A Toy Story Celebration

Last week had been a very busy week for me. On Tuesday & Wednesday, I was busy with Round Table meetings. On Thursday, Friday and this Monday, I went along with my MD for meeting with clients.

It had been a very steep learning curve for me but I truly enjoyed these meetings and trying my best to soak up as much information as I possibly can.

Honestly, in Asia culture, nothing beat a simple handshake or hello and this will make a world of difference for future correspondences.

On Saturday, one of Adrian’s buddies – Kenneth, celebrated his son 9th year old birthday at his home. K’s wife (Joanne) had kindly extended the invitation to our family a few weeks back. As Adrian was scheduled to work on the NDP, I decided to bring the children to the party on my own.

As their home is near to Buangkok MRT, so our easiest route was to go via MRT-CIRCLE LINE- NEL. For the 1st time, Anthea and Anders had the chance to travel on the Circle Line. Honestly, it is pretty much like MRT, so it does not really make much difference to them. The only complaint they had was – why were we changing so many trains…haha.

We arrived at K’s home around 6.30pm and coincidentally, as we were walking toward his home, we saw the F16 flying passed us. They were heading toward the Padang for the aerial display.

The birthday celebration was held at the BBQ pit and there were lots of delicious BBQ food. Both Anthea and Anders had great fun at the playground located just next to the Pit. While we ate, we also had the chance to catch up with his buddies on their latest development.

I am impressed that all of them are upgrading to condominium and living an impressive lifestyle. Well, I guess that’s why the Chinese saying – “一种米养百种人“。 We belong to the Low-income family group, thus we can only stay in our humble HDB home…keke : P

To me, the utmost import thing is family happiness and health. Seeing the children growing each and every day and learning the right values in life beat the luxury of life. The best deal is we are debt free and I am able to choose my current role as a work from home mommy. Truly able to take things in my own stride and as the family progress, the role can be upgraded too. I believe in 一份根耘，一份收获。。

DisCoveries Saturday

On Saturday, Anthea’s school had an open house event and this year event was themed as Discovery Talent on 17 July, 11am to 3 pm.

This year Anthea’s class is involved in the Speech and drama performance. Her class was putting up a short skit – The shoemakers and the elves.

Around 12 noon, I brought her to school after sending Anders for his tuition class. We reached her school around 12.15pm and she met up with her form teacher. They were doing a round of rehearsal before the real show at 1pm.

At 1.15pm, the parents were all seated in the classroom and waiting anxiously for the children to start the show.

Anthea and few other classmates had the role of the narrators for the skit and she did the introduction for the show. I was impressed with the play and thought that the teacher and children had put in great effort for the show.

After the show, Anthea went around the school compound to collect Stamps for the puzzle game. She was having loads of fun with her classmates.

Adrian brought Anders to join us after his lesson and we met one of his childcare friends, Pamela, at the school. The parents are deciding if they wanted to register Pamela into the school for her Primary Education.

Anders went around the school with Pamela and he had fun playing the games with her. Finally around 3pm, we ended our tour and went home for our afternoon fiesta.

In the evening, we went over to my girlfriend home; she had invited us over to her place to view the NDP Fireworks. Both Althea and Anders had requested to have a quick swim at the pool before dinner and firework.

We reached Cindy’s home around 6.30pm and they went by the poolside to have some water play. Angus also joined them when he reached home from his enrichment lesson.

Then we had dinner around 7.15pm, Dave had kindly went to packed dinner from a Zi-Char near their home.

While having dinner, we chatted and enjoyed the companionship. Interestingly Cindy and Dave are planning a yearend holiday to my DREAM destination. Now we are talking of a possibility of going for a holiday together, if I can convince myself over the LONG HOURS of flights….hehe : P

Around 8.15pm, we saw the fireworks coming out from the Padang area. The view was very nice and the children had fun viewing it. We even joked that we should go over to their home on National Day itself.

Anthea and Anders had fun playing with Angus games/toys and also they had the chance to play WII. Anders truly enjoyed it and asked if we could get a set too.

Both the adults and children had so much fun that we finally left their home around 10.30pm.

