Character First Programme

Anthea School has introduced the Character First programme to the Primary 1 & 2 children. I signed her up for the programme and also signed myself up as a PV for the same program.

The program takes place on every Friday after school for an hour. There will be a total of 12 lessons. (February – August). So far I had attended 2 sessions. The 1st session was more of an orientation session for the parent’s volunteer group.

The 2nd session, we were with the children while the Teachers volunteer did the lesson.

The program is conducted by a group of volunteers from a church organization near the school. The parents were assured that the content taught are non-religion related… : P

I had seen the material and I found it to be quite impressive. I believe this material may be used by some home-schooled mommies. The child will be taught the following values:

- Attentiveness
- Obedience

- Truthfulness
- Gratefulness

These are very basic values in life that I hope both Anthea and Anders will be able to develop. At home, we try our best to teach and guide them with the right values. However, at times, we are so busy with the life routine, we overlook on certain values. This program acts as a good reminder to myself too. . : )

Ever since I left school, I hardly do craft works and I don’t really like to do art & crafts. However, as a parent volunteer, we were given homework as well. We need to bring home some craft work to draw and cut. These will be used during the lessons for the children to do the crafts according to the story that was told.

So these days, my afternoon are busied with all kind of homeworks… : P After cleaning the house, washing the children clothes and a simple lunch. I will be glued to the chair with all the handicraft thing. I am amazed at the rate that I can complete the tasks…haha.

都是新发现

发现（一） : CICADA

My youngest SIL has recently got a job promotion and she decided to give the family a dinner treat.

The dinner was confirmed on Saturday and the venue was at The Cicada @ Ports down Road. Our families seldom ventured to this part of the island for dinner and I was really glad we had the chance to discover this new venue.

The restaurant has a very big outdoor seating area and the indoor setting is also very comfortable and cozy.

We ordered varieties of dishes from the menu – pizzas, pasta, Cicada Burgers and some main course. My youngest BIL even ordered a bottle of Red Chilean Wine. Food was good and we shared so much laughter at the dinner table.

My FIL even commented that he enjoyed our weekly weekend get-together dinners as it’s the only chance we updated one another of the latest happenings.

After dinner, we had desserts and the restaurant gave us 2 complimentary scoops chocolate ice-cream for Anthea and Anders, this is what I called customer service. I know we’ll be back for more…haha.

Aces family presented Aunty Cherry with a small gift for her promotion and thanks her for the sumptuous dinner treat. Hope that she likes our gift.

发现（二）: Pumpkin Rice
Thanks to LZmommy recommendation, I decided to prepare Pumpkin rice for our dinner on Sunday evening. However, as I can’t print out her menu from her blog, I managed to goggle and found a similar recipe. While Anthea was having her lesson, I did my marketing for the ingredients.

Adrian also brought Anders to the swimming pool for some water play while waiting for Anthea.

In the evening, I cooked the pumpkin rice and a pot of cabbage with spare ribs soup. The rice was nice and Adrian liked it. The children, as usual, have different opinions. Anders managed to finish his bowl while Anthea had about 2/3 of her serving.

We had a relaxed evening after dinner and watched Shark Tale on TV.

We had another wonderful weekend and spending quality family time. Looking forward to our next Saturday dinner celebration.

Her 1st Learning Journey - Harbourfront

Anthea is currently learning about different types of Transport vehicles in her lesson.

In order to make learning more real and interesting, the school organized a Learning Journey (we used to call them excursions) to the Harbour Front on Thursday, 19 Feb 2009.

The children are learning about – Ferry, Cable Car, Lorry, Motorcycle, Fire-engine and Taxi, just to name a few. So at Harbour Front, the children would have a chance to see all these different types of transport vehicles.

I believe MOE curriculum is trying to allow the children to learn more and seeing the real thing would give the children a better impression of what they learnt in the classroom.

For the day outing, parents were advised to pack a small bag with the following items:

- color pencils
- pencil case
- A cap
- raincoat or umbrella
- Water bottle
- Snack box ( I prepared a home baked pizza/ cheese cocktail sausages/ apple with a packet of chocolate milk for her)
- Tissue/wet tissue
- One small plastic bag

The evening before the excursion, Anthea was so excited and kept doing her checklist with me to make sure I had all the items in her bag.

