C and Daddy are still in bed so I have some time to surf and update C's blog.

C suddenly came down with fever yesterday and Daddy was sneezing the day away too. In the afternoon, it was medicine time for both my darlings and they (including me) slept through the whole afternoon.

Daddy got better but he was still drowsy and as for C, her fever came back on and off but she was rather good and except for a little fuss during medicine time, she was alright. Uncle Junming was asking if we wanted to go cycling this morning but both my babies are still in La La Land.

Okay, so while they slept, I came across some interesting widgets; Word of the Day by Dictionary.com and an audio story book by Storynory. Enjoy the many audio stories there and with a word a day, I hope we can all learn something new everyday. :)

Oh, Oh...

Cheryl wants to say,

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY AUNT ASRINA & UNCLE BEN!"

Cheryl received her first letter! You must be excited and wonder if it's a Christmas card sent by an extremely anxious relative. C came running into the room with the letter and proudly declaring she has mail!

Oh the contrary, and like most Singaporeans, the mails in the letter box we get nowadays are ... you guessed it; BILLS.

Yeap, even C has bills to pay. Her school sent her an invoice advising the payment of her fees for the new school term which does not happen until 2 months later. Talk about being efficient! And this is like a reminder to me that there will be more of such letters coming.

And I thought the registration fees I paid a couple of months ago would offset a huge amount of the fees but it still came out to be close the $2000! Scary! Maybe it's because this is the first payment; reading materials and all... BUT, they forgot uniforms! When can I get uniforms for her?

Oh, and they also sent a 15% discount voucher for Mothercare. Okay, if it's supposed to make me feel better about the size of the bill... ah... it's not working. Ha ha ha!

Daddy, together with Cheryl's Uncle Cheese and family, and Uncle Ben decided to take a leisure drive on the newly (part) opened Kallang Expressway.

We were all excited and C was jumping around. I tried to take pictures but I think the video will do a better job.

We thought it would be crowded and afterall, all the hype about it being the first underground tunnel in Singapore and all... . But much to our surprise, we had the tunnel mostly to ourselves for a good stretch of the road. But we felt somewhat claustrophobic as the roads were rather cramped compared to the roads on the open expressways and the roads were rather bumpy.

Check out the video; it really feels as if we were on a ship; moving up and down. Hee.

And everything was over in a good 6 minutes.

C has a habit of visiting the neighbours and recently, she has been coming home in different hair styles.

But I was very amused one day when I returned from work as her hair was done up in so many plaits. She was equally happy with her new look. Just look at that grin on her face and she obviously adores the camera.

At Grand Mummy's place, Aunt Diana gave C another look; one that is so demure and gentle. It will be great if C can wear this hair to school when she starts. She looks so neat and she didn't have strays to fret about.

Aunt Diana is really good, don't you think?

Ta-dah!! The finally product!

We met our darling god-daughters, Uncle Junming and Aunt Angie for dinner at Central. It was Aunt Angie who suggested coming to this place and it was a great idea because we haven't been here before.

Out little ones had fun running around and playing at the fountain. C was all wet but it didn't dampen her spirits at all. The view of the Singapore River was nice and there were many people. We stood on the bridge and waved to the many tourists onboard the boats below.

Look at the girls! They love to make funny faces at the camera and all these little ones love to pose for pictures.

This is the first time we have such colourful sheets! And it is all because of C that I got them. She sleeps in her cot and the mattress is small so it is very difficult to get such cute sheets for her so I decided to get them in queen size so that it will brighten up the room a little.

We changed the sheets while Daddy was outside on the computer and to give him a little surprise too. So when Daddy did get into the room, he almost choked on the pear he was eating. Hee.

Just look at the smile on C's face!

We finally went for our little holiday! Daddy has been meaning to drive up North for the longest time and we finally did it over the weekend. This would be the first time we are going in in our Stream and we were all excited.

Our journey started on Friday evening after we had our dinner at home. Then it was off!

Along the way, the traffic was alright. Actually it was way better than what we had expected. We stopped for some supper too.

Cheryl was all dressed up in her pajamas but she was enjoying the food nevertheless. It was rather late when we stopped and most of the stores were closed. But there was always the faithful and trusty KFC! After this break, it was all the way to Teluk Intan (4 hours ahead).

When we reached TI, it was like 2 am and Grand Daddy suggested we bought Chee Cheong Fun. This is tradition, I mean, to buy this in the wee hours in the morning. The CCF is by far, the most delicious we have had and this is Daddy's favourite. He must have this every time he comes here and after a dought of 2 years, the taste was heavenly. We had only wanted a little taste but we ended up eating the entire pack.

Hours later, we woke up and got ready to go to Cameron Highlands. This is the place where Aunt Juliana, Margaret and Diana grew up .. sort of. Grand Daddy has plans to sell this place since he and Grand Mummy have officially moved to Singapore to live with us. Cheryl has only been here twice; the first time she was here, she was only 3 months old.

We dropped by Grand Daddy's friend's place; he does this Bak Ku Tei business and Cheryl was extremely pleased because she had rice for breakfast! She was such a show-off as she flaunted her chop-sticks skills.

We were on our way... Cheryl saw me with my sun glasses and demanded that I gave it to her instead. Oh alright, she does look cute in them!

We stopped by the famous Water falls along the way and Cheryl was very excited that she could not stop laughing. She was very fascinated that the water was cold and she wanted to stay there longer.

