Chicken Pox

It started with low grade fever on Sunday night and Debbie complained of itch. We were not suspecting anything serious... Probably because of the swimmig in the afternoon. The following day, there were blisters on her body! Chicken pox! And a few had burst :)

Debbie did not take the vaccine. However, the doctor prescribed anti-viral medication which will shorten the outbreak period from 14-21 days to 10-14 days. But the medication costs $125 a bottle, to be taken 5 times a day for 5 days.

With anti-itch med and calamine lotion, the spots started to dry up and no more new ones appearing after 4 days.

Debbie

Denise, on the other hand, took the vaccine which cost about $70 per dose from polyclinic or $70 - $100 from private clinic. She only had 2 spots on her back :)

Denise

Well, 2 different options and 2 different outcomes :) Which will you choose?

More information on Chicken Pox here

W30 - Our Pride, Our Joy!

I always pride myself in leading a CG of young parents who are totally on fire for God. Many of them are without a domestic helper at home and many of the mothers are stay-at-home mums with one to three kids. Every week, without fail, they would bring their children to CG at Sengkang. Majority of the group stay in Sengkang, Pasir Ris, Tampines and Bedok area. However, I have to commend those that stay in Toa Payoh, Holland and even Jurong that come every week! So, how many children do we have?

22 in this picture taken during 22th Annivesary! (From top left clockwise: Jayden, Ivan, Joseph, Beatrice, Koen, Debbie, Christal, Ethan, Kellyn, Joshua, Khai, Kenneth, Seifer, Denise, Nicole, Valena, Valora, Jayvier, Le En, Le Xuan, Khen, Shiyr)

17 more not in this picture :) (Keshawn, Eunice, Vera, Sheralyn, Zoe, Livie, Le Jie, Leonidas, Tristan, Shmuel, Jayson, Jotham, Lenny, Linus, Daniel, Naomi & Isabel)

Special thanks to Teacher Anson for coming every week to help us conduct lessons for the children so that we, the parents, could have our CG!

Million thanks to host Brian and Iris for opening your house for us! Sorry for the mess that we often leave behind after CG :) We are waiting for Brian to upgrade to a bunglow so that we can have more space....:p

W30 - Truly a CG that is fruitful, multiplying, filling the earth and subduing it (Gen 1:28)

SK2 - Serve & Knit 2gether

Block Party @ French Road

Inspired by Ministry Weekend, the cellgroup was looking for opportunity to serve together as a CG.
In September, we volunteered in a block party organized by the Dialect church. The entire CG, with the kids, had a good time singing and eating mooncakes with the elderly. It was fun serving together.

In October, we wanted to contribute towards Children's Church and volunteered to help them wrap Children's Day presents. Meiling and Sally collected the presents and wrappers from JW and the entire CG came together to wrap close to 1,000 presents :) It sure felt like factory production in CG that week :)

Denise and Debbie also helped :)

Surely a CG that serves together, knits together. A CG that wraps together, knits together too!

Kidswift

Was introduced to Kidswift by San. Received my first DVD for Debbie.

Starting from $11.99 per month, you can enjoy unlimited rental of Children Educational DVD.

- Create an account
- Pick your DVDs; create a wishlist
- Receive DVD by post
- Watch it
- Return it
- Wait for the next one to arrive

It's that simple :)

A Movie Date With The Smurfs

Last Sunday, we brought the kids to watch Smurf - The Movie at Orchard Cineleisure. After which, we waited till 7pm to take photos with the Smurfs :)

Good thing we noticed that a queue was already forming at 630pm. We joined the queue and even managed to take a huge group photo with our friends!

Starting Sep 8, my "job" would be to collect the Smurf figurines from MacDonads!

These are just some crazy things we, the parents, will do for our kids.... or for ourselves :)

Paint A Smurf @ Northpoint

Denise and Debbie attended a Smurf event by Fraser Centrepoint Malls.

Every kid was given a plastic Smurf, a box of acrylic paint and a paint brush.

The kid had 30mins to paint their own Smurf.

The kids had a lot fun painting, with the adult's help :)

These were Denise and Debbie's completed product ;)

Every family went home with a goodie bag, containing a Smurf magnetic game board, 8 Smurf character magnets and a box of Oreo :)

Thanks, San, once again for the invitation to the event!

