Chalet & BBQ

it's been a long time since our family had a chalet. we usually bbq at home. sis just ballot and managed to get her bank's chalet. 2 units. it rained so heavy and with the non-stop thundering, i almost tot the bbq would be cancelled. but the rain did stopped and the kidos were the happiest. they were all ready in their swimwear and they head straight to the Wild wild wet to play. got to lay down to rest awhile and the rest of the family members arrived shortly and bro & gx started bbq fire.

we had a long list of food for the bbq. the special item that nite would be these slabs of huge steaks! according to aunt o who bot them from swiss butchery, they are beef from 100 days old cows... greenfield steaks??? caught only alittle about the history of the beef. cos i dun eat it, not sure whats the difference... prob young meat = tender cos it moved very little of its muscle?

tables always filled and we had new frens joining the party. cousin A and B brought their frens to the bbq, meeting the family for the 1st time. there were endless food. chicken wings, pork and mutton satays, otak, beehoon, taiwan sausage, pork chipolata, cuttlefish balls, vietnamese pork chop, beef, bacon wrapped asparagus and all time favourite buttered corn! nesa was waiting patiently for the whole nite for me to give her the green nite to bbq her mashmellows.

our hero of the nite. my cousin B went thru some op on his leg... he braved the pain and attended the party as who wants to be left out! dun know when we will have chalet again! the only photo gx and i took that nite. uncle m nagged at me non-stop when i was trying to do the bbq. so i sat down and when coast was clear i bbq with gx! the waether wasn't as hot as before it rained and the temp was brought down by the heavy downpour and everything went well. everybody went home, only bro, his gf C and mum stayed for the nite.

so sweet of Cousin Art and his gf S to get my little gal a softtoy! they spotted this while they took a stroll at the downtown east mall. it a cute little girly cow! hard to find and i was glad they got our little gal such a nice sweet and it does have this cheeky grin! our little gal has been playing freeze game with daddy! veyr cheeky little one! when i tell gx the baby is moving, he puts his hands on baby bump to feel, she stops her movements... and when gx puts his ear on me, she freezes!

fluey march start!

after the 1st march party at esplanade, i ended up sick. flu bugged me again. got 3 days of mc. felt miserable. lost appetitate. was at gynae earlier than actual appointment date to see gynae for mc on 2nd march. baby moved alot before i went into for my turn after 2hours of waiting! in total i have gained 8kg, which my gynae said its acceptable and blood pressure is good. but i have protein in my urine... he reminded me about my sugar intake. read about it once i got home. with protein in urine, there is a high chance of earlier delivery. i have been telling gx about how i feel that i mit give birth earlier and its much earlier than estimated duedate...

for 3 days, i was home, sleep, eat, surf, watch tv till i fall asleep and wake up take food and med and repeated the actions thru the clock. looked into websites for full-month cakes and gx & i came to a decision that we mit not hold a full-month party, unlike as we have planned even before the baby came along. after coming up with the guest list... in total we have about 200 guest. that made us bonkers! its almost like a mini wedding! so we decided to keep things simple. but nothing is finalised yet. gx was sweet to pamper me with massages on some days and pamper baby with bedtime stories on other days. with regrets i brought all my storybook collection to mum's place and both mum and i dun know where the books are placed now... gx has read our baby the 3 books i bot from school bookfair this year.

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5th March Thurs, went back to school, still sniffy but at least less muscle aching but a very sore back at the end of the day. i was glad i cut my after-school activities and tuition to be able to go home to rest thou very painful to cut away almost $500++ shopping money! heard from collegue that isetan had sale for nuk nuk milk bottles. so i called dap who's on leave and met her at isetan but there was no sales on the bottles... but i bot our little gal more socks, homewear booties and mittens!

there was a french food fair and i bot a bottle of chestnut jam to try. yet to open it and will post comments when i eat it! was hungry and gx was gog to work late, so i went to big o with dap. we shared fish and chips, our favourite chicken wings and spike d for dessert. finally i have some durians and moreover combined with chocolate! heavenly! shared with dap my macau trip info and i miss my trips alot! but i dun get grumpy when i hear people gog on trips, instead i feel excited for them. holidays are always fun! just before i went home, checked out ck tang fruit stall and i bot cherries! went home i ate almost half the packet! slept early after the long day!