I had signed up as PVG but as I didn’t hear from the group, I thought that they had enough of PVs to go along with children. However, in the evening, I heard from a mommy that they actually needed more volunteers. Next time I will write to the class teacher to check with her directly. .. : )

Anthea came back and told me that she had a fun day at the outing and she get to see all the different type of vehicles. She even told me that she had taken the cable car with me and my MIL before. I know for sure I had never taken the cable car in Singapore, so the ride could be in Hong Kong. . : P

It has been a good learning journey for her and I am glad that she had the chance to experience out of class room learning.

My New Turbo Incanto Oven

My current Turbo Oven had been giving me signal that it’s prepared to “RETIRE” by "short circuit" the whole house each time I turned it on... : P

I told Adrian about the oven and he said it’s about time to give it a rest and replaced a new one. Yes, the oven had served us well for almost 10 years and we should change it.

Based on my previous experienced on changing my Turbo Hob, I contacted Happiness and asked the agent for assistance. She arranged for a technician to come to the house to access the oven. He brought with him a catalogue too. After accessing the situation, he advised me to change a new one too and he mentioned the few suitable replacement models.

The day after the technician came, the agent – Miss Kee called me and advised me on the price of the few models. Finally I shortlisted – TFP1603CXT the model that met my budget and my needs…haha. Immediately she placed my order and arranged for the delivery and installation on Tuesday, 17 February.

The delivery and installation took only about ½ hour and now my new oven is ready to serve me. And together with the instruction manual, there is a recipe book….not bad. I can use some good baking idea.

“快乐情人节“ - Valentine Weekend @ Shangri La Hotel

We had a very enjoyable weekend stay at the Shangri La hotel. On Saturday, my BIL joined us to the hotel and checked in the 2 adjoining rooms for us. Yes, he booked 2 rooms for our family.

We had room 293 & 294 at the Garden Wing of the hotel. Anthea and Anders were so happy to see the adjoining rooms and started checking out the rooms amenities.

We had a room with a King Sized bed and a room with Double Queen Sized beds. Anthea allotted the 2 rooms accordingly and she said that I should sleep with Anders in the room with King Sized bed while she took the twin room with daddy…haha.

After checked in, the children had requested to take a swim, so I brought them to the pool while Adrian went for his gym workout. We had about an hour of water fun. Anthea challenged me to race and I was very happy to see her swam on her own.

When we finished our swim, we went back to the hotel to change. The children had a simple tea break and took their power nap. I went for my gym workout while Adrian stayed with them in the room.

Around evening, my parent in laws came over with my niece to use the pool. Anthea and Anders joined them for another round of water fun at the pool. They were running all around the pool while my little niece was busy chasing after them. Luckily my In-laws had standby because my little niece was jumping in and out of the 2 children pools.

(Faith - my little niece)

When we were all done with swimming, we went back to the room to shower and changed for dinner. We took the hotel shuttle bus to Takashimaya shopping centre and had dinner at the Imperial Treasure. The meal was sumptuous with a nice pot of double boiled winter melon soup.

We went to Borders after dinner and Anthea bought a few stories books and Ander bought a Ben - 10 DVD.

Then we took a slow walk back to Shangri La hotel from Borders. Upon reaching the hotel, my little niece had some fun in the room with the Light control and she was also running in & out of the 2 rooms, looking for her 2 cousins…so busy…haha. Around 10pm, my In-laws left for home with my little niece.

Then it was our turn to chill out. Anthea and Anders had fun with the computer game on Adrian’s laptop. (Internet was FREE!!). Adrian had his bottle of Bacardi Breezer while I had my bottle of Hooch with our packet of healthy cocktail nuts. He was watching Football channel and I was enjoying the movie on HBO. This was ENJOY Life to me….simply relaxing. We knocked out around mid night.

