Blog hiatus....

Mama had been on a super long hiatus.... reason being:

1. Mama sat for a professional paper on 15 November 2007 - need some time to study lah :p

2. We moved in to our new house on 2 December 2007. Surprisingly, there were so many things to pack and move from the condo, so much so that until now, not all things have been shifted yet. We didn't get any movers and all work/shifting was done with the help of church friends - a big thank you to Edmund, Rosalyn, Vincent, Ronnie, Ivy, Leuk! :)

3. Our Indon maid suddenly decided not to come back to Malaysia after her 1-month break. We were frantically looking for a new maid after we found that she decided not to come back on 26 October 2007. Our new maid, kakak Els just arrived on 15 December 2007, about 1.5 months after the 'disappearance' of kakak Mima.

4. We went for a work-cum-family holiday trip to Hong Kong from 5 December to 9 December 2007. Mama had a business meeting in HK on 6 December (which didn't really materialise), so it was somewhat a paid-for trip for mama with family tagging along :)

And of course, the 2 boys tagged along. We contemplated for a while, whether we should bring Jaden along, but in the end, Jaden followed us as we did not have the heart to leave him behind. So how did papa managed while mama was away at the convention center in HK? (Mama had to visit some booths at the HK Convention and Exhibition Center even tho' the business meeting did not materialise). Haha....it is 'his' story 'cos mama did not know what happened at the hotel room...or rather 'no eye see' :p

Some pics....

Ryan with his newly bought Transformer toy at Toys R Us HK


Ryan at the HK ferry pier

Ryan at the Disneyland Resort Station, just before entering Disneyland

Ryan and Jaden playing near the space shuttle

Family photo with the brightly lighted castle as background

Backdated post - Third Floor restaurant and Lantern Festival

Papa was kind to bring mama to the exclusive Third Floor restaurant at Marriot on mama's special day. We deliberated for a long while - whether to go or not - 'cos mama was feeling a bit thrifty while papa the total opposite. But anyway, to cut the long story short, we went in the end :)

The ambience was romantic and rather quiet, except for a group of diners, who left after a short while. All we thought was it would be a private dining experience for both of us until another couple came in :p

Papa ordered the Chef's Specialties, which is a 7-course meal set and the menu was to be a surprise for both of us throughout the night. A very interesting idea - that way we get to sample the chef's specialty dishes and also to lift up our excitement throughout the night :)

Before the waiter came with the appetiser, we had a free sample of a cheese tart, specially made by the chef. The appetiser was some creamy scallop thingy with caviar. The taste was really unique and mama thoroughly enjoyed each spoonful.

Papa had this broiled quail

Mama had the crab stuffed spring roll.





Oh, both of us agreed that this is the best for the night - seared foie gras with caramelised fig. It's really yummy - gosh, thinking about it makes my drool...




This is a Tasmanian salmon dish with something like seaweed on top.

Main meal - seared beef fillet with mushroom sauce





For mama who loves dessert - this is a must to finish even tho' we were so stuffed - Chocolate cake with ice cream - It was just simply delicious. The warm liquid chocolate flowed out from the middle and together with the ice cream, it was heavenly.




They added a personal touch to it by remembering that it was mama's special day. Papa made the reservation and mentioned to them about mama's birthday and they remembered! And they surprised us with this free strawberry mousse cake!



This petit four platter came with the freshly brewed coffee/tea.




This mineral water alone costs RM23...aiseh! Mama felt like taking the bottle home but darn..paiseh man...


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Lantern Festival

The two boys had the opportunity to walk around the neighbourhood with their lanterns during the recent Lantern Festival, thanks to Aunty Shirley and Uncle Richard's invitation to their house. Lil' Jaden also joined in the fun...

p.s. All the above pics were taken using papa's hp/camera, so a bit blur...sorie ya!

Lil Golfer in Action

We were at Mid Valley last Saturday for a movie - Ratatouille and yes, Ryan sat through his first cinema show amazingly. However, half-way through the movie, he asked for his 'nen-nen', so mama had to make milk for him in the dark... *phew* thank goodness, everything ok lah :)

After movie, we brought him to buy his first 'real' golf club and gloves. He really loves to practise golf at home and when papa brought him to his first golf lesson at Kindergolf some time back, he thoroughly enjoyed himself.

Maybe Tiger Woods in the making!! kekekeke....

