Kids First Trip to Pulau Ubin

We hesitated to take the kids there initially but glad that we made it there!

It was the kids' first outing with their cousins, ours too! In fact, we didn't expect such a big group (24 of us including 8 kids)! We gathered at Changi for breakfast at the hawker centre before heading there in batches by boat...

 A & B enjoyed the trip very much! No mosquito bites at all, probably because it was a public holiday, there were a lot of people there.

 

A liked the van ride (A sat in front with DC) while B liked the boat ride. I couldn't imagine how we could squeeze ourselves in a van to and fro Chek Jawa, all 24 of us, ha! the boat ride was much more comfortable with 12 in a boat.

A wild boar greeted us the moment we got down from the van!

At Chek Jawa, A walked on his own and B mostly carried by me on the boardwalk and we took lots of pictures... of the swamp, mangroves, boardwalk and us together! :)

Memories flowed back when we were at the House at Chek Jawa! DC and I visited the place in 2007 and hadn't returned since! How wonderful to return with the kids now. :)
 

After that, we went back to Changi and settled our hungry stomachs at the Ubin First Stop Restaurant. The food there was surprisingly good!

Related Posts:
Pulau Ubin
A Trip to Changi

Plain yoghurt meals

Following trainer's recommendation, I started on plain yoghurt with oatmeal for lunch. The oatmeal had been grinded to powder and tasted gd. But the yoghurt 
sucked big time. The yoghurt tasted sour and I hated sour stuff ...

Let's see how long I will last ...

Unappetizing ...

Changes to diet

Breakfast for today. Energy for the workout later on. 

Sweet potatoes, steamed. Swee ...

CNY Ang Pows 2016

There were 2 versions this year, the rectangular ones were for the adults, the monkey ones were for the kids!



Extending last year's idea, I wanted the kids to do some artwork on this year's ang pows to make them more personalized and original. There were some hiccups along the way e.g. yellow printer ink was running out causing the colour of the ang pow to be off, the flower plum cutter that I bought could not cut through felt cloth (wanted the kids to stick different shades of pink flowers on the ang pows) and the idea had to be abandoned, the gold paint did not settle well on the red packets, etc. Due to time constraints, this was what we came up or rather, made do with for this year, the year of the Monkey.

As for the monkey-faced red packets, I stumbled upon a YouTube videos on origami monkey and thought it would be fun to have origami monkey as ang pows. I took me a while to search for a folding method that could allow me to encase and slot money in. I then did a template with folding and cutting lines and filled in the colors I wanted. I created 2 versions of it - girl monkey with ribbon and boy without. I gave A the boy monkey ang pow and B the girl monkey ang pow as 压岁钱 on the eve of CNY! They both love it and the ang pows are still under their pillows! :)

The process was fun and B had been a great help this time round! :)


Related Posts:
CNY Any Pows 2015
CNY Ang Pows 2014
Ang Pows 2013

CNY 2016

Happy Chinese New Year! 新年快乐！

 Our matching outfits on CNY Day 1. :)

Not a lot of places we went to this year. We've only managed to go parents-in-law's (10:20am), DC's uncle's (伯父) (11:15am) and DC's aunt's (姨妈) (1pm) on Day 1; DC's aunt ("Lai"姨) on Day 2 night (8pm) when B got better; B's nanny's (10:45am) and my parent's (12:30pm) on Day 3.

Both kids had fun visiting the relatives from house to house, so much that A didn't want to go back home on the first day of CNY! B learnt that every family would put sweets in trays and she ate quite a lot of them! A was just recovering from his cough and B was having runny nose and slight fever this year. Her fever went up at night on CNY Day 1 and she had difficulty sleeping. Both of us only managed to fall asleep at 5am. As a result, the next day which was CNY Day 2 we could not do any home visiting... It didn't help that I had to work on that day, rotating shifts to monitor our stuff following some unnecessary alerts that came out on the eve of CNY! Yes, CNY Day 2 was quite a damper! So, on CNY Day 3, after DC and A went to work and school respectively, I resolved to take B (whose childcare centre was closed) out to continue our visiting. :)

Some snippets of Day 1:

Besides the fire engine that they have been playing for years, now there was this to entertain them, or rather let us be entertained by them! I was pleasantly surprised that both of them were not afraid when their grandaunt handed them the lion and I must say they did a reasonably good (first-time) job imitating the dance! They must have learnt from the lion dance performance we took them last Sat when our MP came for the pre-CNY celebration at the clubhouse!

Jenny biscuits from Hong Kong! 

We had guests on Day 1 :) The boys played cars and the girls played the doughs.

This was what B made:

Snippets on Day 2:

Pictures above: A and B posing with oranges.
Pictures below: A and B at grandaunt's place. The kids couldn't get enough of the seaweed crackers that, like last year, they packed some back home!

