Whatsapp Rocks

Hubby & I were the first 2 in the group to use WhatsApp 2 years ago. Slowly, the rest joined & the lastest was June, end of last year.

Hubby & I first created a family chat group for CNY & now the title is changing according to the different occasions :) We've all the siblings in there, except Ben.
Ben, if you're reading this... We're still waiting for you! Hehe.

Tea Time. Me Time.

Some TWG Chamomile tea for the day :)
Hubby dearest have to work today & mum has gone for a 11-day HK trip with her sisters & relatives. So I get to spend some time by myself. A very different Sunday indeed..

Fuss free meals at home.. with TV, lappy & some nice tea :)

Lunch - Chee cheong fun in seasoned soy sauce.

Macaroni soup with lots & lots of spinach (1.5 packet!)

Year of the Dragon Celebrations

Flower of this CNY.
I was captivated by the bright orangey lil flowers at Far East Flora. There're only 2 or 3 pots there as the rest were in red or pink. On the left was when we first bought it & only a few days later, we saw the pretty blossoms all over (right)!

Like any other year, CNY celebration started early with the reunion dinner with extended family.

Lo Hei the Sat before CNY (14 Jan) @ Toa Payoh's Swatow Seafood Restaurant. That's quite a different reunion dinner as everyone was so into drinking & got a lil too loud.. haha.

Before CNY, not a night we could sleep before 12.... just too many errands (I actually did up a daily checklist for the 1 month right till CNY eve!).

Foie Gras @ sis' just 4 days before CNY!
Had a tiny bit on NYE (as shared with the other 3 - hubby, June & EY) & been craving for it. So when we went to collect a carton of mandarin oranges from sis, we took the chance to have dinner there. Hee.
The feasting had never stopped since Christmas.. Tsk tsk...

年除夕 was a rush for us. After Sunday service, we packed breakfast from Uncle Ong in Middle Road (his homecooked 面粉粿 is superb.. so as his chee cheong fun with special hay bee topping) before going to my manicurist at FEP to add crystals to my gel nails. we spent almost an hour for my nails & had our breakfast there. Also bought for the manicurists as previously promised.

My deep purple French nails with crystals :)

Thereafter we rushed to 2 Crystal Jades - (1) Bishan & joined the long Q to collect our roast meat for reunion lunch (2) Causeway Point, our carrot cake. It sounds silly but we first ordered carrot cake weeks ago & we, of course, chose the closest outlet to us. Then days before CNY we ordered roast meat but could only collect at one of their restaurants (not My Bread) & we couldn't change the collection venue for our carrot cake as well. Anyway, after chain of errands in the morning, we reach bro's just before 1pm for the lunch. Phew!

Reunion lunch @bro's. Sis-in-law cooked all the dishes by herself!

Then steamboat reunion dinner @ AMK.
Thought we could sleep earlier that night as we'd had our car washed & polished a coupla days before & I didn't have to DIY my nails. But still, we slept only @ approx 2am.

This year's 初一 was different because my MIL changed plans. So we visited bro instead (at least to get 1 visiting settled), then had dinner with the siblings before a 9pm show.

Dinner @ Cineleisure's Xing Wang Hong Kong Cafe which was one of the very few restaurants/cafe opened on the 1st day. Planned nicely so we could proceed to watch the show in the same premise.
And it's to celebrate Ben's birthday :)

On the 2nd day, it's the 开年饭 at home that we can't miss. Dear mum prepared everything by herself. **In HK everyone's talking about 开年饭 but in Spore, seems like my aunt and ours are the only families having it, haha.
After lunch, we went back to AMK & the yearly photo-taking. We took much lesser this year & there's no family pic! My MIL was so disoriented this year & made all of us confused as well :( In the evening we caught another movie.

Were glad that the CNY holiday hadn't ended for us as we took leave on the 3rd & 4th day.

On the 3rd day, got to take some pictures before we went to 5th aunt's with mum for lunch. This year only needed to visit 1 aunt as the other started work.
In the afternoon, hubby & I had a relaxing afternoon at City Square, having tea & did a bit of unplanned shopping.

That night, finally got the chance to have our carrot cake for dinner, with shark's fin soup which mum specially kept for us from the previous day's 开年饭 :)

So that week we only worked for a day on Friday. Fri night, we went to 3 supermarkets trying to buy all needed ingredients for next day's lunch as hubby's siblings visiting & we last minute decided to prepare a simple meal for them instead of potluck. Hubby was a great 'assistant' so cooking that day was quite a relaxing task than I expected though I hadn't been cooking for almost 2 years :)

Lunch menu: Sweet sour pork (咕噜肉), scrambled eggs with chinese sausage (腊肠煎蛋), spinach with garlic (波菜清炒蒜茸) & lotus root soup (莲藕汤). Most rewarding for a cook is to see every bit of the food being finished up ;)

After lunch:
Beer tasting! La Trappe beer - different bottles contained different alcohol level. From left to right - Quadrupel 10%, Tripel 8%, Dubbel 7% & Blond 6.5%.
Monopoly time! Looks like it has become our yearly tradition to play this game during CNY. Hahah.