Refresher course and Ginn's Birthday

Mama was away at Nilai Audit Academy Negara (AAN) for 3 days for a refresher course. It's the first time for mama to be away from Ryan and Jaden. As a result, Jaden really missed mama and couldn't have a good night sleep for 2 nights. (All the poor souls at home, except Ryan, couldn't sleep well either because of the wailing Jaden at night, partly looking for mama and also because he was not feeling well).

Mama was quite impressed with the accommodation provided at AAN. Each of us had our own room and the room is not too bad, above my expectations.

We had fun during paintball too. Below pix is mama in full-gear paintball mask. One of my colleague was so frightened that she'll be hit by the balls, so much so that she chickened out. As for mama, I wasn't shot at all - simply because I hid behind the bunkers most of the time - scared of being shot lah!

Siew Ginn celebrated his 8th birthday last Sunday at Da Vinci creative centre. A very unique place to celebrate birthday indeed - each child had the opportunity to show her/his creative talent by painting on a stone. Ryan was too young for that and as an alternative, he was given a spiderman 3D sculpt to paint. He enjoyed that so much!

The party ended quite late and by the time he set foot in the car, he was fast asleep!

End of 2nd Semester

Today is the last day of second semester and Ryan will be moving on to third semester beginning next week, September 2007. Looking back, Ryan had been attending kindergarten for 6 months now and he had definitely learnt so much and his knowledge is improving by leaps and bounds daily. This is the progress report I received from Che-che Ann recently :

"His motor skills are still poor but we're still persisting with it. His concentration span is short and before, he used to cry, make a fuss about work. Now, he's getting better. His memory for words and alphabets are also improving. Slowly but surely making progress".

I guess for Ryan, transforming a 'playster' to a studious person will definitely be a challenge as he's so playful at this stage and getting him to sit down to do 'work' will put our patience to test.

But anyhow, I'm quite proud of tis lil boy of mine as I'm impressed that he can read! He has no problem reading words like 'look, Mummy, Daddy, I, like, is, here, no........' from his Vital Years reading series and when I use the Peter and Jane reading books, he can actually recognise those words that he had learned in school - so, it's not memorising words on pages in his workbook but rather learning the words themselves. I quite like this style of teaching as compared to other kindies. Apparently, SmartReader's students were taught to memorise words from their workbooks and when they were given other story books, they couldn't read! (even like after 1.5/2 years in that particular kindie)....scary....

Ok...gotta ciaw....will be waking up very early tomorrow morning for morning church prayer and later, Merdeka prayer walk!

Happy 50th Merdeka to Malaysia!

Wow.. seems like no posts for a while eh? :)

Well, we've been rather busy and my 'sub-con blog poster' seems to be away from duties as well.
Just a short update on happenings I guess.
We are taking part in our church's 21 day fast and prayer campaign - so blog updates is not really a priority area at the moment :)
The house is coming along well, and we expect that it should be done within the next 2 weeks. However, we probably will not have 100% of the stuff inside ready, so we'll need to work out when we plan to move in.
Of course, I can't wait - but that's mainly due to the fact that I want to 'get it done!' ASAP. Running around every weekend and even at times weekdays scouting for stuff, monitoring the progress of the renovations, etc, is REALLY tiring.
I can't wait for the time when I can just lie back on my sofa and say - ok, it's done :)

God bless

PS. Here's Jaden closing the door for me this morning before I went to work.



PPS. Seems Krystal has just posted something while I am editing the spacing of my text, which seems to always go wrong when I post.

It has been a while...

...since mama blogged. Aiyo, weekends are so busy and now with the 21-Day Fast and Prayer (13 Aug - 2 Sept), papa and mama are so exhausted by day-end. Papa had been consistently waking up and reaching church by 5.30am and Ryan and mama only started joining this week since it's Ryan's school holiday. Have to say that God's presence is so strong every day that it always leave me in tears and awe!

Anyway, below are some backdated pix taken with Jaden on Bumwear cloth diapers. The cloth print is so pretty that it is simply irresistable! Have to add that it's very soft for the skin and also very absorbent indeed!

We also went to a Thai restaurant last week to celebrate Tai Yee (mama's sister) farewell. Tai Yee will be going to Australia for 9 months to complete her fully-funded research and sub-specialisation in endocrinology.

Tai Yee, we will miss you definitely! *sob sob*

Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)

When I was just a little boy
I asked my father what will I be
Will I be a pilot
Will I be a F1 driver
Here's what he said to me

Que sera sera
Whatever will be will be
The future's not ours to see
Que sera sera

Blog Rating

What??!! My blog is PG rated? How can...Nicole's blog was rated G and she writes about naked men and me....only talks about my two boys. Hmm....something wrong with the rating formula :p

Global Footprints

Got the link from Nicole's blog.

