Happy Birthday Cobby 2011

Thru Cobby's workplace, we managed to book a night's stay at the Ritz Carlton at a very good price. So we decided to make it a birthday treat for Cobby! Before we checked in, we had lunch at one of our favourite place, 2nd Mini Steamboat. We usually eat alone, so it's different with Jolie around. (BTW, check out Cobby's Liverpool jersey! Hope that his team would have more luck this year, go Liverpool!)

After a long wait, we finally checked into the Ritz Carlton! First thing we checked out was their famous bathroom with the giant window overlooking the city. Cool!

The bedroom has a sofa area, a desk and of course, a king size bed! The sheets were crazily soft, but the downside to everything was that they have ran out of extra beds! DUH!!! The last time the whole family shared a bed, we were at Sentosa and Jolie-the terrible kept us up all night. I was hoping that we wouldn't have to go thru that again, but no such luck!

Anyway, it was nap time for Jo, so we made her take a nap. After her nap, we headed down to the pool. It's pretty cloudy and cool, but we went anyway. The water in the pool was too cold to swim in, but thankfully they have a warm jacuzzi pool, so it's like swimming in a giant bathtub! SUPER SHIOK! Cobby and I didn't want to get out, but Jolie was determined to torture us by dragging us to the freezing pool every once in awhile.

After we've washed up, we headed out for dinner at the Food Street at the Singapore Flyer.

After dinner we went for a ride on the Singapore rider. The last time we were there, Marina Bay Sands wasn't even finished building yet, so this time round the view was spectacular! My home country looks SO beautiful! *PROUD*

I've promised Cobby a birthday cake, so after the ride we went to Marina Square for a slice of cake. Too bad there's no candles!

Happy Birthday Cobby! I love you!
Last year's celebration

Service Balcony Revamp

Chinese New Year's coming, so naturally my mind is in full gear once again. Cleaning, baking, and most importantly, rearranging furniture to maximise storage space. There seemed to be quite alot of potential in my service balcony, so after some discussions and measurements, we headed down to IKEA to hunt for our cupboards.

We decided on something more hardy, so we chose the FAKTUM kitchen cabinet series. I love the flexibility of IKEA furniture, how we can custom make the whole cupboard according to our needs. It was too big for us to carry home, so we arranged for delivery the next day.


It didn't help that the IKEA delivery men work on rubber-band timing:

The delivery slip says 3pm-6pm.
At 3.30pm they say they'll be there in 30mins
They arrived nearing 5pm. -_-


We made a decision to put together the cupboard ourselves. Afterall, Cobby and I were experts in putting together IKEA furniture. I mean, how hard can that be right? Turns out that the cupboard was the toughest thing we have ever assembled. Not because it was complicated or anything. It's just that, there were SO many parts, and the thing was quite tall, so most parts were tall, long, heavy and tough to manoeuvre around our little kitchen.

Not forgetting we weren't experts, so much time was taken up figuring out the instructions and the trial and error of putting things in, taking it out and putting things in again. THANKFULLY, Cobby decided to buy a BOSCH heavy duty cordless screwdriver a few days ahead and that has helped tremendously during the assembly.

Meanwhile, Jolie was at my Mom's place. So we quickly got to work, but we had to stop around 6.30pm, as it was getting late. We had to go to mom's place for dinner and pick up Jolie. Besides, we could tell we were getting tired when Cobby counted the number of holes in the cupboard 3 times and still gets it wrong! Hahaha...

So we quickly cleaned up and headed to Mom's place. When we got back, Cobby wanted to finish it, so we got busy again and put on the finishing pieces. Finally it's done!

I loved my new cupboards to the max!!! The smaller one was made a day earlier, simple one to keep all my rags and cleaning tools and double as a bamboo stick holder. The big one was so spacious, we managed to liberate quite alot of space in the store room by transferring some stuff over. So happy! Best of all, we managed to finish it in a day, so tomorrow, we could check in into the Ritz Carlton and enjoy our little family vacation in peace. Cheers to that!

Merry Christmas 2011

Merry Christmas! Yesterday Cobby was on duty, so we waited for him to come home in the morning before we opened our presents. Last year, we bought Jolie a bike. This year, we went easy and bought something more simple.

A snapping crocodile game! Jolie loved the mini version while we were in Hong Kong, so Cobby chose decided to buy her a giant one. Unfortunately, now she's so nervous that the crocodile would snap at her hands that she wouldn't even play with it! -_- But Cobby and I loved it. Hehe...

Jolie always loved playing with balls, and loved a game of throwing balls into makeshift baskets. So I chose a mini basketball with hoop. The hoop could hook onto any door, so it was really versatile. We were playing with it in our PJs and challenging each other. Super fun!

For Cobby, I bought him the same basketball and hoop so that he could put it in his office. :) I've got my Xmas presents a few months ahead. It's a brand new camera, Canon Powershot S95. Super awesome camera, love it much much!

After washing up, I heated up some left-over pancakes from the freezer for breakfast. But since it's Xmas, I jazzed it up by making a chocolate sauce for dipping! Oooh, it was so good! Jolie and I loved it!