If you want to catch the Smurf, do check out the Smurf on Tour schedule at Fraser Centrepoint Malls website.

A Date With The Smurfs

This is like (almost!) striking lottery... Thanks to San; my kids will be attending a Smurf event this Saturday! Just in time for their movie-outing on Sunday.

Not sure who's more excited; them or me...:)

Yumz @ Indonesia

Food had always been THE highlight of every trip that we made.

Lufthansa served light snack on our flights to Singapore-Jakarta while Garuda served Nasi Goreng on our Jakarta-Bali flights. Food is one of the reasons why I do not fly budget :)

We stayed in Aston Marina Jakarta because it was near to our friend's house. In Bali, we stayed in InterContinental Bali Resort. InterCon is popular for the wide spread at Breakfast Buffet. We stayed in the Singaraja Wing. Additional benefits of accommodation in the Singaraja category include a dedicated Reception serving complimentary tea, coffee, fruit and cookies as well as featuring a well stocked library of DVDs, boardgames and reading materials.

Our first meal in Jakarta was a sumptuous and fresh seafood dinner.

Our friend bought us local Nasi Lemak for breakfast.

We had Mee Bakso for dinner. Our friend brought us to a store favored by the locals. You add soya sauce and vinegar to your noodle, or like me, simply eat it as it was served.

We had Indonesian durians and Jakarta "Martabak" as supper. We bought both the savoury and sweet ones. The savoury one was like those murtabak that we ate from our India stores; but it was many times tastier! If you choose peanut fillings, the sweet one would taste like "mee cham kueh". However, many many many times tastier! We ordered half chocolate and half peanut; the generous fillings was simply unforgetable!!!

In Bali, our friends brought us to Naughty Nuri's for wicked ribs! Verdict? "I used to think that Tony Romas have the best ribs" :)

A must-try in Bali was babi-guling. Our friend bought us the "traditional" version of it. Yumz!!!

On our previous trip, we visited Made's Warung at Kuta. This trip we visited the one at Seminyak. Seen here, Nasi Campur and Gado Gado :)

We had seafood supper at Jimbaran. Beachside seafood restaurants :) Travelling with our Indonesia friends was an added advantage! They knew where to go for the best food; for both tourist and locals and we felt safe that we would not be charged a higher "tourist" fee :)

In conclusion, I cannot wait for my next Bali trip :)

Kidzania, Jakarta

KIDZANIA is a unique EDUTAINMENT CENTER for children between 4 to 16 years old and their parents. It is a kid-sized replica of a real city, with streets, buildings, retail and different vehicles going around the City. Here, children play adult roles and learn how to be a doctor, a pilot, a construction worker, a private detective, an archeologist, an F1 driver and over 100 other PROFESSIONS and OCCUPATIONS.

Kidzania has it’s own economy; ‘Kidzo’ is the legal currency. Each time you visit Kidzania, you will receive a 50 kidzos check. Once inside, you must go to the bank, cash your check and use your money to buy goods and services such as: rent car or a boat, get a hair-do at the beauty salon, or shop at KidZania Department Store for instance.

Kidzos are not for sale with real money, if you spend all your kidzos or if you want to earn more, you must get a job and work to provide a product or service such as firefighter, dentist, hairdresser, or constructor, or choose among many different professions. At every activity you may spend or earn kidzos. For example: at the Ice Cream Factory you can earn money, while at the Pizza Restaurant you can spend them.

If you want to save Kidzos and manage your credit balance, you can open a savings account at the bank. These were what the kids did at Kidzania on our recent trip to Jakarta!

Kids getting their wristbands and Kidzos. Ready to "work" so that they can "earn" and "spend".
First stop, get a Kidzania driving licence. Then quickly start work in a Milk Factory, where children learn how to manufacture milk.
Next stop, the Ice Cream Factory. Here, children will learn the process of making popsicles and prepare their own popsicles. They have the freedom to choose the flavour they like best for their popsicles.
The next few hours, they performed Justin Beiber's "Eenie Meene" in a disco, learnt to fly a plane using a flight simulator , drove a car and baked cupcakes...
While the older kids went to be delivery women and painters, Debbie became a packer in a minimart and a nurse in a nursery. She did activities such as
bath the baby, dry the baby, give powder to the baby, scale and measure the baby length, dress
up the baby and lullaby the baby.
With the money earned, the kids opened a Kidzania bank account that came with a "real" ATM card. Children could withdraw Kidzos from a "real" ATM machine :)

This place has become a "must-visit" for our children!

