Family Day 2011

Our shadows on the beach, that's me on the left taking the picture. Hubby is next to me, followed by Sweet Teen and CoolTeen.

Went down to Port Dickson on Saturday for hubby's company's Family Day. This time we stayed at the Casa Rachardo Beach Resort. The last time I stayed there was 5 years ago and I remember that it was such a colourful place with the interior of each apartment looking like a tadika as each wall would be a different colour and the furniture was in bright hues.

Looks like nothing much has changed since then...still the same colourful interior and exterior. The exterior walls of the building is a very loud yellow, visible from far away!

I wasn't looking forward to the trip at all as I was told that there would be telematches in the afternoon and a barbecue dinner at the poolside, me preferring the indoors to getting toasted in this scorching heatwave. But the games were simple challenges requiring some strategy and teamwork, and even my 2 kids joined in the fun. Our team emerged champion out of 5 teams :)

Our hamper prize for being champions

The theme for the barbecue was black and red, and thinking of casual comfort hubby and CoolTeen wore jeans with black striped T-shirts while Sweet Teen and I wore matching red striped T-shirts. When we reached the poolside we realised that most people were dressed in formal wear....and I felt that we looked rather odd dressed so casually! There were the customary welcome speeches followed by dinner and lots of karaoke singing plus a few lucky draw sessions in between...and of course we did not win any of the prizes for the best-dressed husband/wife/son/daughter but at least we won 5 KFC meal vouchers in the lucky draw :)

Spent time chatting and getting to know some of the staff and their spouses better. It was an enjoyable time after all, although I missed our main church's 30th anniversary celebration which was held on the exact same day as the Family Day :(




I didn't dare sit under that tree...at least not without a helmet!



PreTeen Is Now SweetTeen

Miss PreTeen celebrated her 13th birthday yesterday, so now I am officially a mom of 2 teenage children...makes me sound kind of old, huh? And because PreTeen is no longer a pre-teen, I will now refer to her as SweetTeen. I was contemplating PrettyTeen but she commented that it had too many syllables and I suppose it just doesn't roll off the tongue as easily as SweetTeen.

Took Miss SweetTeen out for lunch on Sunday at Susan's Bistro, a cosy little Italian restaurant in Bandar Mahkota Cheras and later brought cupcakes to church for a simple celebration with her friends in the Youth Fellowship.

We also had the mandatory cake cutting ritual at home yesterday, the actual date of her birthday. She is so glad to finally be referred to as a teenager. I remember when I was around 12 or 13 that I had wanted to grow up quickly because it was always more fun to hang out with the older teenagers than with people my own age...and when I was in college I looked forward to joining the workforce. I suppose the grass always seems greener on the other side of the fence.



Tried my hand at making a piano cake

After adding the candles,
which coincidentally equals to 13 letters!

Now that I have lived for a little over 4 decades, I am happy where I am. If I could, would I change any part of how I have lived my life up to this point? Probably not, because the experiences that I have gone through, both good and bad, have helped to make me who I am today. I read this quote in a Christian devotional book that I use with my Bible reading - Life is not made by the dreams that you dream but by the choices that you make.

Speaking of various phases in life, during Chinese New Year as I visited relatives I made this amusing observation...the teenagers would talk about the latest electronic gadgets, people around my age (siblings and cousins) would talk about travel and places to visit as my mom and her generation of relatives exchanged news about cataract operations and other kinds of surgery to repair parts of their body!

Curly Or Straight?

Went to the Mines Shopping Mall and came across a mini curling iron for the hair. I have been having bad hair days very frequently since my hairdresser chopped off my long hair till just about the shoulders even though I had specifically instructed her to leave my hair a little below the shoulder level.

So I figured that a curling iron was just what I needed to tame my locks and the price was too irresistable at RM70.

Trying it for the first time at home, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the curling iron is quite easy to use and it only took about 10 minutes for me to liven up my hairstyle with some curls! (big smiles) Got some tips from YouTube on how to use the iron properly...these days we can learn just about anything from YouTube!
Feels great to be able to switch between straight hair or curly hair as the curls are not permanent. Some days I can just leave my hair straight and other days I could use my little curling iron.


Mini curling iron - only slightly longer than a ball point pen

We women love variety. As Martin Luther once said - The hair is the richest ornament of women. Yup.

Too Safe

Have you ever kept something important in a safe place so that you wouldn't lose it, and then when you need it you realise you can't remember where you've kept it?

I have...many times.

So I had a good chuckle when I saw this comic strip in the newspapers the other day...my apologies for the lack of sharpness in the pictures, I snapped a photo of the comic strip with my phone and uploaded it instead of using the scanner.

I suppose being absent-minded is a sign that either we're too busy or we're getting old...!

Egg Standing On End

My friend MK sent me an sms to tell me that she managed to get a few eggs standing on end, and it only happens on February 4th each year. I tried it without any success at first, but after keeping at it for a few minutes this is the result.....tadaa!