21 Jul 2018 - National Day Parade Rehearsal (NE Show for P5 students)

Since few weeks back, there are National Day Parade (NDP) rehearsals every Saturday.  All Primary 5 students in Singapore will get to watch the NDP performance during these full dress rehearsals, which are being held at the actual venue, the Floating Platform at Marina Bay.  This programme is called National Education Show (NE Show in short).  Today, Jerlene was among the students to watch this NE Show.  She reported to school at about 2:45pm and will be taking chartered bus to the venue.

Though it's just a rehearsal, the audience got to watch the full programme, which includes the aerial flypast by the Air Force, free fall jump by the Red Lions from the Army and also divers from the Navy. 

These are followed by a series of performances on the platform and ended with superb fireworks display all around.  Below is a video compilation of the NE Show and for those "shaky" moments, you know who the camera-man, or rather camera-girl is.....  :-)
Jerlene enjoyed the show very much!

15 Jul 2018 - Taekwando Grading (Red Belt Black Tip)

Javier went for his Taekwando Grading (Red Belt Black Tip) at Toa Payoh Sports Hall this afternoon.  As usual, the class did their warm-up and practice outside of the sports hall.

Before the actual grading started, the class and the examiner bowed at each other.

Javier is just one step away from his goal of reaching Junior Black Belt.  He aimed to be the youngest in his class to achieve it.

After he did his patterns and sparring which I thought was pretty good, there was an additional interview this time.  The examiner asked him two questions which he had no problem answering.  The other boy who took the grading with him could not answer and gotta seek his help in the end.  Below is the video captured during the grading.
Results should be out in 2-3 weeks time.  Regardless, I think Javier had done well and it's a great effort!  Well done, Javier!

14 Jul 2018 - Weekend Harvest

Our Bitter Gourd has ripen and turned orange!  That's in the morning though.......

In the afternoon, it opened up and exposed the red seeds within.  We are going to use these seeds and plant more of them.

Below are our harvest for the weekend.

8 Jul 2018 - Our mini Bitter Gourd!

We started growing our bitter gourd plant from a few seeds about 4 months ago.  After months of tender loving care, we finally see our effort paid off.  We were extremely excited to see a few bitter gourds hanging on the vines this monring.  This was our first attempt to grow a bitter gourd plant and glad that it turns out to be a success.

Don't you think this mini bitter gourd cute?  :-)

Our cherry tomatoes continue to bear fruits without fail weeks after weeks.

Below is a Roselle plant which we have also started growing few months back.  It will take about 6 months to mature, so let's wait patiently.  We understand that the flowers will only start to grow when it's about one metre tall.

Following is a pot of Holy Basil.  In fact our entire "garden" at our roof terrace is "infested" by them.  Some even grow outside of the pots.

And finally, this is our Jasmine flower and it really smells good, even at a distance away.

7 Jul 2018 - The Lion King Musical

This afternoon, we were at Marina Bay Sands Theatre watching the World's #1 Musical, The Lion King.

Winner of over 70 major international theatre awards, this landmark musical event brings together one of the most innovative and creative teams on Broadway.  The Lion King also features some of world’s most recognisable music, crafted by multi-award winning artists Elton John and Tim Rice.

After having our lunch at ToastBox, we arrived at the entrance of Sands Theatre 15 mins before the show starts.  As we were told that the show will start on the dot and late arrival may result in non-admittance, we quickly entered the theatre.

Our seats were at the second row of the Circle seats and right in the middle.  Initially, the stage seems a bit far from our seats but when the show started, it was actually not too bad.

As Jerlene and Javier had watched the Lion King movie quite a few times, they know the full story very well and were able to relate to the performance.  Throughout the musical, they also sang along with the performers.

We totally enjoyed this musical and it's highly recommend to all!

1 Jul 2018 - Incredibles 2

It has been a while since we last watched a movie in cinema together as a family.  We had an early lunch today before heading to GV Paya Lebar to watch "Incredibles 2", which is a great family movie.  We all enjoyed it!