Happy Birthday to our young man

 

And just like that you are now 16 years old! 

Another year and you will be driving (what a scary thought *grin*)

And to think that you were just this tiny little thing not too long ago:

Yup, our baby has grown up to be a fine young man. And time for this young man to shave too. 

You have made us proud when we see how well you have grown up to be. Sometimes temperamental, sometimes sweet and loving, sometimes funny and sometimes moody (especially in the morning). And most importantly.. ALWAYS HUNGRY! 

We love you to the moon and back. And you will always be our baby.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, EVAN!

Kirishima@Minden - Birthday dinner

For weeks leading to your birthday daddy and I had been asking you what you would like to have for your birthday dinner. In the end you opted for Japanese at home. That way with the money spent, you'd get to eat all the sashimi to your heart's content. 

So tonight, we had grilled salmon, miso soup and of course, LOTS of salmon sashimi. We also topped up with some sushi (sadly not the best this round). But it was a fun night, where we all stuffed ourselves with so much salmon. Even Mei-mei had fun trying out the raw salmon which she decided she loved!

Daddy slicing up the salmon

Salmon platter.. plating done by Ko-ko

Our dinner spread

My dinner

And of course, no birthday is complete without the cake and family pictures. We had to take so many pictures. Can you guess why?

The cake was delicious. I think you picked this flavour over the passion fruit which you would have preferred as Evelyn would not eat the passion fruit (too many seeds.. duh). That was so nice of you.

We hope that you had a wonderful celebration, despite us not dining out.

King is out!

First thing, early in the morning, daddy did another RTK to test for Covid and came out negative. And hence.. he is released! Ahaha.. 

And on time too. He dropped the two of you in school as I had a 7am meeting again. 

This feels like the longest week, with my other half "so near, yet so far". But you two have been very helpful. 

Especially sending daddy his dinner:

Sometimes Ko-ko will walk behind you to make sure you don't trip and fall. 

I know though that Mei-mei looks forward to our nightly video calls with daddy. As for daddy and I, we also video call for breakfast and lunch. 

All I know is... I'm glad to have him back.. physically. 

Grilling time

At long last, the grills are ready and were installed today. They delivered and had them set up within 3 hours. In fact then little window in my room took the men a grand total of 5 minutes to install!

Here is a picture of the grills in Ko-ko's room. I like the design. It's the same as the ones we have downstairs. 

Last item on daddy's list is the alarm system. 

King Stuck in the Room

On Sunday just as we were about to have dinner with Grampy and Nanna, daddy received a message that one of the golfers he played and had lunch with in the afternoon tested positive for Covid. He literally lost his appetite immediately. 

We quickly finished up dinner, washed up and headed home. I had to evacuate from our room as he wanted to self-isolate from everyone else. There is no more requirement, but daddy said he'd feel better by doing so even though he did a test which showed negative. After we had settled down in our own rooms, daddy realised that his room air-con was leaking! So I had to pass him a little pail to catch any dripping water while he slept. But no water dripped as he slept (fitfully) in the night. 

On Monday morning, it was just me. I had to prepare the packed meals for school, breakfast at home and also get you all ready then drive you both to school. Came back and brought daddy his "yummy" oats with coffee and his supplements. 

The same went for lunch and dinner. I'd put the food on a tray and leave it outside his door. He'll eat up and then put the tray back outside for me to wash. I wore gloves and masked up then poured hot water on the plates and cutlery before washing with a separate sponge. 

Last night though, he said that I'd given hi too little for dinner. So we had supper (after Mei-mei went to bed). Ko-ko and I sat downstairs while daddy had his in the room:

Super spicy noodles

Video call to "have supper together"

Today, I had a 6am meeting. Ko-ko offered to help heat up the food. But we had planned for you both to eat the fried rice Ah Ma had bought on Sunday. So it was a quick heat up, packing up the breakfasts and leaving Mei-mei for Kakak to help rush through breakfast. 

Had my meeting and at 6.30 just as my portion was done and I could get up to check that you were both at least in the shower, Mei-mei walked up to the room. You were already showered and dressed up. I tied up your hair and then you headed down to watch some TV, since it was still early.

The meeting ended 10 minutes earlier and I thought that I could drop you both. But Ah Kong said he'd drop you both as planned, so I would have my breakfast. Saw that daddy was also up, so I made grilled cheese sandwiches for the both of us. We had another "virtual" breakfast together before starting our meeting/work.

