CNY Gathering over Steamboat Lunch

7 Feb 2012

Chap Goh Meh just over yesterday and today is Thaipusam Day.

After the “plain and expensive” steamboat from Bandar Menjalara over the CNY,  I’ve decided to have my own steamboat at home. I think I can do better than that session of steamboat. I invited Meng Siew and group of friends over for steamboat lunch.

I woke up at 7.30am in the morning, had a quick breakfast and told Moch what to prepare for the steamboat and off I went to TTDI market to buy fresh food. I like steamboat with lots of varieties and not just fish ball and meat balls. I bought fish balls, prawn, fish, vegetables, etc. I bought bits of almost everything that I can find from TTDI market.

Steamboat lunch at home

Children table

Adult table

Tea time

Didn't expect guys to love cupcakes so much

Younger kids' Uno session

Elder kids' Monopoly session

The group started off with Meng Siew and I back in 1985. The group expanded to our spouse and spouse friends and it expanded further to our kids. It is certainly a friendship that I treasure very much.

It was a good catch up and there were lots of laughter too. It is certainly to treasure the memories.

Goodbye 2010

31 Dec 2010

How time flies. It's the last day of year 2010. It has been a mix of ups and downs, especially today.

Today is the last working day for my capable finance manager. She has been a good assistant to me at work and a truly good friend and companion too. She transformed my thoughts and ideas into powerful powerpoints and reports. We had lunch together, went for yoga classes together, we exchanged DVDs and cakes that we baked, etc. I particularly miss our cha cha dance session in Hua Hin and shopping spree in Bangkok.

Recently, she started baking and cooking. It seems to be the trend for working with our company ... somehow, staff will start cooking or baking no matter how little we cook or bake. For her farewell, I got her cooking utensils presented in a lovely pink polka dot with ribbon box. I bought 2 pizza trays, pizza cutter, pastry roller, whisker, meat temperature, potato masher and a spring form pan. Hope she will think of me whenever she bakes or cooks. As much as I would like her to stay on with our company, I am happy for her next endeavour.

Fei Yin made me a photobook which was very nicely done with attention to details. I'm missing her already.

Although today is a sudden declaration of public holiday, it's not a rest day for finance personnel who have to close company's year end books. I decided to buy cakes for office staff. It's new year eve and they have to work to meet dateline. Fei Yin and I went down to Coffeebean and bought 12 slices of varieties of cakes and a Latte for my boss, which made him a happy man as he does not like sweet things and he loves coffee.

Looking back to 2010, I've been promoted to Finance Director, a milestone achievement for me in my career. I'm taking my career one step at a time. To me, being a wife and a mother does not mean we can't have our career. It's not easy but it's not impossible, especially if you have a supportive spouse. I'm glad my Hubby understands what corporate life is all about and he is happy if I am happy at work.

In Jun 2010, Hubby and I had our first holiday trip without our kids to Macau, in conjunction with our 8 years wedding anniversary. It was hard for me to leave our kids behind while we had good times. I am happy to have an understanding mother in-law who offered to take care of our kids while we were away. She encouraged us to have time off from kids once in a while to rejuvenate our marriage and love. It was nice that Hubby could pay 100% attention on me and held my hands when we walked.

In 2010 also, our house construction kicked off, after more than a year of planning and designing the house plan, meetings, obtain approval, tender, etc. Luckily, Hubby is handling this project.

In 2010, there were unpleasant happenings too. 2 of my close friends and relative were diagnosed with cancers. There were also a few marriage complication among family and friends. These reminded me to take care of our health and pay attention to our spouse. Somehow, we always neglect our spouse once we have our kids. These also made me realise how important family and friends are to me. They are part of my life.

Today, my boss told me that 2011 will not be a good year for me ... after I bought him a cup of Latte. There will be significant outflow of cash. I hope this relates to our house construction and not any other cash outflow. I also pray that our house construction will progress smoothly without major obstacles. This is Hubby's dream and I'll be happy to see his dream comes true in 2011.

My new year resolution is very simple. I want to spend quality time with my family ... my kids, my Hubby, my parents, my siblings, my friends and family members. They need me and I need them too. I should not take them for granted. They need my attention and care. After all, why do we work so hard? To provide a better and quality living to them, isn't it?

During work day, I spend a significant of my time at work. I am someone who needs "me time" every night before call it a day. I will browse through my emails, Facebook, reading blogs, etc. I also bake quite a bit. Baking is a good stress reliever and I am happy to see my family and friends enjoying my cake. I know I need to hit on to the gym more often to lose my weight and attend more yoga classes which is good for my health. I also like scrapbooking and update my blog. I am not a superwoman and everyone only has 24 hours in a day. With all these activities and hobbies, I've seen myself starting on a project and stopped half way and not getting them done. There were 2 mini album workshops that I've attended and the mini albums were still half done.

