or should I call it Desperate Housewives on the Loose! Watch Out!!! hahah.

Been here almost 2 years, this is the first time I checked out the famed Barcelona. It was a fun, high, crazy and wild night! The hubbies and daddies were home alone with the kids and finally a break for us. The 2 older birds, me and Auntie Shirley began our night at 9, picking up all the girls in our mini van. I must admit how sua koo I was. Normally at 9 plus 10, it is time we retired for the night and to put Mal to bed, I have never seen this part of the city at this time of the night before.

We had a little problem finding parking lots cos most of them were reserved for valet. Should have paid the 5 bucks extra to save the trouble, but we were too sua koo to know the market rate. When we finally got to the entrance, we realised that there was quite a queue. We were there for around 5 minutes or so when a bouncer ushered us to another entrance, yes! we managed to get in without queuing and for FREE ! Girls or aunties have all the privileges

I was surprised to find quite a number of senior citizens hanging around, maybe that is why we were told that this place is safe, cos the crowd are older and classier. Oh and it makes me feel younger too, not being surrounded by teenage blonds and brunettes. We started the night with a round of beers and magaritas, most of the girls’ favourite. As soon as the music starts, we were out in the dance floor and very soon we were dancing right in front of the live band. The music was blasting and the band was just an arm length away. That was how we ended up on stage, dancing! hahah The male singer was so so cute! Check him out at mySpace

It was a wild night, not too much drinks, but enough to make us high and crazy. It almost felt like a hen’s nite for me! This is one of the most memorable night I had in Arizona and I will remember it for a long long time. Thank you girls and love you all! Mmmmmuuuak!!!!

Within 1 week at Auntie Shirley’s house, we had baked 3 pandan cakes and 1 batch of Rotiboy. We baked as if there is no tomorrow! The pandan cakes were ok, not as perfect as Auntie Jane’s . Thanks for Auntie Jane’s bread machine and the very thoughtful ingredients she had packed for us and brought over on the night before she depart for her vacation, I was able to try my hands on Rotiboy. oh man, it was very labour intensive! A lot of work, very tedious. The buns turned out ok but as usual not as perfect as Auntie Jane’s. I think we had enough baking for the time being and these will probably be my last bake in Arizona!

baking over a glass of sinful rootbeer float! can’t remember when was the last time I had that at A&W!

our 1st bake

our 2nd bake

here comes the bread machine
that makes them so curious!
our 1st batch of rotiboy, ok la, still edible

and for our 3rd pandan cake, thought the consistency of the egg white was puurrfect cos it can stand the ‘upside down’ test!

haiz! but the cake turned out the worse!
blame it on the wine!

We finally moved out of our house. We are finally done with all the packing, all the cleaning and almost…all the selling. We had accepted Auntie Shirley and Uncle Melvin’s suggestion to move over and bunk in with them in their 3 bedrooms house. It seem like a perfect arrangement, as the kids get to play together everyday and we get to chill out together in the night after putting the kids to bed over a glass of wine.

Thank you friends, for making this transition almost painless and almost enjoyable

In everyone’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit. ~Albert Schweitzer

We finally managed to sell off our piano after advertising it for months. It was sold at less than 1/2 of what we initially advertised. We accepted the price of USD 650 as Daddy was quite desperate to sell off the piano. I was actually quite mad at Daddy for closing the deal at such a low price. The buyer came knocking on the door early Friday morning. It was 7.30 am and we were still in bed. I wasn’t very keen in seeing how the buyer looks like, whoever he is, I think he was very lucky to get such a good deal. I intend to just stay in the room until they leave. In my room I could hear the buyer run across the keys and it sounded pretty good. It was then followed by a pause and then a commotion and it went on for quite a while. I finally came out of the room to see what the commotion was about.

At the doorway, I saw 4 guys, including Daddy, struggling to load the piano onto a red pickup van. There were no professional piano movers, just a few asian guys, quite shabbily dressed, trying very hard to load the piano as careful as they can onto the truck.

I soon found out that these people were actually Vietnamese and the guy who bought the piano works as a technician at odd hours, something like 3 am in the morning till 11 am. They were obviously not very rich people and the piano must have meant something for him to part with his hard earned money. I felt bad for initially feeling that we have been ripped off.

I am 49 kg!!! I put on 2 kg!!!

In case many of you don’t know. I can really eat! In my younger years I used to be able to eat at korean buffet back home for a straight 2 hours, stacking my plates with food. Even now, as my metabolism slows down, I could eat as much as Daddy. That explains why I need to exercise and workout. I exercise so that I can continue to stuff myself with food and I confess, Good Food DOES make me happy and I love to sleep with a full stomach and I always joke that hungry tummy will give me bad dreams, in chinese ‘?’?!

