My 2012 At A Glance

It is the last day of the year. How has your year been treating you? Do you look forward to 2013?

For me, it has been a roller coaster ride - good and bad. Here's a recap of the most memorable blog posts I have written in 2012.

 A Tribute to Dad

I lost my father to colon cancer in April this year. It was a trying time for the whole family especially for my mum. Till today, I vividly remember being there during my dad's last breath and it never fails to tear me up - in the car with a familiar tune on the radio that my dad likes, in my sleep and during my shower. My parents would have celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in November, if dad was still alive.

They Ain't Heavy. They're My Kids

As a parent, we all want the best for our children. I admit, though I want my children to enjoy their childhood as much as possible, there is still the other part of me that wants to make sure they should make the best out of their education endeavor. Let's face it - in Singapore, it.does.matter.

A Sibling's Job

Even though this blog post was written in August, I would like to report that it is still a very much trying process to get both my children to respect each other. I guess you would say, "ah! kids are like that!" Let's hope they will snap out of this phase sooner than I expect. Perhaps in the year 2013? :)

Letter to My Son

I still think highly of my son, regardless of misbehavior and certain negative attitude he seems to be having more of these days. I guess, the teenage hormones are setting in. My church's pastor said in a recent sermon, that our children will want to "stay away" from us during the teenage years. And that we as parents, would need to let go and be patient with them. They just need to find their own identity. Once they have found it, they will come back to us. So looking forward already!

Stay Calm and Craft On!

It was in September when I wrote this post.  2012 has been an extremely busy year with my crafting and I am still reeling in with excitement because I am welcoming 2013 with more orders in the pipeline!  It has never been more fulfilling.

Family Photo Moments are Precious Keepsakes

It was an exciting moment when I had my first approach by a photographer to review his photography skill/service through my blog!  Didn't think it would start this way for my blog but I guess, good things do come when you least expect them.

I Blog. Therefore, I Am.

This must be my most honest-to-goodness post about why I blog. I must say it has opened doors to many opportunities and given me insights to the blogging world which I never knew existed. Thanks SMB for motivating me!

Why Husbands Should Spoil their Wives

A little realistically funny post from my point of view. Controversial for some men, I think! 

Without realizing, I've actually managed to keep my blog alive for 9 months! It's really no mean feat to maintain a personal blog and a blog shop altogether. When one writes, you need [sing] "fweelings.... nothing more than.... fweelings..." to come out with a good post. I may not be up to par with many bloggers out there but I feel, as long as I am writing from the heart, I am able to connect and relate to my readers somehow.

With 2013 coming by tomorrow, I look forward in taking blogging to greater heights!  Well, I can dream it, can't I? *grin*

HAPPY 2013 EVERYONE!

  Till the next post, have a blessed week!

[Family Vacation] Hunter Valley -> Sydney

This is part 3 of my travel journal! :)  So far, I've covered the first 2 days of our trip HERE and HERE.

At the last stop, we stayed over at Hunter Valley for the night. Upon our checkout the next morning, we were scheduled to head out to the vineyard for some wine tasting!

 

No I didn't have that much to drink! But I am glad I finished up a glass that was offered to us while we walked around the vineyard and were shown where they aged their wines. I still like dessert wine, if you have to know.

 After which, we were brought to have some cheese tasting! It's just too bad, we were all not really into cheese and couldn't really appreciate what was given to us at the table to try. And for the record, I.don't.like.blue.cheese.

Shortly after the cheesy break, we headed to the infamous Storybook Garden in Hunter Valley! The landscaping was beautiful but going there with the blaring hot noon sun deterred us from exploring much of the garden. 

 

Where nursery rhyme characters come to life!

No, those are not my children who came tumbling down the hill!

Snippets of the beautiful garden (and 2 lovely girls!).

We were off to a late lunch after the walk at the garden. We had MORE ang moh food... see what I mean below :

Don't get me wrong. The quality and quantity of food served were very good. But as a Singaporean Chinese, I think I cannot tahan having western cuisine everyday! And look at the dessert here... who would have thought the scoop of "vanilla ice cream" turned out to be butter! I wonder if they scooped out from the wrong tub!

After lunch, we continued our bus journey back to Sydney. It was at least a 3 hour ride! Didn't particularly enjoy this bus journey back because it was too long in quite a crampy bus without much leg room to stretch out. But one thing for sure, we were all looking forward to a sumptuous Chinese dinner in Sydney! Yes!! It was REALLY exciting!