The gang stayed till 8pm & some of us had dinner together @ Kungfu Paradise in Sembawang Shopping Centre. Hubby & I then went for CNY drinks with my cousins whom we haven't been meeting.. First at MBS' CBTL then we adjourned to One Fullerton's OverEasy (yes... it's our recommendation:P).

In fact it's the first time we had a reunion like this. Not all were present though and we hope to be able to gather more in future ;)

The following Sat.. we reached Orchard early at 10.30am. Had our fav Hans breakfast at FEP & then ran banking errands in the vicinity. Did a bit of shopping at ION/Ngee Ann City & then had lunch at sis' as we've arranged to visit dad's in the afternoon.

After that, had tea with sis at Dome in Bishan & had a good catch-up.

After sending sis back to her restaurant, we dropped by at AMK to pick June & EY for dinner. The timing was just right!

Dinner @ Hotpot Culture! As I was craving for some simple steamboat food.

Drinks at Level 33, MBFC. We'd a very good chat there with great view.



Surprise! It didn't occur to us at all that there'd be fireworks at the end of Chingay till we suddenly heard noises & saw the beautiful fireworks from one of the best angles.

We still went Lau Pat Sat for supper after drinks & reached home nearly 2am, again.

Celebrations usually mean unhealthy lifestyle - lots of food, alcohol and late nights. That's indeed very bad...
We're starting a healthier diet program right after CNY because we didn't wanna look so bloated on Con's Big Day. But it'll be so hard to follow, ha...

And The Busy Weeks Continue .....

We didn't have a free night since Christmas!

Eve of New Year Eve, I'd my BRT treatment, dinner with hubby & then K session with Ben, June & Eugene.

Teo Heng @ Katong Complex.
Really cheap option.. quite a pleasant experience except the place was a lil cramp (as it's a small room meant for only 4 pax). For 3 hours, each of us only paid $8.5!

New Year Eve. As it's kind of a last minute decision to have dinner together (with June & Eugene) before drinks, we went to sis' for dinner. Sis didn't have a 'NYE menu' so it's good.. we didn't want to pay for an expensive dinner. And sis gave us free soup & dessert, so we just paid for our main courses! ;)

It's a good dinner. I must say sis is really gifted in cooking!

After dinner, we'd drinks at Shanghai Jazz.

Cheers to 2012!

That night, we'd a bottle of red wine, 2 towers, 1 more jug while June had a couple of cocktails :D

Right after our New Year celebration, we're fully occupied with spring cleaning & CNY preps, besides working.

Busy Weeks

So busy - we hadn't been at home on all the weekends in December, except Christmas Eve and Day ironically, ha. As weekdays after work were too short to shop for presents, we only had 2.5 weekends to do it. Last Sat (17 Dec) was originally reserved for Christmas potluck party with our cell group but was last minute replaced by a movie premiere to watch Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol, an invitation from hubby's office. Hubby had to show face as his director was away.

Quite a number of hours in the last week before Christmas were spent in gift wrapping. Tiring as done at night, after work... But the pleasantly surprised expression on each receiver's face & their praises made all the efforts put in worthwhile ;)

On 23 Dec, our office was officially closed for half day (pm). So shiok to be enjoying half-days on 2 consecutive Fridays (16 Dec & 23 Dec)! Met June for lunch at United Square before my BRT treatment at 3pm. Bakerzin's set meal was pretty good (except for the slices of bread that were as hard as cardboard!) & the catch-up with June was great. By the way, hubby & I are impressed at the pace Jun speaks... as info shared within that 1 hour+ at lunch took me the whole night to update hubby! Ha...

After treatment, I went to meet hubby at his office. It's a 1-hour long bus journey from Thomson to Telok Blangah.. along the way the bus braved flood and heavy traffic (almost everywhere!). We then had a beer & early Christmas 3-course dinner at The Chamber, Robertson Walk. I like the food but not some of the drinkers there.

My Grilled Chicken Skewers with potatoes.. Nice!
Hubby had Lamb shank with red wine sauce.

Christmas Eve, we popped by at the Christmas party organised by hubby's aunts & uncles (maternal) at One Shenton.

We brought a bottle of Champagne to the party ;)

We stayed for an hour+ & then adjourned to Liang Seah Street with June & Eugene for drinks.



We headed back home around 1am... had only 4 hours of sleep and attended morning Christmas service @ 8.30am!! I"m proud that hubby & I didn't doze off at all! :D

Current Fav

Lemongrass soda. Nice!

My Secret Santa !

Last Fri we only worked half day & had department Christmas lunch at Senso (@ Club Street). Had a nice lunch filled with fun & chats with colleagues. When it's time for gift exchange, I was the first to be called & was pleasantly surprised that my Secret Santa was our boss. So undoubtedly he bought something that was over our individual gift budget of $25.

Thank God for the hand cream as I was actually searching for a good one recently.
At first I nearly blurt out that the box was so crumbled but am glad I didn't, as it's from the boss :D

Finally!