A Night of Star

The entire family was out to support Denise in her first dance performance in school. Every year, Fairfield showcased their Aesthetic Club with a night of performance. This year, the event was held at NUS - University Cultural Centre.

After every club had performed, the P4's put up a musical "Table of Five Thousands". The teachers wrote the script, songs and directed the musical. The entire hall sang "Amazing Grace" during the finale.

That's our "STAR"!

What an awesome night! Like what JX says "Arts is good for the soul"

Birthday Celebration Continues...

Debbie celebrated Part 2 of her birthday in school. Simple affair - Dora cake with nuggets, Dora plates, napkins, fun picks and goodie bags :)

No bouncy castle, magician, balloon sculpture, face-painting, clowns.... Yes, just something simple :)

Happy 4th Birthday Debbie!

Finally she turned 4! Debbie picked the theme and chose her guests.

Dora! I bought Dora cupcake stand, Dora loot bag, Dora paper plates, Dora napkins, Dora fun picks and printed Dora invitation cards for her classmates. Thank you, Aunty Jenny, for the beautiful and delicious cupcakes that sat so nicely on the stand. (if anyone wants to borrow the stand for your gal's birthday, please let me know)

She named her guests one by one. She was very specific in who she wanted to invite. One mother asked me if I was really going to let her decide... I told her "it's her party" :)

Thank you everyone for your generosity! Your presence and presents made her day. Some of her remarks were "Oh, I always wanted this!", "Oh my goodness!" and "Wah.... I like this!".

Holiday to Phuket (June 2011)

Silkair MI754 - we were ready to fly to Phuket at the invitation of the Ho's.

The best part about flying non-budget is the food :) It is always something that I looked forward to.

Even though it may not be the most fantastic. From the smiles of the kids, you know that they were enjoying every bit of it!

We stayed at Marriott Vacation Club, Mai Khao. Some people advised against it and told me that it would be far. However it turned out to be ideal for us. It is near to the airport and 45mins away from Patong, supposedly the "happening" place in Phuket. It was a great choice because it was near to the places that we wanted to go :) And the environment was definitely quieter and cosier than Patong.

4 adults and 5 children checked into a 125sqm, 2 bedroom villa!

The villa was clean and the place was fully-equipped like what home would be.

Kitchen, with all sorts of appliances, laundry area with washer and dry (detergent included) and prompt housekeeping services...

Breakfast not included, but who needs breakfast when there was a supermarket just at the door step of the hotel at Turtle Village, a fully-equipped kitchen and our very own chef, Debra :) Every morning, she would prepare an All-American breakfast for us!

Day 1: Explore hotel and Turtle Village, a little mall beside the hotel. Shopping started at Esprit Outlet, tucked at a corner of Turtle Village. We had cheap and nice Thai food at The Coffee Club

Day 2: Day-trip to Patong. Driver was nice to stop-over at Premium Outlet for us to get a quick bite and to do a speedy 30min shopping :)

We had 4 free adult tickets to Fantasea - the Ultimate Nighttime Cultural Theme Park. Our tickets included a buffet dinner in a SUPER HUGE dining hall and a 1.5hr cultural and elephant show.

Children got to ride on the elephant. The place opens at 6.30pm and the whole place brightens up at night.

Day 3: Visit to Splash Jungle Water Park - like the Wild Wild Wet in Singapore. Whole day of water play.

In the evening, we went back to Premium Outlet for more shopping! 30mins was definitely not enough... :)

At night, driver drove us to Thanoon at Sunset Beach for cheap and yummy seafood! We had crab, fish, squid, tom yam soup with prawns and many more...for less than S$100.

Day 4: Visit to Mai Khao Beach. The red flag was up and the waves were huge! Heard many horrid stories of people being dragged by the waves, we were cautious not to go near the sea.

However, the kids were all excited to just catch the waves at their feet.

21:05 - Landed! Home Sweet Home.