Look at our "hungry hands" and all aimed for the roast chicken we know best! This particular day of the tour happened to be my husband's birthday and the tour leader was sooooooooo sweet to get him a birthday cake to celebrate with the group! It also happened that Nat, the other girl whom Megan had so much fun socializing with during the trip -  was also celebrating her birthday the next day so they both shared the birthday cake-cutting. So nice right? (The tour leader appears behind our family photo here, in blue tee)

After our dinner, we checked into the hotel located within the city. And since the night was still young, we decided to walk around the vicinity! However, the shops there closes early on most days so bummer... didn't get to shop at all.

There was a formal event at the museum which we walked past thus the lighted designs on the building. We also stopped a while to watch some Christmas caroling outside Queen Victoria building.

And there ends our 3rd day in this beautiful country! Stay tuned for my coming post on our 4th day tour! We headed to Blue Mountains!

  Till the next post, have a blessed week!

{Family Vacation} Port Stephens -> Hunter Valley

I'm continuing my journal on our recent family trip to Sydney.  If you were not following my previous post on our trip, the part 1 can be found HERE.

This is day 2 in Port Stephens - we visited the Australian Shark and Ray Centre where "those who want to" can be in close contact with the sea creatures! In the end, only the kids were "brave" enough to go down the waters. They got to touch and feed the fishes!  And note, there were sharks in the waters!

Proud that the kids were not afraid of the sharks and sting rays. I guess, as a parent, as long as you don't instill fear in children, they are really not afraid of anything. :)

After spending about an hour at the above centre, we proceeded to a 4WD sand dunes tour where we could try out sandboarding!  

The wind was UTTERLY strong at the sand dunes - as you could probably see from the photo.  It was so strong that our tour leader's contact lens were blown off from one of his eye! So you could imagine sand into the eyes and mouth. Yucks! I ate em' sand a lot... very crunchy. And as I observed the group, we never were so happy to get back to the bus!

Though of course, the experience was a unique one for the kids. So they enjoyed themselves!

You could imagine, we were so happy to see our 4WD bus coming over to pick us up before we all end up buried in the "sahara desert".  The anticipation of going to the next stop was one of the highlight of our trip! We went for a dolphin watch cruise!

On board the cruise, we were served buffet lunch before we headed out to sea. There's Megan with a friend she made on the trip! And you could see that we spotted wild dolphins!!

Thanks to another friend I made on the trip, who helped to take this photo of us. Love it!

 After about 1.5 hours out at sea, we continued our journey to Hunter Valley to spend the night. Hunter Valley is well known for its wine and we were very excited to be staying at a resort amidst the vine yards. By the time we arrived and settled in, it was in the late evening.

The view just outside our room. It was really nice watching the setting sun and catching glimpse of wild kangaroos roaming in the area!

There ends our 2nd official day in NSW! Time really flies when you are having fun!  

In my upcoming post, I would be sharing day 3 of our vacation. I hope you'll stick around and come drop in my blog again to see what else we did there!

  Till the next post, have a blessed week!

[Photo Heart Fridays] Reflection

We were at Gardens By The Bay this morning for a stroll - checking out the place early in the morning and watching the sun rise.    Sharing here a photo I took with my iphone, the reflection I saw on the pond when I was gazing across the magnificent Marina Bay Sands hotel.  

  What I saw in this photo was : tranquility  the quality or state of being free from agitation of mind or spirit; free from disturbance or turmoil.
ahhhhhhh......
Till the next post, have a blessed week!

[Festive Food Blog Train] What We Had on Christmas Eve

Every year for at least the past 12 years, my aunt-in-law Hannah, has been keeping this special annual tradition in hosting Christmas eve dinner gatherings with the extended family.

Aunt Hannah is a great dinner host and superb cook! Whenever she throws a party or gathering, we would be awed by her well-thought out themes and special touches. I vividly remember once, she threw a birthday party at her home and engaged an Indian caterer who prepared our pratas with fillings to our whims and fancies on the spot! We all loved the idea very much and thoroughly enjoyed it! Of course, it would have been better if all of us were a better sport for dressing up to the theme that night. :p
  

For Christmas, Aunt Hannah usually whips up a delicious spread of awesome ang-moh food - which you will see for yourself in the photos I've taken.
 

The Christmas decor in her home also adds a special touch to our dinner with the scent of her fresh pine Christmas tree.

This year, I'm so pleased to be able to share with you in my blog, snippets of what we had for our festive dinner!

{ All photos taken with my iphone! Apologies if pictures not up to standard! :p } 

There's turkey, pork ribs, cottage pie, potato salad, brussel sprouts (never thought I would like it but I did! Tasted like mini cabbages!) baked garlic and to-die-for salami from Italy! Homemade cranberry and turkey sauces.

