Sun, 26 Nov - The Clammy Saga Continues!

My sister, having seen the clams I've dugged up from Pasir Ris beach was also itching to give it a try. Apparently she shares the same fond childhood memories of digging clams at East Coast beach and cooking it in instant noodles!

So we arranged to meet there in the morning. It was much harder work than my sister expected, especially with our inadequate plastic toy spades, and it wasn't so easy to find the clams. However, soon we got the hang of it, and we managed to dig out a good haul with the help of the kids and my maid. Here are my sis, kids and maid toiling in the late morning sun. Lauren and Isaac were smarter, they just relaxed in the shade...My sister said that we should go to the beaches at Malaysia one day to dig for clams.

We had lunch at my SIL's place at Tampines. Later the kids swam at my place and then we went to Seletar Country Club for dinner. I was quite disappointed that I missed going to the Popular Warehouse Sale at the Expo. Just had no time to squeeze it in even though we were at the east. I'm a sucker for book sales, and I had already missed the Penguin Book sale a couple of weeks earlier.

Look Ma! Sew Simple!

This post actually continues from the previous one... Saturday has still not ended for me. At night when the kids were asleep, I made a cloth cover for the electone organ. I bought a piece of black cloth from Daiso, and using the old cover (which was in a bad state) as a template guide, I cut out the pieces. I had bought this fabric glue from Popular, called SewSimple from Bostik, and was just dying to try it out. I had seen the promotional video at the store and was sold. Yeah, I'm easily convinced...It's not cheap at $11.90.

I am quite pleased with the results. Tah dah! Here is the completed cover. I never learned to use the sewing machine because I didn't take home econs at secondary school. I have a small machine which I bought before Isaac was born and said I would try to use it, but never did. I had so many projects I wanted to try but couldn't because I didn't know how to sew. This fabric glue is really the easy way out. Now I have less motivation to learn how to use the sewing machine...Also, using the glue is so quiet. I wouldn't have been able to operate a sewing machine in the dead of the night, would I?

Even my mum looked impressed...

Sat, 25 Nov - Another Busy Saturday

We decided to go to VivoCity in the morning as I had two things to do there: collect a $10 cash voucher from Toys 'R Us, and also collect 2 complimentary movie tickets from the Golden Village cinema. I had won the tickets in a lucky draw jointly organised by GV and SBSTransit.

Like the last time we went to VivoCity, we could easily find carpark space in the morning. While the kids played at the playground, I went first to collect the movie tickets. The counter staff informed me that they had "run out" of tickets to give out. I was very pissed because the letter stated that I can collect my tickets before 30 November. Nowhere did it say it was on a first-come-first-served basis. This definitely warrants a complaint letter. Update: I wrote a complaint letter on Monday morning, and the complimentary tickets are on their way via post. :)

Sometimes it's sad the way things work here. We need to make noise before action gets taken. Many would just shrug it off and say it's just 2 tickets, let's forget it. I wasn't hardup for the complimentary tickets either, just so irritated at the way they didn't really honour what were rightfully entitled to winners. After having written several complaint letters in the past, I believe it is an effort worth taking to assert your rights as a consumer or customer.

Anyway, next stop was to Toys R' Us to collect a $10 voucher. Then I looked for the Thomas engine that was supposed to be on offer at $29.90. Unfortunately, the engine only made sounds and lights up. What we wanted was the engine to actually move and pull the carriages around our wooden tracks. This type of engine costs $39.90. Sigh... should get or not? Then as we looked around all the range of Thomas the Tank Engine toys, we found a Christmas edition Thomas train set that came with a battery-operated Thomas and 2 carriages that even played the "Jingle Bells" tune. Included also were wooden tracks to place round a christmas tree. This set was selling at $59.90.
The big kids (TT and myself) decided to go for it. With the $10 voucher it would cost us $49.90. On hindsight, this was pure splurging. I think TT and myself really wanted very much to play with the engine! My sister also caved in that day and bought herself a pizza stone from Tangs, costing $45. She felt so relieved having bought it because she found out it was the last piece.

We didn't regret buying the train set. Little Thomas the Tank Engine pulled the carriages around our wooden tracks like a dream. We "tortured" it by making it pull a long trail of carriages (see the trains at the bottom right of the picture below). You really get what you pay for. The kids, especially Isaac, and including me, just watched the trains go by for a long, long time. And I also discovered something else... my maid is a whizz at making complex track systems as well! This one in the picture was constructed by her. I must say I was quite impressed and also ashamed of showing off my own creations in a previous post! hehe...

TT took the car for badminton, so Cheryl and I took the MRT to her music class at Clementi. On Cheryl's request, we took the double decker bus 147 back home after class. My sister, itching to try her new pizza stone decided to make pizza for dinner. Here are the kids doing their own pizza toppings. I didn't have the proper equipment at home, so transferring the pizzas to the stone was a real challenge. The pizzas were all odd-shaped, but other than that, they were delicious! I think the men didn't have enough to eat because shortly after dinner all of us went to ABC market at Bukit Merah to have supper!

Fri, 24 Nov - More Public Transport Adventures

Had an appointment with my gynae in the afternoon but decided to take the whole day off from work. My sis would be busy in the morning fulfilling some baking orders, so she left her kids at my place. Originally wanted to take the kids for ride to the airport to take the skytrain. Isaac keeps talking about it. But I felt it was so silly to travel so far just to take the stupid thing from one Terminal to another. So I suggested taking the Bukit Panjang LRT from Choa Chu Kang Station instead. My mum thought that was a good idea, so we set off.

You know since the Bukit Panjang LRT was up in 1999, I've never had the chance to take this LRT. This would be my first time as well and I was quite excited too (me, excited about public transportation. HA! what a joke.) We took the MRT from Queenstown to Choa Chu Kang, then transferred to the LRT loop service.

It was a pretty long ride, with the light train taking about 30 minutes to complete the whole loop, going to parts of Singapore I've never been before. But I think it was a better choice than taking the skytrain! Isaac sat right at the front of the open view window with me and the girls & my mum were at the back. I'm sure Isaac enjoyed the experience. I know I did. While we were in the LRT, it poured. After one loop, the kids said they had enough, so we decided to head back home on the MRT to Queenstown. We reached home just in time for lunch and it had stopped raining. These are pics of the kids taking the LRT.
I had to rush off for my appointment at NUH after lunch, so I left the kids to do some stained glass art with my maid, while Isaac took a nap. This is the result of their handiwork.

Mega Tracks Network

Got a confession to make...I actually love to play with my kids' toys. Lego, and now it's wooden train tracks. We were given the first set from TT's nephews who have outgrown them. It was an IKEA figure-of-eight train set. Then, TT & I went to Toys R' Us and got 2 more expansion sets at 2 separate occasions because we "needed" to make bigger and more complex networks. Subsequently, my sister also gave us a second-hand set of wooden tracks they got from a garage sale. This was a pretty large set of tracks. We now have a sizeable collection of wooden tracks! (You may also rightly surmise that we have a worrying toy storage problem brewing in our tiny apartment.)

Woohoo! TT and myself have a whale of a time constructing all sorts of complicated train networks. Usually they don't survive more than an hour because public enemy no. 1 ZaacZilla will destroy them after briefly dragging his trains through the tracks. Here are two of the many networks I did in two separate occasions. I thought I'd better take photos because they weren't easy to construct and I feel so "sayang" they get destroyed with one Zilla-kick.

Now TT is thinking of buying a Thomas the Tank Engine battery-operated train ($29.90, U.P. $39.90) to run through our tracks. Toys R' Us is having a Christmas sale now...

LegoQuake Caused by ZaacZilla

Our Lego town finally got crushed by resident menace "ZaacZilla" a.k.a. Isaac. Thanks to my friend Colin for coining the name "ZaacZilla", and another friend Pat for the term "LegoQuake". This is the picture of the aftermath. Fortunately, Cheryl didn't seem too bothered - the rubble of bricks have been lying there for days.
Looks like a fine opportunity for building new creations! This mish-mash double-decker bus was made with our leftover bricks after creating the town. After the LegoQuake, it got shoddily "fixed" into this strange vehicle...

Sun, 19 Nov - Another Clammy Day

And you thought the adventures with the clams were over...Well, it's an outing to Pasir Ris again today, and it was almost a replication of last Sunday's events. This round however, Cheryl got to pat a white pony... HA! My maid came along today and she, together with Cheryl, got into the business of digging for clams at the beach as well. Sharp-eyed Cheryl managed to spot many live clams while my maid dug. Together, our haul was pretty impressive. Just look at these shots... More than 60 clams.I sifted out the smaller ones into a blue cup and later returned them to the sea.

Here is Isaac and my nephews looking curiously at the clams. I don't think I will bore you poor readers anymore on my clammy stories. They'll probably be made into vongole or something!

In the afternoon, the kids took a long nap while TT went off for a badminton game (tsk, tsk). I had some time to fiddle around and play games on my new phone. At night, after dinner, TT drove through Orchard Road for us to take in the sights of the Christmas light-up. Tried to take some photos but without much success because the car was moving, and the camera battery just ran out on us (%#&%!). I also forgot I could actually use my phone camera to take pics as well...

Sat, 18 Nov - My New Toy

Finally, my new phone arrived today just before noon: a Sony Ericsson K800i with a built-in 3.2MP Cybershot camera! I bought it online 2 nights ago from the M1 website. So after trading in my Nokia 7260 for $100, I paid $208 with an additional 2-year contract. Unfortunately, I couldn't spend any time fiddling around with my new toy since Saturday is always a busy day. In fact, I was just trying to call M1 Customer Service to activate my new 3G SIM card, and Isaac fell off the dining chair onto the granite floor. Nobody was really looking at him at that time. Fortunately nothing serious... was a little worried because he fell backwards and landed on the back of his head. He's been getting lots of bumps lately from falls as he keeps climbing all over the place.

I managed to use the phone to take a pic and video of Cheryl in her music class. My sis' kids were at my place today because she was busy catering for two jobs today. In case you're interested in having mee siam, kueh pie tee or other food, you can check out this forever-unupdated website.

After dinner the kids were restless, so we drove out to Tanglin Mall for some ice-cream. The kids got to see the big Christmas tree there, but we didn't allow them to play with the soap-suds-snow-simulation.I took this photo of the tree using my new phone. We reached home around 10pm, and Cheryl was already knocked out from the day's activities. I put Isaac to bed while TT went over to my neighbour's house to finish up his mahjong game he started in the evening earlier.

Clammy Farewell

I talked to my friend Colin about what I should do about the clams I had dug up and he advised me against consuming them. He said Singapore waters is pretty polluted and just to be safe, I shouldn't eat them. He suggested throwing them back to the sea. Hey but I wasn't going back to the beach any time this week, so I wondered what I should do.

Well, my mum made the decision for me. When I came back from work on Tuesday, I realised some clams were already missing from my container. I looked at dinner laid on the table and I saw a couple of cooked clams with their shells wide open at the side of the stir-fried veges. "I decided to cook them!" she proclaimed happily! And then she proceeded to tell me what she had done to the clams she had eaten earlier. She washed the shells properly and pasted them on a picture collage Cheryl had done previously. Voila! The clams had reincarnated into butterflies! I must say I was rather impressed by her ingenuity. This is the picture I'm talking about.

In case you're wondering, I helped Cheryl apply the glue for the artwork above. There's no way a 5-year-old can be this neat. I bought the colourful pom-poms and pipe cleaners from my favourite Japanese $2 shop, Daiso. We tried sticking them with white craft glue but it dried so slowly so I decided to use my intoxicating tube of UHU glue instead.

So back to the clams... I ate some and they tasted quite fresh, though I fancy they're far too tiny to be of any good. The next night, my mum cooked the rest in the soup and commented that they made the soup so sweet...She suggested I go digging for clams again and try getting bigger ones next time! The shells we kept for Cheryl to make more butterfly wings.

I'm glad, at least the clams have been immortalised in Cheryl's picture...

Sun, 12 Nov - A Sunny, Pony and Clammy Day (for want of a better title)

The day started out beautifully sunny, quite unlike the wet day before. We hadn't met up with my in-laws for weeks now, so we decided to go to Pasir Ris Park because they all live in the east. We went to the part where the horses were (I wrote a previous entry on this). My nephews rented bikes, and TT also rented one with a baby seat for Isaac to ride on. Cheryl was not interested (maybe still traumatised by her bike falling into the Botanic Gardens pond?), so I walked along the path with her. We stopped to pat and feed the ponies. Below is a pic of Cheryl patting a pair of pigmy ponies. I like their blonde fringe and lashes! And the pic that follows is a posed picture of me (my hand, rather) trying to do the forbidden! (I didn't in the end... I'm far too law-abiding, hee.) When we reached the beach, I played sand with the kids. We just dug sand and picked seashells.


I was reliving my childhood days where I used to dig the sand for live clams. And then me and my sis would bring them home and cook them in our instant noodles! I think I spent about half and hour digging about 4m stretch of sand and managed to dig out 14 live clams. I was quite pleased with my "catch" as I didn't expect to find so many. I'm sure the people fishing at the beach were quite amused by this grown woman digging diligently in the sun as if looking for hidden treasure! I collected some sea water in a container and put the clams in it. This is the picture of the live clams, with their body parts sticking out. I've never seen them this way before, because they were always eaten before they could be observed! The clams were actually pretty active, moving about in the water. I even took a video of their movements because I was quite intrigued. The kids also seem quite amused by them though they couldn't see what the fuss was about. I am now wondering what I should do with them eventually. Shall I cook them? You shall know in a few days time... (I think I need a life... here I am blogging about the adventures of dug-up clams).

After all the hard work digging the sand, we went to White Sands for lunch. We all had chicken rice at the food court and these are the kids fooling around at the helicopter kiddie ride there. Then we went to the Library to borrow some books. Isaac seems to regard the library as a toilet, because almost every time we step into a library, he poops! Fortunately, TT took him to the toilet to wash him up... Both Isaac and Cheryl slept in the car on the way back home. Isaac continued on with his nap back home. My maid was off today so I decided to prepare dinner today! Just didn't feel like eating out again. This is indeed rare... so must blog it down! I fried nasi goreng from leftover rice for TT & myself and the kids had pasta bolognaise. Cheryl even helped me to cut the french beans and watched me as I cooked.

After dinner, I lost my temper at Cheryl that evening over some trivial matter, and TT sensing the tension, took the kids out for some ice-cream so that I could enjoy some peace. By the time they came back, all was forgotten. Cheryl had too much ice cream and she threw up a bit at night. Hopefully she won't be too greedy next time...

Sat, 11 Nov - Viva la VivoCity!

Since Cheryl didn't have her usual Chinese class today, my sister suggested we go Vivocity in the morning. Thankfully we managed to find carpark space pretty easily. The kids had a lot of fun exploring the open playcourt as you can see from the pics here. My sis and I managed to escape to check out the Cold Storage supermarket which apparently sells alot of organic products. We didn't buy much stuff before TT called to inform us that it had started to drizzle and that the kids were hungry. So we decided to have lunch at the Kopitiam food court at B2. Boy, was the place crowded. I'm guessing while we were happily browsing in the supermarket, the crowd was just streaming continuously into the mall. Around noon there were people, people everywhere.


After lunch, TT left for his all-important badminton game. Cheryl pestered me to do the stained glass art thingy again, so I gave in, knowing full well that she had music class at 3pm. But, I thought we could just squeeze it in. How wrong I was... By the time they finished, it was already 2.30pm. Isaac was already asleep in my maid's arms. From Vivocity, I first dropped off the maid and Isaac back at my place, followed by my sis and nieces at Clementi, before finally going for the music class at Clementi Central. My job was made more challenging by the non-stop heavy rain. Wet, wet, wet everywhere. We were half and hour late for class...

After music class, I picked up my sis and nieces again and brought them to our place for dinner. My mum had brought back some of my favourite ayam buah keluak (a peranakan dish), from my eldest aunt. At night we all settled down to watch the animated movie "Hoodwinked" on DVD. I enjoyed the show, though the kids got rather bored (as usual) after a while.

Some afterthougts about Vivocity: From first impressions, I think it's a really cool place, especially the open spaces for kids to run about. There's alot to look at, though many are just repeats of the usual retail shops. I'm definitely going back again do more exploring. Have to do this during weekdays or in the mornings when crowds will not be too thick. I have a sensitive "crowd-o-meter" that makes me really edgy if the reading gets too high, more so if I happen to have young children in tow. What I really hate most is a crowded and dirty toilet!

Sun, 5 Nov - IMM & Botanic Gardens

In the morning, Cheryl & I went for Mass at Holy Cross Church with our neighbour and thereafter we proceeded to IMM for lunch. We arranged to meet TT & Isaac there. The place was really crowded simply because it was the weekend. We ate at Hoshi, the Japanese restaurant on the third level, because it was the least crowded eating place. We had the ala carte buffet while Cheryl had a bowl of udon. The food was good, and I've been to this place many times. After lunch I helped Cheryl and Sean do some stained glass art also on level 3. Each of them did 2 pictures costing $5.50 a piece. This kept them occupied for a while. TT made Isaac sleep but in the process he lost one of Isaac's sandals as it slipped off his foot while he was asleep. We tried to look for it but no luck. Quite a pity because Isaac really liked those sandals.

