School Is Out, Monopoly Is In

School is officially over. Summer holiday has begun. The kids look so much less stressed out and look happier and free....

Sunday afternoon -after a big lunch- the kids took out the Monopoly game and played....

Seeing The New Gate...

I arrived way too early for my appointment at the hospital near the Botanic Gardens and decided to pay a little visit to the gardens. I have been there before, with my family, with the school and when we had some visitors in town.

It is so handy to go because there's no admission fee, one can come anytime when it is open. The gardens are really well maintained and pleasant to see. People come here for all sort of reasons, including jogging, listening to some live music, partying, exercising, etc.

I passed by so many times and had always been wanting to go there to see the new main gate that is decorated with flowers and foliage motifs. I had a few minutes to explore around and took some pictures and it was time for me to go. I hope to return there again someday, to see much more of the inside.

Oatmeal Cranberry Squares

I love oatmeal and I love cranberry and this is a snack that incorporates both. As a bonus, I also get to have my almonds in there too ...

Recipe is adapted from Martha Stewart. The original recipe is here.



The recipe that I used is:

Ingredients
Makes 24
• 4 cups Oatmeal
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup packed dark-brown sugar
• 1 cup chopped almond
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 cups melted unsalted butter
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 2 cups dried cranberries
• Zest of 1 lemon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• Nonstick cooking spray

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. In a large bowl, put in oatmeal, flour, sugar, almonds, baking soda, and salt; stir to combine. Add melted butter and vanilla and stir to incorporate; set aside.

3. In a small saucepan, combine cranberries, 1/2 cup water, lemon zest, and cinnamon. Bring to a boil over medium heat, and immediately reduce heat to a simmer; continue cooking for 2 minutes.
Let cool slightly and mash the cranberries using a small blender or food processor.

4. Butter a 9-by-13-inch baking dish. Transfer half the oat mixture to baking dish and press down, using your hands, to form an even layer. Spread cranberry mixture over oat layer and top with remaining oat mixture, pressing down to form an even layer.

5. Bake until golden brown, 35 to 45 minutes. Let cool completely before cutting into 2-inch squares.

Temporary Insanity

I had no idea what I was thinking, I said yes when when my family suggested that we should order the large size of Pizza - 21"pizza along with some other dishes that we also asked individually and for sharing. While waiting I started to think and visualized the size. 21 inch-pizza is huge and the five of us are not that huge eater. But, 1) it's argued that we shared the pizza and 2) the order had been placed. I was waiting anxiously to see the pizza and contemplated to make ourselves feel better by saying, "We can always bring home the unfinished portion....."

I was in fear to see it coming. When it came, we witnessed the largest pizza we have ever ordered! By the time the pizza came, many of us had our salad, tasted some bread and pasta and cod fish. I also had some French Fries (guilty!). We took home nearly half of the uneaten pizza.

We went back home and cut K's birthday cake. Everyone of us had some, only the size that varied. Diet really needs to start soon before the bathroom scale explodes!!!!

Quiet ...

There were no cars in sight. They were likely held back by the traffic light. Napier Road from an overhead bridge one Thursday morning.

13

A year ago, on the exact date, we were on the plane to Frankfurt, Germany, en route for New York. She celebrated her 12th birthday on the plane and opened some of her presents after we landed there. This year, we are still in the country. School finished on Friday, but we are not traveling until later on this week. She got to pick a restaurant of her choice and was given a promise by her father (I hope this really is a promise - to keep!) to celebrate her birthday with her friends next year.

These eating out and more cake really keep on expanding my waistline and enlarging the number on my bathroom scale. Argh... diet has to start immediately.

Happy Father's Day!

We, our family, tend to combine two celebration that occur within days of each other. But this time, for two celebrations that are taking place on the same day i.e 21 June, we separated them and had two celebrations: two meals and two cakes. What a tough thing to loose weight these days!

After a long meeting with a potential designer/architect this morning, we hurried to lunch. Yes, hurried was the word, as our home kept on calling us to let us know that we were late. And no, patience is not exactly our kids' virtue.

