Valentine's Day : - )

We had a simple V-day celebration again this year.Yesterday, Dear and I cooked our dinner together, just like last year. This time, we specially chose to prepare our dishes from a Spanish cook book that we have - chicken thigh in garlic sauce and also garlic sautee cauliflower! Haha..sounds like quite a bit of garlic, but it actually tastes not bad! Part of it included mixing some white wine to create the taste. Love it! :)

Just a week more to Chinese New Year

Generally, this week has been quite relaxing. We went shopping a few times especially over the last few days to get some last minute stuff. It was also a tiring weekend as we really got down to packing our rooms and throwing away lots of rubbish! We also took time to do up our hair and more shopping! Quite a packed weekend indeed.

Of the many things we bought, we are very pleased with our latest addition - our new orchid! Check out our 'seasonal corner' too with our Chinese New Year decor :P

We also celebrated Dear's birthday in advance with his family...here they are cutting cake at our home. Can you spot a 'special guest' we had?? :P Anywayz, will be planning some stuff for Dear on his actual birthday really really soon... ;)

More Birthdays

This week, we celebrated 2 more birthdays. The first was my Dad's, where we had nice meal with my parents.

Then on Sunday, it was Dear's Grandma birthday. Their relatives booked a chalet at Loyang. It's been really long time since I've been there. I still remember when I was young, my family stayed there before too. It's where each unit is a big bungalow like place with 4 bedrooms and the bbq area just behind, faces the pool.

We took a short walk by the beach and also found someone who left their rabbits out on display! Cute little animals. Reminded me of Peter Rabbit, the character created by Beatrix Potter in her childrens' books. Haha, this came to mind only because we just caught the movie, Miss Potter on Saturday :P

Here's Dear Dear's Grandma and her big 'shou tau' cake!

And finally the Family Photo

Chinatown and a New Cabinet!

We headed down to Chinatown for a walk and to get into the feel of Chinese New Year just a few days ago. Although we did not buy much (we just got a few decor pieces to decorate up the home a bit ), it was still a nice feeling to walk through the streets, seeing how every stall more or less sells the same old stuff..haha.. Yupz...it's just 2 more weeks to Chinese New Year again! I'm half looking forward to it, partly because it's public holidays so no need to work. Which leads me to another point that just came to my mind...lots of movies opening in the next 2 weeks that are worth catching! He He...

The typical 'La Wei' stall selling the stuff you usually eat during Chinese New Year period...

And us in the crowded street

We also bought a new display cabinet last week and this week, it arrived in our home! Quite happy with this buy as we were considering such a cabinet to display some of our stuff...especially Dear's precious Gundam :) Still waiting for him to fix up the one I bought him :)

Celebrating my Grandmother's Birthday

My family celebrated my maternal grandma's birthday last evening with a specially arranged dinner in a private room at a club. Another family gathering time which I enjoyed. The food was great..and amidst the yummy dishes, we also belted out a few songs on the karaoke system they had in the room. Quite like some of the latest Jay Chou songs once again...I must say that his songs really do sound very similar but still cool!

Anyway, here are a few more pictures....

Family Portrait

Of packing and cooking...

Over the weekend we started to pack up our home a little. I guess you can consider this the start of our 'spring cleaning' before the Lunar New Year! Besides our usual weekly cleaning of our home, we were just packing up our wardrobe a bit so that it is less messy. Yes...throughout the course of the year, the home can get quite untidy indeed! Just putting some of our stuff into boxes which we bought from IKEA and Courts...

Another thing that we have started doing is to cook our own dinner on Mondays...well, we only started 2 weeks, and I can't be certain how long this will last, but it has been pretty fun so far :) It kinda gives you a little something to look forward to after work. Although technically speaking, Dear is the one really cooking, but I have certainly been helping with the food preparation and cooking parts of it like the beef bolognese sauce..hahah....

This weekend...

....did up my hair and also attended my jc classmate's wedding dinner. Not quite used to my new hairdo...hope it's not that bad?! Haha...

Anywayz, glad to see my ex-classmate get married. Quite an interesting background to her love story. Turns out that she and her hubby had a long distance relationship for many years before finally surviving through it all to settle down together. How many people are able to make such relationships last? To stand the test of time and distance...

Not a lot of my classmates turned up, so here's some of them:

Our 1st Wedding Anniversary... :- )

Now, for the thing worth celebrating as I mentioned in my last entry...it's our 1st year wedding anniversary on 8 Jan!

The day at work was quite ok for me, not too stressed on a Monday. My sweet surprise came around 11 plus in the morning. Got a call from the receptionist that I have a bouquet of flowers. It may seem cliche, but I'm certainly touched by what my dear hubby did :) He gave me a lovely big bouquet of pink tulips. It's the first time I received tulips too as last time he used to get me mainly roses. :) Well, guess that really brightened my day! Took a picture with it back at home...

After work, we came home early to prepare our anniversary meal. It was quite fun as usual when both of us get down to cooking up our meal. I think Dear Dear is really quite an improved cook...he certainly can cook steak that's for one! As for me...I helped as much as I could too! Anyway, we were famished and really enjoyed our food. For both of us, it's really the quality time spent doing things together that we appreciate and cherish.

Thinking back on how our wedding day had been 1 year ago, we are really thankful for our friends and family that really helped to make it a special day. Anyway, Cheers to many more years of love and happiness!!

Sweet Sixteen

This week at work was felt good mainly due to the long weekend earlier resulting in only 3 days of work. Starting to indicate dates with the '07 number still needs a bit of getting used to! Ha Ha.. Met up with some ex-colleagues this week, as well as attended one ex-colleague's wedding dinner. It was really a good time to catch up with many old friends. Quite amazing to see so many of my ex-bosses and ex-colleagues there.

Over the weekend, Dear and I had quite a relaxed and easy-going time. I guess the main activity was my cousin's Sweet Sixteen birthday celebration. She held a bbq session with her school friends plus our family members. It's been quite some time since I attended a bbq session, so there we were helping out. My aunt over-catered and by the time the night was over, we were really quite full but still helped to 'ta bao' some food back! I think my cousin is really fortunate to have us family members...coz we ended up being the main ones bbqing the food while the youngsters just ate and chatted away! Nevertheless, here's some photos to share...

Dear helping out to get the fire going...and here's the flaming charcoal...

Us and the birthday gal...

The cousins...

This birthday celebration is the beginning of a few more to go..Renee, Granny, Dad all coming up soon! Coupled with wedding dinners to attend next week and early Feb...omigosh...quite a heavy expenditure month!! Anywayz, it's also a time to celebrate and be happy I guess. Ok, now for another full week ahead at work...plus something worth celebrating.... ; )

Happy New Year, it's 2007

Happy New Year to all! Can you believe it, we are already in year 2007. How time flies! 2006 has indeed been a year to remember...with lots of things happening for me and Dear, be it choices we have to make, places we went, things we did, etc. Most important of all, we got married this year, and till now, we are enjoying our married life very much :)

Really appreciate the long weekend break! Managed to meet up with some friends and also watched quite a few movies - Night at the Museum, Curse of the Golden Flower, Death Note 1 & 2. The last show is really quite an interesting and witty show..I'm now reading the comic to find out more about the original story...

Anyway, below is a picture of our pre-New Year's eve gathering with NUS friends. We had dinner at Marina Sq and interestingly, we all sat in a very 'SDU' style. Haha.. guys one side, gals one side. Anyway, a few of them will be having their customary weddings this year...so more wedding dinners for Dear and me to attend!

On New Year's eve, it was quite a simple affair. Dad & Mum booked a hotel room at M Hotel and we joined them for steamboat buffet dinner there.

We rested in the hotel suite and at about 10plus, we headed down to Esplanade area to catch the fireworks. It was crowded as usual, but we managed to grab a spot and waited around half hour before it was 12mn and fireworks away!! Quite a lovely sight, especially the finale part :) So happy to see fireworks again...:)

Well, with a bit more shopping (spent money again!) and eating, that about wraps up the long weekend break! May 2007 be a blessed and fruitful year to all!