29 July 2007

My kids on the plane

check out his new hairsytle

St. Anne Labuan Reunion

26 July 2007 @ Labuan

Ok, I am tring to recall the number of times I've been back to Labuan in the past 3 months. Hang on, let me count... ok forget it. My kids and I have been back to Labuan many times in the past 3 months and we were back there again last week and this time, daddy came along too.

We made this trip back there specially for my school reunion which was on the 28 July 2007 which I had a blast at.

On this trip, Jia Wen wasn't feeling well at all. Her fever started the day we flew back to Labuan and was on and off the few days we were there. Thankfully I had Shien Wei with me on the plane this time as Jia Wen needed attention and if I was alone with the 2 kids, no way I would have managed. Jia Wen was shivering in the plane and wet herself at it so I had to change her so thankfully Shien Wei was there to carry Jia Xiang. Apparently she had a throat infection that was quite painful. She didn't even want to swallow her own saliva! She didn't eat much during the few days there. Took her to the doctor there. She was moody most of the time and I think mainly because she had her grandparents around to "manja" with.

We did bring her to the beach but she wasn't her usual self on the beach. She wasn't excited over anything and she's usually very excited at the playground. She didn't have energy and very much throttled down.

Other than that, our trip to Labuan was pretty much the usual but I had a good time.

Jia Wen on the swing

Jia Wen climbing

Weee....

?

See Saw

Jia Wen at Pancur Hitam Beach, Labuan

Jarrod Teh

My nephew, Jarrod

22 July 2007

Jia Xiang at Nandos 1 Utama

Jia Wen at Art Attack 1 Utama. She made the Rupunzel Tower.

My mother-in-law's 60th SURPRISE Birthday Party

About 2 months ago, I sort of came up with the idea of giving my mother-in-law a surprise birthday party and guess what? Her sons agreed and walla, a surprise party was in the process. Who to invite? I had a rough idea of who her closest friends are but that was maybe like 5 people and whats a surprise party with just 5 people? So that's when we had to get hold of her phone book. It took a while to get the phone numbers - some were in her handphone and some were in her little black book. I managed to contact one of her colleague to give me a list of colleagues that I can invite. It took a while to come out with a proper invitation list but I managed to get phone numbers, called them, invited and sent invitation cards.

The weirdest part of this whole shebang was calling her friends and inviting them. Of course I was given the honours to do the calling and inviting so the beginning of my teleconversation or email would be "Hello, this is Szue Fei - Ma Lee's daughter-in-law". Of course most times people who never in their life expect a call from me would go "Szue who? Who Fei? Who? Ma Lee? Who?" So I have to repeat again slowly the whole introduction line. One conversation was with an old friend of hers and it went something like this, "Hello Aunty, this is Szue Fei - Ma Lee's daughter-in-law..." (blah blah.. how are you, etc). And she said this, "...hey, your daughter getting married ah?" in a jovial manner. I was like "what?" in my head and "no lah aunty, my daughter is only 3 years old!"

I must admit that I do enjoy organising such things but the hardest part was to keep the big secret from the birthday girl. It was extra difficult for us to keep it a secret because the birthday party was to be held at her house in Melaka. So we had to thoroughly plan, with the help of some close friends - we spent a few days and sleepless nights (for me) going through the plans - plan A, plan B, plan C, etc and all the possibilities. The idea was the keep her out of the house. I was a nervous wreck and was so scared that the surprise would not be a surprise anymore but thankfully, everything turned out very well and she was absolutely surprised (well, that's what she claimed lah). We managed to keep her out of the house almost the entire afternoon. The tent guys came at about 6 pm and the caterers right after. Perfect timing I must say. Most of the guests arrived before she came back. Hid the guests in the house before she stepped into the house and SURPRISE!! There were moments where I wanted to give up and give into the surprise but luckily I didn't and she was indeed surprised. It isn't easy planning a surprise party - where to hide the cake, where to hide the party stuff, timing the tent, timing the caterers, how to make sure everyone shuts up, etc.

Party turned out well with all her friends, old friends and colleagues in the house celebrating with her. It was a good evening. Wish more of her old friends turned up.

Blog Slack

I know I've only been uploading pics into my blog and haven't really been "blogging". Bear with me ok? Pics are the only thing I can handle at the moment. Will have to "zone" into real blogging soon. So much to blog about, so much has happened, so much to tell, but for now pics will have to do.

Stay tuned.

17 July 2007

My mother-in-law with her two boys on her 60th Birthday @ Coca Subang Parade

14 July 2007

11 July 2007

Jia Wen @ Sri Ayutthya in USJ


PEACE!

Katrin

10 July 2007

9 July 2007

8 July 2007

7 July 2007

Great Grandparents


She's 80!

Jia Xiang & Nai Nai

Durian Cake

Jia Xiang & Great Grand Aunty from Bangkok

Best Durian Chocolate Cake ever by Just Heavenly

Great Grandma's 80th Birthday
(sugee almond cake by Just Heavenly)

5 July 2007

Jia Wen onboard, coming back to KL with Jia Xiang

4 July 2007

Jia Wen posing at KLIA - going to Labuan to pick Jia Xiang

Singapore Day 4

Day 4 was a relaxing day. We didn't do anything touristy. We met up with Danny, Joey & Khyn Win at Parkway Mall and had Mos Burger for lunch. After lunch, Carol and I managed to send the kids home with the fathers and we got to do a little shopping together. I only bought Avent bottles!

In the evening, we went to Clark Quay for dinner and there's when Shien Wei and I did the reverse bungy (will upload video asap). After doing the bungy, we had dinner by the river. It was a nice evening. Relaxing. We walked around for a bit before stopping at The Pump Room for drinks. As the kids were with us, we had to only sit outside to have our drinks. Carol and I went into the club and saw one of Singapore's most famous live band - Jive Talking. The band was VERY good and I will definitely go back there again the next time I go to Singapore (?).

We went home at nearly midnight. The girls were already exhausted and so were the rest of us.

Highlight Photos - Singapore

Jia Wen & Leanne @ Changi Airport

Waiting for a cab on a Saturday

Dinner at Clark Quay

The Fongs

You think?

Read the above news report.

Highlight:

The event was made possible by personal contributions from all government officers and staff, including the police and armed forces.

What do you think?!

Congratulations to Mr & Mrs PM.

Jia Wen

Today when I dropped Jia Wen off at school, her teacher asked me to stay back for a few minutes to talk about what Jia Wen said in class. When she told me that, I panicked ok!! I was like "what on earth did she say? did she say something obscene? did she say something vulgar? did she say she saw something that she wasn't supposed to see?" I was worried. The teacher took out Jia Wen's workbook and showed me a worksheet she did with Jia Wen.

This was the worksheet they did together.

Tim and Dan are friends. Tim fell sick and stays in bed. What should Dan do?

a. Make noise
b. Bring Tim out to the park
c. Read Tim a story

Jia Wen's answer - "Bring Tim out to the park". When the teacher asked her why, she answered "take him to the park to run and he will sweat. When he sweats, his fever will go away!"

Jia Wen's teacher was dumbfounded and speechless.

Jia Wen's teacher found it so funny and such a logical answer coming from a 3 year old kid. She had to tell me all about it.

I don't know where she got the idea to answer like that. I have never told her such a thing or the concept of sweating out a fever. Gosh.

Singapore Day 3

Day 3 in Singapore brought us to Sentosa Island. A new day, a new place to go, we took the public transport (Jia Wen loves trains), took the cable car, we thought that would make her day. But Jia Wen asked to go back the first 20 mins after we arrived on Sentosa Island and she was like that the whole way through except for when she was coming down the hill on the luge.

She got Shien Wei and I so worked up that we started getting angry at each other. It was stressful.

We went for the pink dolphin show where she was more interested with playing with the sand on the lagoon than watching the dolphins do their stunts. Sigh. What can I say about my daughter. I guess she is still too young for such family trips.

After rushing through Sentosa Island, we walked to Vivo City where I walked around a bit. Vivo City is so big that I think I only covered 1 tenth of it. There so much I wanted to see but didn't have the time to. We took the train and bus back to Carol's in Pasir Ris before going out for dinner at Eric & Tong Huey's house. We didn't bring Jia Wen with us. She stayed back with Carol and Leanne. I don't think I would be able to take "Mummy, can we go home now" every 5 minutes.

Singapore Day 2

Day 2 at Singapore saw us at the Singapore Zoo. It must have been the most stressful visit to the zoo for Shien Wei and I. Jia Wen didn't quite enjoy the zoo and was fussy almost all the way. Can't really blame her. The weather was very humid and there were no breeze. Being under the trees, made it more humid. She wanted to go home from the first hour we were there.