Breakfast must have been a lot better than yesterday's oats

Daddy says staying in the room is like being a king.. except for the fact that it's a small room and he misses seeing everyone face to face.

Thank goodness for voice and video chats that we can at least see each other. This brings new meaning to "so near, yet so far".

This is just day 2 or is it considered 3 (counting from Sunday...). More days to come. We just need to plan ahead for the next day so that we have less hiccups. 

I'm glad that the two of you are pulling your weight also, helping out and not making much fuss over having to do things slightly differently. 

Nearly a month

It's been nearly a month since the thief got into the house. And we have engaged someone to have grills fitted in the upstairs windows. Yet, we all seem to be still traumatized. We'd still leave a light on when we go down for dinner. Or even halfway through watching a movie, someone would walk upstairs just to have a look. 

Even Ko-ko sleeps with his weapons and we all have a stick or two lying within reach.. just in case. 

Hopefully all the additional safety measures that daddy has in mind will be put in place soon. Then we'll all have peace of mind. 

French Onion Soup

After waiting and procrastinating for a long time, we finally found the "inspiration" to make the French Onion Soup. Well I guess it's more like me feeling "in the mood" to cut up the 1kg plus of onions and you willing to wake up early enough to cook the soup.

This morning after my breakfast, I quickly cut up the onions and took out the other ingredients needed to cook the soup.

Then I woke you up and got some rest while you showered and got ready to cook.

Here are the ingredients (missing the thyme)

Took us quite a while for the onions to soften:

And another 15 or so minutes for it to caramelise:

While the soup was simmering, I went to have a shower. Then I popped the bread into the oven (loaded with lots of cheese.. guess who put the cheese on the bread??)

And ta-da.. our soup is ready to be served:

We made last minute plans to head to BM since Grampy had a fall and still couldn't walk well. So we also brought some soup over seeing that he didn't have his teeth and needed soft food/soup.

Walk in an Egyptian

 Someone is too free... 

Do you think it looks alike? *LOL*

Chef-In-Training: Chicken Noodle Soup

This is one of the easiest thing to cook and you both requested for it. Ko-ko was supposed to help, but turns out a certain El Sluggo could not wake up on time.

So after online piano lessons, I set Mei-mei to work. First (and only one thing to do.. considering the speed) was to cut the carrots. I peeled and julienned then then passed it over to you to cut them into cubes. While I continued with cutting up the onions. I even had to move away because you said the onions were making you cry!

Then we popped the carrots and onions into the pot and I let you stir them up. 

Ah.. as you can see, a stool was needed for our little shorty-botty.

When it was time to put the chicken in, I had to remind you NOT TO DROP the chicken into the soup, or else we'd all end up with a soup bath!

Tried taking a picture of you enjoying the soup, but got this expression instead.

As for El Sluggo, he was just on time to boil the water for the pasta!

Thief

A scary thing happened last Thursday. The 4 of us had gone out for a car ride to pump petrol and then try out a noodle shop downtown. While we were out, Ah Kong and Ah Ma stayed downstairs to watch the Winter Olympics.

We got back and I told Mei-mei to go shower as it was nearly 9pm and the next day was a school day. Mei-mei went up and then came down to ask Ko-ko why he had left his room and bathroom windows open. He said that he did not. So he went up to have a look and lo and behold.. the windows were wide open. Daddy went up to have a look and it dawned on him that someone had broken into the house.

We quickly gathered our "weapons" (an assortment of cane and hockey sticks and even Ko-ko's Katana) to arm ourselves in case the thieves were still in the house. We searched and search the closets, bathrooms and all the rooms and found nothing. Then a check indicated that the thieves had taken the ang pows I had kept in my drawer. Some (with cash) had dropped on the floor but was not taken. The safe in my closet had also been moved. 

Ah Ma called the police who arrived a while later. She also informed the neighbour in case the thieves climbed over to their house compound. 

Ever since that evening, we have been sleeping in Ko-ko and Mei-mei's room as that was where the thieves had entered. The roof at the back was very close to the boundary wall with our back neighbour (whose house was vacant). Daddy has since contacted the iron grill maker who will come in the next few days.

Today the police came after Ah Ma made an official police report. They dusted for fingerprints on the window which was suspected to be the escape route. Oh my, your room was certainly dusty with a layer of black dust. Kakak, daddy and I had to clean up the dust and wipe up the surfaces (without the fan turned on so that the dust will not fly around). 