Mama's footprints:

My Visited Countries

Get your own Visited Countries Map from Travel Blog

As for Ryan, he had been to China (while in mama's womb), Thailand and Japan.

My Visited Countries

And lastly, Jaden - a bit pathetic. Only been to Japan (while in mama's womb) :p

My Visited Countries

Busy busy weekend!

Activities were lined up for the weekend even before Saturday arrived. I always find that weekend passes by so quickly that if you don't plan ahead, nothing gets done at the end of the day.

Saturday morning, papa and mama went separate ways to fulfil our duties for the day. Mama went to market to stock up on fresh vegetables/fruits and meat/fish for the week while papa took Ryan and Jaden to the hospital for their vaccination. Jaden was 2 weeks late for his final(3rd) pneumococcal vaccine while Ryan also took the same jab (only need 1 jab after 2 years old).

At the hospital, Ryan and Jaden apparently had a well of a time, making friends with all around them, especially Ryan. He was seen sitting on an auntie's lap at one time and munching away on chocolate and snacks given by yet another auntie later. Sigh...this super-friendly-son of ours is so adorable but quite dangerous in a sense that he could be kidnapped by a stranger or something :(

Generally, the boys' physical development are on track:

Jaden

Height: 80cm Weight: 10kg

Ryan

Height: 105cm Weight: 15.6kg

After mama came home, the salesman from Roboclean came to demonstrate his product. It seems like a good product, suppose to clean/sanitise the air (like an air purifier) and the best part is that it can clean the mattress and sucks up all the dust mites, the droppings, etc etc.... Papa has sensitive nose, so the product would be good for him, as well as other asthma and ezcema sufferers. There are many other advantages but these 2 stand out the most. It's quite expensive though, so we may only consider after we have moved.

Later in the afternoon, we went to a furniture mall at Old Klang Road. They had quite an impressive collection and at one children's bed shop, we were quite tempted to buy 2 'mini cooper car' beds for Ryan and Jaden. Ryan particularly like the steering wheel at the end of the bed frame....hmm....see how our budget goes :p

At night, papa went to church alone.

On Sunday, papa woke up early to play golf. We waited for him to come back to meet the curtain measure man from Macy at the new house. The poor chap must be circling around the neighbourhood for quite a while as he called mama around 12.30pm and again at 1.30pm to check if he could come earlier. Anyway, the measurements were done swiftly in less than an hour and now, it's papa and mama's job to move our butts to their store at Ikano to choose materials and discuss about cost.

We went home to pick up Jaden before we went to our next destination - Mid Valley Modern Home Living & Property Fair. We reckoned that Jaden would feel sad if we leave him at home all the time, so had to bring him along to the fair lo. We didn't decide on any piece while we were there, but rather took the time to scout around to look for furnitures and fittings that we like.

At day/night end, we were so tired that we slept like a log!

The Boys' Chinese Names

We were at popo/gong-gong's house yesterday to celebrate Ryan's birthday and mama took the opportunity to ask popo how to write the boys' names in chinese. Mama had asked many times before but the paper always seemed to get lost, so this time round, mama will post as a blog to make sure the names are kept somewhere.

The top name is that of Ryan Yuen Zhen-Lin with the word 'Zhen' meaning 'politics' or 'political affairs' and 'Lin' meaning 'continuous heavy rain' or 'aplenty'.

The bottom name is that of Jaden Yuen Zhen Han and the word 'Han' means 'writing' or 'scholar'.

So in essence, Ryan's chinese name means abundant health, wealth and water to flow in his life while Jaden's chinese name means scholarly or studious person.

Below pix taken back in condo with his presents:

Happy 3rd Birthday Ryan!

Today Ryan is officially 3 years old. He has indeed grown up to be such a wonderful and energetic boy, bringing so much love and joy to the family. The things he can do to make us happy or drive-us-up-the-wall, be it good or bad are countless. He can be mischievous at one time and angelic the other. Like what Pastor Daniel mentioned during Vincent's son (Jovin's) birthday party last Sunday, Ryan is also our little guardian in the house, reminding us to give thanks for our food during mealtimes whenever we forget to do so, or when he did not hear us say the prayer aloud.

Ryan, you're such a darling and we love you so much!!!

Happy Birthday!!!





Below pix taken at Hartamas shopping complex recently: