The Christmas Post

My definition of festive season: the occasion to scarf out, spend the night guzzling wine, play mahjong and oodles of love, love, love. And most importantly, MIA from my work desk - just kidding.

Christmas Eve
As usual, we kicked-off Christmas at J’s place.
There was food, tons of presents, children’s laughter and the Christmas spirit filled the air. I love it.

Ziv was a chirpy boy on that day. He got to play with many friends.




S (J's younger daughter) liked to play with Kevin for some unknown reason.


Clad in Rosette Cocktail Dress from Moda Shoppe. One of our best selling items. A picture with my MJ buddy and one of her chummy daughters.

The party ended at midnight, deposited Ziv at my in-law's place. Headed to Nativity church. After church, we returned back to J's place for MJ till 6am! Was zombie-fied.

Christmas Day

Christmas day was reserved for our families. Lunch buffet at Grassroot Country Club with the in-laws. Followed by dinner gathering at my Granny's place to celebrate her birthday in advance.

Ziv spent the late night opening presents from aunties and uncles. The animated boy was energized even though it was past midnight. At least it was Boxing Day that he started opening his presents.

Present from Daddy, he got a big budget this year. Haha...

Thanks J for her "understanding" presents - Prince's Desk, and also the Mummy and Son matching DKNY tops.

Kev was doing his very last minute job - assemblying the BBQ pit for Boxing Day. Just in case you wondered if he is throwing a kiss at me, you are absolutely wrong, he was saying, "WU liao." (for taking a picture of him assemblying the pit)


Boxing Day
Party at home. This time round we had a BBQ party, instead of the usual potluck. We got ourselves a caterer and that certainly saved us lots of time. Thanks C for ordering for us.


Indeed that was a small BBQ pit, all thanks to the lazy people at Carrefour.

Nevertheless, we had great food and great company. The satay were the best. And the overly bloated marshmellows.

While the rest were working hard for food, I took pictures with Abril. I would name her after the LV bag, Neverfull. Because she never got enough of food.

Kev got to play "Daddy" of a daughter. Abril was not gesticulating "oh-my-god", she was in fact trying to do "peekaboo". Adorable. When I see Abril, it was then that I realized Ziv is actually a big and independent boy now.

Ziv did serious posing in front of the camera again. Funny.

Not forgetting group photos, the ever exciting present exchange and log cake. We had a tough time making Abril to look at the camera, I wondered what would happened if we have more kids next year.

BTW, I really liked the t-shirt which R gave Ziv.

Happy New Year to all. Enjoy the last day of the festive season. Drink and be merry.

Brunch at Rider's

Brunch at Rider's again, where I find PEACE. Wanted to abscond from the F1 madness because I had enough of traffic jams that comes with the over-rated F1 night race. I mean, first time - it was great, you know, something new, but subsequent night race seemed to be so over. What's the hype?

I enjoyed having a lazy afternoon spent at Rider's with the Yips. Tucked in Fairway Drive, where I tucked away a big meal.

They changed the menu, Ziv missed his strawberry pancakes. And for me, I missed the muffin with Egg Benedict. However, the new menu did not disappoint me, I kind of like the new healthy bread. New on the menu, was scones. I love scones.

Wassup with kids these days? All of a sudden, kids are avoiding cameras totally.

The boys having fun, playing furniture shifting. How fun is that!

Emily is lucky to have a nice picture with Jayden, however, that was about 3 takes later.

Ever since we quitted Shichida, we have been going to lazy brunches. Next week will be...

A few of the many play dates

Just before Ziv’s 3rd birthday, we arranged a few play dates over the weekend, mainly because they can’t make it to his birthday.

Cycling

I have to admit that I am an assiduous Mummy. I enact the role of a bouncer and often, activate the incredible hawk in me whenever I deemed that someone out there may pounce on Ziv, intentionally or unintentionally. I once held a kid by his arm because he nearly had a collision with Ziv since he was scampering like a berserk child. My face was soft while I looked at him, but my grasp was tautening. It scared the shit out of him.

So, obviously, cycling is not under my list of favorite activities with Ziv, for the fact that I do not know how to cycle and I reckon cycling as a ‘hazardous’ activity. However, the other part of me likes to splurge on Ziv to make sure that he is a happy boy and has a happy childhood, and so I answered to his request and bought him a bicycle earlier this year. It was until a few weeks ago, he started cycling outdoor. Most of the time, he was cycling indoor.

Not a pleasurable experience because he fell from the bicycle because of the damn winding cycling track. He was brave in front of the gals and did not shed a tear.

However, he was crying quite a bit when his wound got in touch with water when he showered.

Weird formation for photo-taking.

Early birthday celebration

Our ex-ex neighbor paid us a visit for the first time after we shifted like twice. We ordered KFC home delivery and they brought us cake from Jane’s Station. The cake reminds me of my bad sore throat, simply because it is too chocolaty and yet, hard to resist.

It was a scary sight to see the kids ripped open the present with their bare hands; it was like watching documentary show whereby the lions ripped the flash of a deer apart. And it was a known fact that Ziv loves Thomas the Train and before they ripped up the present, I was almost sure that it is going to be another Thomas the Train set. We had like 4-5 train set after his birthday celebration and we already had 3 existing train set, including the one he bought from Tokyo Disneyland! I told Kevin we need a bigger house for the train set.

A picture of Trisha and Ziv savouring the cake.

Assembling the train set.

Weekend Fun

Last Week's Happenings

Last week we welcomed our two first visitors to our new abode when we officially moved in. J and E.

And the boys had a whale of a time playing at the pool and eating hotdog buns.

Before the swim or rather dip...

Ziv always repines that it was too hot to swim under the blazing sun, however, he changed his mind at the drop of the hat when he was told that he would be having an aqua buddy.

Trying to operate the jacuzzi.

After the dip...

This week's happenings

On Friday evening we got our new car and we have been driving two cars on the road because there were so many errands to run. First it was getting the new car, Kev drove the new one while I trailed behind (since I do not know the way) to park it at the Performance Motor. Then on Saturaday morning, we sent the new car to fix up window film and then drove the old car to brunch and later to collect the new one... Confusing, I know. Actually all these can be solved since our the PML salesgal offered to help us run all the errands, however, Kev declined, because he can't trust anyone with his cars.

Managed to snap a picture of the gleeful driver on the way to Performance Motor in the morning. Another gleeful passanger was seated behind fascinated by the panaromic roof.

Thereafter, revisited Spruce for brunch.

Kev's brunch. Big breakfast.

My brunch... Egg benedict on sliced toasted bagel with grilled shrimps soaked in hollandise sauce. Perfecto!

Ziv had a long beef sausage for Ziv all for himself. It was almost like a practice to go down to the playground under Spruce. Even playing alone did not deter the boy from running here and there. I have to gave Kev some credits, cause these playground pictures were snapped by him, while I leisurely sipped on my latte.

From this picture, Ziv seemed to have grown taller and bigger.

This weekend, we welcomed with open arms another set of guests to our abode. J and her two chummy daughters, J and S. Ziv remembers them as 'jumping sisters', because Ziv had fun bouncing on their beds last Christmas. And of course, they were here for a swim. Just yesterday, J and I met up for MJ. In less than 24 hours, we meet up again.

J bought like 50 breads from Four Leaves for the kids and a box of nicely decorated donuts for Ziv, so much so that I decided to take a picture of them.

And by the way, our company is having a photography contest and I decided to take part in this contest. This is my photo for the competition. And the caption for the picture is 'Friends'. It is hard to capture moments like this. It will be framed up on our wall even though it doesn't win me any thing in the contest.

Cameron & Genting Highland

After experiencing the nerve-racking 6 hours car ride of about 160-180km/h from Singapore to Cameron Highland, it feels good to be home again. Back to Ziv, Coby, my bed and smelly pillows.

6 hours of car ride including the 2-hour twist and turn up the hill from the foot of Cameron Highland to about two-third (not summit yet!) of the hill where our resort lies. The tortuous slope was steep and twisty, I watched my friend, WT (the driver) drove with sweaty palms. Obviously, that’s the botheration when a driver watches another driver drives. I am not sure if Kevin stepped on his invisible brake since he was seated at the front, he likes to do that when I drive.




Cameron Highland (CH) is basically the best place for kids to discover and experience about the lives of people before a city/state undergo urbanization. And, CH is just a very unostentatious state (or maybe hill), it is so simple that I can’t put up with being there for more than 2 nights. I am extremely urbanized, and I only know and confirm about it after this trip. I can’t walk on extremely rocky roads, I can’t eat with houseflies landing on my food, I can’t stand the smell of dirty alleys and roads, I can’t stand convince myself it is safe to dash across the busy road without traffic light, there are just too many things that prove that I can’t stay in a rural place.

That aside.

The hotel, I argued all my way so to make sure we put us up in the new wing, instead of the old haunted looking old building. I don't understand why only ang mo get to stay in the new wing. Super pissed.

Anyway, the view from the hotel balcony is superb.



CH is basically a hill, and the poor residents live at the bottom of the hill, in attap houses and set up a ‘stall’ made of dried big leaves and wood to sell about 5 bottles of honey. And perhaps some weird looking vegetables. Maybe to choose to live where they do is all because of the beauty and peacefulness that a sylvan setting affords, somethings that I failed to appreciate at this point of my life. Anyway, on my way up the hill, I saw the residents of the hill seated together to chat beside their ‘stall’ and I feel that life IS and CAN be so simple. The more ‘happening’ portion of the hill is probably where all the resorts and hotels are located. That’s also the part whereby it has lots of strawberries, bee, cactus farms and tea plantation.

Where can you pluck your own strawberries and eat them on the spot in Singapore? No.
And it was fun.

We took a super risky car ride up to the BOH tea plantation. It is located at another hill linked to CH and the road is very narrow and it is a 2-way road! Even WT said that he finds it a challenge to drive up that hill. We have to sound the horn each time we approach a sharp turn to make sure no vehicle is coming on our way. But what can I say? It is worth it. Especially with good companionship and sipping hot tea in the cool weather (17deg) on top of the hill.

Do you know that the only Starbucks coffee and KFC on this entire hill is like God’s gift! The first night we had steamboat for dinner, and I am not sure why, or perhaps it is the cool weather here, steamboat seemed to be the most popular food in CH, not forgetting strawberry jam and desserts.

By the end of second day, we had nowhere to go except staying in the hotel room to feast on KFC, Mary Brown with beer and indulge in HK serial drama which I brought along for the trip for the entire night. It was the smartest move to bring along a HK drama, you never know when you will need it.

Next stop after CH is Genting Highland. The ride down CH took only half of the time we took to drive uphill. And we reached Genting with no hotel booking and it was full even though it was low season due to some seminars. And we have to buy rooms from those illegal sellers and managed to get a good deal out of it. Phew!

On our way back to Singapore, we visited a famous temple below Genting.
It is a very big temple.



And what I observed was that, indeed, Genting has significantly less Singaporeans and Caucasians, they probably flocked to embrace our new casino.

No luck at casino, played till 3am and lost about S$300.

At least we don’t have to wave our hands vigorously to shoo the houseflies and get to enjoy morning yum cha in Genting, Baskin and Robin ice-cream for desserts after the fulfilling buffet dinner and importantly, no more room service to curb hunger pangs in the middle of the night.

What can I say? Home sweet home!!