It was a great Discovery Saturday for us and simply gathering like this bring our friendship to another level of understanding, yes, Adrian just discovered that both Cindy & Dave are CSI Fans too….: )

友谊万万岁！！

Last Saturday, I had a wonderful gathering with a group of closed friends at the Global Kitchen in Pan Pacific hotel.

I had known this group of friends since my working day with the travel agency. After I left the agency in 1995, we still keep in touch. A few of them are still in the Travel industry with their new employer and some left the industry totally, like me.

Our last meet up was 2 years ago at my house and this time round we decided on a Hi-Tea meet.
We arrived at the venue around 1pm and everyone started, eagerly, to find out who is doing what now and where the person is working in…hehe.Throughout the 3 ½ hours of gathering, there were so much laughter and noise coming from our table. As the saying goes - 三个女人，一个巴刹。。There were 6 of us…: P

Beside enjoying the food and great selection of teas, I truly enjoyed the company of my dearest friends. The 3 ½ hours passed by so quickly.

When the Hi Tea buffet came to a closed, everyone was asking “where are we going next?” well since the mood is so HIGH and MIGHTY, we should go to Marina Bay Sands. I proposed and all concurred.

So we took the FREE shuttle bus from Pan Pacific hotel to MBS. As one of my girlfriends has a contact point in MBS. She contacted the person in charge and the Sales person brought us around the Hotel, the casino and Convention area for a quick tour. We even had the chance to visit the Sky pool. The view from the 59th floor was magnificent and we took the opportunity to take some group photos.

After the tour of MBS, we said thank you and good-bye to the Host. It was almost 6.30pm when we left MBS. As the evening weather was still good, we decided to walk back to Pan Pacific hotel. Along the way, we saw the Helix Bridge and try a walk on the bridge. It was a bit shaky and my girlfriends commented that it felt like earthquake.

At the same time as there was NDP rehearsal at the Padang, we saw the Singapore Flag flying passed above us and also the F15 jets. They were flying so low and so near to us, the sound was deafening.

Four of us decided to adjourn for a drink while the other girlfriends left to join their family/friend. My girlfriend brought us to the Mandarin Oriental hotel poolside for a drink. We were considering viewing the NDP fireworks from the poolside.

We ordered our drinks and some light snacks to go along with the drinks. As we drank and enjoyed the snacks, we were watching our time. Yes, at 8.15pm, the fireworks started and we were pleasantly surprised that we had the best spot to view the fireworks. This year, the fireworks displayed not only came from the platform, there were also “firing” it off from rooftops of Ritz Carlton hotel, a few buildings in CBD and the Padang too. So imagine our excitement when we can see all the fireworks from the different spots. It was just too spectacular.

When the fireworks ended, the hotel guests whom were at the poolside with us, clapped their hands in appreciation. At that point, i felt so proud of our NDP Fireworks. : )

We continued with our drinks and food after the fireworks and chatted till our hearts contended.

We, finally, called it a day around 10pm and went home feeling so Happy and High in mood. This had been the best gathering for our group and I know there will be more fun outings with my 大姐们 and I look forward to our next meet. Till then – 谢谢你们真挚的友情和陪伴。祝我们友谊永柱！！

Anthea 1st pair of Badminton Shoes

Beginning this year, Anthea started CCA with the Recreation Badminton group in school. As the name denotes, it was more for leisure playing than competitive playing. Before school holiday, she told me: “mommy, I have decided to quit badminton.” I asked her for her reason as I do not want her to quit for the wrong reason.

After hearing her out – citing as time waster as the teacher spent more time lecturing the children than on coaching them played. I approved of her decision. When school reopened, she went to her form teacher to tell her the decision to quit badminton. The form teacher mentioned that she will inform the teacher-in-charge.

Last Thursday, it was her scheduled PE lesson and they played badminton during the hours. The school badminton team teacher – Miss Ching was also doing PE lesson with her class and she saw Anthea played the game. Immediately she asked her aside for a chat. Ms Ching asked Anthea if she would like to join the school badminton team. After some persuasion from Ms Ching, Anthea decided to go for the trial training on that afternoon.

