The Apple's Diary!

I could see many bloggers have started to summarize their 2016. I am no exception because 有始有终, it means there is a season for each activity and there would be an ending. 2016 has been good to me! I'm extremely thankful to God for His blessings at work, at home, in personal development, friendship that is built to last and in strengthening the marriage. My favourite month of the year December is coming to an end in another 2 days' time. I would miss December 2016 but look forward to December 2017. Christmas was spent in a blink, with the heat (hot weather) and sudden flash flood. We had a family gathering in the eve and spent a good time (and money) at Decathlon, stocking up on sport gears. what's Xmas without a log cake Christmas had us turning up very late for service so we sat in the children's Sunday School and watched the children squeak in delight over balloon sculptures. We then decided to make another attempt to Garden by the Bay, first attempt faile

Hey hey hey... before we start singing Christmas carols, someone has been waiting patiently for his birthday to come. Ta da! None other than the youngest in the family, our little Matthew turned 4 last week! First... we celebrated his lunar birthday without the traditional mee sua . It was a Friday and coincided with the concert. Uh huh... and he fell sick for the entire week. In fact, it was a horrible week as the husband travelled for work, leaving the feverish boy together with a restless brother and a super stressed mom. a birthday balloon for the boy Happy Lunar Birthday! Then we held another celebration in Sunday School which got all the children so excited. Blessed Birthday Finally his celebration in school with his classmates. We weren't allowed to join in the celebration with the boy, so the elder brother came over. Cloud9's bake Birthday boy chose this design and was delighted to see his favourite McQueen on it. with the

This ought to be our 4th time watching the champs performing at this annually big event. The preschool probably took more than half a year to conceptualise and held the intensively training of the champs in their respective dance items. This is also why I feel that the teachers and staff should be appreciated, no less than the praise-deserving champs, although I have to admit the novelty has worn off in me and the level of enthusiasm reduces with time. Admission tickets Venue had remained the same at Fusionopolis although the preschool has moved to Biopolis because of the impending retail renovation helmed by JTC (the landlord). This year, we went in slightly earlier because I remembered last year, we missed the introduction of all champs with their individual photos as we got seated very late. We got it right. We had 2 rounds of their slideshows which featured their individual photo and their group activities and class photos. You could see proud parents s

We woke up and ate up whatever we bought and had leftover as breakfast. Then it was another round of madness getting everyone ready. It was an afternoon flight but as usual, we are always running behind time. Finally we got to the airport, in time for check in. The original driver had asked his driver friend to send us there. Talked about after-sales service. 2 big, 2 medium, 1 small and 1 carton home all from us The check-in queue was rather long and we wasted a fair bit of time here. Then we had to get some lunch for the boys, so another fair bit of time used. In the end, I didn't have time to shop at their duty-free and it was time for boarding. Thankfully the boys napped on the flight back, so it was peace time again.  If I were to sum up this whole trip, I learnt a few more new lessons about us travelling as family and the boys themselves. 1. Cold weather, cool weather and please no hot and humid weather. The

Finally we woke up to a great morning because the weather finally turned cooler. This was the kind of weather we were hoping to get when we were at Taiwan but it only happened at the 2nd last day of our trip. Nonetheless, this was the day we would be going around Taipei by ourselves. First stop was breakfast at MacDonald's which turned out that they didn't have any more breakfast by 10am! So we weren't sure what to order since the kids don't eat burgers. They only attacked the fries. Somehow, we managed to grab a table at this multi-storey Mac and again the boys started to bicker for some nonsensical stuff. When we could finally moved on to take a train down to Taipei 101, the streets were filling in with people and more people. We spent a while at the train station, figuring their ticket purchasing system. Eventually we figured out that children ride for free. So we took the train, followed the map, changed the train and reached Taipei 101. Taipei101

I started the day in full anticipation of good fun but then the day didn't go the way I wanted. The boys were getting restless with the endless walking and sightseeing, it wasn't their type of holiday. But breakfast at Taipei was special as the driver took us to this handmade noodles shop. It was a mixed of our kway chay  with laksa lookalike chor mee hoon . The norm would be soupy noodles with side dishes such as braised tofu. The unusual would be served as dessert with shaved ice, like our ice kacang.  icy cold noodles lotsa goodies after the ice melted Syrup laded with red and green beans, grass jelly and the "pearls". It was actually quite refreshing as breakfast. After breakfast, our first stop was at the 十分. This is the place where you catch the waterfall and the opportunity to 放天灯。 waterfall backdrop the scribbles on sky lantern group photo with driver The children didn't like the idea of walking under the hot sun ju