30 Jun 2018 - Taekwando Class moves to the Pavilion

Javier's Taekwando class has moved from Ci Yuan CC to a big Pavilion near our place.  It means that we can just walk over to the Pavilion instead of driving to Ci Yuan CC as in the past. 

Other than those black belts, Javier is now the most senior in the class.  As a result, he's now the one to give commands for class dismissal.  He's now practicing very hard for his next grading in a few weeks time.

28 Jun 2018 - SYF: Certificate of Accomplishment (Chinese Orchestra)

Jerlene participated in this year's Singapore Youth Festival as a member of her school's Chinese Orchestra.  She received a Certificate of Accomplishment in recognition of her participation.

Well done, Jerlene!

20-21 Jun 2018 - Kidz Treehouse Eco Camp

Jerlene and Javier participated in their Student Care's Eco Camp yesterday and today.  This was the highlight of their June school holiday and glad that it ended on a high note.  This camp was organized by Kidz Treehouse Student Care Centre which involved teachers and students from all of its branches.  It was held at HomeTeamNS Adventure Centre @ Bukit Batok.

On the first day, it was drizzling at the camp site.  Despite the rain and lack of sunshine, the students definitely enjoyed themselves with amusing cheers and ended the day with Zumba!

On the second day, the weather made a total twist.  It was very hot and humid at HomeTeamNS.  Due to the extreme heat, the students once again stayed indoor for other fun activities.  They had a Dance Off Challenge and Jerlene & Javier's team came in third, out of twelve teams.

The children cheered their way through the camp and brought the house down with their enthusiasm!  At the end of the camp, every student received a certificate of participation.

Thanks to the teachers and organizers of Kidz Treehouse Student Care Centre for organizing this camp.  There were several group photos taken but due to PDPA, I cannot post them here.  Glad that both Jerlene and Javier enjoyed the camp.

19 Jun 2018 - Free of tooth space maintainers finally

Three weeks ago, Javier had one of his tooth space maintainers removed by the dentist at School Dental Centre.  Today, the other tooth space maintainer dropped off together with his baby tooth.  After having to live with the space maintainers for more than 2 years, Javier finally is free of them.  Now that his permanent teeth have started growing into the space, his long episode of teeth problems finally comes to an end.  Hopefully he'll take good care of the teeth from now on.  :-)

17 Jun 2018 - Celebrating Father's Day at Cafe 566

We went for a Father's Day Lunch at Cafe 566, a Jungle-Themed Zi Char (Cooked Food) Restaurant in Mandai Estate.  This is a very spacious restaurant and parking is free.  The moment we reached, we found this place very familiar.  Then we realized when we were staying in Woodlands some years back, we used to drive here for a car wash.

Once we got off from our car, we were greeted by a T-Rex at the entrance.

As we walked into the restaurant, more life-sized animals lined up by the side to "welcome" us.

The food here was good and quite economical.  We were all busy eating and forgot about taking pictures of the dishes.  We finally had a photo taken before we left the place.  Happy Father's Day to all the daddies!

16 Jun 2018 - Watching World Cup at Ci Yuan Community Club

World Cup 2018 has just started and all 55 community clubs in Singapore are streaming all the matches LIVE.  While Javier went for his Taekwando class at Ci Yuan CC tonight, I stayed in the air-conditioned auditorium to watch the match between France and Australia.  The auditorium was full housed.  With the big screen on the stage and everyone shouted whenever a goal was scored, it was a totally different atmosphere as compared to watching the match at home with just family members or a few friends.

Anybody wants to make a prediction on which team will emerge as the Champion?  :-)

14 Jun 2018 - Shi Li Fang (食立方) Hot Pot

Few months back, a Taiwanese hotpot restaurant Shi Li Fang (食立方) opens a branch at Hougang 1 Mall, which is just opposite our place.  Whenever we pass by the restaurant during dinner time, there is always a long queue waiting to be seated.  Today, we decided to try it out for lunch when it's not that crowded.  Looking at the portion, we ordered a set for two and a few additional dishes.  Since both Jerlene and Javier do not take spicy food, we ordered two types of non-spicy soups (one is herbal chicken and the other is mushrooms).  Both soups taste GOOD!

The restaurant is full of plush toys and every table got to bring home one as a gift.  Below's key chain is our gift.  It was a great lunch and we spent more than an hour to finish up the food.  As all of us are soup lovers, we refilled our soups several times.

9 Jun 2018 - Will our city view be blocked soon?

The condominium construction next to ours are building up real fast.  There are still one or two more floors to go.  Will our city view be blocked totally by then?  I think we will know within a month's time.  Pray hard........

4 Jun 2018 - 1G or 4G

We came across a FREE mobile plan recently and decided to get it for Jerlene and Javier.  With this plan, each of them will have 1GB of data per month, which is more than sufficient.  We told them that since the data is limited, try to use WiFi whenever possible.

They were so worried that they will exceed the quota and have been very careful with the data usage.
Then came an interesting question from Jerlene.....

Jerlene: What do we use when we are outside without WiFi?
Daddy:  That's when you use your 1GB data.
Jerlene:  What do we connect to in order to use the 1GB data?
Daddy:  Just connect to the 4G network lor.
Jerlene:  But we do not have enough!
Daddy:  What do you mean not enough?
Jerlene:  We only have 1G, how to use 4G?
Daddy:  ............... (followed by a good laugh)

2 Jun 2018 - Merit for Grade 3 Classical Ballet Exam

Jerlene got back her BBO Ballet exam result today.  She had achieved a Merit for her Grade 3 Classical Ballet.  She was slightly disappointed because her target was a distinction.  I told her that it's ok as long as she put in effort during training and tried her best in the exam.  In fact, her teacher said that it'll be more and more difficult to attain distinction as she goes into higher grades.  Below are the comments from her examiner.

Jerlene, do not give up and continue to train hard.  Merit is actually not a bad result and I think you had done well.  I'm sure you will get back your distinction one day with your passion as well as all your hard work put into the practice.  加油!

2 Jun 2018 - Learning Breakfall

As Javier promotes to a more senior rank in his Taekwando class, he starts to learn break-fall, a controlled fall in which most of the impact is absorbed by the arms or legs.  Initially, he was having lots of difficulty doing the front roll properly.  In fact, most of his classmates were having problem, even some black-belts.  However, it got better later on.  It's good that Javier starts to learn such techniques as it'll definitely helps him when he does his National Service in less than 10 years time.  :-)

28 May 2018 - Thanatophobia (Fear of Death)

Has any parent ever experienced a phase where your child suddenly talks to you about death and then starts to breakdown?  Sad to say, it recently happened to Javier.  When he came home from student care centre this evening, he came and told me that he cried in the centre earlier in the day because he was scared of death.  Somehow the thought of death floated into his mind.  He started asking about what will happen when a person dies?  Is there really spirit?  Is Heaven and God real?  Why can't we live forever?  Why life is so short?  What is the purpose of life?  And the questions go on and on.......

There is a term for such fear and it's called Thanatophobia.  According to some website articles, such fear is common for children, especially boy between ages 4 to 8.  I started reading about how to tackle such situation and how best I can help Javier to overcome this fear.

It is really quite challenging, especially when he starts to relate his "scientific" knowledge into the conversation.  All this while, I do share with Jerlene and Javier a lot of general knowledge.  I had mentioned once that the Earth will one day be "eaten up" by our Sun.  Javier has a very good memory and remembers all that I had said.  So he started asking what will happen to human being when Sun "eats up" the Earth......

I'm not sure where he learns about reincarnation and he started asking me about it.  I tell him frankly that it's a belief and no one can prove whether it's real or not.  But I told him that if it'll help him get over the fear by believing that a person will reborn after death, then he should probably think that it's true.  It seems like that helps him a bit and at least he now feels that death may not be the end of everything.  Then came the question, why a person cannot remember anything after reborn.......?

I will monitor his condition for a while before deciding whether he requires professional's help.

27 May 2018 - Relaxing at Austin Heights Resort Jacuzzi

As it was still early when we were back at the hotel, we decided to have some relaxation time at the Jacuzzi, which is free for hotel guests.  As the Jacuzzi pools are separated between male and female, Javier and me went together while Jerlene and mommy went on their own.  It was really relaxing and so comfortable in the warm water.

Based on Jerlene's description of the female Jacuzzi pool, it seems like theirs are much bigger.

This marked the end of our 3 days short trip to JB and we will be checking out tomorrow.  Though this trip was short, it was definitely a fun one.

27 May 2018 - Dinner at Jeju Korea BBQ Restaurant

After a tiring but enjoyable day at Austin Heights Water Park, we decided to have our dinner around the nearby area.  There are lots of restaurants, cafes and food outlets along the whole stretch of shop houses.  We were really spoiled for choices and didn't know what to eat.  In the end, we chose Korean BBQ and went into a restaurant named Jeju.

We ordered pork and chicken sets plus few other dishes.  We did not have to do the "BBQing" ourselves as the waiters were there to help.

We were all very full but that did not stop us from having ice cream after the meal.  By the way, the ice cream is free for every diner.

27 May 2018 - Austin Heights Water Park

Our plan for today was to spend an enjoyable day in Austin Heights Water Park, the highlight of our trip.  The entrance fee was actually not as cheap as we had expected.  Fortunately there was a parent's day online promotion during this period and the admission fee for family of four was reduced from RM332 to RM238.

As usual, the lazy river is one of our favourite in any water park and that's the first station we went to.

One good thing about this water park is that we do not have to queue for any ride!  The entire park was quite empty and we can just go for the ride one after another.

This is the only water park where we managed to try out every single slide.  We had great fun with all the exciting slides until Javier had a minor accident when he fell out of his float and hurt his shoulder.

We took a rest and had our lunch at the cafe in the park.

After lunch, we went back to the lazy river to allow our food to digest a bit before going for more rounds of thrilling slides.  We ended our fun day at the waves pool.

Though the rides at Sentosa Adventure Cove are better, the queue there is horrible as one may need to queue up to 30mins to an hour for a "less than a minute" slide.  Really not worth the time spent queuing.  That's the reason why when we were there, we mainly just go for its Lazy River, Waves Pool and Water Maze.  So for anyone who loves water park but not the queuing part, Austin Heights Water Park is definitely recommended.

We stayed there till the park closed at about 7pm.  Before leaving the place, Jerlene and Javier had a round of Austin Drifts Cart.