2012!!

Wait for me!! 

I'm way behind in my posts and it's 2012 tomorrow!!

How time flies!!!

So I had better wish you all a MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!  for 25/12/2011...

and wish Hubby  HAPPY 11 th ANNIVERSARY!!  for 27/12/2011...

and finally to everyone out there

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2012!!!!!

kampung trip

Child labour: packing 600 gifts at Aunty Jinny's house!

So every year, for the past few years, Grandpa gets us to pack hundreds of presents for the poorer folk in rural areas, or kampungs as we call them here. The presents are sponsored by the Lions Club and also other generous individuals.

Usually we just pack the gifts, and Grandpa and his fellow Lions deliver them to the place where children from many kampungs gather for a Christmas party. This year however, we all decided to bring our own children to help Grandpa distribute the gifts, so they can see for themselves where their hard work (packing the gifts) goes to and also to witness a bit of the rural lifestyle. Being the spoilt city people we are, (not just the kids, but us adults too!) this would prove to be an enlightening excursion!

Driving through scenic mountains

Well, this year, the location was different. We went to a school hall at Kampung Bunan Gega which was about 2hrs drive from the city of Kuching. 200 over children from a few surrounding kampungs had gathered there to receive their presents. Some had quite a distance to travel, and were there as early as 8am!

The event was supposed to start at 10:30am, but after getting lost and almost driving to the Indonesian border, we only managed to get there after 11am! Though it was a hot day and some had been waiting for hours, the children were orderly and waiting patiently!

Grandpa made us pack 600 packs of stationeries and snacks. The leftover packs were for another party a few days later. After some formalities, we handed the gifts out. To our surprise, that was it! There were no games or food and drinks for the party! If we had known, we would have raised some money for a bit of food and drinks. We felt bad that they had to come all the way just to collect our simple gifts! Maybe next year we will try to do more. Let me know if any of you would like to pledge some money towards this cause come next Christmas!

On the way home, we stopped for lunch and some yummy durian!

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!

Holiday activities

So these are some of the activities we've had so far:

- watched 'Happy Feet 2' in 3D at MBO
- been for ice cream, ice kacang... etc..
- gone bowling
- had swimming lessons
- cleaned up kung kung's house and garden (a bit)

This was a first for all of them

They were apprehensive at first...

... but in the end everyone wanted a go and couldn't get enough!

A lady in the next lane told me that we could get the people to pull up the rails on both sides of the lane. I didn't know there was such a thing! So the bowling alley staff did just that and the kids had so much fun because there was no such thing as a gutter ball anymore! Hahaha... No matter how you threw the balls, they could bounce off the rails and would get to the pins!

Claire, Eva, Amelie and Alaena are having private swimming lessons at the condo over the school holidays. They love it and are learning awfully fast!

Well, just don't compare with the coach's 5 year old daughter who can even do the butterfly stroke!! (Even I can't do it!)

Eva practicing her free style stroke and breathing

Weeding, raking, sweeping and mopping at Kung Kung's house. *thumbs up*

There was a lot of complaining involved and I even had to use ice-cream as reward, so I think these kids need more housework training!!!

Daddy's birthday

Daddy turned 34 on 26th November! (hehehe... I'm a month older than him!)

Annie and Claire were at Miri then, so only Eva and Solomon were around to celebrate with him.

We went for a delicious crab dinner at Peter's Special, with Daddy's buddies. The food there is superb and the crabs are extra large! It is rather pricey (and they only accept cash!!), but you do get the best quality food.


Happy Birthday Darling! You're the best Daddy and Hubby in the world!!!! We love you!

Blue for Boy

So the other day we brought Sidekick to buy a swimming costume, so she could swim with the kids.

We were at the ladies lingerie section of the department store when Solomon spotted the bras and started boxing the spongy cups! (As all kids seem to like to do!)  :)


Then he pointed at a blue one and said, "This one is blue for boy!"

Hahahahaha....

Kid Swap 2011

Kid Swap 2011. SIL and I shall try to make this an annual event! :)

This being the first installment, Hughie came to Kuching with Grandma (sans mummy) to stay for a couple of weeks. SIL had exams to study for and temporarily had no babysitter, so Hughie had to come back with Grandma, cause Grandma had to look after my brood as well when we went to Singapore! Thank God for Grandma is all I can say! :)

So SIL suggested I send Annie and Claire over to Miri for the weekend when she finished her exams. Since we are not planning to go anywhere via aeroplane this school holidays, I thought it would be a good experience for Annie and Claire to travel alone to Miri!

At the airport, all ready to go.

Annie has travelled by plane on her own a couple of times already. MAS allows children aged 5 years and above to travel alone. The ground staff and flight attendants will accompany them all the way and hand them over to the designated family members.

This was Claire's first time, but I was not so worried, as she had Annie to look after her. Annie is very responsible and mature for her age. Although I was a bit worried (that's my job), I knew Annie could handle herself and her little sister. Annie was also a little worried initially, as she now had to be responsible Claire. But in the end, they had such a blast!

Shopping, sand art and ice-cream at the Spring.

Anyway, Hughie had fun with Eva and Solomon at Spring, while Annie and Claire were given star treatment by their Seiku!

It's a good change of scenery for them I guess and we'll see if we can try it out again next year! :)

Shopping, ice-cream, swimming and beach bumming in Miri!

Thanks for a great holiday Seiku!