Smoked duck, pork knuckles, pasta, chicken salad and mozerella ball salad with fresh olives and tomatoes.

For dessert, we had awfully Chocolate log cake, fruit cake, jelly and fruits!

Can you smell the fresh pine from the tree? :) The other highlight of the night was giving out pressies under the Christmas tree. And every family received a Christmas stollen to bring home.

Photo with the extended family! Aunt Hannah is seated holding her doggie!

Thanks Aunt Hannah for hosting such wonderful Christmas dinner every year.
It's always great to catch up with the family with food!

Merry Christmas everyone!

  Till the next post, have a blessed week!




Up next on the festive blog train :

Alicia is a Part Time Working Mum (PTWM) who enjoys re-living her childhood as she and her preschooler (fondly referred to as Dumpling) go on field trips, embark on new crafts, recipes as well as review places and home learning programs. Alicia blogs regularly at Beanie N Us where she shares her parenting views and her sometimes whimsical thoughts.

The Easiest Dessert, Ever!

This is our quick fix and "oh so good for the soul" dessert today which I've not made for a long time.
Fool proof!

Ingredients :

Dried longans 

white fungus

red dates

rock sugar

Method :

- gotta soak the white fungus till soften before cutting it to small pieces

- rinse the longans and red dates before putting them in boiling water

- add rock sugar to taste! 

- Cook it for approx. 45 mins.

Optional :

- gingko nuts

 Enjoy!   Till the next post, have a blessed week!

Linking up with:

{Family Vacation} Sydney -> Port Stephens

This is our 2nd family vacation signed up with a tour package. Usually, we would prefer to explore a country on our own and drive around. However, since most flights to Sydney were full till year end (even though we booked in early September), we decided to take up this tour package.  Which also means that we need not worry about where to go, what to see and what to eat! 

Bonus : we made new friends and all the 20 Singaporeans on board this group were easy-going and none too kiasu as we all would imagine some tour groups can be! We enjoyed our trip very much.

Anyway, we took loads of photos. We had 3 cameras and as though not enough, we whipped out our iphones too. So we had plenty of backup photos this round. Since there are really too many to share at one go, I will cover our trip in 3 posts. And don't worry, I won't bore you with too many repetitive shots! I shall take the best ones to show you!

 These are photos covered during the first day of our trip. We arrived in Sydney and were on our way to Port Stephens, NSW where we would stay at a resort for the night.

 

 This was our first stop after the pick up at Sydney airport.

It was 5am Singapore time (Sydney is 3 hours ahead) thus my puffy eyes. @__@

The weather was cool even though its summer, and very windy. 

I had bad hair moments all the time!

It was about a 2 hour ride to Port Stephens. Before we headed to the resort, we stopped by this reptile park.  The children were instantly drawn to the free roaming kangaroos and emus in the park.

Did you know that there's a law in Australia that the public are not allowed to carry/handle koalas except when in Gold Coast? 

Pity we didn't get to carry this cute little sweet baby koala.

I was so tempted to take it home with me, I tell ya'!

We finally arrived the resort in the early evening.
It was also the first time that the 4 of us had to split into 2 separate rooms because the kids are no longer the young tots that could share our bed. So Megan and I had a girly good time bunking in together throughout the trip!

The view from our balcony was simply breath-taking as you can see from the photo.
We were also pleasantly surprised by this pair of pretty parakeets that came to visit our balcony moments after we settled in!

That night's dinner was settled at the cafe within the resort. We got to mingle a little bit more with the rest of our travelling companions at the table and I was happy that most of us could connect.

And as the photos would tell you, our meal was superb! The best steak I've ever tasted.

Do drop in again soon when I'll share more photos on the activities we had the next day. 

    Till the next post, have a blessed week!

Beauty Lies in the Eye of the Beholder

    My favorite photo taken at The Story Book Garden located at Hunter Valley, NSW.  

I was enchanted!
And I hope you can see why too. :)

   Till the next post, have a blessed week!

Happy Wednesday Everyone!

View from our room! Photo taken at Hunter Valley, NSW.

   With new day comes new strength and new thoughts.   -Eleanor Rosevelt       Till the next post, have a blessed week!

Vacation Expectations

   

A vacation, to me, is to break away from the daily grimes of life.

To re-connect with my other half and my children without much care at looking at my watch.

To enjoy our time on earth as much as we can and appreciate what we can experience in another country.

To discover new places, soak in breathtaking sights and try a different cuisine.

A vacation with my family, is quality time. It is precious.

So excuse me, while we get ready for a much needed annual holiday!

Note to self :  I should halve my luggage space to make way for new loots.

Till the next post, have a blessed week!