Lunar New Year Part III

12.02.2011 Saturday - [初十]

Brought Custard in for her appointment with Dr Liang. By now she's severely dehydrated despite of the regular sub-Q injections, so Dr Liang says Custard has to be hospitalized again for IV drip over the weekend. Oh bother, we were expecting guests at our place, and we dolled her up already. But since it's more important for her to be treated, we did the necessary administrative stuff, paid and left with heavy hearts.

And the celebration continues. This time at Wilson & Phoebe's.

Picked MIL up and headed over. After din-din, the boys started mahjong-ing. Ended around 9pm and drove over to SAFRA for KTWee with his cousins and Tiffani. Halfway through, we were invited to join their "Beer-drinking" competition - one that puts drinking speed to test. Poppy "sacrificed" for us that night. Heh. Left around 4am, and were all dead tired.

Family Photo

13.02.2011 Sunday - [初十一]

Started the day early despite only reaching home in the wee hours.

Left Poppy in slumber, while I started preparing the food items and wait for the guests to arrive.

While I was occupied with the chores, I heard a faint knock on our door. When I walked over, I saw nobody but a big white envelope. The HDB logo was printed on the cover and my heart started thumping - not that we owed them any debts and they're here to collect money from us. LOL. Alas, it was our SERS package! ...and the rest is history

MIL and sis were the first ones to arrive. Poppy then fetched Godma & family over before picking Gong Gong & Popo from Wilson's place. The rest of the relatives came one after another. Mommy, Daddy, bro and our family of 17 arrived in the late afternoon, and our entire house was bustling with chatter.

After most have left, 舅舅, Godpa, Wencong and Poppy got to their mahjong game again. 舅母, Godma, Tiffani and myself rotted away on the couch while waiting. Had our mass V-day kisses when the clock struck 12am. Heh. Did the cleaning up after everyone's left and off to bed.

And this marks the end of our 2-week CNY madness.

Lunar New Year Part II

06.02.2011 Sunday - [初四]

Picked Gong Gong & Popo up from 舅舅's place in the afternoon to 二姨's.

二姨 made a pot of delicious pig's stomach soup - a Hokkien tradition, together with other yummies. She even baked a cake for Niel Niel coz it's his birthday today!

Debs, Gerald, Niel Niel & Abby

Second half of the day is at Godma's.

More eating. Poppy sent Gong Gong & Popo home and we headed home ourselves. His cousins insisted that he joins them for mahjong, like AGAIN, and I got a little mad because I'm so tired from waiting for his for the past few days. Once I reached home, I pulled on my running shoes and told him I'm going jogging, then he decided to go with me instead.

07.02.2011 Monday - [初五]

Got our well-deserved rest, finally. Woke up in the afternoon, grabbed lunch at IMM and did some shopping before heading to Sheng Siong at West Coast for groceries. We've got some colleagues & friend's over at our place tonight, and it's steamboat time.

The guys headed to the aquarium after dinner, then we were home to do the cleaning up.

A picture after din-din ^_^

08.02.2011 Tuesday - [初六]

Went to the clinic for medication for my sore throat. Then we had to bring Custard to Dr Liang for her review. Darn, the doc's on MC and we'll have to bring her back again during the weekend.

Nothing much for the rest of the day. Had our dinner at West Coast, and some more grocery shopping at Sheng Siong.

09.02.2011 Wednesday - [初七]

Another day to rest. Grabbed a late lunch, then off to Partyworld for KTV.

Did our jog to burn some calories from the New Year binge-eating sessions then went to Prata Planet to add some more calories back. Damn.

10.02.2011 Thursday - [初八]

Back to work for a day.

The team's out for dinner at The Magic of Chong Qing. Had the Lo-Hei (my 3rd for the year) and hotpot dinner. It's a fresh experience for most of the colleagues who are not locals, but I believe they enjoyed themselves much.

Chefs Vanessa & Armie having fun

11.02.2011 Friday - [初九]

'tis the Sentosa Flowers day!

We were up and awake by noon, prepared some drinks and snacks and drove to Sentosa.

Stopped for a bit to grab a quick lunch at KFC at the Merlion Walk, continued with the photo-taking and then got stopped for some air-con at RWS. Before we left the isle, we reminisced the warm and fuzzy feeling as we drove by The Sentosa, where we stayed during our 4th anniversary last year. Aww..