Snippets on Day 3:

Look what Ang Pow B got herself at her nanny's! It's now sleeping with her every night! :)

After that, my sis drove us to our parent's for a nice lunch. We had food that were brought back from paternal uncle's place (ngoh hiang, prawn balls) and maternal aunt's place (abacus, vermicelli). Yummy food! B had her ever so tasty porridge cooked with love from my mummy! :)

We went to find Daddy after B's nap, for coffee and cakes and then B had her rides, before we went home for dinner and A! :)

Snippets on Day 4:

B on CNY Day 4. She skipped school, as I had to take her to the doctor's! This was her at one of the shops, after the doctor visit. We also went Toys "R" Us where I got her an Elsa gift. :)

Day 5 was business as usual, how we wish CNY could last the whole 15 days!

Reunion dinner

What a spread. There's Lo Hei too.

Steamed pomfret, salted egg prawns, steamed chicken, sea cucumbers, abalones, scallops and lotus root soup.

The Revenant

The Revenant

CAST
Leonardo Dicaprio, Tom Hardy, Domhnall Gleeson, Will Poulter, Lukas Haas

DIRECTOR
Alejandro G. Iñárritu

GENRE
Action/ Adventure

RELEASE
04-02-2016

RUNNING TIME
156 minutes

SYNOPSIS
Deep in the unchartered American wilderness, hunter Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) is severely injured and left for dead by a traitorous member of his team, John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy). With sheer will as his only weapon, Glass must navigate a hostile environment, a brutal winter and warring tribes in a relentless quest to survive and exact vengeance on Fitzgerald. Inspired true events, THE REVENANT is directed and co-written by renowned filmmaker and Academy Award winner Alejandro G. Iñárritu (Birdman, Babel).





~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
DC has been waiting for this to be shown as the critical response for it was very good. It's about how a man survived against all odds to seek revenge for his son stabbed to death by his mate.

It was a cruel world then, betrayed, abandoned and left to die. I admired his wits and determination to stay alive but at the same time thought that some parts were quite unreal... e.g. crawling out of his grave when he was so badly injured, falling down the cliff unhurt while the horse died, outfighting a bear, etc

I did feel that Leonardo Dicaprio deserved a big win this time (The Revenant won three Golden Globe Awards, and was nominated for 12 Academy Awards) as playing this role was really hard work for him!

Elsa from Head to Toe

B's "Elsa" inventory list (as at now):

Head: 6 hair clips
Neck: 2 necklaces
Body: 1 jacket
3 long gowns
3 dresses
5 blouses
2 skirts
3 pajamas
6 pair of socks
6 bags
3 birthday parties
1 pair of shoes
1 hair brush
1 biscuit tin
6 milk packs
1 doll
6 undies
countless stickers
photo cards


Related Posts:
Hi, My Name Is Elsa

Coffee overload

Shouldn't have ordered the 2nd one in the afternoon. Not one to give up a good offer, I still had to order the Starbucks which had a $2 off, for the 3rd coffee of the day. This offer from the receipt the previous day and expired in a day.

Well, maybe I'll be awake tonight for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare.

Movie Time with Family

We figured out a pretty good way to spend family time on a weekend and at the same time immersed ourselves in movies we like with the people we love!

And so, off we went to the City Link Mall - DC watched Ip Man 3 with his dad, while I watched The Good Dinosaur with my kiddos! :)

It was a pity the kiddos still could not appreciate movies yet - A kept asking where his daddy and grandpa were, subsequently to the toilet and B was afraid of the dinosaurs and sound effects... but, they did have a big deal of fun after the show! I took them on a free trolley car ride and then we went to have some fun activities at the stations set up in City Link Mall, thanks to 2 Samaritans who handed us free passes that they didn't need (passes come with spending at the mall)!

Ip Man 3

CAST
Donnie Yen, Max Zhang Jin, Lynn Hung, Patrick Tam, Bryan Leung, Karena Ng, Kent Cheng, Louis Cheng, Danny Chan, Babyjohn Choi, Mike Tyson

DIRECTOR
Wilson Yip

GENRE
Action/ Drama

RELEASE
24-12-2015

RUNNING TIME
105 minutes

SYNOPSIS
Ip Man (Donnie Yen) takes on disciple, Bruce Lee, and engage in frequent sparring sessions to hone his skill after seeing great potential. Meanwhile, a well-known property developer-cum-street fighter played by American boxer Mike Tyson, challenges Ip Man in an incredible showdown of Wing Chun kung fu versus heavyweight boxing. In a never-seen-before union of Ip Man, Bruce Lee (revived by computer graphics) and Mike Tyson, the past and the present unite as a tribute to two of China’s greatest fighters.

The Good Dinosaur
CAST
Jeffrey Wright, Frances McDormand, Maleah Nipay-Padilla

DIRECTOR
Peter Sohn

GENRE
Animation

RELEASE
26-11-2015

RUNNING TIME
101 minutes

SYNOPSIS
"The Good Dinosaur" asks the question: What if the asteroid that forever changed life on Earth missed the planet completely and giant dinosaurs never became extinct? Pixar Animation Studios takes you on an epic journey into the world of dinosaurs where an Apatosaurus named Arlo makes an unlikely human friend. While traveling through a harsh and mysterious landscape, Arlo learns the power of confronting his fears and discovers what he is truly capable of.








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At the Science Centre
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