Christmas in Office 2009

Christmas came a little earlier this year in office. As we close from 24 Dec onwards, 23 Dec became the new Christmas eve. That day, everyone was in a party mood, giving and receiving gifts from each other. My department also went out for lunch at this Japanese restaurant at Turf City that serves ala carte buffet. We had our fill then headed back to office around 3pm. By that time, most of the other departments more or less declared an 'unofficial' off work timing. People started to clear out of the office slowly and by 5pm, most have left. We're all off for a long break and will be back to work on 4 Jan 2010!

Lunching at the Japanese restaurant - Anthea, myself and Amelia

Lee Lian & Wendy (The rest had not arrived yet and we forgot to take more photos after this as we were all busy eating!)

Just some of the starting food we ordered

Back in office, just a quick shot of some of my gifts

My team and I posing with the cute bears given by one of the Sales Group

My boss joins us too :)

Christmas at Orchard Road 2009

We headed down to Orchard Road one of the weekday evenings before it was Christmas just to soak in the atmosphere a bit and take some photos of the decor this year. We had our little family dinner at a Hokkaido Ramen restaurant in Ion Orchard, then started our walk down. With Kendrick in toll, we didn't venture too far down actually. Ha Ha. As it was also rather crowded, we ended our photo taking around Mandarin Hotel area. This year, I would say that I only like the big Christmas tree outside ION Orchard.

These are the highlights of some of the photos we took....

Kendrick and Papa

Kendrick and Mummy

The big Christmas Tree outside ION Orchard

The interesting lights inside the huge tree. The actual effect is actually very nice bright lights and when you look up, feels like you are looking at some galaxy or something!

Lots of reindeer line the streets of Orchard Road. This is just one of the shots we took

Family shot

Christmas tree made of Ferrero chocolates outside Ngee Ann City

View from Isetan Scotts with ION Orchard in the background

Michelle's Baby Girl First Month Celebration

We attended Michelle's Baby Girl's First Month celebration last Sunday. It was certainly a happy occasion to see my good old friend having her first daughter...welcome to Motherhood!! Since it's a girl, maybe next time Kendrick can hang out with little Evangeline too ya... :P

Catching up with Michelle & Serene

Catching up with Jeanette & June too!

Ivy and Mother's Birthday Celebration

We celebrated Ivy and Mother's birthday last week by having dinner together at home. Mother cooked some great food, including really fresh fish steamboat. After a nice meal together, it was cake cutting time and Kendrick was really looking forward :) He was able to sing Happy Birthday a lot better now so it was really cute to hear him sing along with us all.

Cheerful Kendrick with his Xiao Gu and Ah Ma

Kendrick looks on as they blow out the candle

Kendrick joins in the cake cutting

Happy Birthday to the 2 ladies born on the same day!

Chris Poh & Ling Sui's Wedding (25 Oct 2009)

We brought Kendrick along to attend Chris Poh & Ling Sui's wedding lunch recently in October. Well, it was certainly an experience as Kendrick misbehaved at certain points. Before the wedding started, he was already getting grouchy and kept wanting to go outside of the banquet room. After calming him down, he settled in but every now and then, we had to take turns bringing him in and out of the banquet room. Not the best way to enjoy your meal, but no choice! In fact, those of us who brought our kids were certainly busy with our own little ones every now and then. Amazingly, Kendrick managed to sustain through the lunch without falling asleep. But the moment we left for home in the car, he was snoozing all the way :)

On the way to the wedding, looking bright and fresh!

A photo with the wedding couple!

Kendrick makes friends with Kaifeng's daughter, Clare

A family shot at the end of the luncheon

My Mother's Birthday

We had a little celebration of my Mother's birthday a few weeks back by surprising her with a cake. Kendrick was really excited when he saw the birthday cake and candle and he was all ready to clap his hands. At this stage, Kendrick has learnt to say 'Happy Birthday To You'. So after we sang one round of the birthday song, we tried to get Kendrick to sing too and he managed to do so very softly. Ha ha. Guess he was kinda shy :P

Gathering at my place (22 Aug 2009)

Last Saturday I organised a gathering at my home with some of my good friends from Secondary school. We had a mini pot luck lunch and took this time to catch up with each other. Michelle is expecting her first baby and will be due in October. So at least we got to meet up before she delivers! Kendrick also had his fair share of fun playing with Michelle's hubby, Uncle Cyril who became his 'new best friend' for the afternoon. In fact, Kendrick actually preferred playing with his Papa and the uncles. He was even willing to give them a hug and not the Aunties! Ha ha..thought that was quite funny :)

Playing Lego with Uncle Cyril

Jeanette, Michelle and I

Kendrick lies down and says 'shui jiao'

The Guys

The Gals and Kendrick

Group shot!

Gathering

During the recent Labour Day public holiday, I met up with June, Andrea, Karen and their babies and hubbies. June suggested this gathering since we've all not met up for some time. So we headed to Marche at Vivocity and that day, the restaurant was really full of families with their kids. Even the section where we sat, 2 other tables were also families with their babies or toddlers. At some point, it got really noisy with all the kids making lots of noise!

For me, it was the first time meeting up Andrea since she gave birth and her daughter was really chubby and cute! Karen's baby boy, Jonah was not feeling too well that day, so they eventually left earlier and we did not manage to get a photo with them. As for Kendrick, he was quite well-behaved that afternoon even though he missed his morning nap. It was only after some time that he wanted to get active and walk about :)

Andrea and Baby Natalie, Me and Kendrick

Andrea, June and me with Baby Natalie and Kendrick

Group shot with our hubbies! Baby Natalie was really interested in looking at June...hahaa..

Celebrating my birthday - Part 2

On my actual birthday, Dear and I were on leave. In the morning half, we wanted to spend some time with Kendrick and in the end, we decided to all go for a hair cut followed by a simple lunch. We shopped around for a short while then eventually sent Kendrick to my parents-in-law home for the afternoon. Dear and I then got ready to head to the photo studio to take a photo for our IC renewal. Yup, at this age, it's time to change our ICs!! Took the opportunity to do a simple makeover for taking both a corporate shot and my IC shot by signing up for the package.

Finally, in the evening, we headed to town to shop for a while before having our delicious dinner at Angus Steakhouse. It's the first time there for both of us so we were eagerly looking forward to really good steak after reading the reviews online. Well, our verdict by the end of the meal is...the steak was FANTASTIC!! Expensive....but tasted really superb compared to all the steaks I've eaten so far. Haha....We were really relishing on every piece of meat that we ate up till the very last piece!!

Seated at Angus Steakhouse (Ngee Ann City) and posing with my present :)

This is the appetiser, which I already forgotten what's the name of it, but it tasted just right. I believe it was a piece of fish topped with caviar and some broccoli at the bottom

Mushroom soup was lovely...very 'mushroomy' indeed

I wouldn't say much of the salad though. It was very simple and plain indeed

Here comes our steak!! Dear had this tenderloin grill..very very yummy and done just nice to what we ordered

And that's us plus my very expensive wagyu grilled rib-eye steak...it really melts in your mouth! Not tough at all and the taste of the meat is really juicy! Once in a long long time, you just have to indulge a bit :)

Finally, our tiramisu desert which was a nice and sweet end to our lovely meal

Certainly enjoyed this meal at Angus Steakhouse and just want to thank my hubby for all his love and treats for my birthday! :)

Celebrating my birthday - Part 1

Celebrated my birthday with the family a few days earlier and Dear Dear bought me this cake from Pine Garden. Quite a nice tasting cake that was Bailey's flavoured. This year, Kendrick is bigger already so he knows how to clap his hands when we sing the birthday song :)

Then just 1 day before my actual birthday, Dear Dear bought me cheese cake from Hilton hotel as a surprise! The marble cheese cake tasted pretty rich and tasted great. It's been a long time since I had cheese cake and this really made my day :)

Celebrating Dear's Birthday

We celebrated Dear's birthday recently this week by taking time off from work to chill out and do some stuff together. In the morning, we bathed Kendrick and played with him for a short while before dropping him off at my in-laws place. After that, Dear and I headed to sing Karaoke at KBox's Lunch special. We have not gone Karaoke for a really long time so it was quite fun after all. When we were done, we also took the opportunity to settle some insurance matters for Kendrick. Dinner was meant to be a surprise location for Dear Dear. I found this place by chance and read some reviews of it online, so decided to try it out. It's probably not a place we will go back often, but more for special occasion celebrations.

Anyway, that place is Tao's Restaurant located at POMO Centre (formerly known as Paradiz Centre) at Selegie Rd. Quite a nice restaurant tucked in a place where we would hardly go! Anyway, Tao's serves modern pacific cuisine and the unique thing about this place is its set menu concept of "One Price, One Menu, Many Selections". Their creative cuisine are all served on 'Tao Ci' (pottery plates).

I must say the service is really good. They really take care of your comfort, fill up your drinks and clear your plates very on time! Haha...a little bit over-zealous I felt. They really could give us a bit more space you know... But the food itself was pretty good too. I loved the Ice Rose Apple Tea....so tasty to drink!! We really enjoyed our hearty meal and time spent together...but by the end of dinner, we both missed Kendrick, so off we went to bring him home :) Anyway, Happy Birthday to my Dear hubby...hope he enjoyed the day and my present for him :)

They started off by giving us this ice cold strawberry blended drink to whet up our appetite

This was followed by the fixed starter - Bacon and Mushroom gratin. It goes with lightly toasted bread and this cheesy starter is really yummy!

Salad comes next and we ordered prawn roll with pork floss and farm boy splendour. The Grilled mushroom shown below was part of the fixed selection

Then we had our soups - Cream of Mushroom soup for Dear and Cream of Pumpkin soup for me. Both tasted great!

This is the beverage I was talking about. Ice Rose Apple Tea...it's a really refreshing drink! Here comes our Main Entrees - I ordered Tao's oven roasted steak while Dear had the Marinated lamb cutlet. Both are highly recommended. I loved the steak as it was really done medium and mouth-watering. I guess I'm a steak person so I truly enjoyed this entree. The lamb surprisingly tasted good too. Not as 'sao' as most times lamb meat is...

A shot together before we start eating :)
Finally, we end with dessert - green tea cheese cake for the man and creme brulee for the woman