The next day we woke up around 9 am and went to The Line restaurant for the buffet breakfast. The spread was sumptuous and we had a great meal.

After a hearty breakfast, we went back to the room to rest while before going to the pool for a morning dip.

At round noon time, we prepared for checked out, actually we had late checkout till 3pm but we had planned to go to Chan Brother’s Travel Fair at Suntec City, so we checked out earlier.

Luckily I had already made “appointment” to see my tour consultant prior to going to the fair, otherwise, the waiting time would be terribly long, judging at the Q Numbers…phew.

While I was settling the details with the consultant, Adrian brought the children to Food Republic for lunch.

At the fair, I was entitled for some goodies bag/lucky draws and a trolley bag. After claiming all these, I was walking towards the escalator an d I saw one of my IDOLS - Violet粉樱.

I approached her and asked for a photograph to be taken with her and she readily agreed. She also used her camera and took 1 photo of us together…oops, does this mean I may have the chance to appear on her diary…樱儿日记。

I met up with Adrian and the children at the Food Republic and then we went home. The children had their power nap before meeting up with the extended families for dinner.

We had a wonderful and memorable Valentine weekend and the children even said they want to stay at Shangri La again…haha.

Till our next weekend getaway….祝天下有情人总成眷属！！

First Topical Tests

Anthea had her 1st topical test for English & Chinese last week and she had her topical test on Math this week.

I was a little stressed over her topical tests. Reason being if she does not do well, she may need to go back for remedial classes. I have nothing against remedial classes; it’s just that I don’t want her nap routine to be disrupted. Nap is especially important as she had tuition classes in the evening on alternate days.

Last Friday, she brought back her English and Chinese test papers and I was very happy with her attempts. She had FULL marks for both papers. She scored 25/25 for English and she had 50/50 for Chinese. I went through both set of test papers. For English paper, I would say its set quite easily but of course, it follows what the teacher had taught in class. As for Chinese paper, most of it was in 汉语拼音, so to be able to score well; she must be familiar with the 拼音。

This week Wednesday, she had her Math test. I knew that she had some problem in her Math and on Tuesday evening, I had asked Adrian to give her a bit of coaching in the subject matter. After the coaching, she seems to understand the concept better. On Thursday she brought back the Math test paper and I was happy with her result - 24/25. Her mistake was on spelling error of the word “EIGHT”. She spelled “eighth”; I think she got a little confused with tuition class spelling…hee.

Both Adrian and me gave her praises for her effort. We told her it’s perfectly ok to make mistakes in test as we learn from mistake.

So far, I am very happy with her performance in both her school work & tuition work, though some time I do worried if she may be too “pressurized” with all the homework. I have been giving her my assurance that if she felt that there is too much work, then we can stop either the tuition classes or Chinese enrichment class.

Nowadays coaching a child in his/her study is no longer so simple. Many times, I tried coaching Anthea in her studies and ended up getting angry with her. I think my way of coaching is not right.

As for Adrian ways of coaching, she enjoyed it and can absorb the concept better. Think I must learn from Adrian about his coaching or go and find out more about correct ways of coaching. Adrian will be going on oversea detachment in the 2nd half year of 2009, so I better trained myself well as the 2nd half year is more crucial for Anthea.

Both Adrian and me are non-graduates and our wish for our children is to 青出于蓝; so far we are very happy with her performance and will give her our greatest encouragement through her school years.

美丽的“香格里拉”

Yes, thanks to my youngest BIL, we will be going to 香格里拉酒店 for a weekend stay on this coming weekend. And this Saturday happens to be Valentine Day…haha.

This will be our Aces Family 1st Valentine Weekend getaway. Reading from the Straits Times on Tuesday, Shangri La hotel has the most expensive Valentine Package deal @ $99, 998 for a night stay. Wow…cannot imagine if anyone will buy it. Lucky for us, we get the night stay for complimentary.

I am really grateful to my Terence, my youngest BIL, because he had extended this invitation to our family not once, not twice but 3 times. So how can we reject his invitation? His complimentary hotel stay expire end of February, so this is the best time to utilize them.