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friday 6th march, decided to go home for a homecook meal. called mum early and she got mary to double boil chicken essence for me. after school i head to yishun and got bacon and asparugus for the bbq. i lugged the heavy load and took a bumpy bus ride that almost make me swear!!! glad i went home to have a meal... felt warm. haha esp after the chicken essence! tried looking for the story books but i can't find it! went home after chatting with mum in the gardens.

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saturday 7th march - lazed at home till afternoon. my kind in-laws fetched us to downtown east to attend the chalet sis booked. gx decided to drive them to the loyang temple. after we left the temple grey clouds covered the sky and it rained. it rained very heavily and the thunder was drumming continously and it seemed endless... i was worried about the bbq... we both walked about at the e-hub to check out the place and joined bro and cam to buy the rest of the food stuff. will post pics of the bbq in the next entry! i was glad that the rain stopped and the nite weather was cooling.

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Sunday 8th march - gx and i got ourselves out of the house to do grocery shopping. we managed to get our little gal 4 tops. i prefer ribbon tops for newborns for daytime. i am prob influenced by my mum. then we head home with our lunch. straight after lunch i napped! woke up in the nite, cooked noodles with the last 11 ngoh hiang balls and watched lara croft. ate my favourite apple and its organic! got it from ntuc, its got this very apple smell and taste... will prob blog on it soon and before the last bite cos i didnt see any at ntuc today. hope they continue to bring in these lovely apples from US.

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baby is entering her 27th week! weather has been crazy with heat and rain. i hope i will stop getting flu and feel better soon. there is so much to do for march! i hope i will be able to get thru with my list!

Humble House Party

Sunday March 1st. woke up and as usual we had our sunday morning talk and when we got out of bed, we had a mad rush to prep to attend aunt A's surprise bdae party. I woke up with aches all over and a blocked nose. after sending mil, we rushed to esplanade. gx made a big mistake by walking back to the car to get his cashcard! i saw uncle j's car turning in and i bet he was spotted!

we just hurry to the restuarant but sadly only uncle J's family was on time, we happen to be the 2nd set of people to arrive. bro and C came after us and the bdae family came. mum and sis arrived minutes after. it was a nice place and there were many dishes on the list to try! it was a ala carte buffet lunch, where we can order unlimited dishes and can tell them for how many people you want the dish to serve. $38 per pax and if you got uob card its one for one if you have 4 diners i think. we started with appetiser and dim sum. the first dish was really appetising and i like it. jelly fish and thinly sliced tomato topped with a sweet sourish sauce and loads of sesame seeds.

then a waitress said i can't take photos of the food... i can take pics of people... so my bro with the custard bun... i like the one at Victor's kitchen better cos the one at humble house dun have salted egg yolk. the foi gras on watermelon slices is an exotic dish. reminds me of parma ham on melon. not to bad but gx finds that the watermelon swallowed the foi gras flavour. the dim sum is not bad and we were almost full after all the dimsum was served! the food kept coming and i gave up taking pics. i was in a grouchy mood... cos i felt very uncomfortable with my body aches. but the prawns dishes cheered me up! my mum liked the wasabi prawns best. the salted egg yolk prawns was a hit too. i like the fried cod fish in butttery citrus sauce alot! the table is always filled! the dish that i had great expectation turns out just fine was the mango in lychee - fried in a coat of batter.

in all for 2 tables, thou we ordered some same and some different dishes, we ordered 40 dishes in total! each of us got a compliementary bowl of soup. the soup was very nice and very flavourful! the dessert was not my favourite. it was different mousses. but lucky they had a ginseng jelly and guihui flavoured jelly that was very cooling and refreshing. didnt take any pics of that as once it was placed on the dessert table, it was an item that vanished very fast! i had at least 3 of the skinny mini tall glasses of jelly. it was soothing for my thoart!

ann had to ordered the cake from Tung Lok itself as they dun allow outside food... but reasonable $36 for a kg of decent nice tiramisu cake. beautifully displayed with red roses petals. also another note, drinks are charged separately, not sure about the other drinks but tea was one charged and refillable. we were the last to go and we took the chance to take pics around the restaurant. this long table had the best decorated chairs! very artistic red chair! the table was set for dinner which was a different setting that we had for lunch.

