31 Jan 2018 - Super Blue Blood Moon

Combining a blue moon, a super moon and a total eclipse, the rare spectacle has been called a "super blue blood moon" by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and last happened 152 years ago in 1866.  Tonight, we were fortunate to be able to witness such rare phenomenon.

"Blue moon" simply means it is the second full moon in a month, which is pretty rare.

"Supermoon" means that the moon, in its elliptical orbit, is near its closest point to Earth.

"Blood moon" happens due to the effect of all the sunrises and sunsets all around the planet reflecting off the moon.

In the evening, my place was still raining and I thought we were going to miss this event.  Luckily the sky cleared up at around 7:30pm, just in time for us to witness the Super Blue Blood Moon.

28 Jan 2018 - Celebrating Great Grandma's Birthday

We had a birthday celebration for my grandma, Jerlene's and Javier's great grandma, today at Ganso Manekineko KTV.  Before we left, we took a family photo together with my grandma.  Nice!

27 Jan 2018 - Scratch Programming: Baby Shark Animation created by Javier

Javier has been working on his Scratch programming for the past 2-3 months.  Out of curiosity, I decided to check on what he had programmed so far.  When I saw his project page, I was very amazed to see that he had already published a total of 14 projects so far.  I remembered the last time I saw this page, there were only 6 published projects.

I tried to look into his programming codes and realized that they are actually quite complex.  He made use of a lot of messaging within his program for different objects (called sprites in scratch) to interact with one another.  I am actually quite impressed by what he had programmed in his projects considering he's just 8 years old and he learnt all these coding himself by simply looking at how other people did it.  Not only did he program games, he also did several animation.  I particularly love the one called Baby Shark.  For those parents with young kids, I am sure you would have heard of this song.  Let's see the animation in the following video created by Javier.
Do give a like if you enjoy it!  Javier's confidence will definitely grow with your support.  :-)

25 Jan 2018 - Jerlene is 11!

My little princess has grown up so fast and she's already 11 years old now.  Images of her arrival to this world 11 years ago is still so clear in my mind.  After dinner, I bought a birthday cake and we had a mini celebration at home.

This was the exact same cake that she had last year......but she loves it!  :-)

Happy Birthday, Jerlene!  Love you!

20 Jan 2018 - Early Celebration of Jerlene's Birthday

This coming Thursday will be Jerlene's 11th birthday.  We decided to have an early celebration today and let her decide whatever she wants for lunch and dinner.  She chose Japanese food and sushi for lunch.  So we went to Nex and had our lunch at Ichiban Boshi.  It was "superlicious"!

In the evening, Jerlene wanted Swenson ice cream just like last year.  As such, we went to the outlet at Seletar Mall and had our dinner there.  Their topless 5 ice cream was served after our dinner and guessed what, they ordered 5 scoops of cookies and cream, again!!!!

18 Jan 2018 - Kidz Treehouse Student Care

Starting this year, the student care within Rosyth school compound will be operated by Kidz Treehouse, which replaces the previous operator Knowledge Park.  They provided all parents with a collaboration website where we can sign in to interact with them.  One cool feature is that everyday, they will take photos of the students as they check-in and check-out of the student care centre.  After which these photos will be uploaded to the website for the parents to view.  Below are the photos so far for Jerlene and Javier.

15 Jan 2018 - Jerlene's P5 Team Building Camp

Jerlene started her 3 days 2 nights P5 Team Building Camp today.  The camp is at MOE Jalan Bahtera Adventure Centre, somewhere in the far west of Singapore.  As it had been raining daily for the past few weeks, we really hope that heaven will be kind enough these few days to let the kids enjoy the camp to the fullest.  This will be Jerlene's first time to be away from home for so many days and we will definitely miss her, especially Javier, who every night still "squeezes" together with his Jie Jie on the same bed.  :-)

Anyway, enjoy your camp, Jerlene!  I'm sure it will be fun!

14 Jan 2018 - Javier's Taekwando (Red Belt) Grading

Javier went for his Taekwando Red Belt grading this afternoon at Toa Payoh Sports Centre.  Due to the holiday season in the past one month when there was no class for quite a number of weeks as well as our family overseas trip last December, Javier only attended 3-4 lessons prior to today's grading for Red Belt.  In fact, most of his classmates decided to give this round a miss but Javier was determined to get it through.  As such, he had been practising at home by watching Youtube videos.

As usual, they did their warm-up exercises and practice outside of the Sports Centre before going in for the actual grading examination.

Following videos show how Javier did during the examination.  Personally I think he did pretty ok though without much power and aggressiveness.  We will only know the result in a few weeks time.  If he passes, he will be the youngest kid in his class to achieve red belt black tip.  In fact, he's already the youngest among all the red belts currently.  Well done, Javier!

6 Jan 2018 - Flowers, Fruits and Vegetables

One of my plants on my roof terrace is blooming and lots of  little white flowers are all over it.  This is the first time I see so many flowers blooming all at once.

In addition, more cherry tomatoes have just turned red and ready for harvesting.  Nice!

2 Jan 2018 - Javier starts his Buddy assignment today

Today is the first school day of the year.  As a P3 student, Javier's first assignment is to be the buddy of a P1 student and guide him in buying food at the canteen during recess.

There were parents, especially of those P1 students, all around the canteen watching how their kids adapt to school life.

After his buddy finished his food, Javier led him to the drinks stall to buy their favourite Ice Milo.  Good effort, Javier!  Do continue to render your help to those in need, especially your juniors.  :-)

1 Jan 2018 - A New Year, A New Beginning

Another year has passed quickly and today marked the start of year 2018.  In a blink of an eye, I have been blogging about my two angels for 11 years.  I am really quite impressed by my own determination to keep this blog alive.  :-P

We had our new year lunch at SOD Cafe at Ci Yuan Community Centre.

I would like to take this opportunity to wish my family, friends and anyone who read this post GOOD HEALTH and WONDERFUL YEAR AHEAD!