After breakfast, we left Jolie with MIL while Cobby and I went to Marina Bay Sands to catch WICKED. I would say it's like a prequel to The Wizard of Oz, a story of the characters before Dorothy dropped in.

During the interval, we pampered ourselves with a glass of bubbly champagne! Merry Christmas!

It was great! Great story, great acting, great songs and brilliant costumes! Money well spent! After the show, we walked to the Robinsons inside Marina Bay Sands, as I remembered that they actually displayed the costumes of the 2 main casts in their window.

That night, we headed out to New Ubin Seafood for a seafood dinner!

What an eventful day, Happy Christmas!

Xmas Eve Tea Party 2011

It has been so long since I've met up with my 2 poly friends, so I was suddenly inspired to invite them out for tea on Christmas eve. I love my friend Ting Ting, but she have a serious habit of cancelling on us last minute, so in my invitation, I added a "no last minute cancellations allowed!" clause. Alas, I forgot to add the "DO NOT BE LATE" clause, so as expected, our tea party started very late!

Our 3pm date ended up with me and Serene meeting up at 3.30pm at TWG ION, then Ting said she would be here at 4pm, so after a long queue, Serene and I settled down and enjoyed our tea and super yummy sandwiches.

Only nearing 5pm, Ting said she's arrived, with her 2 kids!! There's no space for another 2 seats! So we had to finish our food and find another location at ION. We went to...

Marmalade pantry - full house
Coffee bean - full house
Starbucks - full house

Finally we settled for TCC after queuing for 10mins, by then it was already 5pm plus! But Serene and I still ordered a drink and accompanied Ting and her kids awhile before we bade farewell.

Serene had to go home for Christmas dinner and I had to go fetch Jolie at my Mom's place. Cobby had to do duty, so it's just me and Jolie tonight. Although short, it was nice to meet up with my friends. Hope we can still keep in touch no matter how busy our lives get.

过冬 2011

Mom wasn't planning to celebrate 过冬 this year, but since Bro said he was coming home for lunch, Mom asked me to bring Jo over for lunch, and we'll go over to MIL's place for dinner in the evening. I didn't have breakfast at home, so when I went over, I got to eat Mom's delicious 汤圆, which has gula melaka filling with sweet ginger and pandan soup. Yum! Our family's 汤圆 is the best! Home made, unique and delicious!

Lunch was excellent as expected, like CNY feast!

Jolie wasn't a fan of 汤圆, so we gave her a mini cornetto instead.

After lunch I coaxed Jolie to take her nap and went for my dental appointment. In the evening, I asked Cobby to drop by my Mom's place after work so that we can go to MIL's place together. Taxi fare is so expensive, and I hate to take the bus and train in this wet wet weather.

For dinner at MIL's place, we had steamboat. We ate so much that we exclaimed that couldn't take another bite! But shortly after that we were asking why there wasn't any 汤圆! Haha, I guess even though we were super full, there's always room for 汤圆. Afterall, it's tradition, and it wouldn't be right without it.

So ends another year. How time flies! This was last year's entry.

Happy 6th ROM Anniversary!

Yesterday was our Registered Wedding Anniversary, and we had planned to drop Jo at my Mom's place and go for a nice lunch at an Italian restaurant before going to Serene's housewarming party in the evening. But we got caught up in our standard Saturday routine, which was to go watch a movie, and we totally forgot about our anniversary until we were on our way home that night.

Cobby was driving along when suddenly he exclaimed, "Oh Shit!!!". I thought he had left something back at Serene's place or something. Then he said that we forgot to go for our anniversary lunch. I was so clueless that I even retorted him, saying, "duh, that's tomorrow lah...". No sooner had the words left my mouth when I realised that he was right! Haha...

So the next day we dropped Jolie at MIL's place and went ahead with our original plan, lunch at Da Paolo Bistro Bar at Bukit Timah. We passed by the place before and heard good reviews of the place. As expected, it was a delicious lunch.

The appetizers and the main dishes were great, and the desserts were not bad, but not as fantastic. It was quite nice there, quiet, even for a Sunday lunch time. Unfortunately it proved to be too quiet, as it would be closing down this 27 Dec. Haha, it seems like Cobby and I are quite a jinx. Many eateries we patronize and like would end up closing down. Anyway, we were thankful for the great experience that afternoon. Happy 6th Anniversary dear, wishing us many more happy anniversaries to come!

Last year's entry: Happy 5th ROM Anniversary!

Movies and Parties

Watched Mission Impossible - Ghost Protocol at Marina Square today. After the show, we wandered over to Suntec City and we saw that BMW was having a roadshow. The star appearance was definitely the BMW i8!

Super cool show with a super cool car. I'm not a fan of mission impossible, but this episode was pretty intense! Check out the trailer here.

Later that night we headed to Serene and Benny's housewarming party. Jolie was wandering around the house when she spotted a dust roller, so she started rolling the house! Haha, hey free labour! Need to collect pay from Serene. :P

So suay, her place was very windy, so the sudden cool wind gave me a bad cold! Thankfully a dose of panadol cold did the trick. Their new place was really nice and cosy. I missed having a brand new home! So clean, so tidy, so new, and you have a sense of new beginning. I missed that!