I need to live a balance life. An extreme of anything is not good. I need to stay focus too. Else, I will end up nowhere and never do well in anything that I do. It will always be an average results.

I need to pay more attention on my family lifestyle. Live as stress free as possible as stress is bad for health. The one most simple way to achieve this is not to wait for things to be done on last minute. Get things done a head of schedule.

Yes, today my best friend Christina asked me if my Hubby and I are interested to join them for eating, massage and shopping trip to Bangkok in mid 2011. Kids are not allowed and the trip has been booked. Hooray!

Auntie YC invited us to her house for new year eve's dinner. She roasted a chicken, the Jamie Oliver's way.

While Hubby and kids were swimming in the pool, I roasted another chicken, my very first roast chicken. I followed the recipe that I learned from Paul of Food Studio ... rub chicken with salt, pepper, paprika and mustard.

Hubby preferred the chicken roasted by Auntie YC, as a comparison, not that my chicken tasted bad but I've put too much salt that the chicken was salty. Jared ate a lot for dinner and he's weighing 20kg today, whereas, Jaden's weight is 15.2 kg.

Roasted potatoes, carrots, garlic, etc prepared by Auntie YC.
Onion cooked with butter, sugar and red wine. Goes very well with my roasted chicken.

We watched movie and TV at Auntie YC's house in Mt Kiara, while waiting for fireworks to countdown to new year 2011.

View from Auntie YC's balcony.

My simple new year wish ... good health, success and happiness.

By the way, Jaden said "Don't get angry. Be Happy!"

Swiss Garden Resort & Spa, Kuantan

18-20 Mar 2010

We've been to Kuantan 3 times in a span of 15 months. As such, Kuantan was not in our mind for our holiday, at least for a while.

William and friends planned to go to Kuantan for Mar 10 school holiday and asked if we were interested to join them. Kuantan? But we just said no more Kuantan for a while! William and friends planned to stay in Swiss Garden Resort & Spa, not Hyatt Regency (the hotel that we usually stay in Kuantan). I asked Hubby for his opinion and he said "OK." That's it?

It's not the destination, it's the get together for old friends and let the kids have a break since it's school holiday. This time round, I was not the organiser but William and wife were.

William smsed me on the hotel room rates and asked if we prefer to stay in Garden view or Sea view room. Based on the experience with other group of friends, they usually book the cheaper room. Reason being we would not spend much time in the hotel room and also to accommodate other friends who may not wish to spend so much in hotel room. So, without much thinking and asking, I just asked to be booked in Garden view room.

On 18 Mar 2010, my family was the first to check in the hotel. When I was told there were 2 sea view rooms and 1 garden view room, I was surprised. OK ... all of them were booked on sea view room and we were on garden view. Why didn't they tell me? I would have just book the sea view too, so that all of us could be together. Never mind ...

Then, I was told our room is double bed room. The other friends of mine were all on King size bed room. I requested for king size bed and I was told that I need to make the request during reservation. What?

At this moment, honestly, I did not feel good. What happened to the togetherness? What happened to the caring and sharing? What ....

As we got into our room, I was still feeling disappointed. When I was the organiser and made the hotel reservations, I will forward the reservation confirmations to all of my friends and reminded them to make their requests to the hotel directly. Its my mistake to assume that everyone is the same, think the same way and do the same thing. OK ... I wasn't going to allow this hotel room thingy (though I would still prefer to be together and in the sea view room as those rooms had been refurbished) to spoil our decade of relationship and holiday. I'm sure my friends sensed that I wasn't happy and I'm also sure that they are reading this post quietly now :)

Anyway ... back to Swiss Garden Resort & Spa. We kinda like this hotel, especially the hotel has been refurbished. The one thing that I do not like as much is the hotel location. The hotel is located in Beserah, whereas Hyatt Regency is located in Telok Chempedak, which is in better location with more eateries options within walking distance.

We went to Swiss Garden in Mar 10 which is school holiday and the hotel was fully booked. The check-in process was very slow, it took about 20 minutes for the lady in front of me to be checked-in.

After dinner, we went to this place Limbong Art for shopping.

We've been to this Cherating Turtle Sanctuary. On popular demand, we went there again after our buffet breakfast in the hotel. Hubby led the way with the help of his GPS.

A staff showing the kids 5 days old hatchlings which will be released into the sea once they are of age.

Jaden likes blowing bubbles and I brought it along for him to play in the resort.

One of the thing that I like about beach holiday is photography. It's very easy to take nice, beautiful, candid and natural photos. Consequently, I'm always not in the photos.

Edward and family.