Taking a break ^_^

We headed straight to MIL's to catch some rest, then picked Godma & Godpa, and went to Loyang Tua Pek Gong. Did our prayers, took some pictures of the lanterns from last year's 春到河畔 and headed to Mommy's. Mommy made us some nice meatballs, and additional bee hoon for Poppy and myself, who hadn't had anything since lunch.

At Loyang Tua Pek Gong

Mommy and bro loves the LED TV Poppy bought for them last month. They got a HDMI cable and is now constantly watching movies straight from bro's lappy. Poppy seems tempted to get a set for ourselves too. Hurhur.

Anyhoos, sent everyone home and got back to our pad for some Zzz.

... to be continued

Lunar New Year Part I

02.02.2011 Wednesday - New Year's Eve

Woke up in the afternoon to send Custard for her final jab before the lunar holidays.

Headed home to finish up our chores and washed up, before going off to MIL's for our first reunion dinner. Second one was at Mommy's in the evening. Mommy and my aunts headed off to Chinatown after that, but we decided to go home to rest instead (SO tired from the pre-new year cleaning and preparation).

03.02.2011 Thursday - New Year's Day [初一]

As with previous years, this day is reserved for Poppy's paternal family.

Started off with visiting MIL's place, and having our lunch. Then visited 伯伯 & 伯娘's house - this will be the last year we'll be having our new year visit at this house. That's coz this old flat has been announced for en bloc a few years back, and they'll be receiving the keys to their new unit a couple of days later. Next year, we'll be seeing them in the new house! 伯娘's a huge Lego fanatic, so we bought her a set from the States during our honeymoon. She was so happy. Heh.

Next stop is 姑妈's. Because she's been having trouble with her knees and joints, her maid was the one who prepared the dinner this year. We still enjoyed nevertheless. Then we ferried both 姑妈 & 伯娘 to MIL's place for a bit of chit chat, then brought them to our house before sending them home.

Headed off to 三姨's place where Poppy battled against my brother, aunt and uncle on the mahjong table while Mommy and I went to sleep in cousin's room. They finally ended the "war" at 7am and we headed home to sleep.

04.02.2011 Friday - [初二]

Like always, this day is reserved for visiting 舅舅.

Seeing Nathaniel, Sharmayne & Abigail grown so much, Gong Gong + Popo were overjoyed and could hardly stop smiling throughout the day.

Poppy had the honor to take the photo of the attendees this year.

Sis and the two pretties - Sharmayne & Abby

05.02.2011 Saturday - [初三]

Had our brunch at McDonald's at the new Clementi Mall, loitered around a bit, and headed to MIL's. The usual chitter-chatter and the guys had their dose of mahjong. Godma and I waited on the sofa till we almost zonked out. Luckily they wrapped up around 11pm, and we sent Godma & Godpa home before heading to JB for supper and top-up our tank after these few days' island-wide traveling.

Abby & Niel Niel @ MIL's

... to be continued

Pre, Pre, Pre-CNY Chores

The first lunar new year as the missus, and second year in our new home.

After doing the laundry and sweeping yesterday, took the air-con apart for cleaning and brought down the curtains for washing. Cleaned up the bedroom a bit, and I'm only left with clearing my bookshelf. Every year I'm stuck with the last-minute attempts to tidy up my wardrobe, so this year I decided to do it earlier.

Brace urselves for the horrendous sight of my wardrobe...

Before

After

It's tidier now (I think) since I did cleared out a stack of unworn/unwanted clothes which I've been hoarding for years. Self-console.

To reward myself, I've decided to spree Forever21 and Old Navy/GAP with the girls this week. We bought more than US$500 US$600 worth of merchandise, so happy! I'm sure I'll be able to figure out where to chuck the new clothes again at a later date. Hah!

Anyway, both Poppy and I took leave on the third week of the month to finish up the pre-new year chores, and help him with his annual Ngoh Hiang making. There've been lots of requests for his Ngoh Hiang it seems, so Poppy's doubling the quantity as compared to last year (and he's more than happy that his snack is so popular).

Oh, Poppy's back from work.

Off for din-din!