i like the place, nice for photography but not really in the best mood to be at humble house that day... the aches were a torture! mood spoiler. wanted to go home to sleep! but since we were at the esplanade, got everyone to the roof top to take pic but the sun was scorching! took a few pics and we head in after hearing thunder! apparently the merlion had been hit by the lighting causing a hole in the head. we saw the merlion had scarfolding surrounding it, prob to aid repair works and maybe support it incase it falls? bad omen?

then my uncle m decided it was coffee time. so we head to a cafe/pub and have coffee, tea and some had beer. i had ginger ale with gx's consent cos they didnt have hot chocolate. the wrong choice cos the hot sun didnt last long... the rain came and it came with a big bang! most of us were hit by the rain when the wind blew at us. see how wet the floor was! while some talked, dan and gx was watching the last samurai or more like reading the subtitle on the small screen. i was simply bored, tired and didnt wana socialize, sitting at a corner and shaking in the cold.

worse looking at the champagne that i cannot drink... gx had my sparkling champagne, after his coffee. looks good... smelt it and wish i could sip on it! 3 more months! i want durians, champagne but if i breastfeed.... another 6mths wait? breastfeeding would be another big lesson! and more to read on! anyway got home that day... slept on the sofa from 5+pm till 8+pm, nauseous, heavy head, felt very hot, drank many cups of water and kept gog to toilet, felt weak, gx took care of me, gave me honey and hot water, rub oil on me and i was feeling miserable. ate flu tablet. slept.

Our First Baby Fair

this is last weekend's update... it was late as i was down with flu ... yes again with flu and worse than the last hit. totally blocked nose on Sat nite, fever on Sun nite and totally knocked out on Sun MN and MC for 3 days. slept it off and still trying to shake it off... i still feel miserable.

25th weekend - Saturday Feb28th : Our first baby fair. thanks to my collegue V she keeps me updated with baby offers and news. Also i need to thank her for giving me a very detailed survey on Friday! she wrote so much and i learnt so much from her! it came in handy just before the fair and i managed to come out with my updated shopping list. we went and arrived at expo at about 12+pm. not many brands that are on our list were at the baby fair. we managed to get infant sleep positioner and cases for our baby and nicer bolster cases that i couldnt find at kiddy palace.

got 2 pairs of smaller socks for our little one. gx simply like the yellow so thou i didnt like the design. for myself, i was happy to find the brand of nursing bras i like at the fair. they had stocks at mothercare but i couldnt find any them after my 1st buy. so i got 2 more pcs and i found nice and cheap nursing tops at the same booth. got myself 3 pcs to standby.

then hungry me wanted to eat the macau express restaurant. gx and i checked out this restaurant for the first time last year and it was a quick bite. so this time round we head there to have a sitdown meal. with the natas fair and bike fair which we gota know only after gx read the papers at mum's place, the place was filled. but we were very lucky to manage to get a seat. after the long q, gx came back with the hk silk stocking milk tea and my cold steam milk dessert.

was very hungry when the portrugese baked half chicken with spagetti came! so we tucked in and when i was chewing i took the pic. the chicken was well roasted and flavourful and most of all it was very tender! love the black pepper sauce with the spag and chicken. our 2nd time biting into the pork bun. love the bread but the taste of the pork bun still not the same as macau's. dap leaving this friday to hk and macau... hope she gets to eat the porkbun! the eggtarts are pretty tiny for $1.20 each. but this was a sold out item and had to wait for them to be baked! they were nice cos we had them hot from the oven! overall, i was still satisfied with the meal cos i find the food nice and it brought back alot of memories from our travel.

before we left expo, we checked out havey norman booths for video cameras. gx made up his mind and he got his new toy. we got a HD sony viewcam. he is excited as he wanted to get this toy before our little one's birth. then we drove to changi loyang industrial area to da bo gong's temple to pray. then we came out from the temple to look at the carps and decided to take a pic of the ox. my little baby will be a little ox gal.

we left for ikea and we were here cos i wanted to eat the ice-cream. the only item we bought was this set of 5 bibs. then we head home to chat with mum. was glad we did that cos mum sat down to talk to us. then i drank my chicken essence. this is a huge bowl of chicken essence from a whole chicken. my aunt o's recipe. no water added just a chicken in a double-boiler with some red dates and other herbs and let the chicken essesnce drip out... my mum had this in the steamer since morning over a charcoal stove. the essence was naturally sweet. i know i am a lucky gal. my baby is lucky too! the heavy rain that night got me to sneeze alot and the wind got me a stuffy nose and i felt very uncomfortable thru my sleep.