We are thankful that not much was lost. We had laptops and watches lying all over the rooms but only the ang pow were taken. And most importantly no lives were harmed. I shudder to imagine what may have happened had we come back earlier or had Mei-mei encountered the thief when she went up. 

Handmade CNY Decorations

This year you learnt how to make these gold fishes in school. So you made 10 of them to decorate our cabinet. But daddy said we want 9 (good significance of longevity in Chinese). So one fist had to be removed.

Then you needed some decorations for school. So we made these:

You reckoned it looked more like a lion than a tiger! 

Made most of the tiger while you were away at school. Left some finishing touches for you to complete when you got back.

Of course, you also needed to pose with the 2 cute tigers:

 

First Round of Vaccination

Today you got to skip some lessons. It's because it's finally your turn to have your Covid vaccination. We managed to get an appointment for you via Keysight. 

The plan was to leave the house at 8.30am so that we arrived by 9. We left a little later, but managed to reach at around 9.05am. Daddy dropped us off and we got onto the lift to the 4th floor. When we arrived at the floor, there was already a LONG queue of parents and children waiting to enter the PPV side. We followed the snaking queue and then finally got to have our appointment and form marked.

Then we queued again for Station 2. We finally got a place to sit down and then it was another wait to have them check our forms and your MyKid. After that we had another round of waiting for Station 3. This station stopped processing as there seemed to be a hold up at Station 4.

We finally got a place to sit down and waited abit before we got to see the doctor in Station 3 where she explained a little about the vaccine and asked for allergies. 

It was a short wait in Station 4 before it was your turn.

We got the tiger station

The "aunty" gave you a jab. Not a sound from you, although you later told me you bit your tongue to keep in the scream

We headed to Station 5 for the 15 minute observation, but we didn't have to wait for the whole 15 minutes and off we went. We got your appointment card for the second jab. 

Before leaving, we stopped for a photo at the photobooth:

And another photo with all the toys set up at the booth.

Great job! You did not complain during the tiring, nearly 2 hour process nor did you cry when you had you jab.

Valentine's Day

I'm so happy to have received this today. One day late from the 14th, but still meaningful. Thanks, precious one. 

Happy Birthday, Grampy

Today, we headed to BM to have a belated birthday celebration for Grampy. We would usually plan to have the party before his birthday, but he had ran off fishing from the 3rd day of CNY up till the weekend. So we had it later instead.

Daddy cooked the meal as grampy had only a grand total of 3 teeth left (the plan was to have them all removed so that dentures could be made). And these 3 teeth seems to be more for display than for him to bite on anything! So since he needed soft food and the Covid cases were on the rise again, we decided to cook the food and bring it over. 

Dinner was lasagna, boiled new potatoes and some (bought) pulled pork.

We also had a cake for him. 

Family photo

Birthday "boy" blowing out the candle.

Mei-mei couldn't get over that he's call the "birthday boy" seeing that he's turned 80! Grampy only got to blow the candle on the third attempt after the two of you had a go with the candle!

Grampy, Nanna and Riley

Happy 80th Birthday, Dad/Grampy! We love you to the moon and back.

9th Day of Lunar New Year

 

Today is the 9th day of the Lunar New Year. It is a big day for the Hokkiens. Many people were up at midnight last night and lots of fireworks were let go. 

Today is also the Chinese New Year celebrations in school. You both got to wear home clothes for the celebration in school. 

Mei-mei all dressed up in her cheongsam

Blurry photo of Ko-ko all dressed in red

Tried another round in the car

This evening, Ah Ma cooked a feast to celebrate the 9th day, since the Ban's are Hokkien lang.

Second Day of CNY

Today was a lazy day. We just stayed at home and had leftovers for lunch. Mei-mei went with Chim Poh, 2 Kor-kor and Martin to visit her brother. You also got to play with Chim Poh's grand-nephew. Ko-ko on the other hand hid in the room to play computer games with his friends. Daddy and I got to catch 40 winks.

For dinner, it was Ah Ma's Hainanese Chicken Rice. A less elaborate dinner but still as delicious.

Ah Ma cutting up the cucumber for dinner

Kor-kor helping to fry the lobak

Dinner is served:

Ah Kong and Ah Ma freshened up a bit after dinner and headed back to Penang. Tonight's dessert was another round of longan laichee and seung wan yuen. And of course we finished up with our drinking session.

Pictures from Chinese New Year

 Here are more pictures taken on the first day of CNY: