummy free food, (Haagen Daz ice-cream, wine and cheese)... though the term 'free' here is debatable! ;)

Then we went down to KL and stayed at a new hotel, Empire, where the dinner was to be held. It's in Subang and is a very nice hotel. There is also Empire shopping mall at the same building, so all was good! :)

So that was the night before the wedding and we just did some shopping, then went out for drinks with friends who also came over for the wedding and other friends based in KL. We went to the Sunway Lagoon area for the night scene.

Hubby and I and a few of the rest studied in KL after Form 5. Some of us went to Taylor's college (Hubby and Song Lih did SAM, South Australian Matriculation, and I did 'A' levels). Taylor's College is in Subang while Hubby stayed at Sunway, so all these places brought back lots of memories! (Hubby especially has lots of 'adventures' to tell!!)

The place has changed tremendously in terms of roads and buildings, but some things remain the same. We had dinner at BubbaGump, Hubby and I have been meaning to try the food since we spotted an outlet when we were in Hong Kong. Then we had drinks with pals till 3 am! which is the time they had to close!

After that we walked over to Spectrum apartments where Hubby and friends used to live! It was new when they were there (circa 1995) and now it's a seedy, run-down place! When Hubby was there, Sunway Lagoon was already in existence, but Sunway Pyramid shopping mall was not yet done. Sunway then was a whole lot of empty space and just beginning to come up!

So at 3:30am, we were having Maggi mee goreng mamak at Sri Bidara, which is still there after all these years! I haven't been out till 4am for eons!! Awake at 4am for feeds yes, but out, eating and drinking... nope... not for ages!!

So anyway, the next day, we went over to Song Lih's house for the tea ceremony, then it was back to the hotel for some much needed sleep!

The dinner was held at the hotel's Chinese restaurant which can also be accessed through the shopping mall. It's is a nice restaurant with good food. There was the usual "yam seng'ing" and merry making.

After the dinner, it was back to Sunway for even more drinks! It was fun to meet up with old friends, some whom we haven't seen for years! And also hilarious to see their drunken antics!!

Then it was off to another mamak at 3:30am for even better Maggi mee goreng! (the previous night's was a bit disappointing) FYI Maggi mee goreng mamak in Kuching is nowhere near what you get in KL! Which is why we were throwing our diets down the drain... hahaha..

So that was it, we took the lunch time flight home the next day.

Home Sweet Home!

wedding, teacher's day and creme brulee

So I haven't blogged for a while, cause I've been busy being Grumpy Housewife...

I salute all you full-time mothers out there!! 

*kowtow*

This is something I cannot do! Well, can do, but wouldn't want to do... I like a healthy balance of a bit of work, a bit of home, a bit of kids and a bit of social life please... thankyouverymuch...

So anyway, I had a welcome break from housewifing the other night when we let the kids sleepover at Headquarters, a.k.a. Grandad's, for a night, while we went to Hubby's friend's wedding dinner.

Hubby's ex-schoolmate Adrian got married to Christine last Saturday. Hubby went for the wedding ceremony which he described as lovely and very well-organized. (extra points for air-conditioning in the church, in view of this terrible heat spell we are experiencing!). I however, was busy ferrying the kids to Taekwondo classes and Headquarters.

photo taken by Sally

The wedding reception was held that night at Riverside Hotel. Hubby, along with best buddies Kelvin and Alexis were tasked with 'being the groom's liver'! :) Meaning... they went on stage to make the toast and also went around to every table with the wedding entourage to 'yamseng' (toast/ drink themselves silly)!


Hmmm.... what does that say about Hubby and his friends, being singled out for undertakings concerning alcohol?? Hahaha...

Anyway, the dinner was followed by even more drinks and dancing at Backstage. Hubby and I left earlier (cause we had to send some guests home), about the same time the groom left after being incapacitated by a Flaming Lamborghini! The bride is seriously sporting to have let her man go out with his buddies on their wedding night!!

