Soon Kueh

This is my personal favourite. I love its slightly chewy texture and of course the 100% homemade condiment - sambal chilli :)

More Dino.....

E' Dino collection has expanded exponentially.... pursuant to his visit to the Dino World. Not a surprise, he knows them all inside out. Each and every Dino is unique to him and he plays with them with great "commitment"!

His once beloved cars & trucks, Buzz & Woody, Ben 10 & Spiderman have been replaced by these.... next in line is Batman which I am trying hard to resist. Soon, I can have a mini rental toy bar I suppose, with the amount of toys piling up.....

Muah Chee

Easy to make Muah Chee. Yum :)

"Dog Boy Girl"

D looked down from the hotel window and saw a couple in the pool, not exactly in their best behaviour.

D remarked " Kan na dui gou nan nu! "

To which A, innocently responded " Dad, where? where? Where is the dog?"

The adults just burst into laughters while the kids displayed blank and perplexing expressions on their face!

Reunion Dinner 2012

First time in over a decade that we had a formal family reunion dinner in Singapore. We had a table at the Hotel and it was a nice dinner, in comparison to the restaurant setting which would typically turn the table 3 or 4 times on the eve of CNY. I heard of dinner being served at 4pm on the Eve, in order to turn the table 4 times!!

We didnt have to rush our dishes but quite the contrary, we needed to remind the captain to expedite as they were served too slowly to our liking. We started the dinner at 7pm and didnt finish till almost 10pm! What a leisurely dinner on a CNY eve!

Lo and Behold

What an interesting dialogue between the two.

E and N were playing with toy swords and guns.

N " Lo and behold, speak your last words! "( pointing the sword at E)
E " Che-che, speak what?"

N " Speak anything you want "
E " I dont know "

haha...Little E obviously didnt know his Che-Che's lingo. " Chicken and duck talk ya?"

Home sweet home

At the end of 10 days, we were all ready to head home. We had a bite at the business lounge before heading for the plane. The kids helped themselves generously with the snacks on display. It was a smooth ride home. Thank God for the wonderful vacation and I have to thank myself for piling up 2 extra kgs which almost left me with no dress to wear for the wedding!! :( Well, the extra fats seemed to know that it didnt have a place in me. It vanished within 4 days Phew! :)

Old hang out places

Since the kids had company at home, we sneaked out on our own for a couple of hours. We had our favourite Vietnamese beef noodles in China Town and we went back to school for a quick visit. The law school and the business school were both undergoing some renovation of somesort. It brought back lots of good old memories. How we used to attend the 8am lecture (by choice) but were hardly on time. Oops! There was little spoonfeeding by the lecturers. We were left on our own pretty much. As a result, I had lots of free time during school terms and I got myself some part-time jobs as time fillers. This made me a "rich" undergraduate vis a vis many of my peers. Looking back, it was both enriching and rewarding in many ways.

The Garden - part 2

We were taught to pick the low hanging fruits first right? E has intelligently put it into practice and this got him into big trouble! I am sure grand-aunt would have forgiven him by now :)

The Garden - part 1

This was almost like the "Garden of Eden" to the kids. They had so much fun playing all day long in the garden, picking pebbles and berries, and hidding in that "umbrella tree". Nic was quite badly burnt by that seemingly mild and harmless sun for refusing sunblock.

They intended to build a bird's house using the said material. Something went terribly wrong soon after! E discovered a "guava tree" which was in fact, a pear tree. He started picking all the baby pears from the tree and this got grand-aunt really mad. See next post.

Family lunch - Yum Cha

Family lunch after the grand event. Something light and casual. It brought back good old memories. The restaurant hasn't changed a single bit. We used to frequent this restaurant during school days. Looking back, it was such a luxury to be able to dine and lunch at restaurants as an undergraduate though we didnt think much of it then.

The grand reception!

The church ceremony was followed by a grand reception which cost over AUD40,000! It was a cosy and romantic dinner hosted by the bride and groom. A mere 12 tables for 100 very special guests only.

While the adults were enjoying our meal, the kids were being taken care of upstairs by a Nanny, hired by the host for the benefits of her guests. How very thoughtful :)

We were back to Aust for 10 days and the wedding fell on the 8th day and guess what, at the end of the 8th day, I had ballooned up so much that I had difficulties zipping my dress! Throughout the dinner, I had to sit very straight up in order to allow for passage of food. Haha

The day (a.m.) - part 2

More photos of the grand event!

The bride and parents, arriving in a polished vintage car!

Mr Good-Looking and Ms Pretty Flower Girl were generously helping themselves with the food at the reception after the church ceremony.

Great grandma was tasked to "baby-sit" 2 great-grandsons while we were all busy with "dont know what"! heehee

AUD1000 wedding cake!

I must comment on this cake. The most pricy cake I know of with a tag of AUD1,000! I almost fell off my chair. It goes to show how expensive labour cost is in Aust! My guess, the direct material cost including the rack/stairs/ornaments would have just been AUD150 to AUD200, at best.

Wedding of the century! (a.m.) - part 1

It was such a magnificent event! Looking at how my cousin has grown over the years and eventually settles down with the one whom she has chosen brought tears of joy. B is a qualified solicitor and she runs her own practice. She was beautifully dolled up by the make up artist, assisted by Valent who has also been trained in this area. Valent was such a great help throughout, seeing to every single detail. She flew in only hours before the rehearsal and she didnt have much rest till the big day was over. Thereafter, she literally slept around the clock to make up for the loss over the past 2 days.

Little E was so pre-occupied with his ipad that he was totally oblivious to his surroundings. He was so gorgeous in his lttle TUX! How my little baby has grown! Soon, he would be joining the 3 handsome young men!

N and J did a wonderful job and we were so proud of them :)

Handsome young men

Look at these 3 eligible handsome young men, standing at over 6 feet tall! Not too long ago, they were still in diapers, you know? :)

I remember how cute and small J was when I was there for Uni, how he used to come home from school and hide in one corner to consume all his junk and throw the wrappers under the stairs. It was all good until one fine day, my auntie decided to do a major spring cleaning and Oops!.....What did we find? heaps of sweet and chocolate wrappers.....oh ...oh....someone's in trouble!

As for D and Ja, they immigrated at a young age and as such, I didnt have the opportunity to mingle with them much. That said, this trip did us good. We got to know each other much better and even N and E were drawn close to Ja. They kept wanting to hang around him and Ja was included in their kiddie play, though I am not sure if it was Ja's preferred way of spending his vacation :) Thanks Ja, for being such a great "baby-sitter"!

Now, we were all ready to set off for the grand event. Stay tuned....

Rehearsal

I must say it was a fair bit of hard work for the kids. Oh, by the way, Jeremy took the role as the page boy eventually, replacing E. E was deemed too playful and I couldnt agree more. It would have been chaotic had we proceeded with the original intention.

Strawberry picking 2

We intended to pick cherries thereafter but the kids were tired out. Also, we had a time constraint to head back home as the Church rehearsal was scheduled at 2pm. Well, we did have something "cherrish" - cherry ice-cream!