She was all smiles when I fetched her from school and she proudly told me: “mommy, Ms Ching asked me to join the badminton school team and I will be going for training this afternoon. You must sign the consent form, ok?”

How would I say “No” to sports, especially badminton…hehe. Yes, we come from a family of badminton players and athletics. Sport is naturally in our blood and we breathe the game too. : )

So since last Thursday, Anthea has officially joined the school team and her training is every Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Now that she is into proper coach training, I told Adrian we need to get her a good pair of badminton shoes. On Monday, it was Youth School holiday, so we took the opportunity to shop around AMK for a pair of shoes for her; we were unable to find a suitable pair.

In the evening, we went to Queensway shopping centre to look for the shoes. After some searching around the many sports shops, we finally decided on a pair of Victor badminton shoes for her. It was just the right size for her and she was very happy to own a pair of badminton shoes.

She is now very enthusiastic about badminton and I am really happy that she has this opportunity to be groom for this sport.


Hope she will LOVE it, just like Adrian and I did during our school days. : )

NDP 2010 Combine Rehearsal

This year Adrian has been assigned NDP logistic duties again. Yes, his officer seems to like to give him NDP assignment..hehe.

Well, he took pride in his duties and has been fulfilling them on most weekdays and weekends for the practices. Missing out on our regulars weekends families’ dinner but he always tell the children: “Country comes 1st and he must serve it before his family.”

We are proud of him and for his scarifies, we were rewarded handsomely…hehe. Usually before the actual NDP Preview and National Day Parade, the organizing committee will have few rounds of combined rehearsals to improve on the parade for the actual day. For these rehearsals, publics were given tickets to attend the parade and show.

On Friday, Adrian came home with 4 tickets for the CR on 03 July 2010. The children were very excited and were looking forward to the parade. As we had an extra ticket, Anthea invited her best friend, Maya, to join us for the parade.

On Saturday afternoon, we had a light tea-break at home before setting out to fetch Maya for the Parade. This was our 1st time to the Parade@ Padang.

We reached Odeon Tower around 4.30pm and started walking from the building to the Parade Square. As we were walking along the road, we saw many people walking in the same direction and we were all dressed in REDS. Amazing support from the public, even though it was just a rehearsal, we still came in the DRESS CODE requested by the committee.

We had tickets for Blue Sector and the marshal directed us to the zone. As we walked, the marshals were all shouting to the public: “hi, welcome to NDP 2010”. I felt I walked in to a Giordano store…haha.

Our 1st stop was to collect our Goodies bags and this year tote bags are Designers bags. We are the 1st batch of public to get our hands on the bags and inside each bag – there is a Fun Box, bottles of water, Singapore Flag, a flipper and Poncho. The tote bag is so much neater & practical to use compared to those previous year goodie bag.

We got to our seats and settled ourselves before the parade commenced. Around 6pm, it started to drizzle and we took out the poncho from our bag and used it. I had brought along umbrellas too.

The parade started around 6.15pm with the marched in of the different contingents followed by the Guard of Honor. The parade & ceremony commenced after the “President” arrived. As usual the children were excited when they saw the helicopters flew passed with the Singapore Flag. The F16 saluted the Nation with their fly passed.

This year the MOBILE COLUMN is the main show display and there were many different Mobiles that were introduced. As we were seated a little too far from the main road of display, we had to keep watching the Big Screen to seen the different Mobiles.

It got a bit boring for the children and at this point, it was still drizzling. So we made the decision to leave the parade and head for our dinner.

We had Macdonald’s dinner at Odeon Tower and the children had a great time chatting with one another. Anthea truly enjoyed Maya’s companionship.

After dinner, we sent Maya’s home and we went home for a good hot bath and finally settling down to watch a good match of World Cup between Germany & Argentina.

Overall the children had enjoyed the NDP combined rehearsal and now they are looking forward to the actual National Day Parade and we will watch it from the comfort of the home.

The only setback I felt about his year NDP 2010 was that it was not as interactive as the previous 2 years shows. Also because of location – the show seem to be a little pale in comparisons with previous. Anyway, good thing was we managed to see it LIVE and experienced the real thing and of course, our Designer’s Tote Bags…haha.