The Chef

Daddy is practically everything. He is a great father. He is a loving husband. He is a plumber. He is an electrician. He is a priest (when he nags...hehe...he is gonna kill me). He is a multi-tasker and most important of all, he is an incredible chef!

Stir-fry asparagus

Kung-pou chicken

Steamed wine enormous tiger prawn. Mum got it from Tawau.

Last but not least, radish+carrot+tomato soup! Taste good!

Everything tasted so delicious, nothing was left behind. Both of us, finished everything. The dishes were just some normal weekend dinner but in another meaning, also to celebrate the happy life we are living now. The above dishes were cooked by daddy except for the soup. I was the one who boiled the soup because I'm practically good at boiling soup more than daddy does. Luckily, I still have one winning point because daddy is a better cook at other dishes than me!

Good also....coz I get to sit tight and just EAT!

It's the Time of the Year Again!

Yo-Ho-Ho! It's the time of the year again. We took out the Christmas tree from the attic last weekend and put it up.

Well, it looks the same as last year because the ornaments were the same! We didn't buy any new ones. But, what's lacking?

Real pressies of course! Till then!

Then, all of us did some art crafts, thanks to daddy's idea. Just to decorate the house. The lil' one helped me on gluing the letters, painting and sprinkling the sparkling dusts.

Here was how it looks like:

Haha...not bad on a way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

The art work was hung up on the wall above the Christmas tree. And both of it will stay there until the next CNY decorations takes place.

Christmas decorations.

Now, I'm just waiting for my December's holidays and trips!

D.I.Y

Sometimes I really have to give 'thumbs up!' to daddy for all the hard work done at home. He really has the heart and effort to make things work. And for the sake of saving $$$ too. If for me, surely I will opt the easy way out and of course, easy way means forking out money to get things repaired or done. And by the way, sounds easy for me to say huh? Since I'm not the one who needs to fork out the money. Hehehe.....

Basically, daddy is in charge of the house's maintenance as:

(1) He has more money than I do.
(2) He is the head of the house.


The first one is ----> our washing machine:
According to daddy, this washing machine of ours has been standing where it belongs for at least the past 15 years. It was still working fine until few months ago when the machine began to show some old signs of 'aging'. It was spinning slowly, the laundry was not dried, the water did not drained by itself, the timer was not working, water overloading the level it should be and etc. So, I gave up on using the washing machine and I did the laundry myself with my own bare hands. I was practically hand washing the laundry for at least 2 months and the difficult part was when I need to wash the bedsheets.

Anyway, if I wanted, I could have easily sent the bedsheets to the laundry shop. But since I can still managed to do it myself, why should I waste $$$ on laundry outside. Alright, maybe just a bit of nagging and complaining while I washed the bedsheets because hey!, it was really hard to wash such big spread of cloth, not to mention one but a few bedsheets at a time. And twisting it dry as well.

Daddy put in some effort also and patience a lot, no denying. He went through internet research to actually find out what was wrong with the machine. The result of his research was, the machine was clogged, hence it can't functioned properly. Nothing to do with the motor nor the electronic plate. We just need to drain out the dirt that was clogging in the tubes of the machine.

And another, our washing machine is the front load type and seeing the rubber door casket so dirty, daddy dismantled it to wash. But after dismantling it, he can't fixed it back! The rubber can't be installed back where it belongs even with the help of several human powers (mum, dad and bro) pulling, pressing and fixing the rubber together at the same time. One obvious reason, the rubber was old and has loosen its elasticity.

So, off we hunted for a new rubber door casket replacement and it took like several weeks before we finally managed to get a new one! Ok...the several weeks delay was because I had to call in to the ELBA spare part outlet to check, but I kept on delaying, no time, not free....bla bla bla...

So, eventually I made the call finally and found out that the spare part rubber door casket was available for RM66. The problem was we need to get it from the outlet and this outlet was actually located in Kepong. Considering the distance, we decided to give another try at a nearby electrical shop to see whether the shop does sell spare parts apart from electrical appliances. Lucky us! We managed to get the same spare part but at a higher price of RM85. Daddy said it was ok because the RM 20 difference can be calculated as the petrol and time wasted for us to go all the way to Kepong.

And it was pretty easy fixing a brand new rubber door casket and daddy did it alone himself this time with no help at all to press the rubber side by side or whatever. So, it was the rubber's elasticity problem because we had so many attempts with the old one and failed miserably.

Daddy unclogged the dirt, fixed the rubber door and tested the machine few times after that. Trial runs were successful! Our washing machine is all healthy again! Daddy even painted it.

