Annabelle Early Birthday Celebration

This year Annabelle’s birthday is going to be on a Monday, thus Alvin purposely took a day off drove back from Johor Bahru yesterday, just to celebrate our precious daughter’s 11 years old birthday. 

 

Alvin decided that the children should take a day off from all their art class and music class, and our whole family have a relax day out. We finally to go to the Sunway Pyramid Shopping Mall to pre-celebrate Annabelle’s birthday.

 

We arrived at Sunway Pyramid around 10.30am after we had our breakfast at USJ 2. We had a movie “Johnny English Strikes Again” at TGV Cinema. This movie has been released for quite sometime, but we did not manage to watch. Although it was quite dry but still funny movie for the children.

 

After the movie, we bought the ice cream birthday cake at Baskin Robbins. Then Alvin took both Issac and Annabelle went for some bows and arrows at Stars Archery! Both of them still love to shoot! We came back to Baskin Robbins to take the birthday cake and headed to Tony Roma's for our lunch.

 

I have the Mojo Chicken with two grilled chicken breasts and Tony’s citrus and brown mustard mojo sauce served with house-made pineapple salsa. It’s kind of Mediterranean style. Alvin had the BBQ 1/2 Chicken served with cobs and broccoli. With the two adults meals, we entitled for 2 Kids Eat for Free Meals.

Alvin asked Annabelle just to choose whatever she like in the menu, and no need to choose from Kids menu. She told us that it is pricy on the main menu, she said it is OK that she choose from the Kids menu. Thus, Annabelle would like to have the chicken burgers; whereby Issac would like to have some chicken tenders.

 

We enjoyed our meals there and of coarse enjoyed the sweet family moments! Initially we would like to blow Annabelle’s birthday ice-cream cake there as our dessert, but it was too full for all of us. We then took the Baskin Robbins ice-cream cake back home.

We blew the candles at night, and finally ate our dessert. After the candle blowing ceremony, Alvin took out the long prepared birthday present for Annabelle. She was so happy and hugged her dear daddy.

Her reaction was so priceless! She was so surprise and happy to know that she is getting her new hand phone after opened her present. It is the Vivo Y81. Annabelle got a new number for herself. She was so happy and went to sleep with a sweet smile on her face.

I feel that she is getting mature as her age grows. She is now starting to think not only for herself, but think for others. Slowly but surely she is growing up, she is not the baby girl that I hold in my arms years ago. 

Mummy still wish you the same as I wished you one year ago: Happy Birthday my sweet heart! May you be blessed by Heavenly Father always and stay in His Light!

Kuala Lumpur District Young Men Zion Camp 30 Aug–1 Sep 2018

This year Young Men Zion  Camp would be held at Hutan Lipur Kuala Who, a national park in Perak. The park is alongside a river and is surrounded by jungle. The camping area is a large grassy field with an attached open hall for cooking and activities. The Boy scouts, including a number of LDS scouts and leaders, have held family and group campouts there and the site is excellent for youth camping.

The goals for youth camp are increase fellowship and friendship between the District Young Men, particularly inter-branch, strengthen gospel testimonies and knowledge, have a great time together and learn practical skills (leadership, camping, cooking, cleaning, etc. in an environment and spirit of brotherhood)

The idea for Young Men Camp this year is to structure it around the Boy Scout “Patrol” method, emphasizing teamwork, self-preparedness, cleanliness and cooperation. In the Patrol method, the young Men would be divided into 4 – 5 groups of 6 – 8 young men with 1 leader assigned to watch group for oversight. Each group will choose their own gospel related tribe name.

Each tribe would be responsible for choosing a tribe leader and assistant tribe leader, camping and sleeping in the same area together, cooking and leaning up together, holding morning  scripture study, prayer and devotional together and acting as a team for sports and gospel related games, skits and activities

Tribes made up of a mix of Young Men from different branches, with one Boy Scot in each tribe so they can help instruct in cooking, cleaning up, etc. Physical activates will include sports activities (examples includes soccer, flag football, flashlight tag, orientating course, bamboo and ropes activity, other large group outdoor activates – boys to pick their games. Each branch young men leader will also prepare on “station” with a game or activity for a Saturday Morning Activity that the tribes will rotate through.

