Happy Niu Year!

On the 1st day of new year, we woke up at about 9 am plus.

This year, our itinerary went like this:

- Had our 斋菜 for breakfast;
- Kok Family gathering at 2nd uncle's house in Seng Kang;
- Prayed to my Father-in-law at the Hougang Temple;
- Lok Yang Tua Pek Kong pray for good luck, good health and wealth;
- Yong Family gathering at 1st Uncle's house in Ang Mo Kio;
- Andy's new house in Tampines;
- Home Sweet Home

On the 2nd day of CNY, woke up at about 9 am plus also and went the following places:

- Parents' house in Bt Batok;

- 大姑's house at Buangkok;

- 姑姑's house in Bt Batok;

- Yong family's sixth uncle's house in Yishun

It was all about visiting, eating new year goodies and giving out ang pows...

Haven't had enough fun for this CNY lei... cos' haven't started any gambling bet to cure my gambling itch....come on lei.... where are my mahjong and poker cards kakis....... where are you........??!!!

Reunion Dinner (25 Jan 09)

Finally, the spring cleaning and housekeeping are completed just before the CNY eve.

And on CNY eve, we were busy preparing our dishes for the reunion dinner at my home.

This is the 'Must' dish for CNY - 斋菜... have to cook it in the afternoon, so that after the dinner, Dino and Andy could 'da bao' back home....We spent 4 hours to cook up 2 woks of this dish, and that excluded the time for the preparation of the ingredients, cutting up the vegetables, pre-cooked the mushroom, dried bean curd, etc on the day before... Though the cooking method was more of to 焖 the ingredients, but still need to constantly fry and stir and turn the ingredients to prevent the base from 'chao dar'... as we have only 1 burner which has the big fire, thus, have to finish cooking 1 wok, then follow by another. And by the time 2 woks are done, we already suffering from aches all over our shoulders and hands liao....

But not time to relax yet... already 4 pm, we have to cook the dishes for the reunion dinner.

Both Dino and Andy arrived just before 5 pm, which was supposed to be our intended starting time for the dinner... but we were late.... still in the midst of cooking....

Menu for the Reunion Dinner:
1) Steamed Fish;
2) Broccoli with Scallop and Abalone
3) Sweet and Sour Gu Lu Ruo
4) Yi Pin Guo (Braised Seacucumber, Fish Maw, Button Mushroom, Roast Pork, etc)
5) Prawns with Soy Sauce
6) Spinach with Abalone
7) Chicken Wings (Mum's secret recipe)
8) Tempura Prawns

Dinner started only at 7 pm and probably by the time, almost all were already hungry, so we gobbled up most of the dishes... yum yum....

Welcoming the new TV set

Aiyo, few months back, my 6-year old 43"Toshiba Projection TV started to show signs of retirement again.... there were doubled images and colour fading when we turned it on to watch the TV programmes... It has already been serviced twice, by replacing the colour tubes... and as agreed, we are not going to service it anymore if it gives way again.... and true enough, just 2 years from we last serviced it, there... it's down again...

We tried to sell it to a few Garung Guni men, but none of them want to 'buy' this.... hahaha.... Nowadays, the Garung Guni men only keen to collect old clothings, computers, laptops and handphones....

Our new TV came on Monday, a Samsung 42" Plasma, cost $1299, comes with a Home Cinema System and a 8.2 mega pixels Samsung digital camera....

Currently, we placed them on top of our cabinets, couldn't make up our mind whether want to mount it on the wall or not.... still have 3 months for us to consider (to get free installation)... leave it to my hubby to decide...

Reunion Dinners - 17 and 18 Jan 09

On Sat, we went for our Kok family reunion buffet cum lo-hei dinner... and over these few years, the Kok family has really expanded; now 2nd uncle's house was really crowded with the 3 generations of people! hahaha.... 好热闹呀！

Then on Sunday, also had a reunion dinner together with my parents, brother, sister-in-law, Edvan, Edvan's parents (my aunt and uncle-in-law), and fourth aunt....

This year's table was big sia... 12 pax... so crowded....

We went to the usual Blk 155 coffee shop there, as it was more convenient forEdvan's parents to walkover to this coffeeshop.

Ever since last year, my hubby suggested to have reunion dinner with my parents, plus my aunt's family, which I think is really good lor.... then we could let my parents eat a proper meal outside of the house... and also to show appreciation to my aunt, who has brought me up since young....

And come to think that time flies so fast, Jiaqi has already been almost a year here.... and must thank my this sil to help to share the burden of looking after my parents....

GK's Birthday Celebration - Part 2

After the sushi dinner, we shopped at Jurong Point for a while and to also collect the Swenson's Blackforest ice-cream cake which I pre-ordered the other day.

It was already 10 pm plus when we reached home and cut the cake... the boys were sleepy and started to be grouchy...

Nonetheless, they still cooperated in finishing the candle blowing, cake cutting and eating a piece of the ice cream cake before they go to bed...

Happy Birthday to you, my dear boys!

GK's Birthday Celebration - Part 1

Last Thursday was GK's 8th Birthday!

Brought them to their favourite restaurant - Sakae Sushi, for their favourite sushi feast...

Hmmm... recently G's appetite has been increasing, he could gobbled up 5 plates of his favourite Tamago maki at one go, and he tried a few of the other makis that we ordered also.... so worried for him... so scare that he would turn out to be obesed in the near future .... the recent weight result (taken in school) indicated that he was 'Borderline Overweight'..... Really need to watch out for him.....

Farrer Gathering 8 (10 Jan 09)

We had another round of gathering over the weekend.

James requested for more human essence into his house, so we did this gathering in his newly moved-in house in Ang Mo Kio.

We did a potluck party and some of us bought him housewarming gifts too. Peiqian and I shared the Mahjong Tiles set whereas Eilena and Joey shared the Mahjong Table.

So, next time, we have another place to go for mahjong session liao.

There were some newbies for the gathering, eg. Shahabudeen, Jurinah and Helmi... these are friends whom I have not met over the 20 years, and great to learn that Helmi even remembered being in the same class with me in Pri. 3.

We had a wonderful night we had, feasting the Old Chang Kee curry puffs, KFC, Jurinah's homemade brownies, BBQ chicken wings, Agar-Agar dessert, Sushi, and plentiful of softdrinks...

GK was heavily entertained with those psp downloaded games which James has. And as it was turning late, James offered to lend his albums of games for GK to bring home.

We ended the gathering at around 11 pm plus and by the time we reached home, it was already past midnight.

For more pics:

http://farrer1988.multiply.com/photos/album/12/Farrer_Gathering_8_-_10_Jan_2009