Not too sure whether it was because she's still too young to appreciate visiting places like this but she wasn't really interested in the animals at all. We basically flew by all the animals. At least we caught all the shows in the zoo; elephant show, orang utan show, sea lion show, dog show. Althought she didn't enjoy the show very much, at least she sat through them all. The highlight of Jia Wen's trip to the zoo was of course the pool where she played in for nearly an hour. Singapore now like the zoo has many places where children can go play get wet and play with water. It is a just a shallow pool of water with water splashing everywhere for children to go play while parents can sit down and watch. Even shopping complexes like Vivo City had one and I think it is a good idea. The pool is shallow enough for minimum supervision and it keeps "people" out of the decorative fountains and pools like in Malaysia. Jia Wen had a wonderful time in the water.

Jia Wen eagerly left the zoo!

Highlight Photos - Genting

Jia Wen on Bumper Car

As you can see, Jia Wen wasn't a very good bumper car driver. She kept on going round and round in circles. It was pretty hilarious! She did get the hang of it after like 15 rounds?!

Singapore Day 1

Do come back

Managed to upload pictures from our trip to Genting Highlands. Will be back again soon to upload pics of our trip to Singapore and to tell you all about our short holiday with Jia Wen.

Am exhausted, physically tired, mentally drained, emotionally - yucks! Imagine this:

KL - Labuan - KL - Genting - KL - Singapore - KL - Labuan - KL all in 1 week!

Stay tuned!

Gentings Day 2

Gentings Day 1

OK, it all started out from receiving a bunch of vouchers from Gentings which came with a free one night stay at their First World Hotel. So, Shien Wei and decided that we'll bring Jia Wen for a short holiday and since Shien Wei had to finish up a week's worth of leave, we thought we'd extend the short holiday to Singapore as well. So that when I said I'd better send Jia Xiang to Labuan so that we can have a peace of mind. Jia Wen and I sent Jia Xiang to Labuan for my mum to look after before we started our mini holiday in Gentings.

We went up to Genting on the 24 June 2007 together with Shien Wei's grandparents who also wanted to enjoy the cool air. We reached Gentings at about noon, we had lunch and then started with the outdoor theme park. Of course we checked into our hotel room first. It must have been the smallest hotel room I have ever stayed in. Luckily I decided not to bring Jia Xiang, I wouldn't know where to put him! Anyway, we started our Genting extravaganza at the outdoor theme park where of course we went for the kiddy rides. The only adult ride I took was the flying coaster where I went for 2 rounds! Jia Wen enjoyed herself for sure and if she could have it her way, she would stay in the theme park and not go back to the hotel. She enjoyed this ride called the rodeo rider where she went for like 6-7 times!! Its actually a kiddy version of the Space Shot, the only difference is that it bounces up and down instead of a straight freefall. The first time she went on it, she was very afraid but slowly she got the hung of it and enjoyed it very much. She would laugh all the way up and laugh all the way down and when it bounces. She went on the ride continuously! You can see in the pics above that she went so many times (switched seats each time).

There were many other rides that had a height requirement so she couldn't get on to quite a few. She wanted to go on the roller coaster. Well, at least she's got the love for thrills from me.

After the outdoor theme park, we went back to the hotel for a rest and then went to Genting Hotel for a nice buffet dinner. Of course after dinner we went into the indoor theme park where again Jia Wen went on every ride she could. She especially enjoyed the Ride de Paris and the Junior Bumper Cars where she went on like 5-6 times continiously that night. We couldn't take much photos of her driving the car as the places was glassed. However, I did take videos of her going round and round in circles. She didn't quite master the art of driving the bumper car even after going for so many rounds. It was pretty hilarious when she went round and round in circles. I will you tube the videos asap. She was full of energy that little rascal. I tell you she didn't show any signs of slowing down even after a full days of playing.

We only finished Day 1 of Genting at midnight and even at midnight, Jia Wen still had some energy! Day 2 to continue...

My 30th Birthday

In conjunction with the HRH's birthday (thats me lah), my cousins brought me out for dinner at Jarrod & Rawlings in Damansara Heights. Lisa brought a friend Chris from Perth and I brought Nicole for a night out too - a night out both Nicole and I haven't had in a long long while.

We sat outside of the restaurant where we could order deli food. We had good wines too. I think we had about 4 bottles, there were 7 of us. We had the most fun talking girl talk as usual and the things we talked about ranged from politics (not so much) to hairs on our body. We all laughed so much that night and I am pretty sure it wasn't influenced by the alcohol, honest! We also had fun taking photos of ourselves. As you can see above, we are a very vain family. It took us about half an hour just taking the photos above. Mainly it was because every photo shot we had to "see see" the photo and delete, evaluate, comment when necessary.

It was a very nice evening, thanks girls! And a special thanks to Rodney too (the only male there?)