Today, we had a Buns Party at Auntie Jane house and as the name says it, it is a party for us to make buns! We made the famous Rotiboy and coconut buns. Thanks to Auntie Jane for the recipe and dough and Auntie Jessica for the coconut fillings. Other than buns, we had muah chee and chwee kueh, all the yummy local food The buns were so good and I am so impressed by how Auntie Jane who hardly cooked and baked can within a year learn how to make so many yummy food. Necessity is REALLY the Mother of All Inventions! With the food so good, I was practically standing next to the food the whole time and it was a damn good feeling stuffing myself with food and coke and more coke! Finally at 2 plus we were done and I headed home for Mal’s nap. I was determined to go for my kickbox class at 5.30pm. Eat all you want and workout all you need is my motto

So glad Mal managed to wake up and we made it to the gym in time. After a good 1 hour of workout. I felt good. It was then that I decided to check out my weight. With the past week being so busy packing and not having time to cook proper meals, I was so sure that I lost weight. Furthermore, I seem to be able to fit into my hipster Levis better these days. So when I saw a 49 registering on the machine, I was in shock and denial, I pressed the reset button a few times hoping to see something more consoling. The number remained as that. 49 kg! My weight has always fluctuates between 46 to 48 and never 49 except when I was pregnant with Mal. I know it is only 1 or 2 kg but I belief that if it can increase by 1 to 2 kg…the subsequent increment will be exponential!

I know it is just a number, but I still can’t get over the fact that with all the stress, I can still put on weight. I think I am really getting old, the metabolic rate shows it. My last trump card is to cut down the food, which is really my last resort!

I don’t think I ever come close to 43 kg like many of the girls here or maybe even 45! I am just happy that I feel good and energized after a good workout. I will definitely miss the classes at the gym here.

It was 9.30 in the morning on National Day. Mal and I had just woke up and we heard some loud banging on the door. The movers were here. Daddy was still snoring in bed. We only slept for like 3 hours or so. Mal was luckier, he got to sleep at 10 the night before. The day has come for our boxes to go. We had spent the night packing and only managed to catch a brief shut eye in the early dawn. I was joking to Daddy that packing all these stuff reminds me of running a marathon, especially when it comes to clearing up the ends, the part which I dreaded most. Maybe I was too tired by then and having to concentrate and decide which little things should stay or go was a huge challenge. So by the time that I went to sleep at around 5 in the morning, the house was still in quite a mess. An hour or so later, Daddy knock out as well. When I woke up at 9 plus, I was impressed by how well Daddy had managed to clear the ends and organized all the boxes in one corner of the house. I would be very please if I am the mover as it was very clear which are the boxes need to be shipped. All in all, we had 64 boxes!!! We packed close to 30 boxes and the other half were irregular shaped items which required special size boxes. With all the boxes stacked nicely in one corner. Mal was having fun playing ‘castle’ out of the stacked boxes while the movers packed the rest of the items. His ‘castle’ could almost touch the ceiling! However, very soon, his castles were reduced to zero as the mover transferred the last box to the container truck.
Finally the packing is over. It has been a tiring, busy week and we had learned something, Mummy is good at getting things started and Daddy is good at clearing the ends! that alone makes us a good team

one of Mal’s favorite chores. Vacuuming the floor! after all the boxes were cleared

Daddy managed to squeeze some time to go for a game of soccer with his friends. Mal tagged along while I do my packing at home. Usually he would sit very quietly at the corner watching Daddy play. That day, he came back chirping happily that Auntie Kit was there to play with him and here’s a video of him dribbling the ball. Think he can dribble the ball better than me. Thank you Auntie Kit for the video and pictures!

We celebrated our 2nd Singapore National Day in Phoenix with good food (local food prepared by our people) and fun outfits to represent the Singapore flag. It was a big celebration for all the Singaporeans here in Phoenix. I think a lot of us celebrate 9 Aug here more than we would have done so when we were in Singapore, at least that is the case for us. When we were in Singapore, national day is normally spent at home watching live broadcast of the national day parade. Over here, we celebrated the day with defenders of our nation and this makes it more meaningful and special. What make the day extra special was, our boxes were leaving for Singapore on that day The few hours of fun chilling out at the squadron was a really good break from all the packing.

Mal doesn’t like to do colouring. This is the 1st complete colouring he did and he did it all by himself when I left him with the childcare at the gym the other day. He was so anxious to present to me the colouring after my workout, beaming ear to ear saying ‘Mummy, this is for you!’

Wide open space with ample parking lots, beautiful blue sky, nicely shaped white clouds, not found in populated polluted city. The estrella mountain range sits quietly in the background and blends in so well with the surrounding that sometimes I don’t feel that it is there. Sitting at Starbucks inside Target at Tolleson sipping hot mocha, savouring their blueberry muffin. This is one of my favourite retreat. Such view, such space, such peace is what I will miss in Singapore.

Was packing Mal’s toys last night. This time, I am packing up the toys that he plays regularly. It’s another 3 big boxes.
Mal : Why do you need to pack up all my toys?
Me : I need to ship them back to Singapore
Mal : Why can’t the toys take the big fat plane with us?
Me : There are too many toys, we need to let them take the ship to Singapore.
Mal starting to sob
Mal : But I will miss my toys you know.
Me : You will see all your toys soon in Singapore. The ship is slower than the plane so we need to pack and ship them back first.
Mal : But I will miss all my toys. Mummy, I will miss all my toys….
and he bursts into tears.

I let him pick some of his favourite toys and this monkey was one that he chose