My Little Princess and Prince - Jerlene and Javier

30 Jan 2012 - Jerlene got a new school bag

2012-01-31T06:46:00.001-08:00

As Javier is going to school in 2 days time, we decided to let Javier take over Jerlene's current trolley bag and we bought a new backpack for Jerlene. She's so excited that she will be carrying her new backpack to school today.

And yes, it's Jerlene's favourite Strawberry Shortcake backpack. We bought it at Toys-R-Us.

29 Jan 2012 - Have fun with bubbles

2012-01-31T06:25:00.000-08:00

After the lion dance performance, Jerlene, Javier and their two cousins were having fun playing with bubbles along the corridor. Jerlene enjoyed blowing out bubbles while Javier were busy catching them. It's great to see the kids having fun!

It makes me feel sad for some school kids when I heard that there are schools which gave their students lots of homework during this Lunar New Year holidays. What is this? Can't they just give the kids a break? Must they really be so competitive? What's wrong with our educational system? Sigh...........

29 Jan 2012 - Lion Dance on 人日

2012-01-31T05:27:00.000-08:00

Today is the 7th day of Lunar New Year, which in Chinese culture, the birthday of all mankind. Javier would like to say 恭喜恭喜 to all!

We planned to go to my sister's place as there will be lion dance in the evening. Before the lion dance troupe arrived, my brother-in-law and his brother has created a dragon using fruits, vegetables and mineral water cups. It's very innovative.

Take a closer look at the below picture. The dragon head is mainly made up of pineapples, with antler made up of carrots, eyes made up of tomatoes, claws made up of chilli pepper and body made up of mineral water cup. The reason for using mineral water as the body is because this year is the Year of the Water Dragon!

At around 5pm, the lion dance troupe arrived. The kids were not afraid of the lion. Neither were they affected by the loud sound from the traditional Chinese drums and cymbals.

At the end of the performance, four numbers appeared on the floor. Different people may read the numbers differently. Based on what our heart and mind told us, we went to buy 4D at the nearby Singapore Pools outlet. Huat ah!

29 Jan 2012 - Happycall pot

2012-01-31T04:05:00.001-08:00

Recently there is a cooking pot called Happycall double pan (see below pic) which became quite popular, at least among my colleagues. At least 4-5 of my colleagues started buying it one after another. It was advertised on TV and so far all the reviews seem to be very good. In fact, Tracy had just made an online purchase few days back.

As of today, the pot has not been delivered to us yet but Jerlene showed us something that surprised us. We were preparing to go to my sis place and suddenly, she came into our room and showed us her cooking pot. Notice the pot (made up of two flat pan) that she held in her hand below? Doesn't it look exactly like the Happycall pot? I am quite sure she had not seen the commercial ad on TV, or seen the pot anywhere else. She really took us by surprise with her innovation. :-)

25 Jan 2012 - Happy Birthday, Jerlene!

2012-01-28T21:15:00.000-08:00

Jerlene is 5 years old today! As most of the bakeries were still close on this 3rd day of CNY, I had already prepared Jerlene that she will not be having birthday cake in school. However, she brought some goodies bags to school to give out to her classmates. These goodies bags were all filled and packed by Jerlene herself. All we did is to buy her the bags and goodies. She's very systematic. She organized the bags into two groups, one for the boys and one for the girls. Then the content in the bags were filled up accordingly. And she did it so fast.......makes me think that she had this all planned out for quite sometime.

I knocked off from work slightly earlier today to fetch her from school. We then went to Nex to wait for Tracy before giving Jerlene an ice cream treat. Great to see her enjoyed it so much.

Before we left the place, we decided to give a last try to look for a cake for Jerlene. We managed to buy a small Angry Bird cake for her at Polar Express. We sang birthday song for her at home before Jerlene cut the cake by herself.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JERLENE!

24 Jan 2012 - CNY Day 2

2012-01-28T20:50:00.000-08:00

On day two of CNY, while the kids were still sleeping, Tracy and me went to look for a place to have our breakfast. Near our place, there is a small retail building called The Greenwich Village, which is newly opened. We decided to go there to try our luck and surprisingly, Toastbox was opened. We had Mee Rebus and Peanut Toast for our breakfast.

Let's hope luck is on us in this year of dragon as we were seated on Table 8 and our breakfast cost us exactly $8.80. Huat ah!!!!!!

23 Jan 2012 - Happy Lunar New Year to ALL!

2012-01-28T20:29:00.000-08:00

恭喜发财！

The year of dragon has arrived and hope that there will be peace everywhere. Take a look at the first sun rise in the dragon year, which seems peaceful.

Jerlene woke up quite early today and got herself ready for the New Year. First thing she requested was to tie up her hair. Pretty girl!

We only went to 拜年 in the evening. And below are my little princess and prince with their CNY clothes. Lovely and sweet.

20 Jan 2012 - CNY celebration in Childcare

2012-01-28T20:18:00.000-08:00

There was a Chinese New Year celebration at Jerlene's childcare and every kids went with their party clothes. Jerlene woke up early today and got herself ready for the celebration. She chose her own clothes and reminded us to give her two mandarin oranges so that she can exchange them with her classmate during the celebration. 3 more days to CNY.........

15 Jan 2012 - Early Reunion Dinner

2012-01-28T20:02:00.000-08:00

We had an early reunion dinner today as my parents will not be around on Chinese New Year eve. As usual, we had our 捞鱼生 session to begin with. The kids joined in and Jerlene loves the crispy cookie, which we call 片地黄金. This year, CNY is so early and to many people, it seems to be very rush. It's going to be a short one too as I am going to start work on the 3rd day of Dragon Year.

12 Jan 2012 - Back to SG

2012-01-28T19:58:00.000-08:00

My course ended today and it's so good to be at home with my family. Jerlene and Javier were very excited when they saw me. They kept hugging me and it felt GREAT! Sweet....... :-) This post is short but it means A LOT......at least to me.......

10 Jan 2012 - Away for 3 days

2012-01-28T19:42:00.000-08:00

Starting from today, I am sent for a 3 days course in Johor Bahru. I'll be staying in Mutiara Hotel where the course was being held. We reached the hotel at about 10:30am and went straight to the conference room for our course. In the evening after the course, I went to a nearby KSL City shopping mall to buy some Chinese New Year goodies. When I went back to my hotel room, I was surprised to see that I was able to get connected to a Singtel network. As such, I called back home and had a long chat with Tracy and Jerlene. This will be the longest stretch where I was away from Jerlene......

Below are the views from the hotel.

4 Jan 2012 - Pneumococcal Vaccination for Javier

2012-01-28T17:49:00.000-08:00

Javier had already taken all the compulsory vaccination and a few optional ones quite sometimes ago. As Javier is going to childcare next month, I decided to let Javier have the last jab, pneumococcal vaccination. For this jab, Javier only require one dosage as he's above 2 years old. For kids below 2 years old, he will have to take 2 dosages.

I was very worried that Javier will scream and shout because he has always been very afraid of visiting a clinic. Today he seems a bit calm and we had sweets and toys to distract him. Surprisingly when the doctor asked him to lie down on the bed, he obediently did so. The moment the needle poked into his thigh, he immediately frowned and started crying. Two seconds later and it's done. I quickly carried and consoled him with his favourite sweets. In less than a minute, he stopped crying and this was much easier than I thought.

Great job, Javier, You are a big boy now! :-)

2 Jan 2012 - Row row row your boat......

2012-01-27T06:40:00.001-08:00

It's public holiday today and we went down for our first swim of the year. We bought Jerlene a new swimsuit and she's so eager to try it out. Once in the pool, both Jerlene and Javier started singing "Row Row Row Your Boat". Javier was so funny as he sang faster and faster till no one could understand what he's singing.......and the ending note is a super high pitch scream! :-)

1 Jan 2012 - HAPPY 2012!

2012-01-27T06:21:00.001-08:00

Another year has passed and this will be my 5th year blogging. I really cannot imagine how I can have such discipline to keep on doing this. Over the years, there were times when I seriously considering giving up as this really took quite a bit of my time. However, whenever I am with my little angels, I just cannot stop capturing those memorable moments. That gave me the energy to continue and it always make me smile when I look back at those postings few years back.

Anyway, for my first posting in 2012, I will present to you a video of Jerlene's year end concert. The previous video that I've posted sometimes back was taken by me using my "lousy" iPhone. The video below was taken by the professional videographer on the day of concert. I have edited and filtered only those moments where Jerlene was involved. So enjoy........and Happy New Year to ALL!

31 Dec 2011 - Farewell 2011 and Welcome 2012

2011-12-31T10:47:00.001-08:00

Today is the last day of 2011 and as usual, we (yes, including both Jerlene and Javier) were all ready for the fireworks viewing from our rooftop. We saw fireworks coming not just from one location, not two but three different locations. Of course the main one was at Marina Bay area, with its eight minutes long fireworks spectacular.

There were also celebration across the island in the various heartlands. Looking south was the fireworks at Marina Bay. At the same time, there was fireworks coming from the north, probably around Yishun or Sembawang area. Then there was another cluster of fireworks coming from the northeast direction, probably around Punggol or Pasir Ris.

Wish ALL to have a wonderful 2012!

26 Dec 2011 - Anybody knows how Boxing Day comes about?

2011-12-31T10:25:00.000-08:00

I believe everyone knows Boxing Day falls on the 26 Dec, one day after Christmas. However, how many of you actually knows how Boxing Day comes about? I was curious too so I look up wikipedia and here it is.

"Boxing Day is traditionally a day following Christmas when wealthy people in the United Kingdom would give a box containing a gift to their servants. Today, Boxing Day is better known as a bank or public holiday that occurs on December 26, or the first or second weekday after Christmas Day, depending on national or regional laws. It is observed in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and some other Commonwealth nations."

Now that Christmas is over, it means that this year is coming to an end. Let's get ready to welcome 2012 in a few days time!

25 Dec 2011 - Time to open up our Xmas gifts

2011-12-31T10:12:00.000-08:00

Jerlene and Javier were both very excited today because they were going to open up all their Christmas presents.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!

24 Dec 2011 - Christmas Eve BBQ

2011-12-31T09:53:00.001-08:00

Last year, we had our rooftop BBQ on Christmas Day. This year, we had it on Christmas Eve. It got me worried throughout the day because it was raining intermittently. Fortunately, it wasn't raining when we started BBQ'ing. Only towards the end of the session then it started to drizzle for a while. This seemed to be the same situation as last year. The food was good, the atmosphere was great, and everybody seemed to enjoy it.

After all the BBQ food, we had a pretty little log cake to go around.

Finally it's gift exchange time where the children were all very excited. It's a great evening and I'll probably make this a yearly event, if possible.

23 Dec 2011 - Jerlene's childcare Xmas party

2011-12-31T07:42:00.000-08:00

Jerlene's childcare centre was having a Xmas celebration today. Parents were invited, so there we were. Every parent brought some food and drinks to the school to be shared with the children and teachers.

First, they were having some games such as musical chairs and mini telematch. Then there were some singing before they proceed for the food.

The food looked good and Jerlene was getting ready to have a feast.......

Great to see all the children enjoying themselves. :-)

22 Dec 2011 - So loving tonight...

2011-12-31T07:15:00.000-08:00

Jerlene and Javier were in a good mood tonight. Instead of fighting over things, they decided to share a small mattress and sleep together. How I wish they can be just like this always...... :-)

18 Dec 2011 - Birthday Celebration at the airport

2011-12-31T01:18:00.000-08:00

My family went to Imperial Treasure Cantonese Cuisine Restaurant at T3 for lunch to celebrate my dad's 70th birthday. The food was great, especially the roasted goose. We bought a birthday cake but we were all too full to eat it. Anyway, we need to leave the restaurant soon as the next group of customers were already outside waiting for our tables.

After lunch, we decided to walk around the airport. There is some nice decoration where it is a good spot for photo taking.

At the departure hall, there is an area with Angry Birds decoration. The little ones (between 2-4 years old) are all very familiar with Angry Birds. That shows how popular and successful angry birds are.

17 Dec 2011 - Year End Parent Teacher Meeting

2011-12-31T00:45:00.000-08:00

We visited Jerlene's childcare centre today to meet up with the teachers on Jerlene's development. Feedback from the teachers were mostly positive except that Jerlene is always easily distracted during class. And she can be quite emotional at times. In terms of the various skills, she is doing pretty good at the current stage. She also got good memory. She was the first in class to memorize all the dance steps for the concert. And she's the only one in class who can hoola hoop non-stop.....without much effort......... Below is her report card for the year 2011.

Next year, she'll be in K1 and hope that she can continue to improve. Jerlene, 加油!

16 Dec 2011 - Marina Bay Sands

2011-12-30T23:26:00.000-08:00

We visited Marina Bay Sands (MBS) today as we had a MBS voucher which expired today. The voucher can be used in restaurant within the hotel. Initially we thought of having our lunch at the SkyPark restaurant. However, we find it too expensive even with the vouchers. The view from SkyPark is superb though.

After admiring the view from SkyPark, we went down to have our buffet lunch at the Rise restaurant. This is one of our best buffet lunch that we had so far.

We were very full after two hours of feasting. :-)

5 Dec 2011 - Javier starts to make sentences

2011-12-30T23:11:00.000-08:00

Recently, Javier starts to speak short phrases and sentences. When playing Wii, he will say sentences such as "I want two players", "I don't want this, I want table tennis". Sometimes when I walk away, he will say "Daddy come back!". His vocabulary is also improving and he can call out most of the objects around the house. Great job, Javier! :-)

3 Dec 2011 - Changi City Point

2011-12-18T21:59:00.000-08:00

Changi City Point is a new mall near my office and we decided to go there and have a look. As it is located in the middle of Changi Business Park, I thought it would be less crowded during weekend. However, to our surprise, when we reached there, there was a long queue of cars trying to get into the carpark. Since we drove all the way there, we decided to queue. It took about half an hour before we managed to get into the carpark. Initially we thought of bringing the kids to the rooftop playground. However, it started to rain the moment we entered the building. Fortunately, there was a big open space in the mall and kids just love to run around.

It's difficult to shop with the two kids around although Tracy is very tempted as the shops are mainly outlet stores. Anyway, today was simply too crowded, probably because it's just launched and many people are curious about this place. Carpark is free after spending above $50. There were other gifts if you spent above $100. This place is not too bad and we will probably come back another time.

2 Dec 2011 - Wii Boxing Time

2011-12-18T05:28:00.001-08:00

They have been practising Wii bowling for the past few weeks. Now they started doing their workout with Wii boxing.

It's really a great workout as I have experienced it myself. After playing a few rounds of Wii boxing, my arms started aching for the next few days.

1 Dec 2011 - Year End Concert 2011

2011-12-11T04:32:00.000-08:00

Today is Jerlene's childcare centre K2 class graduation and year end concert. It's held at Civil Service Club Auditorium from 5pm to 7pm. Before the concert, I totally have no idea what Jerlene was going to perform. All I know is that it has something to do with an ant. She refused to perform the dance to me before the concert and asked me to watch her dance during the concert. The theme of the concert is "Waka Afrika!" As such, I would expect many animals and true enough, all the kids were "made" into differernt types of animals.

Jerlene and her classmates appeared on stage as the second item of the evening. It's a chinese song called "蚂蚁搬豆". We spotted Jerlene very easily because she's one of the shortest among her classmates. It was a great effort from her and her classmates. They must have practised quite a lot in school. The video was not very well taken as it's from my iPhone from a distance. Anyway, I've ordered the DVD and once I received that, I will extract and post it here.

There was an intermission half way through the concert while buffet dinner was served. Before the concert ended, all the performers appeared on stage and sang the final song. Overall, it's an enjoyable concert.

After the concert, I picked up my little princess from the backstage. I could see that she's very tired. However, she's very pretty with her makeup. Great job, Jerlene!

When we reached home, I again took a photo with her before Tracy helped to remove her makeup. She really looked very pretty with those makeup. :-)

25 Nov 2011 - Little Pro Bowler

2011-11-30T16:11:00.000-08:00

Every night when we reach home, Javier will come and ask me to let him play Wii bowling. As he has been practising almost every night, he's now slowly turning into a "pro". His bowling style is so funny, especially when he's about to release the bowling ball, his left leg will be raised high up......a bit like 狗尿尿.....lol.......

Though his action is funny, his bowling skill has improved quite tremendously. Below video shows how he improves slowly.....from throwing away my Wii remote to getting spares and finally STRIKES!

21 Nov 2011 - Jerlene, the hairdresser

2011-11-26T06:31:00.000-08:00

Today, Jerlene's castle had turned into a hair salon. And guess what, Javier is her first customer......the one and only customer....... Let's hope that Jerlene did a good job and next time when we bring Javier for a real haircut, he will not scream and shout. :-)

19 Nov 2011 - Building up Xmas mood at home

2011-11-25T21:42:00.000-08:00

As Christmas is approaching, I decided to setup a Xmas tree. Jerlene and Javier were very excited the moment they saw me taking it out from the storeroom. They were very eager to help me out........

After the tree was setup, next was to put up some lights and finally all my angel bears.........

We all had a sense of achievement after the tree was fully setup. I think we still need some presents at the bottom of the tree. Anybody want to donate some?

17 Nov 2011 - Jerlene's drawing

2011-11-25T21:34:00.000-08:00

Above is Jerlene's drawing of a princess. Any comment? :-)

16 Nov 2011 - Completion of English Speech and Drama 2011

2011-11-22T05:42:00.000-08:00

Today is the completion of Jerlene's Speech and Drama enrichment class for 2011. Parents were invited to the childcare centre where the kids had a short performance. This year, the theme surrounds the story of Babar elephant. As you can see below, all the children were wearing an elephant mask which they made it during their previous classes.

After the performance, every child was presented with a certificate of completion.

15 Nov 2011 - Nursery 2 Class Graduation Photo

2011-11-20T06:15:00.000-08:00

Jerlene brought back her graduation photo of her Nursery 2 class. Though she's one of the oldest in her class, she's also the shortest...... Below are the slightly enlarged version.

13 Nov 2011 - Confident jumping on a trampoline

2011-11-20T04:10:00.000-08:00

Javier has always wanted to try out new things. Unlike him, Jerlene would not dare to try things that she's not familiar with. In fact, a lot of time, she actually encourages Javier to go try things that she herself would not dare to do. Javier, on the other hand, really 天不怕地不怕. Today while we were shopping at Suntec City, we came across a mini trampoline. I first asked Jerlene to try and as expected, she wouldn't dare. When I asked Javier to go, he straight away went on it and started jumping confidently.

I think I need to put in more effort to "counsel" Jerlene not to be afraid of failure. Not everything needs to be first. She needs to know that as long as she tried her best, that's sufficient. I will never give her that type of pressure.......

12 Nov 2011 - Am I pretty?

2011-11-20T04:04:00.001-08:00

Am I pretty? Mama tied for me.......

6 Nov 2011 - Kid's Talk

2011-11-19T01:01:00.000-08:00

Daddy: "Jerlene, your skirt is too short."

Jerlene: "Yes....."

Daddy: "It's like a mini skirt now."

Jerlene: "No, it's not......"

Daddy: "Yes, it is a mini skirt....you see the skirt is so short."

Jerlene: "But there is no Minnie on my skirt!"

Daddy:"............."

5 Nov 2011 - Another Karaoke session

2011-11-18T22:46:00.001-08:00

Another enjoyable singing session in the KTV room. Now both Jerlene and Javier were willing to sing together....... Watch the video below. Tell me what do you think Javier was doing while Jerlene was singing..... :P

NO....it's not what you are thinking.....he's simply imitating what's on the TV screen...... ;)

1 Nov 2011 - Princess long dress....but I thought.....

2011-11-18T22:32:00.000-08:00

As I've mentioned many times, Jerlene has always wanted to be a princess. She has built her princess castle and tonight, she decided to make herself a beautiful veil and a nice long dress......

To me, my first impression when I saw her is that........"Why you make yourself like a terrorist??!!" :-P

30 Oct 2011 - Jerlene's territory upgraded into a castle

2011-10-29T23:05:00.000-07:00

Today as I walked pass our staircase area, I suddenly realized some unfamiliar structures. There are a few cones sticking our from the staircase ledge. When I asked Jerlene who did it? She said, "Me.....I am building my castle"! Immediately, the images of those castle towers started floating into my mind. Jerlene now not only has expanded her territory, she has also upgraded her house into a princess castle.

29 Oct 2011 - Jerlene establishing her territory

2011-10-29T22:51:00.000-07:00

Since few weeks back, Jerlene has established her territory under the staircase area. She claims that she "owned" the area and refused to let Javier in.

And whenever Jerlene watches DVDs, poor Javier can only stand or sit outside the gate watching through the gaps. Surprisingly, he did not complain at all.

26 Oct 2011 - Kungfu Kid trained with bubbles

2011-10-29T22:39:00.000-07:00

This afternoon, I brought the kids up to our roof for some bubbles fun. Jerlene was blowing the bubbles while Javier tried to catch them all.

Javier's action is so cute. He's like a Kungfu Kid trained by Master Jerlene, who uses a bubbles stick.

After about an hour of training, the sky started to turn dark and cloudy. As I heard thunder and saw lightning not far from us, I had to stop the "training" session and brought them down.

25 Oct 2011 - Coconut = Pork Floss??

2011-10-29T21:22:00.000-07:00

Recently, both Jerlene and Javier get addicted to the above. Almost every meal, we will ask for it to be put into their rice. That's not the problem. What puzzled me is that.....who taught them this is coconut??? So everytime they said they want coconut, I had to correct them that it's pork floss. Still cannot find any similarity or relationship between coconut and pork floss...... :-)

22 Oct 2011 - Going under the fountain in the pool

2011-10-22T23:47:00.001-07:00

See my Robo Princess above! Haha........

In the baby pool at my place, there was a fountain or rather "waterfall" splashing water from the wall into the pool. Javier had a new trick now where he will walk behind the waterfall and had a sense of achievement after performing the act. :-)

18 Oct 2011 - Rejected as parent volunteer

2011-10-22T23:41:00.000-07:00

As Rosyth School is the nearest primary school to my place and it's so popular, I had applied as a parent volunteer in Apr this year. Though Jerlene still got 3 years to go before she enters primary school, Rosyth requires parent volunteer to commit to 70 hours of volunteer work over 2 years. Anyway, due to overwhelming responses, my application had been rejected. In other words, we will have to go through phase 2C balloting which has less than 50% chance of successful enrolment based on past few years trend. We have to think of contingency plan now if Jerlene really failed to get admitted into Rosyth. Sigh......that's the bad thing about the educational system in Singapore.

15 Oct 2011 - Let's go swimming

2011-10-22T23:06:00.000-07:00

We have been going swimming almost every weekend recently. Normally, Jerlene is the one requesting for it. Today, Javier came to me and said:"Papa, go swimming pool". The swimwear that Javier is wearing now is passed down from Jerlene and it just fit. That shows Javier is growing at a faster rate then Jerlene. In fact in term of weight, I believe Javier had surpassed Jerlene slightly liao........

14 Oct 2011 - My Little Princess

2011-10-22T21:03:00.001-07:00

Jerlene has always been dreaming of being a princess. Recently she kept telling us she wanted a princess crown. We tried to look for it for weeks but could not find one till today....... Jerlene was so excited after seeing her crown and refused to take it off that night. :-)

3 Oct 2011 - Poor Javier had bone misalignment

2011-10-22T19:32:00.000-07:00

This evening while I was having a conference call in office, I got a call from my mom. She said Javier had fallen and seemed to have injured his hand. I was very worried because she said Javier kept crying and his hand was "untouchable". Once they touched his left hand, he will cry even louder. It sounded to me like it's either fracture or dislocation.

I left it to my colleagues to handle the conference call while I rushed back to see what happened. When I reached my parent's place, my dad was carrying him. I had to slowly and carefully carried him over because we cannot move his left hand or he will scream. I quickly drove him to KK hospital after picking up Tracy, who also rushed back from her office, from the MRT station.

The children's emergency department is packed with people. After the initial assessment, the nurse had arranged for Javier to take X-rays of his left hand. I accompanied Javier into the X-ray room and I can sense that he's a bit scared. I had to hold his hand carefully in different position for X-ray to be taken properly. After the X-ray, we were told that we had to wait for minimum 2hrs to see the doctor. This was expected after seeing the crowd. As I had not eaten my dinner, we went to the food court and waited there. Javier cried every now and then but one thing helped a lot, that's my iPhone. Though he cannot really move his left hand, he used it to support my phone while using his right hand to play. He knew how to position his left hand so that he will not feel the pain.

Finally, it's our turn to see the doctor. The doctor said the X-ray did not show any sign of fracture or dislocation. So he suspected it's probably due to a bone misalignment due to the fall and such incident is very common among kids between 1-5 years old. As he explained, he held Javier's left hand and slowly twisted it at an angle. Of course Javier started to cry. As the doctor did it, he assured us that it will be fine after 3 seconds. True enough, 3 seconds later, he let go of Javier's hand and gave Javier a sweet container, and guess what, Javier used his left hand to pick up a sweet. AMAZING! The doctor claimed that he heard a slight click sound which meant the bone had aligned back but I could not hear anything. As we left, Javier automatically used his left hand to hold my hand. Though we have waited for almost 3 hours just for a 3 seconds procedure, I'm just glad that he's ok now.

2 Oct 2011 - Another fine Sunday

2011-10-22T19:12:00.000-07:00

Previously when we were staying in Woodlands, we had prata lunch along Sembawang road almost every week. Jerlene missed the chocolate prata there, which is different from other prata shops. Most chocolate prata that we try has the chocolate inside the prata. In this shop, the prata is the crispy type and chocolate sauce is spread all over it. As for Javier, we were surprised he prefers the paper thosai over the chocolate prata.

We then went to my MIL's place and before we left, the little ones had some fun at the playground below.

25 Sep 2011 - Brisbane and Gold Coast Trip Summary

2011-09-25T07:55:00.001-07:00

I finally completed our recent Brisbane and Gold Coast trip video today. If you have been following my blog, you would know that after every trip, I would create a video featuring Jerlene and Javier. In the past, Jerlene had been the main star performing some dances in the video. However, this time round, Jerlene was too shy to dance and she became a coach for another rising star, Javier. Watch this video and you'll understand what I mean......... Enjoy!

22 Sep 2011 - Daddy KO....

2011-09-25T07:43:00.000-07:00

I'm feeling very unwell today and doctor gave me 2 days MC without question. My throat was killing me and was coughing my lung out. Sigh....looked like this time it's going to take quite a while before I can recover. From today onwards, I will have to try my best to keep a distance from my two angels and refrained from sharing food with them.

Mommy told Jerlene daddy was sick so cannot sleep to near me. So guess what, she used a bolster to separate herself and me......haha........ Hope I can recover soon.

21 Sep 2011 - HFMD counts going up

2011-09-25T07:34:00.000-07:00

The latest number of kids contracted HFMD in Jerlene's childcare centre had gone up to 15 today. There were not many kids at the centre when we reached. I guessed many parents wanted to play safe and get alternative avenue to take care of their kids instead of sending them to the centre. I did think of that as well but sad to say, I myself had fell sick. So if Jerlene was to stayed at home with me, she had the same risk as well. Keeping my fingers crossed though.

18 Sep 2011 - Any position, Anytime, Anywhere

2011-09-25T04:08:00.000-07:00

Javier had an extraordinary "talent" that amazed us all. When he's really tired, he can really sleep in any position. Today, he was playing from morning till about 4pm. Suddenly, it was silence so we sensed that something was not quite right. We quickly went out of our room to see what Javier was doing. Below was what we saw.

Tracy said that he saw Javier in this position earlier but thought he was just pretending to be angry because he got a scolding from me. However, on closer look, then we realized that he had actually fell asleep.......on the floor mat. And what a position....... It seemed like he knew he cannot sleep on the floor, so he made sure that his entire body must be on something. As the floor mat was pretty dirty, I quickly carried him to his room and he continued to sleep. :-)

15 Sep 2011 - HFMD outbreak is childcare

2011-09-25T03:21:00.000-07:00

Jerlene was well this morning and went back to childcare. However, I understand from a notice in the centre that there were quite a number of HFMD cases recently. The current count was 5 and a few unconfirmed cases. Jerlene had already got it twice in the past, so hopefully she's immuned to most of the virus variants now. Will have to monitor her closely for the next few weeks.

14 Sep 2011 - After Javier, now it's Jerlene...

2011-09-25T02:55:00.000-07:00

Javier had recovered from his fever few days back but sad to say, Jerlene felt feverish today. As such, I took leave today to take care of her as the childcare will probably not take her in since she had fever. After breakfast, I quickly brought her to a doctor to get some medicine. She also complained about stomach pain but not sure if it's real. By evening, her temperature dropped to normal level so it's a relief.

8 Sep 2011 - Javier having fever

2011-09-25T02:48:00.000-07:00

Two days after coming back from Brisbane, Javier fell sick today. In fact, I observed that something was not quite right last evening because he slept a lot but ate very little. He seemed to have lose his appetite and very sleepy. Immediately after work today, I brought him to a clinic to get some medicine. Hopefully he'll be ok soon.

6 Sep 2011 - Day 9: DIrect Factory Outlet (DFO) and flying home

2011-09-21T16:01:00.000-07:00

We checked out of our apartment early this morning. After loading all our luggages into the van, I went back to our apartment to take some pictures.

Below is bedroom 1 which has a big PES area attached outside of the room.

This is the second bedroom.

There is another PES outside of the living room. Btw, we were staying at the ground floor (but is raised) of the apartment. This was good for us so that we did not have to climb up the stairs, especially when we bought a lot of things. And also we had two seniors and 2 kids........

The kitchen is open concept with no partition from the living room.

Same as the apartment we stayed in Gold Coast, there is only one common bathroom in this apartment unit.

As we still got about 2 hours before we need to return our van, we went to do some last minute shopping at a mall called Direct Factory Outlet (DFO), which is near to both the car rental company as well as the airport.

We had our early lunch at the mall. 2 hours is definitely not enough to shop in this mall. After we returned our van, the car rental staff drove us to the airport using the same van so that we do not have to move our luggages from one van to the other.

During the flight, both Jerlene and Javier did not sleep at all. They were either watching kids show or play games on KrisWorld.

We took a cab home from the airport and by the time we reached home, it was about 10pm. Javier was sound asleep on the way home and he slept till the next morning. Jerlene could not sleep because she's excited about her animal toys which I bought for her in Brisbane. When we were at Brisbane, I told her that she can only play with it when we were back home. So now she cannot wait to play with it. I promised her to let her play after I bathed her. As it was quite late already, we did not play for too long. It's good to be home after a tiring but nice trip. :-)

5 Sep 2011 - Day 8 (Part 2): Santos City of Lights

2011-09-20T23:32:00.000-07:00

After we had our noodle dinner in our apartment, Tracy and myself decided to go watch the Santos City of Lights, a daily event during this 3 weeks of Brisbane Festival. We failed to watch it from Mount Coot-tha and Kangaroo Point. So on this last night of the trip, we were not going to take any more chances. So we drove to Southbank, which is a designated vantage point for this laser and light show.

As we could not find any parking lot along the roadside, we had to park at Southbank basement carpark. It was expensive (AUD15).

As we were not very sure which is the best point to look at the show, we went to the spot where there were the most photographers. Soon the music started to play. Spotlight from everywhere started to shine into the sky. There were spotlight and laser light coming from the skyscraper's roof, the bridges as well as from the boat on Brisbane river.

The show was superbly choreographed where the light "danced" with the background music. This is the first time I had watched such a show. Nice........

After the show, we walked back to our car and on the way, we took some photos of Southbank, which looks completely different from 12 years back.

5 Sep 2011 - Day 8 (Part 1): Underwater World, Sunshine Coast

2011-09-20T20:09:00.000-07:00

Today will be our last full day of the trip. And our destination is Sunshine Coast. Initially the road trip was quite smooth. However, before we drove into Bruce Highway, we heard from the radio that there was a nasty accident along Bruce Highway towards Sunshine Coast.

And true enough, 20 mins later, we were hit with a massive jam that stretched more than 5km.

The jam caused us at least half an hour delay to our destination. Anyway, it's good to reach Underwater World finally.

The first section is a touch pool where we had chance to feel some sea creatures such as sea star, sea cucumber, sea urchin etc.

Then we moved to the next section which is a tunnel through the oceanarium. We had a close encounter with all sorts of sharks, rays and other fishes. There were even several divers cleaning the tunnel.

At 1pm, we arrived at the Seal Island where there was a Seal Show.

Following are some other creatures that we saw in Underwater World.

Before we left this place, there was a kid's corner where both Jerlene and Javier had some fun.

We had our late lunch at the cafe right outside of Underwater World. Javier really hated wearing shoes and he ran around the place bare footed. He's like a Kampong kid.

From Underwater World, we decided to go visit the Big Pineapple. When we reached there, we were puzzled why the carpark was closed. Then I parked by the roadside and went in to check it out. To my surprise, the whole place was deserted. When I went back to check on the internet, then we realized that Big Pineapple was temporarily closed down and there was a change in owner.

Using our GPS, we thought of going to Super Bee but we cannot locate it. And once again, from the internet, we found that they had moved out of Sunshine Coast. Fortunately we had already bought some honey from the Super Bee branch at Currumbin.

We then drove back to Brisbane city but before that, we did some suburb shopping at Chermside.

4 Sep 2011 - Day 7 (Part 3): Mount Coot-tha (Day and Night)

2011-09-17T05:27:00.000-07:00

As we wanted to have a day and night view from Mount Coot-tha, we shopped in Indooroopillys till about 4pm before driving up. At the foot of Mount Coot-tha, there is the Sir Thomas Brisbane Planetarium. Beside it is an observatory.

Across the carpark lies the Botanical Gardens at Mount Coot-tha. This botanical garden is so much better than the one in the city. This garden is divided into different zones, each with its unique plants collection.

First we came to a Cactus House with many different types of cactus.

Other areas include Lagoon and Bamboo Grove, Exotic and Australian Rainforest, Temperate Garden, Japanese Garden, Bonsai House and Herb Garden.

We walked till about 5pm and off we went to Mount Coot-tha summit. We reached the summit just before the sky turned dark. We had a spectacular view of Brisbane city from the summit.

As the surrounding got darker, the temperature also started dropping. So the best way to enjoy such cool weather was to have a cup of hot Mocha in the Cafe. Very soon, the entire place was under darkness and we had a superb night view of Brisbane city.

Starting today, as part of the Brisbane Festival, there is an event called Santos City of Lights at Southbank area. This is the first laser light show of its kind in Australia. This extraordinary spectrum of lights and lasers will radiate from the roof tops, the river and bridges and is set against dramatic musical scores. However, we could only see a few spot lights shining around. Guess we could only have a better view at the designated vantage point in Southbank.

After we got back to our apartment, Tracy and I decided to try to view the laser light show at the vantage point where we watched the fireworks yesterday. However once again, we could not see much except for the few spot light shining from the rooftop.

We will try it again tomorrow but at the designated vantage point along the river at Southbank.

4 Sep 2011 - Day 7 (Part 2): Queen Street Mall and Southbank

2011-09-17T00:39:00.000-07:00

From Eagle Pier Sunday Market, we walked down to Queen Street Mall, where all the branded stuffs are. We had a short rest here.

As we walked down the street, there were some beautiful flowers by the side.

We then walked back to our van and along the way, we passed by a casino.

Before driving to Southbank, another popular tourist spot, we stopped by Queensland University of Technology (QUT) where Tracy graduated.

We were fortunate that we managed to find an open parking lot at Southbank.

Southbank has changed a lot since we were here 12 years back. It looked totally different from what I had in my mind. As Brisbane Festival is ongoing, there were many activities going around here.

Jerlene and Javier enjoyed running around the open space, chasing any birds that they saw. And they spent the next half an hour in a playground with many other kids.

From Southbank, we drove to Indooroopillys Mall for our lunch before driving to our next destination, Mount Cootha.

4 Sep 2011 - Day 7 (Part 1): City Botanical Garden and Sunday Market

2011-09-17T00:12:00.001-07:00

We left our apartment early this morning as we need to go back to the car rental office to change our van. When we arrived, the staff came over and said that they tried to contact me multiple times but we did not pick up the calls. Actually we do not have to change van because there was a cancellation. Anyway, it's still good as now we will have more time to explore Brisbane city. First we went to the City Botanical Garden. To me, it's just a normal park. However, as we walked through the garden, the weather was very cooling and atmosphere was so relaxing.

There was a playground in the park and the slide was constructed based on the 3 steamers that were washed up from the river during the 1893 great floods. These steamers were hauled back into the river during another flood 2 weeks later.

From the garden, we walked down to eagle street where the Sunday market was. Stalls were setup every Sunday around Eagle Pier and they sell all sorts of things such as souvenirs, clothing, bags, handycrafts, fruits, chocolate, honey etc etc.........

From the pier, we had a good view of the story bridge spanning across Brisbane river.

We bought some souvenirs from these stalls and Jerlene got hers as well.

3 Sep 2011 - Day 6 (Part 2): Brisbane Festival, SUN Super Riverfire

2011-09-15T07:27:00.000-07:00

We rested in our apartment for about an hour before walking to one of the vantage point for the SUN Super Riverfire. This is a fireworks display for the opening of the Brisbane Festival 2011.

For this trip, I was planned it with this event in mind. I chose this apartment also because it is within walking distance to the vantage point. We tried to be there early but many people were there much earlier.

Before the actual show, there were fly past by the Australian Air Force. The two BlackHawk helicopters actually "saluted" at the crowd in the vantage point.

Very soon the sky turned dark. Everybody was waiting patiently for the show to start. By this time, more and more people started coming in and the whole place was packed.

At 7pm, the fireworks display started. It was amazing! From our vantage point at Kangaroo Point Cliff, we can see fireworks from other vantage points such as Southbanks and city. Other than firing from the boat along the river, the firework was also fired from the various bridges and tall buildings in the city. Below are some photos taken during the event.

This is one of the longest fireworks display that I have seen so far. The entire display was about half an hour. Simply spectacular!

3 Sep 2011 - Day 6 (Part 1): Chinatown

2011-09-15T06:25:00.001-07:00

Today we did not plan to travel out of Brisbane city because there was road closure around city area due to the opening of Brisbane Festival 2011. So my plan for today was to visit Chinatown area.

Brisbane Chinatown has changed a lot since we were here 12 years ago. There was a multi-storey carpark but as I was about to enter, we realized the height of my rented van was higher than the carpark's height limit. I had to reverse and find other open parking lot. Fortunately, along a small lane near Chinatown, I managed to get one parking lot.

At about noon, we had our lunch in a Chinese restaurant called "King of Kings" (皇上皇). We had Tim Sum for lunch and it's good. Then we did some shopping along a street with stalls on both sides.

Jerlene and Javier were also busy doing their own shopping.

Before we left, we went into a souvenir shop to purchase some souvenirs for our relatives and friends.

From Chinatown, we drove to a suburb shopping mall before going back to our apartment, waiting for tonight's SUPER Riverfire.

2 Sep 2011 - Day 5: Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary

2011-09-13T20:58:00.000-07:00

We left Gold Coast this morning for Brisbane city. However, since we will be too early to check in to our next apartment, we decided to visit Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary first. Rated as one of the world's best zoo, Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary is also the world's first and largest Koala sanctuary with over 130 koalas.

At the entrance, there is a mini playground which immediately attracted both Jerlene and Javier's attention. They went right up and mixed around with other kids. Javier was playing with a steering wheel when another kid of about the same age wanted to join. It's so funny to see Javier's behaviour where he tried to "own" the steering wheel.

Here are some beautiful animals that we saw during the visit.

Birds of Prey Flight Show is next. During the show, the presenter introduced many birds of prey such as falcon, eagles, owl etc. They demonstrated how these birds grab their food in the air and how swiftly they can zoom into their target with superb eyesight.

We even saw how an owl swallow an entire mouse.

These birds are amazing. And some of them look so majestic.

Birds of Prey Flight show was immediately followed by a Sheep Dog Show.

During this show, we saw how the sheep dogs chase the sheep around and direct them according to the shepherd's instruction. These dogs are so intelligent and they can run really FAST!

Next is the Sheep Shearing Show. The demonstrator was so skillful that within 10mins, he managed to shear off the entire fur from a sheep, and in ONE piece.

After the show, we had the opportunity to feel the "shaved" sheep.

We then proceeded to the Kangaroo reserve with over 130 kangaroos, wallabies and emus roaming around freely. Once again, we had the opportunities to hand feed kangaroos.

After our last experience in Currumbin, Jerlene was more skillful now in feeding kangaroos. However, Javier simply grabbed some feeds and "forced" them into the mouth of the kangaroos. Fortunately all the kangaroos are very tame. Otherwise......sigh.........

It will be a joke coming to this place without seeing a single koala. These beautiful but lazy creatures are everywhere in this sanctuary. Of course, you will not want to miss the opportunity to cuddle and have a photo taken with them, of course with a charge.

We left the sanctuary at around 2pm and went to Indooroopillys Mall for a late lunch. This is one of a better and bigger mall within Brisbane city. We shopped in the mall for a while and again replenished some food for the coming days. We then drove to our next apartment located around Kangaroo Point area. The way towards the CBD area was jammed. It seemed like everyone was going into the CBD area to participate in the opening of the Annual Brisbane Festival tomorrow. By the time we reached our apartment, it's also quite dark.

After dinner, I suggested to drive up to Mount Cootha for coffee but my parents were too tired to follow us. The drive up to Mount Cootha was mush easier than Springbrook, only thing is that the road is dark. Though it's not very high, we still had a superb view of Brisbane city from the summit.

Both Jerlene and Javier enjoyed the hot chocolate that we ordered for them. The waitress also came over and took a photo with us.

It was pretty cold up there, especially when there was breeze. However under such weather, with the summit atmosphere and views, the feeling of having a cup of hot coffee in hand was simply "COOL".

On our way back to apartment, we passed by Milton, which is another popular place where people came here for coffee at night. This place was pretty crowded.

1 Sep 2011 - Day 4: Springbrook National Park

2011-09-10T03:15:00.000-07:00

As promised yesterday, I brought both Jerlene and Javier back to the beach this morning. Though they were both still very young, I think it's still very important to let them know that I am not giving them empty promise.

In the photo below, the building with a 'P' on the rooftop is the apartment that we were staying in Gold Coast. Did you see Jerlene and Javier?

What about now? :-)

Puzzling why I kept taking photos from their back? Reason being the sun was shining very brightly and I asked them to back face the sun or else they will definitely get sun burn. Though it was pretty hot, I insisted that they must wear their jacket for the very same reason.

We spent more than an hour building sand castle on the beach. As this was probably the last time we played on the beach in Gold Coast, we stayed slightly longer despite the heat.

We all enjoyed it. Back to Singapore, we will no longer be able to play on such a beautiful beach.

After getting ourselves washed up, we were ready to set off on day 4 of our trip. My plan for today was to visit one of the national park (ie. the mountain area). Before that, we had our lunch at Pacific Fair Mall.

I needed to fill up petrol for my rented van and was surprised to see that the petrol kiosk was actually operated by 7-eleven.

After filling up with petrol, we started driving towards Springbrook National Park. Jerlene and Javier again tried to force themselves to sleep at the start of the drive. The way up the mountain was quite scary as there were many sharp turns at the edge of the mountain. It made worse with the huge size and height of our rented van. I have to ensure I was 100% focused while driving up.

Finally, we reached our first scenic lookout point. The view was superb and immediately, I felt that the drive was worth it. This is Wunburra lookout. From this lookout, we could actually see the buildings in Surfers Paradise.

Below is the zoom in view of Surfers Paradise area from the lookout point. Beyond the buildings are the pacific ocean. As both Jerlene and Javier were still sleeping then, we took turns to take photos from the lookout.

Next we drove further up into the mountain for the second lookout point called the Purling Brook Fall lookout. From this lookout point, we had a very nice view of a water fall.

As we do not want Jerlene and Javier to miss the waterfall, we woke them up. That's why in the photo below, you will see their grouchy face.

There is another lookout point at the other side of the waterfall. We walked over and had a different view of the surrounding. It was simply marvelous......

Along the way from the carpark to the lookout point, there were several huge trees with big "holes" in its trunk. These trees seem rotting but yet they are standing strong.

After Purling Brook Fall lookout, we drove further into the national park to look for the Best of All lookout. This is exactly the name of the lookout. As such we would expect the view to be exceptional. From the carpark, it's about 350m from the lookout point. Along the way, we walked through a thick jungle with a narrow path. It's difficult for me because both Jerlene and Javier insisted to hold my hand. My parents tried to help but the little ones simply refused. So no choice, I got to hold them tightly and walk slowly.

Before reaching the lookout point, we came across several Antarctic Beech Trees, which are very unique. These trees are at least 2000 years old. The look of these trees reminded me of the ancient Forest of Fangorn in the movie Lord of the Rings.

A short walk from the Antarctic Beech Trees finally brought us to the Best of All lookout. The view here was really magnificent and it lives up to its name. This was one of the best scenery of this entire trip. You have to be there to experience the atmosphere.

By that time, both Jerlene and Javier started to be active again. As the view was really fantastic, we stayed a bit longer at this lookout.

Our next lookout point is the Canyon lookout. And the view is actually comparable with the previous one. Javier had fun hopping around the lookout platform.

We finally came to the last lookout point, Gooloolahra Falls lookout. We had our last look at the mountain and waterfall view before leaving Springbrook National Park. You will never find such superb view in Singapore, or even in most overseas trips we had.

From Springbrook, we decided to do some last minute shopping in Gold Coast. Thus, we drove to an outlet mall called HarbourTown. By the time we reached there, we had about 2 hours before all the shops closed. Jerlene and Javier as usual only wants me to push their strollers. Instead of pushing one stroller with each hand, I decided to stack them like a train and they both enjoyed the "Toot Toot Train" ride.

After we got back to our apartment, we again cooked noodles for dinner. Then I bathed the little ones, entertained them a while before making them to go to bed. We wanted the kids to sleep early tonight because Tracy and myself decided to go the Conrad Jupiter Casino to try our luck. Initially we wanted to play blackjack table game but realized that the minimum bet now is AUD10. We remembered 12 years back when we were here, the minimum bet then was only AUD5. So we decided not to join in the table game but instead spent some money and had some fun with the jackpot machines. We went back to our apartment around 2:30am.

31 Aug 2011 - Day 3: Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary and Gold Coast Beach

2011-08-28T04:19:00.001-07:00

Good morning Gold Coast! At this time of the year, sun rises at about 5am. By 9am, we were all ready for another day out. Jerlene and Javier were excited because we were going to visit a wildlife park where we can hand feed kangaroos.

Currumbin Wildlife Park was about 40mins drive from Gold Coast. Once again, both Javier and Jerlene were having motion sickness half way through the drive. However, they had learned from their previous experience and what they did is that they tried to force themselves into sleep. This method seemed to work as they managed to reach the destination without throwing out.

Currumbin Wildlife Park seemed to be very popular and the carpark was full. I had to park my van on a grass patch further down the carpark. This park is owned by a non-profit organization. with all proceeds raised by our visit reinvested into the care of the environment and animals. There is also an animal hospital within the park and it's one of the busiest in Australia.

The first area we entered is called the Australia's Green Cauldron. The exhibits here are mainly reptiles such as snakes, lizards, tortoise etc.

The park is divided into east and west sections. The entrance and Australia's Green Cauldron are at the east section. From there, we took a tram ride to the west section, where most other exhibits are.

The next station we alighted was the kangaroos enclosure where we got to hand feed kangaroos. Other than kangaroos, we can also feed the Emus and pigeons that roam freely.

Jerlene and Javier had been looking forward to this moment. Even before the trip, Jerlene had been asking me when she can go Australia to feed the kangaroos. Most of the kangaroos here seemed to have been well fed and were all resting under the shade. Only a couple of them came to us for the food. Anyway, we still enjoyed the entire session

When all the kangaroos stopped accepting feeds from anyone, Jerlene and Javier both turned around and started feeding the pigeons. We spent around 45mins in the kangaroos enclosure.

Below are some of the animals that we saw in the park.

There was one thing that kept us laughing throughout the visit. Do you know what bird it is in the below photo? We all felt that it is some kind of Turkey because of its size and its look. However, whenever Javier sees it, he will shout:"Chicken, chicken!!" so innocently. We all laughed our heart out everytime he said that.......I am laughing now as I type this......lol.

Next, we went for a free Flight Bird Show in an arena where the trainer introduced many birds such as Pelicans, Eagles, Owls, Falcons etc.

We had our lunch in a small cafe in the park. Next to it was a playground and Jerlene went straight to it. She seemed to enjoy the playground most in the park, except for the kangaroo feeding.

Finally we came to the Koala enclosure. As usual, they were so adorable.

We left the park after that. Next to the park is Superbee Honeyworld. There is a honey testing corner with different types of flavours. We bought quite a bit of honey as it seemed cheaper than in Singapore.

By the time we returned to our apartment, it was about 4:30pm. We quickly brought Jerlene and Javier to the beach before it turned dark.

As I've mentioned earlier, our apartment is right behind the beach. From the apartment's back gate, we immediately stepped onto the sand beach. It's one of the most beautiful beaches that I've been to. The sand is so fine and the beach is extremely clean.

Jerlene and Javier had so much fun that they refused to leave even when the sky turned dark. It was very windy and cold but that does not seem to spoil their fun. Javier was a "destroyer" and whenever he saw a castle being built, he'll "tear" it down......

I had a hard time persuading them to leave. Eventually, I had to promise to bring them back to the beach the next morning, then they started packing and leave reluctantly.

After taking showers, we went to a nearby Chinese restaurant for dinner along Surfers Paradise Boulevard. It was very crowded though the food is not cheap. We waited for more than half an hour for our food to be served.

30 Aug 2011 - Day 2: Tropical Fruit World and Byron Bay

2011-08-28T04:18:00.000-07:00

We started off day 2 with a drive to Tropical Fruit World. It's about an hour's drive from Gold Coast. Half way through the drive, both Jerlene and Javier started experiencing motion sickness. Javier was worse as he threw out everything that he had eaten in the morning. I think it's not just because of the long journey, most likely it's due to the size of our rented van, which may be more bumpy for passengers at the back seats.

So once we reached our destination, we quickly brought Javier to the toilet and changed him. This attraction is not one of those popular ones so it's not very crowded. While we were purchasing the admission tickets, the staff asked Jerlene how old she is because admission is free for children below 4 years old. Jerlene did not answer so I being honest said she's four. The man then turned to Jerlene and said:"Just say you are 3 years old". :-) Eventually he did not charge me for Jerlene's admission.

The weather was quite cooling today and it's cold when there was breeze. We all wear our jackets but Javier refused to wear. Throughout the trip, he seemed to be the "strongest". The other thing was that since few weeks back, both Jerlene and Javier started to be very sticky to me. Jerlene has been sticky to me since birth. Javier previously was very neutral to everyone but now, he started to stick to me as well. It's so extreme that wherever we went, both of them will want me (and no one else) to hold their hands or push their strollers. When they were in their strollers, every now and then they will turn around to see if I was the one pushing. If not, they will scream and yell for me.......and this happened throughout the trip. Tracy and both my parents could not help much.

Tropical Fruit World has the world's largest selection of tropical fruits in one location. Apart from fruits, they also sell a large range of fruit based beauty products. The first attraction after we entered the park was a Mexican garden with lots of cactus of different variety.

From the garden, we proceed to the Miracle Fruit Show where they introduced to us all sorts of tropical fruits and their interesting facts. As they were introducing some common fruits such as the bananas, Javier started yelling:"Banana, banana....." non-stop. I had a hard time trying to "shut" him out. He probably cannot resist because that's one of his favourite fruits. The show ended with a fruit tasting session where we all enjoyed. We had quite a few rounds and Javier finally got to eat his bananas.

After the fruit show, we went on to a tractor ride to have a farm tour.

We passed through many different plantation such as Avocado, Orange, Banana, Jackfruit, Plum, Macademia etc etc.

During the tour, we stopped by the macademia plantation and gathered under a huge macademia tree. There was a big pail of macademia nuts (unopened) and free for us to grab. There were also many nut cracker around for us to have a try in cracking macademia nuts. The nut cracker was very effective and even Jerlene can do it.

Next we went on to an Old MacDonald's Farm where we had some times to hand feed the farm animals. First we were given some bread to feed the ducks and goose in the pond.

Then we went to a barn where we had the chance to feed the calf, sheep, chicken and donkeys.

Javier was very "garang" and he simply took some feeds and put his hands right at the donkey's mouth. The donkey was so huge for him but he totally had no fear.

We spent about 20mins there before going onto a jungle boat cruise. Once again, we were given bread to feed the ducks, goose and other water birds along the way. We also saw a few water dragons as we cruised down the river.

The river cruise ended on an island called "Treasure Island". Over there, we took the Miniature Train ride around the island. Jerlene and Javier also had some times to play on the slides at the children's activity corner.

We took the tractor back to the central station and we ended the visit at the place where they sell all their farm fruits.

From Tropical Fruit World, we decided to go on to Byron Bay which is just about 30mins drive from there. When we reached a small town in the area, we had our late lunch there.

Cape Byron is Australia's most easterly point. The view was superb and we were looking out into the Pacific Ocean.

One popular structure there is the Cape Byron Lighthouse.

We took many scenic pictures there and had one family photo taken at the most easterly point in Australia's mainland. While we were busy taking photos, Jerlene spotted a wild kangaroo on the cliff. Her eye is so sharp. If she did not point it, none of us would have notice it,

The lighthouse area closed at 5pm so we had to leave before that. Anyway, it started to turn dark very early as it was early spring. On our way back to our apartment, we stopped by a mall to buy more food for the coming days. By the time we reached our apartment, it was around 7+ pm.

29 Aug 2011 - Day 1: Touch down at Brisbane, drive down to Gold Coast

2011-08-28T04:17:00.001-07:00

We touched down at Brisbane International Airport at about 9:30am (Aus time). The custom check was pretty thorough. Once out of the arrival hall, I immediately made a call to the car rental company for a pickup to their office. The moment we stepped out of the airport building, we were surprised that the weather was pretty hot. The car rental staff told us that the temperature then was about 25 degrees.

We reached the car rental office in about 5 mins. We thought everything went through smoothly until the staff said:"Sir, you have rented a 5 seater car, but now you have 6 people, that will not do". They said the local traffic regulation is very strict and they do not want to risk losing their license to operate the business. Btw, they are only 5 weeks old in Australia (though the company already has 14 years of operation in New Zealand). After some consideration, it seemed like I have no choice but to upgrade to a 8 seater van. Initially, they said they do not have one that can last my entire trip. However, they said what they can do is to get us one now and 6 days later, return the van at 8am and pick up another van at 1pm. Fortunately, we'll be back at Brisbane 6 days later so guessed we can only go with that arrangement. After completing the paperwork and payment, we went to the garage and saw a whole range of Hyundai cars. And they are all very NEW (2011 model)! I was shocked when I saw the van that I've rented. It's HUGE! I've never driven such a huge car and think I will need quite a while to get used to it.

After setting up the GPS, toll tag and loaded all our baggage, we were good to go to our first destination, Gold Coast. Before that, we went to a nearby mall to have our lunch as the drive will take about an hour. We arrived at our apartment at about 2:30pm. Due to the height of my rented van, I cannot park it at the basement carpark. Fortunately, there is a garbage area that belongs to the apartment where I can park my van. Hehe......the garbage area was not what you think.....it's clean...... The apartment is right next to the beach. The first thing that caught our attention when we entered the apartment was the view from our balcony. Superb view of the beach and the sea.

It's a two bedroom apartment with a nice living room and kitchen. Only problem is that there is only one common toilet.

We had a short rest at the apartment before going to the nearby Pacific Mall to do some shopping at Coles supermarket. We bought quite a bit of food such as instant noodles, bread, fruits and drinks in preparation for the coming days.

We took some photos around the mall and very soon, the sky started to turn dark.

I had a sunset shot from the mall's carpark and by about 6pm, the whole place was in darkness.

We cooked our dinner in the apartment and had an early rest. Our actual program starts from tomorrow........ :-)

28 Aug 2011 - Off we go...

2011-08-27T19:16:00.001-07:00

Will be flying off soon, stay tuned for all the exciting photos and stories of our Brisbane/GoldCoast trip in the next 10 days. See you all then!

26 Aug 2011 - Getting ready for the trip

2011-08-27T03:39:00.000-07:00

We started packing for our coming trip to down south, land of the Kangaroos. This will be Jerlene's fifth long overseas trip and Javier's third. Both of them tried to help with the packing, especially Jerlene, who has helped to fold her clothes nicely. We asked both little ones what else they wanted to bring and they both came to us each wearing a hat. It seems like they are more than ready for this trip. I can sense that Jerlene is very excited about playing sand on the beach and Kangaroo feeding at the wildlife park. Let's hope we will have a very enjoyable trip in the next one and a half week.

18 Aug 2011 - Jerlene's New Automobile

2011-08-27T00:33:00.000-07:00

Today Jerlene unveil a new model of 2-seater coupe. Its front dashboard has lots of sophisticated smart gadgets and one-touch buttons. It also has many safety features, especially with bumpers all around the car. Furthermore this J-series automobile is amphibious! Jerlene is so proud of her new innovation......and so do I!!!! :-)

9 Aug 2011 - Happy Birthday Singapore!

2011-08-20T08:18:00.001-07:00

Today is a Singapore's National Day! After visiting the Animal Resort, we headed back home to get ready for tonight's parade. This year's parade was held at Marina Bay floating platform. We can faintly see the national flag fly past the parade ground from my place.

It was followed by the fighter jets fly past before the actual parade starts. At about 8pm, it's what we have been waiting for, the fireworks! Nice......

9 Aug 2011 - Morning visit to animal resort

2011-08-20T03:04:00.001-07:00

After breakfast at Jalan Kayu prata shop, we once again visited the animal resort which is nearby. My two little ones were well prepared and brought a hat each.

Jerlene were busy feeding the goat, rabbit and guinea pigs. Since she loves feeding animals so much, I think she'll enjoy the coming Australia trip. Kangaroo feeding is the must for the trip.

We did not stay there for too long because the weather was very warm.

2 Aug 2011 - Crossing the 13kg mark!

2011-08-20T02:09:00.000-07:00

It has been a while since I last weigh both Jerlene and Javier. Jerlene finally broke the 13kg mark. Actual weight 13.4kg. And guess what, Javier also passed the 13kg mark (13.1kg). He is slowing catching up and actually it's not a surprise to me as I can already feel it whenever I carry them. Jerlene all this while had been the petite type whereas Javier has always been a tough boy. I must say, fortunately, it's not the other way round. :-)

30 Jul 2011 - Aerial and Fireworks display (NDP rehearsal)

2011-07-30T21:33:00.000-07:00

Jerlene and I were at our roof terrace waiting to see the aerial display for our national day parade rehearsal. Jerlene was very sharp and she spotted the fighter jet before me.

As the fighter jets returned from their fly past at Marina Bay at about 7pm, we had a very close shot of the jet right above us.

An hour later at about 8pm, we were at the roof terrace again to get ready to view the fireworks display.

Btw, my roof terrace will be opened on actual national day. Let me know if anyone is interested. Already had a booking right now...... :-)

30 Jul 2011 - Party with friends

2011-07-30T21:20:00.001-07:00

This afternoon, Jerlene and Javier stayed in their room for quite a while with the door closed. I found it strange that they did not come and disturb me. Out of curiosity, I decided to see whether they are up to do some mischievous stuff in their room. As I opened the door, I was surprised to see a party room. Jerlene and Javier were having a party with their friends, Dora and Stitch. Jerlene had setup a party table for her friends. As for her and Javier, they had setup a separate play area for themselves.

Outside the room, Jerlene had placed a mattress. I asked her what it was and she replied:"That's the grass"! So imaginative. It's really amazing to learn how kids had in their mind. :-)

24 Jul 2011 - Playground time

2011-07-30T20:39:00.000-07:00

Today, I gave Jerlene and Javier a choice whether they prefer to go to the pool or playground. Both said playground and off we went.

Jerlene has been a "seasoned" playground goer. As for Javier, he's also full of confidence. I guessed my dad has been bringing him to playground pretty often. He's also very confident when he went on the slide.

In fact, Javier has his own style of sliding. He will "jumpstart" before sliding down. See below video and you'll know what I mean.

24 Jul 2011 - Balloon Fiesta at Nex

2011-07-30T20:19:00.000-07:00

We were at Nex shopping mall this afternoon and in an open area, there was a balloon fiesta where everything was created out of balloons. There were prince and princess, fountain, monkey, carriage, flowers etc all made of balloons. Jerlene and Javier were so excited when they saw all these and started touching them, which ended up with a "warning" from one of the staff. Before leaving, we bought Jerlene a balloon teddy bear and Javier a balloon sword. The amount spent will all go to charity.

20 Jul 2011 - Room turns Art Gallery

2011-07-30T08:30:00.000-07:00

Look at my kids' drawing. Whether you think it's nice or not, that does not matter to me. What concern me here is..........this painting is done on one of the wall in my house!!!!! Right now we have no choice but to keep all the pencils, pens and crayon away from the kids. If not, my entire house will become an art gallery soon. Sigh.........

18 Jul 2011 - Crossing the 30,000 mark

2011-07-30T07:31:00.000-07:00

This blog has finally crossed the 30,000 mark in terms of number of visitors. It has been four years of blogging and I am really surprised that I can have the patience and discipline to keep this updated as much as I can. It really brings back a lot of fond memories whenever I looked back at what I've blogged years ago. Seeing my little angels grew up from baby to toddler was really amazing. And time really flies. Next year, Jerlene will be entering Kindergarten. And very soon, she'll go for primary, secondary and tertiary education. Will I still be blogging by then? We shall see. If you continue to provide me your support, I believe I can. :-)

15 Jul 2011 - Mr Piggy?

2011-07-30T07:20:00.000-07:00

Last week, Jerlene brought back an artwork from her school. It's a mask with a pig head that one can wear on the head. Today, Jerlene found it in her play area and put it on Javier's head. In the past, Javier would not let anything goes onto his head but tonight, surprisingly he did not make any noise. In fact, he seemed to enjoy it and paraded the whole house with the "pig" on his head. Isn't this cute?

After parading, my two angels started singing and dancing on my bed.

7 Jul 2011 - Javier losing appetite

2011-07-30T07:10:00.000-07:00

Recently, Javier has lost his appetite. He ate very little during meal time but kept asking for milk. He refused to eat rice, not even a single grain. Everything else, he would taste one time and then reject it after that. We bought a bottle of Multi Vitamin tablet with Lysine, which is supposed to help improve appetite, but it does not work. Jerlene took it as well and it works very well for her. Though now Javier eat much lesser and Jerlene eats a lot more, their size somehow still remain. Javier did not lose any weight and is still a tough boy. Jerlene on the hand is still pretty slim despite eating a lot. Many people told me this is good. Boy is supposed to be tough and girl has always wanted to be slim. Well, what do you think? :-)

6 Jul 2011 - Our new Jie Jie (helper)

2011-07-17T02:24:00.000-07:00

Today is the arrival of our new helper. Initially, we were not sure if the kids will accept her but guess our worries were unnecessary. Jerlene was very excited when she saw her new Jie Jie. She even help us to do part of the briefing. It's like old bird teaching new bird to do things. It's so funny to see Jerlene telling new Jie Jie what to do and what not to do. Jerlene really was taking very good care for this new Jie Jie as she even made bed for her before sleep. She had never done that to anyone, including me!

As for Javier, he was feeling a bit uncomfortable initially but when new Jie Jie started playing with him, he was ok then. Glad that both kids do not reject our new Jie Jie and hope that she can really be a good helper.

2 Jul 2011 - Days without a helper

2011-07-17T02:05:00.000-07:00

These few days we were without a helper and got to do all the housework ourselves. It does not affect Jerlene much but as for Javier, he would look for my helper at times. However, he can be easily distracted as long as someone played with him. So while Tracy was cleaning the house, I had to full time looking after and played with my two my little angels. You may be thinking that it's an easy job to play with kids, but I can tell you, it's TIRING!

They had unlimited energy and would not let me rest for a moment while they go on and on. They spent quite a while running about on our roof terrace before I brought them down to the pool for a swim. After that, they continued with some bathtub fun followed by asking me to play Wii........etc etc etc........ After hours of Wii, my arm started aching. Though tiring, I think it's all worth it. Jerlene all the while is very attached to me and now, Javier started to get attached to me as well. Love you, my little angels!

27 Jun 2011 - Javier's first wedding dinner

2011-06-30T08:16:00.000-07:00

We had a wedding dinner tonight and we decided to bring both Jerlene and Javier there. This is Javier's first time to a wedding dinner. We really hope that he can sit through, which he did in the end. But that's with the help of my iPhone! :-)

26 Jun 2011 - Jie Jie's Birthday!

2011-06-30T08:06:00.001-07:00

We had a mini celebration for our helper's birthday today.

Time really flies and she has been with us for almost 2 years now. She has been taking care of Javier since he's just few months old. Sad to say, she'll be leaving us in a week's time. Wish her all the best! Not sure if Javier will get used to without Jie Jie..........

19 Jun 2011 - Happy Father's day to me!

2011-06-30T07:57:00.000-07:00

Above is what Jerlene created in her childcare for me. Of course, it's done with the help of her teachers. Wonder when she will really make something all by herself for me.......

Happy Father's Day to all Daddies!

19 Jun 2011 - My little Towkay and Kampong kid

2011-06-30T07:37:00.000-07:00

Javier has been behaving like a Towkay all these while. Whenever he sits on the swing or in the car seat, he will place both his hands behind his head. I have never seen a 2 years old doing that before.

Other than behaving like Towkay, he always like to be bare footed. Many times, he refused to wear any shoes or sandals. Even if he wears it initially, after a while he will take it off.....sigh...... He's really like a kampong kid.

18 Jun 2011 - Mr Milo

2011-06-30T07:26:00.000-07:00

We were doing our usual grocery at NTUC Xtra across our place. Jerlene and Javier were with me and suddenly from far, we saw a huge green thing moving around. As it moved nearer, I realized it's a Milo mascot. We expected him to walk towards us but instead he turned into another lane. So I told Jerlene:"Let's go find Mr Milo!". She was so excited and as she walked, she shouted very loudly:" WHERE IS MR MILO??". So embarrassing as people around all looked over...........

We finally caught up with Mr Milo and Jerlene had a photo taken with him.

18 Jun 2011 - Princess cut

2011-06-30T06:48:00.001-07:00

Jerlene finally agreed to cut her hair. We told her we promised to only cut a bit of her hair on her forehead so that she can continue to grow her long hair at the back like a princess. However, when she was at the salon, she told the hairdresser she wanted to cut short hair, including the back. We were very surprised but since she requested, we asked the hairdresser to proceed.

After the haircut, I asked Jerlene:"Why you want to cut short hair now? Dun you want to be a princess?" She replied:"NO, I want to be same like the short hair princess!". For those who have watched the animation "Tangled", you should know what she meant.

12 Jun 2011 - New camera, new feature,great model

2011-06-24T05:27:00.000-07:00

I bought a new camera from PC Show today. It's a FujiFilm FinePix F500EXR. I have been using my phone as a camera for the past 6 months. Reason being my previous camera was not working after Javier dropped it. However, when I took it out today after I bought the new one, it miraculously "revive"!!! Now I have two working camera. Anyway, there are quite a few new great features which I had tried out with my two SuperModel at the pool.

First, I decided to take a few 大特写 of my two SuperModel. The result turned out to be very clear and nice. Love it.

Next I tried out the feature "360 degree panaroma". All I have to do is to change to that mode, click and drag my camera across the field. The camera will then "stitch up" nicely and result was fantastic.

Then I tried to capture some motion and got a few funny shots of my SuperModel.

Lastly, most camera can do movie recording. However, not many can zoom in and out while recording. This new one can. So in summary, I'm quite satisfied with this camera.

11 Jun 2011 - Dreaming to be a Kung Fu kid?

2011-06-17T07:57:00.001-07:00

I cannot resist myself but to grab my camera to take the following photos. Is Javier practising KungFu in his dream, especially after watching KungFu Panda 2 recently? Haha..........

8 Jul 2011 - Hoola Hoop Time

2011-06-17T06:50:00.000-07:00

As I grow older day by day, my physical development will start to slow down. On the other hand, my kids will develop and improve in all areas, especially in their agility and reflexes. Recently I finally found something that Jerlene has surpassed me. And that is.......Hoola Hoop!!!! Below video was taken few weeks back. When she showed me today, she can do it for more than 30 secs. I think she has already broken my all time record. Great job, Jerlene!

7 Jun 2011 - KungFu Panda 2

2011-06-16T06:39:00.000-07:00

Tonight we planned to watch KungFu Panda 2 with the kids. I left office a little bit earlier today to get them ready for the 8pm show. This was Javier's first time to a cinema and Jerlene's second.

Throughout the show, both Jerlene and Javier kept asking for food. And they cannot stay on their seat for long and started walking about between Tracy and my seat. Because of that, I cannot focus on the movie as well. Previously when I brought only Jerlene to watch "Tangled", she was quite well behaved throughout the show. Guess I cannot bring both together for now.

After the show, we spent a while walking in the mall before going home.

5 Jun 2011 - Random pics

2011-06-15T06:30:00.000-07:00

Took a few photos before going "gai gai"..........

2 Jun 2011 - Family portrait by Jerlene

2011-06-15T05:41:00.000-07:00

Jerlene drew a family portrait today. I must say it is pretty well done and at least her drawing got a theme now. And she knows sky is blue, grass is green, girl has long hair and boy has short hair.

Perhaps I should send her to some drawing class? :-)

1 Jun 2011 - Jerlene and Barbie

2011-06-14T06:48:00.001-07:00

Every now and then, Jerlene will take out her Barbie doll and play. Today, she tried to tie up Barbie's hair and did it with the help of mama. After that, she insisted that she wants to have the same hairstyle as Barbie. So here you go........

31 May 2011 - Amazing IPhone savvy kids nowaday

2011-05-31T16:46:00.000-07:00

iPhone has changed the lifestyle of many people. It's not only affecting the grown-ups, kids as young as 2 years old are now addicted to iPhone games. My princess (4 years old) and prince (2 years old) are just two of the many kids out there who love iPhone games. In the past, I have never imagined a two years old kid will know how to navigate an iPhone until I saw Javier doing it. He can now navigate through iPhone menu, open a folder, launch a game, play the game, get out of the game, change to another folder and game, so on and so forth. I don't think my parents can do it like Javier. They'll probably be very lost if I hand them the iPhone. See the video below on how Javier touches, slides and drags his fingers on the iPhone screen.
I guess by the time this generation of kids go to school, they can already start simple programming.......... I really think it's possible.

29 May 2011 - Lunch at Marche, fun in Vivocity

2011-05-31T16:44:00.000-07:00

We were at Marche, Vivocity, for our lunch. Kids meal is only $9.90, including a meal and a drink. We ordered a plate and pasta, a plate of rosti and half a crispy pork knuckle. While waiting for the food, Jerlene and Javier each had a set of Marche colouring cards and pencils to keep them entertained. They love the rosti very much. Nice......

After lunch, we took a slow walk to harbourfront before heading back to Vivocity playground. Jerlene and Javier had a balloon each from Marche and were running around with it in the mall.
The moment Jerlene saw the playground, she's on her own. She's an "experienced" playground goer now and I can simply leave her alone. Look at the way she played on the slide, she got her own style...... :-)
As for Javier, I had to keep a close watch on him. We spent about an hour there. As we walked back to the mall, Javier was totally exhausted. And guessed what, he totally "knocked out" while standing in the cashier queue with us at Marks and Spencer. So funny.

28 May 2011 - Aerial Display by RSAF

2011-05-31T16:39:00.000-07:00

It was Singapore Air Force (RSAF) open house these few days. Members of the public can check out the military hardware like F-15SG, F-16C/D and much more. Everyday, there were also 2 sessions of aerial display, which includes parachuting, fighter jet fly pass and a simulated rescue mission involving aircraft such as Apache, Chinook and Super Puma.

From our rooftop, we were able to view some of the display. It wasn't very clear though......