Well, my previous consideration was Anthea’s swimming lesson on Sunday, however, considering that hotel buffet breakfast are included at The Line, I think sacrificing 1 swimming lesson is worth it for the family treat (馋嘴妈妈)… : P

Of course, not forgetting the hotel facilities – swimming pool, gym and the spacious room.

I know for sure, both Anthea and Anders will enjoy the hotel stay. As for Adrian & me, we will pamper ourselves by chilling out with a bottle of Bacardi freeze and some cocktail nuts and enjoying a movies or 2 on HBO/Star movies etcs.

喔……
香格里拉~
这美丽的香格里拉
这可爱的香格里拉
我深深的爱上了她我爱上了她。。

Lo Hei Weekends – “大团圆“

Our Lo Hei started since Friday evening. We invited my Parents in law for a Lo Hei dinner at Zhou’s Kitchen @ Novena Square. Since Chinese New Year till Friday, our extended families have not done any Lo Hei, which is very unusual from previous years practice. : P

This was also an appreciation dinner towards my In Laws for giving our family moral & physical support during Adrian oversea detachment. We ordered a Chinese New Year Set menu which bound auspicious names:

- 丰收鱼生(Bountiful Harvest Salmon “Yu Sheng)
- 廷年益寿 （Double boiled chicken soup）
- 喜哈大笑 (Crisp fried Prawns with Butter and Wheat)
- 高瞻远瞻 (Braised spinach bean curd with Mushrooms and vegetables)
- 风气呈祥 ( Stew Chicken with fermented wine)
- 金银满屋 （Fried glutinous rice with Chinese sausages）
- 鸿运团圆 （Sweetened red bean cream with glutinous dumpling）

We had a very nice and relaxed dinner. My father in law even went to invest in the Toto Ang Bao draw after dinner… : )

Hopefully the Lo Hei would bring lucks and good health to the families for the 牛年。

On Saturday morning, I prepared my traditional 年糕 for the family. This is another tradition I will upkeep.

Wishing Adrian 步步高升in his career; Anthea 学业进步；Anders 快高长大!

We had New Year lunch at Imperial Treasure restaurant with Adrian’s group of buddies. I had known them since our dating times and it’s a yearly affair to meet up during Chinese New Year. We had a very sumptuous dim sum lunch with a very Auspicious Abalone cum Yu Sheng Lo hei.

At lunch we had a good time with new updates on one another families. After lunch, we headed home for the children nap.

In the evening, I had a gathering with a group of my Ex- colleagues from IATA. One of the colleagues will be migrating to Australia, so this gathering was mainly for her farewell.

When I reached her home, I was so happy to see so many good, OLD friends. I had left the company since 2003 and to see all of them after 5 – 6 years really brought back good memories.

Hugs were all around and some shed tears of joys. We were busy chatting and the house was filled with laughter at all corners. I met my ex-Boss (Kelly) and we had a good time reminiscing those good old working days. She is still with the company and I think she is reaching her 24 years of work with the company.

The organizers – Vivien, Alice and SL had ordered buffet and also arranged for a special farewell gift for Maggie.

Coincidentally Alice birthday also fall on this day and Maggie’s daughter baked a Bailey’s cheesecake for Alice birthday. We sang her a birthday song, double happiness…oops..Nope, another friend’s Su also celebrated her birthday on 3rd February, so we sang another birthday song….joy after joy.

Good time passed fast, at around 9.30pm Adrian came over with the children to pick me up. I was scheduled for another round of Mahjong session at my youngest BIL home… : P

My youngest SIL, Cherry, is still a ‘PPP’ (P-Plate Player) in mahjong but judging at her game, she will be PRO very soon…haha.

Today is the eve of 15th day of Chinese New Year (元宵) ，we will be doing another round of “reunion dinner” at my parent’s house. This is to celebrate a 圆满Chinese new year and may the year ahead be 一帆风顺， 大家生活都美满。

1st School Holiday Family Vacation – “东方之珠“

In last than a month, it will be Aces Family 1st school holiday... : P

Yes it is the March 1 week school holiday. 14 - 22 March 2009...