Singapore Nov 2011

Hubby and I went to Singapore again last week, for his eye follow-up appointment. This time Hubby's boss followed, as he wanted to see an ENT as well. So we didn't do much on this trip, cause he was tagging along most of the time! :(

I did have time to catch up with Sis no.4 who is now a full  time housewife! Good for her! So she had time to entertain me after her morning volunteering at some charitable organization's office. Sis no.1 and Little Brother were busy with work, since we were there over the weekdays.

Here are some pics..

Gigantic Christmas tree at Marina Bay Sands hotel

A yummy, refreshing strawberry and chestnut cream pie I shared with Sis no.4

'High Society' at MBS Shoppes.. *sigh*

heaven! :) Kinokuniya @ Takashimaya

School's out

So school's out for the year! Here are some photos for the 2011 school year.

Solomon's second school portrait. (His first portrait was taken when he just started school, so he looked like he was about to cry!) This is his second year of playschool. He will be joining Eva for the first year of Kindy in 2012.

 

Claire gets a nice portrait for her 'graduation'. She'll be joining Annie at International school for her Year 2 next year.

Eva didn't get a self portrait shot this year. She'll get one next year when she too 'graduates' from kindy! :)

 

Here's Annie at the year-end prize giving ceremony. This was the only half decent photo I could take cause she was walking so fast! :)

She got second position in her class and is very proud of her achievement, as are mummy and daddy!

 Here are Eva and Claire on the last day of school. They wore their party hats the whole day until bedtime! :)

So here's to another good school year ahead!

shop chopped

So I finally did it; chopped my shop into half. It was a lot of work, putting everything away and then having to put them back into half the space! Arranging the stock back onto half the number of shelves was very challenging, but we managed it, amazingly!

I chose yellow for the new cabinets, because I was sick of the blue and white. I thought a dash of bright colour would help make the small space seem larger. Initially, when it was installed, it seemed a little too bright and looked more like a Digi shop! But now I'm glad that it is a cheery sunshine yellow! Whoever said that pharmacies and clinics have to be in sombre shades?

So here's the shop:

Before

During

After

I love my 'new' little shop. Only problem is, now some people think I have closed down!!! Hahhaha...

Asa's birthday and Logos Hope

I've been super busy of late, because of renovation works being done on the shop. As I mentioned before, we are down-sizing the pharmacy, so the past week has been a hectic week. I will write more on that later.

Anyway, before that, there were a  few events which I didn't have time to blog about. Mainly we celebrated Asa's 3rd birthday at Chicago 7, and also went to visit the largest floating book store, the ship Logos Hope. Here are the photos...

Handsome boy enjoying his french fries!

Pretty young ladies

The small ones

Birthday girl decorating her cake

The loooong queue of people waiting to go on the ship (it was also raining cats and dogs!)

The kids, especially Solomon were very impressed by the huge ship. He's been saying he wants to go back to 'drive' Logos Hope!! :)

I remember when we were small it was Logos and Doulos which used to come around every few years. I think Logos was decommissioned (is that the right word?), because it was really old. I remember them saying it used to be a cargo ship shipping onions, before it became a floating bookstore!

So now it's Logos Hope and it seems quite new. They go around selling books at a very reasonable price and also do community work here and there. The ship is really huge and there are like 200 over toilets! Sis no.2 says you can pay US$20,000 a year (for food and lodging) to live on board and do volunteer work. I think that would be an exciting and meaningful way to see the world don't you?

Having ice-cream at the kids corner after a tiring session of jostling with crowds at the book store.

Anways, the school holidays are officially upon us!! Will have to think of more activities to keep these little packets of pure energy entertained!! :)

On the bright side, no more waking up at 6:30 am!!! Yay!! (well, for 6 weeks at least...)

Happy holidays everyone!

Claire's 'Graduation' and Solomon's concert

Saturday was a busy, busy day! First of all, there was Claire's graduation in the morning, and then Solomon's very first concert in the evening! :)

Claire has finished her three years of kindergarten, and the trend nowadays is for the schools to hold mini graduation ceremonies for the little children. This is so cute and I'm sure it makes the kids feel so proud to have achieved a milestone in their lives!

Claire is the model student; for her, teacher's word is law! :) She is only 6 1/2 years old, but has already been schooling for almost 5 years! 2 years of playschool and 3 years of kindergarten, and this is just the beginning!!!  :) 

Anyway, Solomon had his very first school concert that evening. I was worried that he might cry, but instead he was laughing while performing and thoroughly enjoyed himself! He wasn't afraid at all! He remembered all his steps and danced flawlessly. (They have been practicing the whole year through!)

We're so proud of them! :D

Macarons!

SIL Feli and BIL Dylan came back from a Europe trip last week, and guess what they got us??!! (Besides holy water from Lourdes)

Real, genuine, Laduree macarons!!! *swoon*

Look at them, aren't they just gorgeous?? They looked too perfect to eat!! But we did, of course, eat them...
My favourite was the green, pistachio one... mmmm...

These are no ordinary macarons. These are the benchmark of macarons. They are from Laduree, an old bakery in Paris which claims to have invented macarons! People say that the best macarons in the world are from Laduree and Pierre Herme, both in Paris.

Now that I have tasted what real macarons are supposed to taste like, I am on a quest to make them!! Maybe during the coming school holiday when I have more time. *fingers crossed*. Macarons have a reputation for being the hardest pastry to make, which is why I have never dared try them before this.

However, these gorgeous little things are just so beautiful and taste so amazing, with such delicate flavours. So they will haunt my dreams until I try making them to get them out of my system!! hahaha

Thanks BIL and SIL for the wonderful treat and carrying them all the way back for us!!