I am off work for the year 2008 starting from today. I had to clear leaves as well as company having a shutdown break to save some money. Anyway, since it is my off day, I thought of bringing the children out.

Today is also my hubby’s birthday. Yes, he is born on Christmas Eve. However papa had to work because project is due soon. Poor him.

Early in the morning, Tim & Emily sang papa a birthday song. They were really excited because they knew mummy is bringing them out to do the things the love. We had breakfast together as I had to send papa to work with the children.

Tim & Emily: We all go look at fish, go shopping and play balls. Papa you go to work.
Papa: I want to go too.
Tim & Emily: But you got to work. :giggles:

I took the children to the Fisheries Research Institute where they can have fun viewing the different kind of fish. However it was closed on Wednesday. Bumma! They got to watch the turtles and tortoise swimming outside the building.

Next we went to Queensbay mall to change a book that we bought. If you go to any book stores, be it Borders, Popular or MPH. Ensure you check the book before walking out. I bought a book for Emily, it was nicely wrapped. After we return home, some things were missing from the book. *FRUS*

We went to the indoor playground on the top floor where they can play slide down, balls, climbing up and down. A good workout for them. They spent a whole hour there. Later we went to pick up papa for a quiet lunch.

In the evening, we had a birthday dinner together with FIL, MIL, BILs, SILs, nephew and niece. It was a scrumptious meal.

At the end of the day, I think it is more the children birthday than papa’s birthday. :giggles:

Before having fun, they need to do work.

Let’s join the queue. Now sure what are they que-ing for??!!

Who has this? Imagine I still have it wrapped in McDonald original plastic bag. I kept it for more than 9 years. Now I can pass it to Emily. Too bad she is asleep but I arranged it at the end of her bed. She will be grinning ear to ear when she sees it in the morning.

I remembered McD started with the couple bears. Lots of people were crazy over it. Imagine people wakes up at 5 am just to queue outside McD for the bears. I bet many have ate many burgers to collect the entire collection of bears. Anyone of you so crazy? I heard a grand dad bought a few ice-cream cones just to get bears for the grandchildren. Every morning, he will get a Tupperware to fill those ice-creams. I wished I had a grand dad like this.

Next it was Hello Kitty. I guess when it came to Kitty, the crowd wasn’t so bad. I managed to get it during my lunch hour. I remembered a foreigner was cursing because McD was crowded. He just couldn’t believe it.

Those were the days.

I can’t believe it! I can’t believe it! I can’t believe it!

Oh well, my Tim will be going to primary 1 next year. Aiks, next year is just a couple of weeks away. I am so not prepared. Anyway, I had to get his uniform. I went to Giant but the quality of the uniform was not very good. I went to Sunshine store. The service is much better her. Being a virgin in buying uniform, I was really blur.

A sales guy came to me, first thing he asked, “Kebangsaan or Chinese School”. It was a very good question indeed. He explained to me that Kebangsaan will require Tim to wear long pants. Chinese schools allowed short pants. I didn’t know that. If I had gotten the uniform from Giant, I would have gotten the wrong pants.

I don’t remember such a rule during my days. I remembered my brother was in short pants and he was in Kebangsaan school. Is this a Penang rule?

Tim was excited in trying out his new uniform which got Emily excited. She wore Tim’s white shirt for fun. :rolleyes:

Orientation starts on 31st Dec, a little frustrated because the school just cut my vacation plan into 2.

Another milestone that is exciting and yet challenging.

Oh yeah, just got a big pinch today…boohoohoo 😥

Look at my long bean plants, after a few weeks of watering and sunshine. Actually it only takes a week to grow and another week for it to bear long beans. My children loves to pluck them and my hubby will make steam the long beans. It is very sweet even if you do not put anything on it. I love it with a little bit of butter. Within seconds after steaming, the beans will be all eaten up.

I am glad my children love vegetables and fruits. They like to eat lotus in soup, spinach, carrots, broccoli, sometimes lettuce and beans. I remembered when they were below 3, I have to chop the veggie into tiny piece and mix with the rice. They will pull it out if sense any veggie in rice or soup. Once they made me take out all the spring onions from the soup. :rolleyes:

It is really healthy for them to eat lots of vegetables, fruits and less meat. I usually cook fish for them. Oh well they should love veggie and fruits because daddy & mummy love them too.

Thanks to my PIL for planting the long beans and lady fingers for us. Now my hubby will take the seed to plant more in our garden. Lady fingers goes very well with Indian curry. Yummy.

Here is how Emily eat her bean.

My hubby got a free complementary stay in Rasa Sayang Shangri-La Hotel Penang. Actually it is a free night stay at any Shangri-La hotel worldwide. We decided to book it in Penang since we have enough travelling for the year.

I didn’t know there is a difference between sea facing and sea view room until my colleague told me. I booked the sea view room. I also invited my nephew to join us and my children love to have him. They really have fun together. I guess more fun for them than us.

We also decided to dine in Spice Market Cafe and go for the International Buffet as I have 20% discount there. However I didn’t find the buffet any special for the price we are paying. It was an International buffet minus the oyster and lobster. Maybe we went on the wrong day. Oh, my dept picked the same place to have early Christmas dinner. I will dine free again here.

The overall service was not what I expected for a 5 star hotel. It was really short staff because no one came to clear our plates during the buffet, waiting time for check in was longer and nothing exclusive.

Anyway, it is a good short & cheap vacation.

Here are the pictures:

Enjoying the Welcome Drink – Fizzy Orange Juice

Enjoying The Big Swimming Pool

Transformers Time – Exercising The Children Brain

Sand Play & Enjoying The Sea View

Before I forget, the white apple gadget on the last post which my hubby got is an apple WIFI Airport Extreme. What does it do? Read about it in parkbay.net. Just for laughter, if you change the I into E, it becomes WIFE. :giggles:

Tim and Emily saw the wax station at The Peak in Hong Kong and both wanted to make a wax hand. I allowed them to do 1 each. They wanted to do a wax hand ever since they saw papa’s wax hand. Each of them already had a hand gesture they wanted to wax.

Tim wanted a “thumbs up” and Emily wanted a “number 1” hand. Do you dare to try?

Here are the video of Tim in action:

The Hong Kong Symphony, must watch!

I love shopping in Hong Kong, it has so many things to see (not buy). So what did I buy? Actually the right question is what is worth buying. Among all the things, the one that is worth buying is Tim’s transformer toys. He got 2 huge transformers for the price of one. It costs me HKD299.00 for 2. Here one is selling RM200+. He was grinning from ear to ear after I got it for him. It is his Christmas and 2009 Birthday present. Ooh, he wanted a BEN 10 watch and he told me to buy for 2009 Christmas. :rolleyes:

As for Emily, I got her a hello kitty doll house, a hello kitty funfair set and a Disney umbrella. Tim also got a small Buzz Lightyear toy in Disney. We had a rule, they are only allowed to buy 1 thing in Disneyland.

As for me, I got myself a Mickey and Minnie. Previously when I was in LA Disney, I got Pluto, Goofy, Donald and Mickey. I didn’t have Minnie. Now I have the full set.

I am not sure why I got these collections from “Lui Yan Kai” (Ladies St.) They are cute and I couldn’t resist. I also got a hello kitty bag.

Both my children wanted to wax their fingers. I must say that they are braver than me. Guess which one is Tim’s and which one is Emily’s?

Lastly, you must not leave Hong Kong without the dry seafood stuff. The can abalone was on promotion price. I will keep that for Chinese New Year, yummy :P~~~~ I wanted to buy the Japanese fresh scallops but I didn’t have a freezer to store it. It is really huge. Sigh.

Okay, there is more stuff that I bought than what is shown. I am just too lazy to take pictures of it all.

Guess what my hubby got for himself & here is a picture of it.

My children were fascinated with the entertainment screen in front of them when traveling on the plane. This is not the first time they are traveling so they know what to expect. The first thing they asked me to do was to switch on some cartoons for them.

However their cartoon program was interrupted by the Emergency and Safety Demo. Of coz, they do not know what it was. They made very funny remark loudly and I hope that no one superstitious was sitting nearby.

Tim & Em: Mummy, how come no oxygen masks drop down? I want to put in on. Where is it?

Mummy: :rolleyes:

Tim & Em: Can I pull the life jacket out from under the seat? Is it here? *using their fingers to touch the seat below* I want to blow and wear it.

Mummy: :rolleyes:

Tim & Em: When can we slide down from the plane? I want to ride the boats too.

Mummy: *donno where to hide*

Fortunately the cartoon channel came back on again and they left me in peace. Such innocence.

Remembered I blog about Emily has a waking up problem during school days. This week, she didn’t have any problem waking up. You wanna know why? I am sure. This week, the tadika has planned a week full of interesting activities.

Tues: Teaching children to buy and sell.

Wed: Butterfly farm excursion.

Thurs: Marcus Birthday celebration.

Fri: Last Day of School Party.

With all these exciting activities, she woke up instantly. She slept early on Tuesday night because she had to wake up at 7am. The bus will leave school at 8:15am. Guess what, papa found her sleeping outside the bedroom at 6:30am. :rolleyes: She must have been afraid that we forget to wake her up and miss the excursion.

Lastly, today will be the last day for Tim to attend kindy. Next year he will be in primary 1. The days have passed so fast. I still remember the day when I delivered him. He was so tiny and he smiles a lot! Once I sang to him and he was giggling in his sleep.

Read the previous post to get the story below.

Day before yesterday while I was having a shower, shampooing my hair to be precise, papa came knocking on the door. He asked me why did I put the lip balm into Emily school bag? Obviously I didn’t know what he was talking about. He opened the door slightly to show me. I told him, this is a glue stick. :rolleyes:

After the shower, I told my children that papa thought the glue stick is a lip balm. They giggles and Tim make a funny remark.

Tim: Papa, why do you want to put glue on your lips? You want to be quiet?

Actually he made the blooper because I told him I got the lip balm today and he thought I put it in Emily’s school bag.