Christmas 2014

Went Harbourfront with wifey to have a soupy dinner on Christmas eve as she is not feeling too well. We tried The Orange Lantern for the first time. (we often passed by but never once tried) we ordered 2 beef noodles and a plate of vegetables to share... good for a rainy evening.

After dinner, we walked over to Vivocity and bumped into Deb+Mike+troopers who were getting their new iphone. That is where we noticed how tall Matt has grown ;) stayed with them for awhile before we continued our shopping. We went into SK jewellery to look at the "dancing star ", Yankee Candles, and the art/craft shop and then to Daiso where we bought some hangers and a duster. 
As it was getting late and also colder in the mall, we decided to head home after that. Outside of Vivo, the decorations were beautiful.

At home, we watched some T.V. and then at 11pm, decided to unwrap our presents under the Christmas tree ;o)

 

 

Wifey also prepared a beautiful card for me and left it in the mailbox to surprise me in the afternoon when I returned from work. cheeky;

 

It was 1am when we finished unwrapping all those presents... and so we went to bed to rest.

 

Christmas Day! woke up early to clean up the house. It has been a month since I last did that and our floor is sure in need of a thorough vacuum/mop treatment. I also kept the Christmas tree (see  you next year)

 

Went for lunch at the market (fishball noodles + roti prata) and saw someone who looked soooo much like Neil Humphreys. I asked him if he is Neil but he said no... hmmm.... anyway, I packed a chicken drumstick hor fun for wifey and went home to continue with the chores. Wifey later helped to keep those presents and cleared the fridge..

 

In the afternoon, I went down with Mick to play with our R.C. cars... mine was much faster than his ..ha and he kept insisting it was the batteries ;}

Matt came down shortly and we played some ball too before going up for our dinner.

 

Deb prepared baked cod fish and we also have potato salad, vege salad, soup and some finger food to go with it. It was a nice dinner to end off Christmas 2014.

 

Here's wishing wifey, and our family and love ones a great year ahead filled with God's presence, blessings and favour.

 

 

 

 

Back from the high Seas... A Family Retreat

Last week was our long awaited and much looked forward to Royal Caribbean Mariner of the Seas cruise vacation. 

It marked the first time myself and wifey went on-board a cruise, and it is also the very first time we travelled as an extended family with folks and Mike&Deb's troopers.

 

We were very excited when we managed to board the huge vessel and went around exploring the various floors, of course, the very first place we visited was..

 

 

That's right! the pool deck. Which was also the place we spent a lot of our time at, especially in the night, where wifey and I will just take a stroll and chill on the deck chairs enjoying the free movie screening with the sea breeze blowing.

 

 

There were quite a lot of programmes on-board the ship such as performances, ice skating, movie screening and they run concurrently so we refer to the "Cruise Compass" to plan how our day is going to be like beforehand...

Our ship stopped at Port Klang and Phuket. We did not disembark at Port Klang but we did take their free tender to visit Patong beach area for a few hours.

 

We took some photos at Phuket and had BK before heading back to the ship before it gets too crowded. Wifey managed to get a sling bag here ;o)

Throughout our stay, we also took quite a few photos using wife's instax

Thank God for the trip, It was a nice way to round up the year, with beautiful memories which I will keep for a long long time...







7th Wedding Anniversary

Last week, we celebrated our 7^th Wedding Anniversary.

As per our usual practice, we took the opportunity to clear some of our leaves during that period.

Here is what we did…

24^th November (Monday)

As wifey wasn’t feeling too well, I let her sleep in longer while I did some vacuuming and mopping. What better anniversary gift to present to your wife than to be greeted by a spick and span home, first thing in the morning? ;o) 

In the past, we’ll probably have insisted to start the day real early and then line it up with plenty of activities (breakfast, swimming, movies etc…) but I decided that this year will be a simpler affair. A time of rest for the both of us and spending the days at a more leisurely pace.

Wifey woke up in the late morning and we went over to have lunch at Alexandra Village.

We had roast meat & duck rice with a plate of vegetable.

After lunch, we walked over to Anchor point and bumped into small Eugene. Wifey managed to get a kitten top from one of the stall. We then walked back home. Weather was rather wet, so it’s good to stay home.

Dinner was something special! we made use of a Groupon voucher for WA Dining – the crab bar

It was located at UE Square and we had a little bit of problem locating the restaurant BUT as usual, we managed to find the place after some pre-dinner navigation.

It was a nearly empty restaurant that we walked in to, so it feels as though we have reserved the whole place to ourselves. Isn’t it nice…?

Wifey tried her Instax8 Polaroid camera for the very first time at the restaurant J

 

 

We then placed our orders of 2 crabs (white pepper and chilli) and a plate of bread.