After lunch, we stopped by at Hyatt to pick up a birthday cake for tomorrow, but of course, as none of us ordered it ahead of time, they had no cake that the birthday girl wanted. We ended up with a simple Father's Day Cake instead..... it's just so great to have a stand by excuse to have chocolate cake anyway.....

Tomorrow: Someone is turning 13........

Latest Best Buddy

The newly acquired DH's laptop. He + this laptop = best friends in the coming months (hopefully years!!!). Best friends FTW!!

Looking Up

This was what I saw when the camera was pointed up to the ceiling of Millenia Walk, Singapore to take this snapshot.

Fettucini Carbonara

We had this Fettucine with Carbonara sauce for dinner last night. It was the classic put-together of garlic, onion, bacon, egg, cream and cheese, and more grated parmesan cheese on top!. It was really good....

At The PC Fair

It was another family day out. We started early at 10:30, to anticipate being at the place that opened at 12. By the time we arrived, there were tons of people already. We were fortunate to be able to get a great spot to park our car.

Here we were, at the annual PC show at Suntec City last Sunday. It was the last day of the show or it should be called "crazy sale" and as expected, it was so totally packed. The newspaper reported that more people came this year during the four-day show compared to last year, a total of more than 1.1 million people..... Five of us went and we were guilty of jamming the place. too. We got some good bargains though, and some achy breaky bones...... as well as a little hearing loss...

It's people.....everywhere.. We constantly could hear the screaming and shouting of people trying to sell laptop, computers, TV, DVD players and all electronic-related products. It's so hard to walk and find our way around. It's the price you pay to get great bargains...... the whole day was nearly gone. and we only went to two floors out of maybe four floors at least ???? We were really exhausted!

.. And DH got himself a brand new laptop, at a good price. Yipeeee........

Wicked Desserts

These are the desserts (responsible for the weight gain!) we had on Saturday dinner. Strawberry cheesecake and some chocolate based devilish desserts, full of sinsssss.....

Meet Carlo & His Friends!

Meet Carlo, my sister's dearest baby.

These are Carlo and Bella, his friend. They ran around in the neighborhood and ended up feeling hot.

Recently, Carlo also has a new neighbor, his name is Valdo.

Down below is Dora, my sister's friend's neighbor owns her. I have no doubt that Carlo met her too, my sister tends to take Carlo everywhere, except to work. I am waiting for any corrections should I have been wrong on this, but I don't believe it will be anytime soon, because my sister is super duper busy woman with two kids that are out of school and demand tons of attention from her.

Carlo is such a lucky dog!

We want a dog!!!!!!!!!!!

Nearly Same Ole Dinner

Some people, like us, tend to stick to the same meal when we visit a restaurant. When we go to Thai restaurant, we tend to order Pad Thai, Green Chicken Curry and Chicken with basil and a couple of appetisers like spring rollls or fish cakes. Are we so boring?? Or lack of adventurous soul??

We had our Anniversary Dinner last Saturday at Mezza9, Hyatt - again. We saw the menu and were tempted to order the same dish that we had before. Pathetic. But finally, only two of us ordered the same and three changed. Three FTW!!!

First, we had Bruschetta for Starter, we were also served a small loaf of bread.

DH had his Sun Hock Fish, his usual. Which, as usual also, because it is a large dish, everyone else ended up eating them too. The kids liked them, it is quite tasty!

No. 1 ordered these delicious Grilled Tiger Prawns. Yum-yum. I helped eating maybe two or three of them. It was too much for her to eat alone and DH only ate half, taking about his fear towards high cholesterol. The others do not really take prawns but helped a bit.

No.2, same old same old. Rotisserie Chicken again. And too much for her, again. We all helped her. Again.

Turning away from her inner Italian, No. 3 went German and picked Bratwurst. I don't believe she needed any help with her food, but almost everyone seemed to want to help her......It looked really delish, too bad, I did not get to taste it. I still regret the fact that I did not try some.

Yours truly had six skewers of Yakitori, consisting of chicken balls, shrimp, scallops, chicken meat, chicken wings and salmon, to share with those who wanted them.

Desserts will follow. More pounds have piled up on my belly! I am sure I will be seeing bigger number in my bathroom scale.

