My Birthday 2023

Time flies when you are super busy at work. It's already April (am backposting this one) and I haven't yet posted on my birthday in March!  Here goes.

While my family always celebrated birthdays for us 3 siblings plus 2 parents, we stopped once the kiddos came along as there would be too many.  Then MCO happened plus the kids grew and we have now also stopped celebrating the kiddos' birthdays with everyone.  So now we only celebrate together for Ah Mah and Ah Kong. 

So this year my parents got some angpow/bonus from the government as pensioners, and decided to spend the money on a 'makan' for everyone.  That day was coincidentally my birthday.  We had a nice lunch at Little Yum Yum at Kota Damansara and my brother brought along a cake (red velvet from Secret Recipe, yums!).

Yummy cake and us

Then at night I had another cake, an American chocolate one this time.

Happy birthday to me

With my girls

Never had so much cake before!  We stored the excess in the freezer and happily consumed them over the next few weeks.

Another year older and wiser. :)  I had reached the half-century mark last year so one more year doesn't make much of a difference.

Genting 2023

For the "year-end" school holidays of mid-Feb to mid-March, hubby suggested Genting.  Which was good as we had already been to all our usual haunts lately... Ipoh, Melaka, PD.  I hadn't wanted to brave the trip up (hubby can't drive yet as he had seizures lately).  I already have jitters merely driving up the twisty ramps to my apartment parking!  Can't go too easy on the accelerator in case the car slides down, can't press too hard in case we hit the walls.

Well the drive wasn't too bad. :)   

Made it!

3 ladies and a piglet

I'd thought we would be checking out the new theme park, but JE was more keen on the indoor one.  So we KIV until more rides are ready.  Gah while I'm happy enough at Genting, chaperoning the girls around at the indoor theme park and arcades was TIRING.  Hours and hours, a lot of which were on my poor feet.  

Stomp! Stomp on the cockroaches!

Hit! Hit the drums!

The amount of money spent stepping on cockroaches and hitting drums and whatnot... not cheap.  I'm much happier spending on F&B.  Some of our old fav outlets have already closed down. 

Wanhoi:  Food pretty good, price high.

Got our piggy paos

Name to be updated: Hit the spot for my craving of Hunan-style food. The 'arrows of meat' looked fancy and tasted good - at over RM100 not worth it IMHO.  The fish soup was good and the potato too.  

This thing is camera-worthy....

We had plenty of time at Genting and this time went to various food outlets.  Hit Starbucks when we were tired walking around.

Some frappe thing

Now that I have driven up and down Genting once, I can definitely do it again.  :)  Only thing stopping me is having to spend hours at the theme park.  I asked the kids if they would like going more often WITHOUT theme park, only relax/eat/sleep and they said no.  Fine then we won't go that often then haha.  Oh also I was thinking food was really expensive.  

Ice skating

Need to catch up a bit on posts. This was earlier, before CNY.

JE had been planning a ice-skating trip with her friends for ages. SE was excited too at first but eventually decided that she wouldn't join, no thanks to JE discouraging the little sis from tagging along.  I tried to persuade SE - might as well both enjoy skating since I was already fetching them there! - however she didn't budge.  

The day dawned...

One all ready for ice-skating

One only watching from outside

We left JE to wait for her friends and went for coffee and doughnuts.

Draw draw

Then we walked around Sunway Pyramid a bit and took some photos.  The Xmas decorations weren't taken down yet.

SE with Xmas trees

SE with flowers

SE with a cute mushroom creature

Then we walked over to the side with CNY deco.  SE was cooperative in posing and I thought the photos turned out nice.

Bunny year next

Pretty peach blossoms

SE with CNY deco

Selfie with Mummy

And that's how we amused ourselves until it was time to pick JE up. :)

Graduated from Primary school

What else has happened... JE finished 6 years of primary school.  The graduation was on the very day of my workshop (at work) so I couldn't go.  It meant enough to JE that she asked my mother to go with her.  

Ah Mah and me

So my mother had to sit through the spectacle of many people walking up on stage to receive scrolls haha.  I didn't think of this event as a big deal actually.  Others apparently did - seems graduation bouquets were a thing and JE got emotional when she was the only person in her group of friends not to receive one.  I read these messages from her later at work: 

* A lot of ppl got graduation bouquet.

* Parents gave.

* Me no get.

* Me no parent.

Poor kiddo.  Oh well it was too late to do anything by that time.  I'm so thankful that my mother was there for her at least.

Come to think of it, the past 6 years WERE momentous ones.  JE was only a young child of 6 upon entering the school for Standard 1.   And now she's all poised for teenagerhood and the next stage of her life.   *sniff

Hedgehog

Gosh Feb is gone already! Blame it on WORK... after weeks of preparations with multiple changes and about-turns, we finally had the workshop with client users from various locations in the world.  It was unfortunately rocky and rough.  My project director saw it fit to cut my session short (first time I have been dragged out of my own workshop!), there were calls for different people to come in to help, there was drama and all.  Luckily my boss supported me and so did the client boss.  In summary, I survive to live another day.  Phew.

Continuing on my previous post as though there was no time interlude.  

I found these pictures amusing.  Now THIS is the face of someone who wants to hold a hedgehog...

Me and a hedgehog!

And THIS... is the face of someone who doesn't, and is being forced by her mummy to HOLD THAT HEDGEHOG AND TAKE PHOTO!!

Eeeee

EEEEEEeeeEEEEE

The staff there decided to pick up the poor hedgehog and hand it to poor JE.

EEE-mmmm-EEEEEEE

Faster take photo Mummy

 HAHAHA so funny.