Okay, fast forward to today...

The girls celebrated Teacher's day at school today. They had class parties and school let out earlier. The kids were supposed to bring, I quote, "a dish of home-cooked food to share with their friends".

My kids brought Pringles.

I had no time (read; was not bothered) to make something like sandwiches which the kids would unfailingly bring home again half-uneaten! Pringles never fail... Once you pop, you cannot stop, eh? :)

I did however, make little bouquets of flowers for them to give to their teachers, since I am so sincerely grateful for these fearless warriors whom they call teachers, who take our kids off our hand for hours each day!

Thank you... no, really... THANK YOU!!

And as for creme brulee??

Well, I had it for the first time today, and I never imagined it was so heavenly creamy!! I had always imagined it to be more jelly-custard-like! But oh, the silky creaminess in contrast with the occasional gorgeous crunch of burnt caramel!! I'm in love!!  *dreamy*

*sigh*

Okay, enough for today....

Jas & Shan

Last week we celebrated Jas and Shan's wedding. Jasmine was my classmate when we were in form 4 and 5 Science1... right Jas? (my memory ain't that great anymore!)

If I'm not mistaken, when we were in Form 5, in SMB St. Teresa, she, Dianne, Sharifah Azizah, Claudine and I shared a table. We had the physics lab as our classroom then, hence the huge table.

Wow, that was 1994, 17 years ago! Omigosh...

Those were the fun times, fooling around and not paying attention in class! Of all the funny little details I remember; I recall we had a table flag (made from a pen and a piece of string?) and table song! We were very creative indeed, since classes were super, super boring, *trust me* (that, I can definitely remember)!!

We had interesting teachers, one who was almost legally blind with a torturous, monotonous voice, one with tight pants who put his mini test papers in his shirt pocket and more quaint characters, who nevertheless tried their best to put some stuff into our brains! (which, I can imagine was no easy feat)

I also remember Azizah used to have very bad bouts of migraine and we always happily volunteered to bring her to the Red Cresent room. It was a free pass from class! :) It helped that Alice, our classmate had the keys to the room...

I will always remember that Jasmine is super talented when it comes to music. She was my assembly buddy; I said the prayers and she played the piano so beautifully. So we were both backstage together.

Anyhow, our table was at the second last row in the lab, and the girls behind us were even worse! Jou, Geral and Audrey were forever singing away while the teachers were teaching! They had the lyrics to just about any song!

*sigh* those were the days...

(I think I really should get a scanner to add in old  photos eh?? 80/90's hairdo and all... maybe not such a great idea...)

Anyway, fast forward 17 years and here we are, at Jasmine's wedding. It was great to see old schoolmates who came back for the event. Some had not been back for years! Everyone is older (of course) and it's scary to think how fast time passes us by!

The wedding was held at St. Joseph's Cathedral, right next to our alma mater. It was then followed by lunch at Sarawak Club which was just up the hill from church. This was also where 'teenage discos' and New Year's eve dances were held regularly during our high school years, and they were 'cool' events not to be missed! I remember mum was very strict and I left parties at 9pm, when other people just started coming!! :)

Anyway, later that night was the dinner at Hilton. There was plenty of alcohol, form beer to 'tuak'. 'Tuak' is a Sarawakian native rice wine and is some serious liquid! It was a great dinner, with superb entertainment. There were memorable speeches, traditional dance performances and some great singing!

I have never been to a wedding dinner which finished at midnight! And the great thing is that everyone was enjoying themselves so much that they did not even attempt to sneak off before the last dish! In fact, most of us stayed back for the after-dinner dancing and drinks! I suspect the sheer amount of alcohol served that night also had a hand in promoting the high spirits everyone was in! :)

Jasmine and Shan, that was an amazing way to start this new chapter of your lives. We wish you both a beautiful life ahead, blessed with even more loving family and friends.