Good News And Bad News

After many weekly visit to the ENT doctor, I was finally pointed to the X-Ray department to have my nose scanned. All those medicines that I took over the past many weeks had not help ed much. Bleh.

A day upon seeing the doctor on Wednesday, I headed back to the hospital on Thursday - going straight for my scan. How I hate doing that! But if there's anything positive at all, I must say it was nice going there first thing in the morning, the place was almost empty and I barely had to wait. I remember going there when it was crowded. It was noisy and I had to wait for a long time. The scan process itself was very simple too, I only needed to remove my earrings and my necklace, lie down and had my nose scanned for a good five minutes or so, feeling nothing whatsoever and told that I was done.

Waiting for the result was also a quickie and waiting to see the doctor did not consume so much of my time too. It was all fast. Yup.

Now the good news from the doctor, he said that my sinus is okay. The bad news, more tests are needed to find out why I have persistent problem. Which means, more visits, more time, more money...... and I do not know if I want to continue doing this, I am exhausted. I probably should go on living with my sinus bugging me on daily basis, or almost ... I am on different medicines now. The next proposed step is food allergy testing... We'll see. I may not want to go on anymore, cause it may not necessarily find the answer to my problem and in the end, it is still surgery that I need. Phew.

Rice With Roast Pork

In between running errands today, we ended up having lunch at the food court of Great World City. Lots of selection there as usual, that sometimes make it hard to choose. In the end, I decided on having rice with roast pork and barbeque pork too. It was served on real plate with real utensils, not the plastic ones like in many other food courts. It's worth all the S$4.8 spent on it. Yum!

Viewing From Above

It was Saturday. After a quick breakfast in the east corner of the city and back home again, we headed to the central part to view a new apartment complex that has just been completed. supposedly they have a nice view. Of course, the units must be located on higher levels in order to have such nice view.

There are so many apartment projects in the making here. Amazing. I read that a lot of foreign investors started their buying spree again as the prices have gone down to a more attractive level. They do have come down significantly since they reached their highest levels in the past years. The apartment that we saw was located on the 39th floor, the highest on the side of the block. There are others, I believe, that are on the 41st floor or maybe 42nd too. It does have stunning view of the city, and it will get better at night. Too bad we can't be there at night. Nevertheles, we were able to see most part of the city, or country. Some other tall apartments are able to see Malaysia from where they are. Not Russia.

20 Years

20 years. That's how long we have been officially married. It never seems that long to me but it really has been 7305 days. Both of us have aged for sure, just look at our kids! Three kids and many ups and downs later, despite different cultures, we are still here, together. (Well, technically, we are not together right now because he is in another country and I am here by my computer. But we are still married. )

We met in Michigan when both of us were students and got married merely two years later in a country that none of us were citizen of, namely Singapore. We, however, had our three kids in Indonesia when we were living there and raised them, back again, in Singapore.

It is always difficult to give a short answer to people that ask us or our children where we are from, especially when we travel overseas. Sometimes we say either one of the countries and sometimes the people that we speak to would say that we do not sound like or look like from that country. We are aware that we do not represent any countries really well including the countries that issue our passports. Having been growing up and going to school with many kids from various countries, our kids, look Asian, but do not speak and think like most Asian. They do not eat like Asian too. We are more like citizen of the world.

These kids are our love, joy and pride. Occasionally, they are our pain too..... But for sure, they have become the most important part our our 20 years together, through thick and thin. We are family and will always be family. Our wedding anniversary is not just about the two of us but our kids are part of it too. We therefore will take them along on our anniversary dinner this Saturday and let them eat what they like!

Another Japanese Lunch

We still go to Sushi Tei for lunch on weekends sometimes although we have been gone rather too frequently. We normally patronize one in the business district area as it is less crowded compared to the outlets in some shopping malls. One outlet in Orchard Road has recently relocated to a different wing of the building and expanded the place to a much nicer place to dine in. We were there last Saturday to check out the place and for lunch as well for sure.

We ordered mostly our usual dishes again, some of which can be seen here. The children had their favorite, Salmon Mentai Yaki. We also had two plates of their delicious Soft Shell Crabs. We were stuffed......