I had requested for Adrian to apply for a week of leaves to look after Anthea. He did and it had been approved.

We discussed a little if we should plan for a short vacations. I told him I prefer to do it during the June school holiday. However, he mentioned that he may be doing his course during that time and leaves may be difficult to approve. Since his March leaves had been approved, we should just go ahead for a short trip.

With the “Finance Minister” approval, I started the family vacation research. There were 3 countries for consideration:

Australia – Melbourne or Perth
Hong Kong
Thailand – Chiangmai/chiangrai

After some budgeting and planning, we (or rather the planner – that’s me!!) narrowed down to Hong Kong…hee : )

I contacted Chan Brothers and will be booking their 5D4N Hong Kong Magical Discovery. This is a package tour and it includes a 1 night stay in Disneyland hotel. The reasons why we(I) shortlisted Hong Kong is:

1. Package price is within our Q1 2009 travel budget;

2. Hong Kong is a easy place to go around, even on our own and it’s good for SHOPPING…hee : ) （买东西，吃东西)

3. Anders has not been to Hong Kong, so it’ll be a good chance for him to explore, plus he is going to Disneyland for the 1st time. It will be a great birthday present for him.

According to the agency, they need 10 travelers to materialize the group, so in the event, if the group is not confirmed, we will go on their Free & Easy deal which is still fine with us. Important thing is we are enjoying it as a family this time.

下一个(journey)旅行地点是香港，期待能够好好的共享家庭之乐。

甜甜蜜蜜的周末

Saturday

Aunty SK organized a get-together for the families as her youngest son, Wen da, will be going back to Sydney for his study. So she had requested that my youngest BIL booked a room at Shangri La hotel for Wen Da to stay and for us to rest and relax at the hotel. Adrian was commenting we are really going HIGH CLASS, going to Shangri La hotel 2 weekends in a row…haha.

The children took an early afternoon nap as they knew that we were going to the hotel for a swim with their 2 favorite uncles (Uncle Wenyi & Uncle Kiat).

While the children were napping, I took the opportunity to prepare some dessert to bring along to the hotel. From last Monday experienced, I knew the aunties were going to bring lots of food to the room. I decided to prepare the 龙眼白果清汤，I also added a bit of 百合, wishing all 百年好和.

Anthea and Anders woke up around 4.30pm and we left for the hotel. The room was as usual very big and spacious. Yes, plenty of makan stuff was in the room, as expected...haha. Uncle Kiat was in the room waiting for Anthea and Anders. We quickly changed and went to the pool.

While Adrian was looking after the children by the pool, I went to the gym and I was really amazed at the service level. When I went on the treadmill machine, the gym staff gave me a towel. Then he switched on the small monitor in front of the treadmill machine and gave me a headset. I was so impressed!! No wonder Shangri la is so HIGH CLASS…haha.

When I was done with my routine, I went to the pool and brought the children back to the room to shower and changed. Adrian went for his gym workout.

Around 7.15pm, we left the hotel for our dinner at La Forketta restaurant hosted by Uncle HT. All the children had at great time at dinner with the spaghettis, pizza and the dessert – Chocolate cake.

When it was time to go home, the children were quite reluctant to part but I told them we will sure have chance to meet again… : )

SUNDAY

Adrian was on guard duty so he reported back to work in the morning. Anthea had her swimming lesson and Anders had to tag along with me to the pool to wait for anthea.

In the evening, we went over to my Parents in law house as my FIL’s youngest brother was visiting him for CNY. I brought the children over to greet Uncle Philip and Aunty Winnie. We had dinner with them at the seafood restaurant by the coffee shop. Then we headed to my youngest BIL’s place for a game of Mahjong.

FINALLY, I had the CHANCE to play 麻将...hee. It was so much fun and I really enjoyed playing with them. There were so many jokes on the MJ table. Uncle Philips and his wife are very humorous people.

The game ended around 10.20pm and we went home for our rest.

又是一个快乐和甜蜜的周末。希望大家再来临的一年里事事都顺利，每天都甜甜蜜蜜