Michelle and family. Noah has gone to catch crabs.

The loving, Yong couple ... but why arent they holding hands?

William and Naomi. The man who claimed has saved my life in Taman Negara a decade ago ... telling everyone that we met and ... still talking about it. Sign of ageing ...

The three boys catching crabs.

I like this candid shot with blue crystal reflection from the pool and ball.

Jaden dislike the feeling of wet sand and kept on washing his legs.

And yet ... he liked to play with it.

The group, except for Hubby who was suffering from stomach ache from the spicy dinner the night before.

After the beach play, the group adjourned to swimming in the pool. This adult pool is 5 feet deep.

After the beach play and swimming in the pool, all of us were very hungry. We had our dinner at Pak Su Restaurant. Luckily, the restaurant had a big table that could accommodate 16 of us.

We ordered lots of food and this dinner bill was picked up by William.

It has been a while since I joined this group of friends for vacation. Their style now is to take turn to pick up bill rather than go on cost sharing on total trip expenses. We had not picked up any bill and book to pay for the following day lunch.

After the dinner, we had our welcome drink at Swiss Deli Lounge.

Every night, we would have our chit chatting at Michelle's room.

Our last day in Kuantan was a raining day. The kids were disappointed as they could not swim in the pool. I brought sand art to Kuantan and the kids played with it before checking out from the hotel.

Edward suggested to have seafood lunch in Telok Chempedak. Unfortunately, it was closed. To avoid the inconvenience of moving around in raining day, we had our lunch at the neighbourhood coffee shop, Restaurant Hoi Yin. We had its famous curry noodle, soup noodle, dry noodle, etc for lunch. This is the restaurant that I must frequent when we stayed in Hyatt Kuantan.

On the way home, we stopped at Sin Kee Hung to buy local produce as souvenirs. This shop was recommended by William's friend which coincidentally, it's the same shop that we went previously.

We had our early dinner in this restaurant which is located in Bukit Tinggi, Bentong. This restaurant was recommended by Jestine and they hosted the dinner.

There was fish pond and the kids enjoyed feeding those fishes.

After the dinner, Michelle brought us to buy fresh vegetables and fruits from the neighbourhood night market.

After the night market, we bid good bye to each other and our holiday ended there.

It was a good, relaxing holiday with lots of good food. It was our first holiday in school holiday as Jared started his primary school this year.

Pink Cupcakes for Baby Full Moon

My schoolmate, Andy and his wife, Quin have another baby girl, Kyle. We were invited to their full moon party last Saturday.

I love cupcakes and always wanted to make beautiful cupcakes. Since Kyle is a baby girl, I decided to attempt to make sweet, lovely cupcakes.

For a few nights, I browsed through internet, baking magazines, Wilton book, etc to get some cupcake designs idea and also to look for more information on the right texture and ingredients for butter cream icing. Those nights, I fell asleep on baking books and magazines.

On Friday, I dragged my colleagues to Wilton baking shop located opposite my office during lunch time and bought "Baby Booties" sugar candy.

The next morning, I bribed my hubby to have breakfast at Old Town Kopitiam which was located near to House of Ingredients to buy Wilton Tip 1M (RM7.70), 4 Pastel Icing color (RM22.70), Cupcake baking cups (RM6.50 for 50 paper cups, love these white baking cups as no baking tray is required to bake cupcakes) and ingredients.

I made butter cream icing and a total of 6 designs cupcakes in pink and cream colour, using Wilton tips. Thanks to my sister for letting me experiencing with her Wilton decorating tips.

It was a project for me as this is my very first attempt to make cupcakes as a gift for special occasion. I am quite happy and satisfy with the results as I self-learned these decorations from internet, Q&A, etc. I wanted to attend classes to learn cupcake decorations but didn't get to do it.

Hubby said the cupcakes looked professional and the icing was not too sweet ... hmm hmm.

Neny came to my house the following day and tried the last 2 cupcakes left. She liked the butter cream icing as it was very smooth and not sandy. I was recommended to use glucose instead of icing sugar to obtain smooth texture icing.

Mission completed!

Papier Love's Luau Party

Last Sunday, I attended Papier's member day Luau Party. It was a Hawaiian theme party. The newly renovated shop was decorated in the Hawaiian party mood with Hawaiian music playing on the background. Papier team put in lots of effort and work in preparing grass skirts, leis and headbands for the guests.

The refreshment provided at the party was in line with the theme too. There were coconut, tropical tarts, fruits, marble cake, cream puff, sandwiches, etc decorated with mini paper umbrella.

There were Make n Take, Slice demo and Fun n Games session and also beautiful showcase of creative projects by Jessy and Rosa.

Photos with some of the guests and my scrap booking buddy, Jo Tan.