Xin Nian Kuai Le

It's been a week of family gatherings, having people over at our place for meals, meeting up with old friends...basically lots of conversations, exchange of stories and angpows, eating, drinking and much laughter.


My brother and his wife hosted the annual family reunion at their home this year. I brought a mixed-vegetables dish and some konyakku jelly while they prepared the rest of the meal. So we had the reunion dinner on Saturday, the day before Chinese New Year eve, so that my family and I could join my parents and brothers for dinner...something that I have not been able to do for many years now since I had to be at my parents-in-law's home for reunion dinner on New Year's eve every year. 

Our first 'lou sang' of the year

My mum-in-law decided that we should have steamboat for our reunion dinner on Chinese New Year eve this year. My duty was to bring extra ladles and buy   some salmon and tomyam paste for the soup while she bought the rest of the steamboat ingredients. I went with SweetTeen to the Giant supermarket nearby where I knew they had pretty fresh salmon slices everyday and to my surprise there was a queue of people buying salmon that day! My mum-in-law bought generous portions of everything and we ate until we were really, really full... and yet there was still leftovers!

My son, CoolTeen, stayed over at my parents-in-law's place so that he could watch the football match between his favourite team Arsenal and some other team which-I-can't-remember-the-name-of because we don't have the sports channel on our TV. So it was pretty quiet back home on the first day of Chinese New Year with just one kid in the house. Went over to my parents-in-law's place for dinner and then off to visit hubby's aunt and her family in Puchong.


The next day we visited my parents and went out to lunch with them. Later in the evening, my older brother and his family plus my cousin brother and his family came over for dinner. The 3 of us - my older brother, my cousin brother (who's older than me by a year) and myself were the best of pals when we were children but now we only meet up once a year, so it was a really fun time catching up with the goings-on in each other's lives.


On the 3rd day of Chinese New Year, hubby invited his administrative staff over for lunch, then it was off to visit a friend in Bukit Jalil. 

Pavlova, brought by one of hubby's staff 
who loves to bake :)

The next day I met up with some of my ex-colleagues and we've known each other since we were single, some 20 odd years ago. These are friends for life...we've been to each other's weddings, celebrated births and attended fullmoon parties, been there to support one through a divorce and now most of our children are teenagers...how time flies!

Our children...how they have grown!

Wishing everyone Xin Nian Kuai Le, may you have good health and prosperity throughout the year!