Up to this point, we had somewhat travelled for 1.5 hrs along windy roads and I must say, I am very impressed with our Little Spark. I kept telling Grand Mummy to keep a look out in case C vomited but she showed no signs of motion sickness although this was her first trip to Cameron Highlands. Grand Daddy and Mummy were equally impressed and said she really knows how to enjoy herself.

CH is famous for its tea and we stopped at one of the tea plantations to have our cuppa. Ahh... the aroma was terrific and C couldn't get enough.

We saw different things along the way and Daddy was telling C to look out for these "funny" houses. C could tell us that it looked different from the flats that we live in. Not bad!

This was where we lived! It was such a pretty cottage and we had no regrets staying here. It was definitely quieter and more peaceful and the view was FANTASTIC because we were overlooking the town. Just look at the place; it was like a picture right out of a post card!

After we checked in and had a little rest, we drove around to the different towns. We even went to the playground where C had some fun! We also visit Grand Uncle who lives in Kampong Raja.

The next morning, we had breakfast in the hotel we stayed in and it was very filling indeed. Cheryl was playing with the camera and these are some shots she took.

The weather was great but it would drizzle occasionally and we had to run for shelter! Otherwise, it was very cooling and it was so nice that C didn't want to take her shower. We went to see strawberries at the farm and flowers too. But we didn't buy any because the price was terrible! Yes, we are tourists but NO, we are not suckers!

Just look at the size of the flower! One thing about this place that I love, every thing grows here! Even flowers by the side of the roads look great and beautiful! Yeah, we didn't manage to visit many farms or buy anything because there were so so many people! There were jams there too!

This is us!

We always eat this fruit when we come here!

We came prepared, with Mah Jong! So in the afternoon where it was raining, we hid in the hotel and played Mah Jong. We also ate fruits and took long long long naps! Ha ha! It was a very relaxing trip indeed! In the evening, we went to the Night Market and walked around.

We were on our way back on the 3rd day and we took a different route; this road goes all the way to Ipoh and it is only an hour's drive.

Daddy was mesmerized with the view and he was laughing too because :

There was absolutely no need to step on the accelerator at all as it was downhill all the way.

At Ipoh, we met up with Grand Daddy's old friend, Uncle Dass and we had lunch together with Fong too. Then after lunch, we had a long drive back to Singapore. Grand Daddy said that there was very good fish ball noodles at Yong Peng so we stopped there for dinner before heading back.

We reached Singapore at 9 pm. It was very tiring for Daddy but C had a great time and Daddy promised her that we will make another trip up North and it would be Genting the next time!

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.

As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5- year phase-in plan that would become known as "Euro-English".

In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of "k". This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.

By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v". During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensi bl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.

Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.

I answer to many names; to Cheryl, I am "Mummy", to Daddy, I am "Baby" and "Dear", to Grand Mummy and Daddy, I am "Ping", to my sisters, I am "Jie", to my friends, I am "Nat" and to my students, I am "Mrs Lian".

Yes, I have many names.

In fact, I am quite positively, correction: EXTREMELY positively sure that we all have many names!

I have had students calling me "Natalie" much to my annoyance but more often than not, I know they didn't mean harm and most likely did it because they felt I am more of a friend. But this morning, a pupil actually called me with a snap of a finger! A snap of a finger!

My immediate response: What blatant rudeness! Where are his manners? I wouldn't even call a dog with a snap of my finger!!

And I just stood there staring at him.

You know, when C doesn't address me correctly or properly (eg: wei or ay) I do not answer her and I will tell her to call me in the appropriate manner. I don't even take this nonsense from our little girl so why should I take this from some kid in some class?!?

Aunt Linda and Uncle Joel dropped by for dinner and oh, Cheryl was over the hill!

She wanted them to play with her all the time and she invited them to her playroom where she "cooked" and played house. Then there were the dolls and bears that she threw around and when I threatened to throw them out, she came running and lugged all of them back.

She wouldn't leave Uncle Joel alone, and teased him when he was eating. It was only after much coaxing that I finally managed her to convince her to take her shower and immediately after that, she headed for him and Aunt Linda again.

Then she suddenly remembered that she hasn't had her nightly dose of Bob, the Builder and conveniently "ditched" them, walked into the bedroom, and demanded for milk.

I woke up with very bad backache. It is so bad that the pain spreads all the way to the front; even my stomach muscles hurt!

I told Daddy about it and he joked that it must be because of the car wash we did yesterday. Usually Daddy is the one who will complain of backaches after car wash but I am very surprised that I actually feel like the same. Hmm... we wash our car all the time, I mean over the weekends and I have never complained of any aches except this time round.

Is this a sign of old age?

Maybe...

I got this for C some time back but didn't find the opportunity to upload this till today. Cheryl has been watching Bob, the Builder these days and she has a VCD featuring Bob in the Wild West. So every time Bob, Wendy and the Machines broke out in songs, C would join along. In the movie, there was a character strumming a guitar and C would try to imitate her. So when she saw her little "guitar" she was thrilled!

Daddy who plays the regular guitar tried his hands on the ukulele and he wasn't very used to it because there were only 4 strings. Okay, maybe I should do some reading myself during the holidays and see if I can play the instrument.

When I was much younger, I wanted to enrol myself into a guitar class but was turned away because my palms were too small and fingers not long enough. :( so I guess, if I do master the ukulele, it will still be fulfilling a dream. Hee!

Today is Children's Day and Cheryl has a little something to share with you...

here it is:



I am back with You Tube because Google Video crashed on me! Argh!
Oh, she did one for me for Teachers' Day too but it is on my mobile and I don't know how to upload recordings from my mobile. *blush*