Later, the kids played at the playground on level 2, but I got really freaked out by the average number of children per square feet of playground area. So we decided to head back home. In the evening we arranged to meet my sis and family at Botanic Gardens to feed the fish. We almost didn't go as it looked rather overcast, but in the end it was just a slight drizzle and stopped by the time we reached there. The kids had fun feeding the fish and turtles. Dinner was at the Garden's indoor food court. The food was just so-so, I guess the stalls are not from the original Taman Serasi hawker centre that used to be opposite the Botanic Gardens. I was a little disappointed that they did not even have teh tarik...

I forgot to bring the camera so I don't have any photos for today's outing...:o(

Sat, 4 Nov - Mahjong!

It's our normal Saturday routine, nothing special to report except that my neighbour was itching to play mahjong. TT was not playing badminton today, so in the late afternoon he joined them to play. I decided not to play as I didn't really feel like playing. It's not something you can play in peace with the kids around and needing your attention all the time. They managed to play one round of 4 winds and ended around 11pm. In the end TT was the biggest loser...

Let the Games Begin!

I've created another blog called Let the Games Begin! to put up the comic strips I've been drawing monthly for my church's bulletin. I started the strip in July last year and so far I've uploaded the strips up to March 2006. I will be updating the blog until it becomes up to date. Do drop by and tell me what you think.

Days Without Daddy

Fortunately, TT doesn't fly for business very often. The last time he was away, Isaac was still small. This time he's off to London for about 6 days. I was a little worried that Isaac would be crying for him as he's quite attached to Daddy. I remember when Cheryl was Isaac's age, she would be crying her eyes out during bedtime looking for Daddy. Now that she's older, she understands and even tries to convince Isaac not to be sad that Daddy's not around. Not that Isaac needed any convincing or pacifying anyway. Since the first night Daddy was away, he hadn't really asked for Daddy and allowed me or my mum to put him to bed without too much fuss (usually TT and I would each handle one child during bedtime). Even when I accidentally asked him where Daddy was, he would answer: "Take airplane" and point his hand up like a plane taking off. Keeping them busy with activities so that they don't miss Daddy too much.

Sun, 29 Oct - Public Trip to Nowhere
We had a delicious "ta pao" lunch of chicken rice bought from this halal chicken rice stall called Evertop Chicken Rice at Tanglin Halt Road. It's run by chinese but has muslim helpers. It is my and my mum's favourite chicken rice stall. TT prefers the famous Maxwell Market stall.

After lunch the kids were bugging me to take a bus ride. Not just any bus ride, but must be a double-decker bus! So we decided to take Bus 51 to Jurong East Interchange. This bus takes a "round-the-world" route (actually all SBS buses do!ha).So the five of us (me, my mum, my maid, Cheryl & Isaac) trouped to the bus stop and as we approached it, bus 51 arrived, so we all ran! No way we were gonna wait for @#%min for the next one. This bus is notorious for long waiting times (wait a minute... so do all the other buses! ha! ok enough of SBS bashing!) True enough, about three-quarter way to our destination, Cheryl fell asleep! What's more she had originally wanted to take the bus back home, but luckily on the home trip she wisened up and agreed to take the MRT back. Isaac surprisingly managed to stay awake, enjoying the sights along the way. I wanted to browse a bit at Popular bookstore at Jurong East Station but ended up staying there for less than 15min. The kids were bored and wanted to take the MRT back! Hiyah, these children! My maid had a more fruitful trip... in less than 15min, she managed to pick out several cheap blouses from a TOP100 bargain shop just beside Popular.

Isaac slept on the way back home on the MRT. Fortunately my maid was around to help me carry him home because he we did not bring a pram with us. While he was asleep, I helped Cheryl do this keychain for Daddy. She also coloured some pictures of flowers to be given to her beloved Daddy.

For the keychain, I bought this transparency-looking thing from Daiso, drew on it with a permanent black marker, then I let Cheryl colour in with coloured markers. Then I use a normal papaer hole puncher to make a hole. After that I have to put it in the oven toaster for a couple of minutes for it to shrink to about 20% of the original size as seen in the pic.

I drew these flowers for Cheryl so that she could colour them. Subsequently she drew another one (below) all by herself.


Personal Favourites
FOOD
Evertop Chicken Rice. Coffee shop at Tanglin Halt Road - Be prepared to wait for 15 to 30 min when crowded.

Thu, 2 Nov - Cheryl's School Concert
I rushed back from work to attend Cheryl's concert which was held this evening at 7.30pm. It was held in the church hall of the kindergarten. The hall was quite big, but still there are really alot of parents because the kindergarten population is quite big. Not quite ideal to hold the concert there because the seats are all on a flat level, so people at the back had to strain or crank their necks to see the performances. Needless to say, it was difficult for me to get any good shots ... on top of that, I was equipped with my old, not-so-powerful digital camera. Anyway I've already ordered 10 4R photos with Cheryl inside taken by the professional school photographers at a princely sum of $1 a piece!

Since TT was not around, my mum attended in his place. We brought Isaac along but he got bored after one hour and we had our maid take him home. The guest-of-honour happened to be the Dean of NTU's School of Computer Engineering who used to lecture us in Computer Graphics during my undergraduate days in 1993. Apparently he is also a deacon in the this church and member of the kindergarten's board of directors. Wow, I wonder if he still remembers me.

Some of the performances were rather draggy and the concert ended around 10pm, 30 min later than scheduled. I'm sure the children were all tired, and probably hungry as well! Cheryl's performance was OK but she must have been very shy or intimidated by the crowd because she kept hiding behind another girl!

Later I picked her up from her class and together with our neighbour, Sean & his parents, walked back home together. Sean is graduating from K2 this year. This is a pic of Sean and Cheryl after the school concert. After changing to her PJs, eating some bread and drinking a cup of milk, Cheryl went to bed. Could see from her eyes she was quite tired. Isaac, who had been eagerly waiting for his sister to return home from the concert, also slept soon after.

Fri, 3 Nov - Daddy's Back!
Really thankful the kids coped well with Daddy away. I caught the cough and sore throat from Cheryl a few days ago. Thought with my vitamin C intake I would be invincible, but also kena... Had some problems trying to read stories to Cheryl during bedtime because my throat was so hoarse. Somemore Isaac wanted me to sing along with the nursery rhyme book that comes with those buttons emitting electronic music! And Cheryl had to choose those books with so many words! These kids are so relentless!

After work around 6pm, I drove the car from my office at Jurong East to Changi Airport Terminal 1 using the PIE. With peak hour traffic, it took me about 45min. TT's flight arrived at 6.15pm and I reached at the arrival belt just in time to see him and his colleague collect their luggage and come out of the gate. TT was longing for some local food after a week long of western food, so we drove to Beach Road's Food Centre opposite Golden Mile complex (I can't remember what it's called but it has lots of good food!) to have Hokkien Mee from this popular stall at the basement. Waited almost half and hour for the food to arrive. But it was delicious. Then we had our mandatory cup of teh tarik which was really satisfying, especially for TT.

We reached home about 8.30pm and of course the kids were delighted to finally see their Daddy! Stuff at in England isn't very cheap so Daddy didn't get much stuff. He bought Isaac the toy London red double decker bus and London cab and several postcards of the London Flyer, a gigantic Ferris Wheel. He also got lots of chocolate and some fridge magnets to add to our collection.

Unfortunately the Canon camera's memory card got corrupted and some pictures he took of the Tower Bridge could not be retrieved. We're still trying to use some software to try to recover these pics.

Personal Favourites
FOOD
Beach Road Hokkien Mee. Can't remember the name of the stall nor the name of the hawker centre. You know lah, it's that place that sell all the army stuff. Such a good foodie I am hor. Just walk down to the basement using the main central staircase and it's the hokkien mee stall on the left.

Sat, 28 Oct - A Busy Saturday

Cheryl had her usual Chinese lesson in the morning and her music class in the afternoon. In the evening, we (myself, my mum, Cheryl and Isaac) attended my sis' kids' (Lauren & Olivia) kindergarten and graduation concert at the S'pore Poly Convention Centre. Here Oli is dressed as a girl from Equador and Lauren is dressed for a very energetic dance item. Lauren is graduating from K2 this year, and my sis bought tickets for us to watch the concert. The concert went very well but Isaac was rather restless, fidgeting and preferring to play at the steps or swinging from barrier bars. Cheryl's cough got increasingly bad during the concert. Midway however, tired from the day's activities, she fell asleep, so she missed Lauren's performance which was the last item. I was using our old Fujifilm camera to take shots and videos because TT took our Canon camera for the trip. We were sitting quite far back, so I couldn't get very good shots for the concert.

Meanwhile, TT stayed at home to do some last minute packing for his trip. When we reached home, he had already gone off to the airport by cab. TT's flight to London was at midnight, so it was too late to drive him to the airport since I had to put the kids to bed. Also, I didn't want to distress the kids, especially Isaac, by bringing them to the airport and watching their Daddy disappear at the departure gate. So after coming back from the concert, the kids went to bed without much trouble since they were already quite tired.