 

The voucher also entitled us to a pint of beer and soft drink plus complimentary dessert kiwi puree.

My initial fears that the crab would be very small and not enough to fill our tummies were unfounded as they brought in 2 crabs of fairly big size. We had a very delicious, satisfying and filling meal on that night,

 

After dinner, we took a stroll to Clarke Quay, taking a few photos along the way with the Christmas decorations before heading home.

25^th November (Tuesday)

Had some mom-cooked porridge for lunch before heading to GV Vivo City for our movie date. We went to catch the highly rated “Interstellar”.

 

As we were early, we went to get wifey her daily coffee fix and the choco thingy at St Marc’s.

Even though I am not really a fan of Sci-Fi, I found the movie quite nice though wifey felt that it was overrated. I am glad I can understand Christopher Nolan’s film a bit better now as compared to “Inception” .

Dinner was at Burger King as I had craving for that. After dinner we went to the roof top to take more photos of the Christmas deco.

 

 

 

We also rested on the bench and just listened to Christmas carols playing on the speakers while enjoying the breeze.

 

26^th November (Wednesday)

Went to KKH in the morning before heading to OG Albert Complex where wifey finally got her fit flop sandals which she has set her eyes on for a very long time. Hope that this pair will really help her backache problem and not cause any pain while walking. We than walked over to Bugis Junction and bought some Christmas presents at BHG. It was a rainy day as usual so we were feeling quite cold at the mall…

 

 

For dinner, my initial plan was to bring wifey to Por Kee to try the tomyum fish and champagne ribs but to our dismay, it was closed when we reached Tiong Bahru.

Thankfully, we managed to settle our dinner at the Thai Food Stall at Tiong Bahru Market.

 

 Wanted to try the café after dinner but we were too full.

 

Thanks God for the time spent with each other as we look forward to creating many more beautiful memories together as we continue to grow our marriage with Jesus... even if its just doing the simple things in life... 

SGS Family/Long Service Award Day

Last Saturday was SGS Family/Service Award Day at Sentosa.

I am blessed and honoured to have wifey joining me to witness me receiving the 5 Years Award.

We started the day early and had McDonalds breakfast at Vivo City before taking the monorail into the “Island of Fun”

After alighting at the Beach Station, we were halfway through walking under the scorching sun when we spotted a beach tram which stopped alongside. We gratefully hopped on and the rest of the journey was a breeze, literally.. ;o)

The tram alighted us at the Sapphire Pavilion and we did the necessary registration and collected our door gifts (umbrella and a small exercise bag)

The Long Service award started soon after and I received a certificate with some monetary token of appreciation.

   

With the MD

After that, I was picked to play in some tele-matches. My group name? RED BULL haha…

We started with the “waiter race”, then “drunken sailor”, followed by “minefield” and the last and most challenging item was the very challenging Tug of War. Thank God that my team was made up of all (mostly young and hungry) guys, hence, we managed to come up tops in 3 of the 4 items (losing in the waiter race as we collected lesser water than the yellow team)





THIS IS HAARRRDDD WORK!

TEAM RED BULL

Total winnings amounted to $30 Capital vouchers (not too bad for an hour of games, sweat
and some abrasion)

Wifey’s observation from our Tug of War performance was that we were physically less strong than our opposition in the finals as they were bigger sized than a lot of us. However, she saw that we were hungrier to win and that was the key to our victory.


Personally, I felt that despite the tactics and technique given by our captain before the game (squat down, lean back and wait for opposition to tire before we start pulling) everything becomes quite messy once the game started and I found it very difficult to carry out the instructions. End of the day,. I guess techniques plays a part but like what wifey rightfully commented the desire to win was a very key factor.

We had buffet lunch after the games followed by some stage interactions and then lucky draw (which I did not win) . We loitered awhile more after that and tried the mini putting and shooting games booths before attempting to take the beach tram back to the beach station.




We did not succeed initially as the tram was always full no matter which station we waited.

So, both of us decided to just take a slow walk and while walking…. Tada… the beach tram appeared again and this time, there were some available seats. We board the tram and it took us back to Siloso before making a u-turn. The journey itself was enjoyable as we could take in the sights along the beach, so we decided to extend our ride and take to Palawan Beach and back to “explore” a little bit more, since we are in no rush to go home.



Selfie Time!



Sentosa is really a nice place, especially the Palawan area which looked quiet and peaceful with a nice lagoon. Will be back to spend some time there next time.

We headed home for some rest and to wash up before going over to Anchorpoint for dinner. Saw Garfeld there and took a pic with him.

We had Spaghetti (soft shell crab for me and aglio for wifey) at the food court that evening. It was delicious and reasonable priced.