Looks brand new after paint.

Daddy said no point throwing it away when he was 100% sure he can fixed it. And also, because he knew the problem was not associated with the motor or electrical plate. If it was, it's definitely harder to fix. There goes, I salute his patience because if I'm the one willing to fork out money, I would have bought a new one considering this was rather old and not performing already after more than 10 years of service to the household.

Anyway, it is functioning well now just like it's brand new. I'm so glad as I need no longer be part time Filipino maid washing away the laundry. Hehehe.....hope this machine stays with us!


The second one is ----> our staircase:
Our wooden parquet staircase was plagued with termites and we only found out about it recently, a few months back when we noticed the differences on the surface of the parquets. Rather headache at first because we need to do something about it and we knew that that something could be very costly because it involves professional services. We nearly engaged those termites/pest buster! And it could meant fees like RM2-3k easily for a treatment. After listening to explanations and advises from the professionals, we decided to install the bait ourselves because coincidentally daddy stumbled upon a website that sells termite bait for USD 26 per box.

We ordered 3 boxes and installed 2 boxes at the staircase. We hope it will worked because basically the bait functions as the termite's food. The worker termites will feed on it and brings the poison back to the nest for the rest of the colony. After nearly 3 weeks, we noticed that there were still obvious differences to the damage of the wooden parquets before and after installing the baits. So, there could be only one reason. The termites were obviously not feeding on the baits! The baits were not working and the termites were still feeding on the wooden parquets, that's why the damages continued to worsen.

Our guessing was correct! The termites were still roaming around, leaving the baits untouched! So, we did one final step......to dismantle the infected wooden stairs on our own. Basically, it's daddy's hardwork because he worked on the stairs all by his own. I don't know how to help because it's a man's job but anyway I did help on the cleaning and tidying. He dug out all the wooden planks and the view of the damages by the termites were really disgusting. On the process of digging the wooden planks, we had to have an insecticide on stand-by because every time you dug a piece of wooden plank, there were lots of termites crawling underneath! Yucks!!

After digging the wooden planks, which was the hardest part, daddy put cement as the second step. Hopefully, by disconnecting the termites pathway to their underground nest, we will be able to control the whole situation from getting worse.

After laying cement.

We just need to paint it as the final step and so far, daddy had already done that half-way last Saturday. A little bit more to go and our new steps will be ready in no time!

Painted the stairs in 'honey' colour. Should have chosen a darker shade.

Bravo to daddy for all the hard work done!

Second Assessment 2010

Today is the last day of school and the boy had some party at school today. I packed his bag with some snacks to be shared together with his friends. School holidays will commence tomorrow onwards. As usual, he sat for his second assessment recently and he got a good grades out of all the subjects. I'm just so proud of him.

All 100% except for Chinese, 96% because he got one mistake.

He told me that he got a 'C' for his writing. I told him it's ok. Writing is not such a big deal to me. I mean how well you expect a 5 year old to write, clean and neat like an adult meh?! I'm fine as long as he knows what he is writing and can form the words. I don't care how ugly looking it is. Of course, people says practice makes perfect but how neat you are able to write doesn't seems that important to me.

As a reward, I bought him a set of pretend doctor toys from Jusco. The toy is not in a very good condition now after few weeks of playing and throwing around everywhere that I didn't take photos of it. Hehehe......

This year's class photo is something different from last year. I like it. All the kids are smiling so beautifully. And he was able to name all his classmates when I pointed to the photos one by one. How fast a year has past by.

Zoomed into my boy. See? Smile so cute.

We didn't get to attend this year's concert as we were back in Ipoh at that time. However, I get to keep his concert clothes as daddy has already paid for it earlier together with the term fees. According to his teacher, it's a lil' bit wasted that we didn't turned up for the concert or else we get to see the lil' one pretend as a tortoise wor, as part of the concert show. Well, I guess we just have to wait for next year then, since he still has one more year to go.

Museum and Petrosains, KLCC

I was on leave last Thursday and Friday as mum wasn't around for that two working days. So, I have to look after the kid. Mum went to Sabah for a holiday together with dad and bro's family for the weekend. I sent the boy to school on Thursday and went to pick him up when it was about time for school dismissal. I was early when I reached the school compound and the classes were not dismissed yet. Some students were outside at the porch together with the principal, I noticed. Then, suddenly I saw my boy coming out from the front door, with no bag. So, I suspected that the class was not yet dismissed. He was ordered by his teacher to stand at the corner, nearby to the gate. I saw he was already sobbing. I was standing at the gate when he finally saw me, he cried even worst. But, even though crying, he dared not approached me. He just stood where he was, looking at me, crying.