The Activity Highlight was exists to drive the youth 45 minutes on Friday August 31st to the Nomad Adventure Camp (where we went rafting for Youth Conference) and participate in a Half-Day Ropes Adventure Course. It is run and supervised by the Nomad Adventure team.

The course takes about 3 hours, includes a giant swing, a rock scaling activity, and a tree-top course. Spiritual activities would include gospel-related games organized by the different Branch Young Men’s Presidencies, a fireside and devotional, skits, a testimony meeting, and team-bonding activities.

There are a lot of videos which Alvin had took using his GoPro, but I do not know why I unable to open the videos and there are a lot of videos which he took during at the Nomad Adventure. Hopefully I can update the blog one day after figure out why and how to open the file.

Both Alvin and Issac told that this is their first ever camping and they enjoyed 3 days activities but it was really tiring.

I am glad that Issac loves the Church program and activity. Glad to see him grows in the Church!

Mum & Daughter Date

Well… today only Annabelle and me at home as both Alvin and Issac had joined the Kuala Lumpur District Young Men Camp. So, we have a mother and daughter date today.

We were going for our movie date then lunch. We were watching the hottest in town - “Crazy Rich Asians”. Crazy Rich Asians is the current big hit in movie theatres right now.

It is a rom-com movie about a guy, Nick Young, who brings home his Asian-American girlfriend to be introduced to his family in Singapore. Only then does the girlfriend, Rachel, realise that her boyfriend is a “crazy rich Asian” and has to keep up with all the glitz and glamour, contend with weird relatives and gossip among envious socialites while trying to win over the heart of his domineering mother.

The movie, adapted from Kevin Kwan’s book by the same title, is directed by Jon M. Chu, and has an all-Asian cast, including Malaysian darlings Henry Golding as Nick Young and Michelle Yeoh as his mother, Eleanor Young.

This is the first time Annabelle and I went out having our movie date without the boys in the house. I bought the twin seats tickets at MBO cinemas Subang Parade. I enjoyed the movie very much. Annabelle experienced her first ever rich love story. We were talking about the scenes from the movie.

After the movie, it was just nice that we can have our Dave’s famous original 1/4 roast chicken and beef rissole at the famous ever Dave’s Deli.

We love the roast chicken very much. Marinated in their special secret recipe of herbs and spices then slow roasted to perfection. It served with mash potatoes, coleslaw, roasted vegetables and topped with their signature gravy. Yummy!

Dave’s signature grilled minced beef patty topped with black pepper mushroom sauce. Serve with mash potatoes, coleslaw and roasted vegetables as well. Nice! We compliment with a plate of loaded cheesy fries!

Both of us were so full that we can hardly breath when we finished our meals portion! We felt so satisfied with our meals! We enjoyed each other today while the boys having their date at the camp site!

Malacca Short Getaway

It’s Hari Raya Haji public holiday, we just have a short getaway to Malacca.

We have been to Malacca a few times and there was nothing much new that we tried this time.

We went to the seaside which near to the town. It is not actually a seaside but a reclamation coast which filled with big and small stones.

I taken a few photos of the children and their dad at work ‘photography’.

Alvin’s Buddies

Here are Alvin’s buddies, and the children’s too.

The big blue guy at the back is Mr. Nerdie aka the Scientist. It is from the Doodle Dolls collection.

Mr. Nerdie is a Leo (7/23 – 8/22). A perfectionist to the core, Mr. Nerdie is a brilliant scientist who invents ingenious devices during the day. At night, however, he dreams of being a superhero that saves the world amidst great adventure!

Dorameon is a famous Japanese cartoon character. A cat robot from 22nd century, was sent by Sewashi Nobi to improve Nobita, a young boy who scores poor grades; frequently bullied by his two classmates, so that his descendants can brush up their lives.

The green stuffy guy is called Om Nom. It is a character from a game that the children played.

Well, these 3 little guys are the one whom accompany Alvin during he is at Johor Bahru.

Kids and I @ Happ the Flower Café

We were at Tropicana Avenue after work as I was attending the coring session for the Shop.Com group.

We were having our dinner at a very special café which combine the flowers, cakes and coffee as their selling point – Happ the Flower Café. We were trying out their hot food instead of their famous cakes.

Annabelle was having the Carbonara with Turkey Ham and Mushroom. It is creamy and a comfort food for her.

Issac was having the local Nasi Lemak. The portion is big as it come with the rendang chicken.

I was having the Crispy Chicken Burger with Chips. The portion is huge too, as I have to cut the burger into two portion.

We have a satisfying meals!

Puchong Branch Young Men & Young Women Dinner & Auction Fundraiser

Our Puchong branch Young Men and Young Women have organised a fundraising for their annual camp which will be happen during National Day.

All the Young Men and Young Women of the branch are required to contribute and use their talents such as baking, drawing, painting or others skills which they have to do a dinner and items to put on for auction.

Brother Kennedy was asking all the young men to think about what they can do about this activity. Issac discussed with me on this. Issac’s strength is painting, so we are thinking of paint on something that can become an item to put up for the auction.

We were taking much considerations from painting a wooden stool which he had done before in his art class, painting on an umbrella, or painting on a bag or stuffs like that. Finally we came to conclusion that we should paint on a T-Shirt because it is quite easy to source for a T-Shirt instead of a wooden stool, canvas bag or others things.

One week prior to the event, we went to the Brands Outlet to get 3 T-Shirts within RM50.00. Another reason being also due to the cost of the items should not be high as it would be exceed most of the people’s budget if they want to auction for it. I choose red colour T-Shirt, grey colour T-shirt and dark blue colour T-shirt.

On Monday Issac started with the dark blue colour as he wanted to paint the Captain America’s shield, and he continued on the next day. It was a holiday the second day and Annabelle and him stayed at home while I was going to work. Issac managed to complete 2 T-shirts including with an Iron Man.

To be honest I am pretty impressed with his talent as he indeed dare to draw and paint Iron Man, for me it is not easy as you need to sketch and straightway draw with the acrylic paint on the soft material like T-shirt cloth.

I WhatsApp to Alvin to show him the T-Shirt and he was very impressed of Issac’s work too. This give Issac the confidence and boasting his mood and continue to draw on the 3rd piece of T-shirt. He painted the Black Panther this time. It end up he took 3 pieces of T-Shirts go to the auction.

This morning during Issac’s art class at Jane Yap Atelier, I asked him to take the 3 pieces of T-shirts to show to his art teachers if there is any extra that he might need to touch up or improve before this evening event.

There are some other items and desserts such as cheese cakes, cupcakes, a handmade teddy bear, framed paintings, books and others to put up for the auction as well.

There were members from the branches came to support the Young Men and Young Women as well! Everyone that want to take part in the auction was given a number to call.

Issac’s T-shirts were quite a success as the first dark blue Captain America T-shirt was auctioned and managed to get by Elder Tan, a Singapore missionary that served in our branch with RM29.00

The second Iron Man T-Shirt goes to his own Daddy Alvin with the price of RM50.00, as Alvin really love Issac’s work and he said, he would want to keep this T-shirt for himself.

And, the third Black Panther T-Shirt drew quite a lot of crowd as everyone love the Black Panther. It was started with RM20.00 and called until the highest RM100.00 by President Teh.

Both Alvin and I were quite surprised as the Black Panther T-shirt drew a huge crowds. We thanked to both President Teh and Sister Annie for their support to Issac for the T-shirt.

Issac indeed feel really happy for the outcome of the T-shirts which he painted. It really give him a lot of encouragement and confidence in his own talent. We are very proud of him as parents as well.