We've bought all the presents... exactly 30 pieces!

From now on just need to focus on wrapping them. As hubby knows I like to dress up our presents, we purposely made a trip to Kin Soon in Arab Street this morning to get more ribbons.

The "naked" presents are all placed by the tree now.. soon they'll be dolled up ;)

JPO

Last Fri hubby attended an ex-colleague's wedding dinner & I went out with 2 of my colleagues. We'd dinner & then drinks at Firefly. I haven't been to a Canto club for many many years. Still not my cup of tea, hehe. We only reached home past midnight as hubby came to pick us up at 11pm & sent them back.

I only had 4 hours of sleep (& hubby had 4.5) before we rushed to an outing organised by hubby's company. It's a lil trying having to wake up after only 4 hours of sleep & some beer the night before.

JPO was opened on 2 Dec & we went on the 3rd.
That day, altogether 11 coaches were organised by hubby's to go up!!!

We didn't expect to buy anything there but in the end we bought quite a bit including some Christmas presents, Adidas shirts for hubby, a Gap dress and La Senza's underwear were too good to miss (10 for RM50!!!). The highlight of the shopping trip gotta be the Coach bag hubby bought for me. It wasn't very cheap but I like the size & the silver strips.


Gonna keep all our purchases for the coming CNY so as to make myself feel less guilty :P

Whole Night of Fun

It's a great Friday night... with lots of alcohol and laughter :)

Had originally planned dinner/drinks for last Sat with Vince & his siblings and we made reservation at Overeasy. However some of them couldn't make it so we changed to Friday instead. Asked to change our reservation but it's already full when we called 2 days before & they only accept walk-in. According to them, there'd still be seats at 5ish but would be on waitlist if we arrived at 6ish. And we believe as the Fri evening before last, we wanted to dine there (firstly, I fell in love with the outdoor ambience & second, the previous dining experience there was great but it's a pity that I was too sick then) but @ 7.15pm, the waiting list was so long that they only called us with confirmed seats 1 hour later... by then we're already filling up our growling tummy @ One Raffles Place's Sakae Sushi.

Then we'd the idea of going back again with the siblings.

As the rest could only be there around 7pm, I volunteered to go get seats after work. Left for Overeasy right after work together with one of the colleagues, Adeline. Since there's 1-for-1 on house pours during happy hours, I thought it's a brilliant idea to ask Adeline along - 1) to take my second drink as I wouldn't be able to take 2 alone 2) it'd be a great opportunity to catch up with Adeline 3) to keep me company for that one hour+ before the rest arrived.

We reached Overeasy slightly before 6pm & we could only be on waitlist for an outdoor table. But at least we got a booth seat inside.

Adeline has been a great colleague as well as prayer buddy ;)

At 7, hubby arrived & took over from Adeline. June got there past 7 & we shared some really juicy news that didn't realise time passed quickly & Con & Ivan reached past 8. Ben was the latest. He's really become a very hardworking young man, haha.

They managed to get us outdoor seats after waitlisting for almost 2 hours since 6pm. Fully enjoyed the view!





Snap snap snap!

11ish... we still didn't wanna end the night, so went on to KTV @ SAFRA Mount Faber.

2nd round of boozing started:)

June was sure in the mood to sing.. That night she sang more than I've heard in the past years, hehe!

Singer in the making :P

We're in such party mood that we still had no intention to leave even at 3am when KBox needed to close for the day. We left our cars @ SAFRA overnight. Con & Ivan took taxi home from SAFRA.. hubby & I took a ride from Eugene to AMK to save some cab fare. Eugene was really disciplined by keeping only to a couple of drinks that's why he's able to drive June & Ben home.

Been a long time since we last had such an extended happy hours.. everyone's so happy. And I drank for 9 hours (6pm - 3am) without feeling drunk or even high! I'd say that's record breaking, haha.

The 6th Celebration

Just before our 6th Anniversary, I was, again, sick. Very bad flu... my nose was all clogged up & my voice was almost gone. Anyway, we didn't plan for big dinner. Hubby had made reservation @ Level 33 weeks before our Day but we decided to go elsewhere instead.

On Actual Day

A lovely bouquet from hubby to my office

Overeasy @ One Fullerton

I only had enough appetite for a big bowl of mushroom soup & some wings.. hubby enjoyed his lamb burger though. I couldn't even finish half of the Erdinger.

Enjoyed our walk along the bay after dinner :)

The Following Weekend

We checked into Marina Bay Sands on Sat

We'd a pleasant surprise from the hotel when they knew we're celebrating our Wedding Anniversary - a full size Piper-Heidsieck Champagne & Sweetspot Raspberry Cake that worth a total of $130+

Free & unlimited visits to the Sands SkyPark



With such crowds at the pool, hubby & I will never wanna take a dip in there

Generous serving of TWG tea in the room

We opted for the valet parking as it's more worth it ($12 for 24 hours).
There we saw our ride on the screen:)
How it works - upon seeing our car appears on screen in the air conditioned waiting room, we will proceed to the drop-off/pick-up point at the hotel's entrance to collect our car.