Then, I 'tak boleh tahan', I went over to hug him and asked him what went wrong. His teacher saw me and explained that he didn't want to join in the art class, so she asked him to sit aside and gave him something (I think were pieces of shape foams) to play with. According to the teacher, he went and teared the pieces apart. That's why the teacher sent him out as a punishment. Then, I wiped his tears away and asked him to apologize to his teacher, which he did. But again, kids are kids. He got all cheerful again once he got into the car. I love fetching him home from school coz I get to witness his cheerful, happy face. He talked a lot too in the car because he was happy that I picked him up. And, it's really joyful to see him bouncing up and down especially when he sees me waiting for him at the gate. Can't wait to get his shoes on thou.

We enjoyed some mother and son quality time together that afternoon. I brought him to Jusco. We had lunch at Kim Gary. Then, I brought him to the Jusco kids play area. I think he played for more than an hour there. After that, I brought him for some grocery shopping and finally, a treat of Baskin Robbins ice-cream before heading home to prepare for dinner. Daddy said, we definitely know how to enjoy ourselves. Of course! Hahaha.....

As for Friday, we took him to the museum first and Petrosains next. As expected, nothing much to see in the museum. The museum are divided into 4 main sections now and all are newly renovated with different themes and exhibits. I mean I haven't been visiting the museum for the past 10 years. Hence, I don't know it has been renovated and the exhibits were different from the last time I went. If you haven't been visiting the museum for the past 10 years, it's actually worth paying it a visit for just RM2 per adult entry. Kids 12 years of age and below get to enter for free.

In front of the museum building.

Playing with the video art. Pool of fishes.

Posing in front of the exhibits.

Model of the ancient mining factory.

He said he wanted a picture with the trophy.

We had a short time at the museum and headed off to KLCC later for Petrosains. We were stuck in a terrible Friday lunch jam in town that I nearly gave up of going there. I wanted to go home already when daddy finally made his way out of the traffic and entered into the KLCC basement parking.

We paid RM24 for 2 adults and 1 kid tickets into Petrosains. At first, I thought the place was just another boring 'museum', but to my surprise for RM24, there were plenty of things to see. Even more than the Aquaria KLCC and less expensive. And most importantly, you get to learn a lot about science and children get to hands-on and play with the exhibits rather than just 'see only, please do not touch'. We spent almost 3 hours in this place and I really liked it. I mean the place. I'll definitely go again in the future when Lunz get older. I hardly recommend any local attraction unless the place is really worth visiting. And this Petrosains is really worth the entrance fees. But please, go on weekdays if possible as during weekends or public holidays will definitely be crowded and thus, you wouldn't have a chance to hands-on the exhibits.

You will get a short but slow welcome ride in a bubble car at the entrance until you reached to the starting point of the first exhibit hall where you will be dropped off.

First hall. Cheerful and interesting hall for the young ones.

Sitting in the 'car'.

Teach the young ones on image reflection. The toy car was actually underneath the glass panel but it appeared on top of it. My boy tried to grab the car. Obviously, you were unable to grab it because the car was practically not there. It was just a reflection.

Sitting on a 'digger'. Looks how fun this place is....for kids.

Second hall. Historic era of the dinosaurs. He got so scared by this T-Rex model that he asked us to u-turned back. Obviously, we ignored him and asked him to move on.

Learned about how plants grow by rotating the wheel to view the diagrams.

Live model of an oil drilling platform. You have to ride a helicopter simulator to get to this platform. But actually, you just entered on one side of the helicopter and disembarked on the other side. Ta-da! You reached the platform! But of course, during the helicopter ride, it was like motion-master.

Checking out the control panels.

Still exploring the platform.

After the oil drilling platform. Learned about kinetic energy and speed.

Had a fun time rolling the balls.

There were basically 7-8 halls but I didn't managed to take all because my camera was running out of battery. But all the halls were really interesting and you can really had a fun time exploring the stuffs. For example, you get to experience first to third degree of earthquake by sitting on a bench and pressing the buttons. The bench will shake. Then you have this booth similar to a telephone booth but you can experience hurricane inside once you pressed a button. Daddy's hair was a mess after he came out from the booth. There were many other things to see and play with. Wished my camera didn't run out of battery so soon. If not, I'll able to capture more shots.

At the end of the last hall, you will ride the bubble car again to the main exit. Then, we moved on to the next FREE show, the Playhouse Disney pals road rally exhibition.

Posing with Pluto.

Playing the games around.

Still exploring the games.

I asked him to pose with Donald Duck. Still remembered the first word he told me was 'DUCK' when he was a baby.

Last but not least, Mickey and Daisy.

Although tired but we had a great day!

Ipoh Wedding Dinner

Why all vacations doesn't last? Why all holidays are so short? Why happy times tend to pass by quicker than usual?

Just got back from Ipoh. Anyway, we stayed over for one night only, so, I guess that's why it ended so fast. We left home by 8am on Friday and reached Ipoh about 10++ am. Managed to check into our room by 12 noon. Surprisingly, of all the hotels that I have stayed before in Ipoh, this Regalodge Hotel was not bad. Not bad at all. For RM106 nett (30% early bird promotion but you gotta book 30 days in advance), you get breakfast for 2, very clean room with bathtub and all the necessary amenities such as safe box, coffee making facilities and etc. I would strongly recommend it to those who wanted to travel to Ipoh. Even myself, I'll definitely book this hotel again for our future visits. Sebastian was very excited when he got into the room. He was jumping on the bed, running here and there and kept on telling me that he liked hotel very much.

As usual, Sebastian was given the privilege to grab some goodies from grandma's confectionery shop in town. Have I ever mentioned before that daddy grew up together with this confectionery shop? That shop is really a kid's heaven! According to daddy, grandma and grandpa used to sell snacks/goodies in front of the cinema during the old days. That time, all they ever had was just a small stall. The shop was a result of grandma and grandpa's sweat and hardwork. Now, they have gained the reputation of being a top supplier instead. Grandma has passed the business to 5th uncle. And he is running it good. Business is good. When I'm there every time, I can see that the shop is always crowded with customers. Well, Sebastian got himself a whole pack of Mamee, a box of chocolates and a pack of jelly. All for FREE! And he got to walked around the shelves, picking out his choices. How fun can that be, trying to imagine myself as a kid, walking in a shop like that!

After that, we spent the whole afternoon in our room. Sebastian happily occupying the bathtub and later, sis and family dropped by for a chat. We don't even have time for a nap. And it was raining heavily, we even canceled the idea of going out to 'lepak'. Anyway, time went by fast and soon, we had to prepare ourselves for dinner.

Here are some photos taken during the dinner. We had a simple tea serving ceremony in the restaurant.

In the car, on our way to the restaurant.

Daddy's uncles and aunties.

Sis and daughter, Emily. Isn't she one of the cutest little pumpkin you have ever seen? Wish I had a daughter with big round eyes like Em.

The first dish of the night. I only managed to take this one because it was either I was too busy entertaining Sebastian or the other dishes finished too quickly once served.

Family shot. I was so simply dressed with no hair-do nor make-up that night compared to all the aunties nicely dressed in cheongsams. Paiseh! Luckily darling sis gave me this white dress or else, I have to crack my head thinking of what to wear.

Me and my darling.

Daddy and his darling.

With the cousins.

Grandma and Ku Jeh. Grandma was so happy that night she took her sweet time to finish both cups of tea (normally people just sipped a bit) and she talked a lot too, saying that she waited so long for this cup of tea.

A gift from Grandma. White gold necklace and diamond pendant. I was surprised she actually gave me white gold because I thought older generations like to give gold instead. But anyway, daddy said, maybe they know what the younger generations would like to have.

The gift looks like this.

Next, was Tai Ku Ma and Tai Ku Cheong. All the way from Singapore. Really yau sum. I heard they came by Firefly and it cost them RM1K per person for the flight. Since when Firefly got so expensive?? Crazy er...no choice, coz it's the only airline that lands in Ipoh if you choose not to drive.

Tai Ku Ma gave me a white gold necklace and pendant also.

Then, it's 4th Aunt and her husband. Also all the way from Singapore.

5th uncle and wife.

6th uncle and wife, from Penang. All uncle and aunties were present except for Lai Suk and Lai Sum. Both of them weren't in Malaysia on that day.

Last but not least, Ka Jeh and Jeh Foo. Both are very nice people. Glad to have them.

Silly daddy with Dom's red bow tie.

Now, it's the silly boy's turn. I asked him to smile, he went and smiled like that!

Taken by Sebastian.

Lastly, a photo of Dom grooving to the music.

Everybody enjoyed themselves very much! Daddy said, next CNY we will make it back to Ipoh for the eve and first day celebrations. It has been so long since he ever go back to celebrate first day of CNY with his grandma. Not a problem. We will plan towards it. ;)