Weekend without Daddy Lim

Last week had been crazy. I was away for business trip from Tuesday and only returning late on Thursday night. By the time I was home, everybody was in lala land.

Then, Daddy Lim was leaving for his company retreat to Genting from Friday to Sunday. I only barely opened my eyes on Friday morning to ask if he needed the remaining RM$ before he left. That's all I got to speak to him. Crazy life.

With Daddy Lim away, it was 1:2 and that is a bad ratio, especially for the weekend. Hoho. The kids had no school on Friday bcos of Children's Day. Hey, I want that too. I worked from home earlier in the morning bcos I was so tired from the late flight and more importantly, I was toying with the idea of driving to work and needed no cars on the road. It had been weeks since I last drove and I had no idea if I could manage but believe that it will always happen when push turns to shove. Of course I arrived at the office safe and sound (so did the car) and thankfully managed to park in one of the many lots available.

I left office at 4ish bcos busy road is the last thing that I needed. It was smooth traffic all the way. Hey, it wasn't that hard!

I reached home to find the kids staring at the laptop bcos screen time had been used up and only Daddy Lim can give extra screen time. We decided to bake cookies instead and went grocery shopping for ingredients followed by dinner.

We were so sad that Daddy Lim was away.

We had no choice but to indulge in some good food to cheer ourselves up. Lol.

Cookie Baking operation in progress.

Then Daddy Lim was connected and granted screen time and nobody else was interested in the cookie baking. Chey.

The rest of the night was peaceful bcos the kids had their gadget. They turned in at 10ish in MY room, on MY bed. By the time I went to bed, MY bed was fully taken up and I slept in the kids' room instead.

Even without Daddy Lim, I joined the WWF for cycling bcos it had been so long. We missed the last 3 weeks' ride bcos of Hanoi, haze and VEP. Speaking of which, right after we had the VEP done, the news came about shelving the VEP indefinitely. Zzzzzz. Anyway, it was just me for the Saturday rife and I managed alright, just missing a back light; I realised only when I was out of the house and too late to go home to retrieve it.

It was a short and slow ride, which worked out fantastic for me.

I was back in time to buy bfast for the kids and send Zaky to his basketball training. I drove him to CCK sports hall! I wasn't able to hold up the phone and Zaky was absolutely helpful to try to double navigate on top of the voice command from Google Map.

The sports hall remain just as warm. The basketball training looks fun with more game format training than drill now. I thought Zaky will enjoy himself tremendous only to have him ask me during one of the water breaks if the training was ending bcos he was so tired. Lol. See, he really needed to lose some weight to make it easier to move or at least grow taller to stretch the fats.

While Zaky was in the basketball training, Lil Shauna made her way to the ice for extra practice. Popo tagged along fearing that she would lose her way but I am sure she is old enough and did this a couple of times with friends to the rink.

The real challenge was after the training session - I had to drive Zaky from CCK sports hall to JE for maths class. It was the driving actually but the crazy parking at JE. The JCube parking had been crowded in the recent weeks and don't even tell me about the crowded, old, narrow and poorly designed multi-storey carpark beside. I ended up parking at a nearby (that is not so nearby) HDB carpark and walked to JE. Give me some credits, at least I drove.

After class, I drove all the way to Suntec to meet my brother's family. Woohoo! That was quite stressful bcos I don't quite remember the way from AYE to Suntec after the MCE was added but Zaky did a fantastic job of navigating us safely to Suntec.

The parking wasn't the best and I just hoped that I have a skilled driver parking beside me. Hoho.

My brother and SIL wanted to go to the Klook fair. The kids had the chance to go to the Superpark as a result.

They spent 3 hours and were still full of energy by the end of it. Got trick or treats somemore.

Zaky used to be so scared of such stuff but not anymore.

The drive home was another stress bcos Google Map insisted that I go by Bugis and don't know where but I remembered the shorter route via ECP. I relied on my guts with a just as confused co-pilot - Lil Shauna and made it back to AYE eventually. My co-pilot gave up shortly after we started and asked me to just "followed the signs". What signs? Spiritual? Lol. Once we hit AYE, I knew the way home only to find that it was drizzling and I didn't know how to switch the wiper to auto-sensing mode and had to actually the one-time wiper when needed. Regardless, we made it home alright. Woohoo!

I am sure I had clocked more mileage in those 2 days as compared to what I had driven in the past 9 months. Hoho. While we survived, I was so exhausted and didn't want to drive more on Sunday. There was a carnival for Children's Day at ACJC on Sunday. While the kids attended the carnival, I attended the service at ACJC. I told the kids that we would take public transport bcos I drove too much but was actually tempted to drive on Sunday morning so that we didn't have to lug Lil Shauna's Zuca around. When I asked her for her opinion, she was quick to tell me not to drive bcos I was too slow and we were getting late. Win already.

The kids had a blast at the carnival. They had snacks and ice cream and won little toys.

We sent Lil Shauna to the rink for practice and Zaky said that he wanted to skate too and so he did. Not bad, he managed to self-entertain for a good hour on the ice.

While Lil Shauna was doing off-ice, Zaky and I had a nice hot drink and he worked on his $2 Lego from daiso while I caught up on work.

I didn't expect him to be able to complete it independently bcos the pieces were so small and the instructions were lousy. He spent the next hour quietly on it with minimal help from me.

Tadah! All by himself!

With that, we took a grab home and ended the weekend without Daddy Lim. It was so tiring. Haha.

Mummy Lim

All for VEP Austin Heights

Like many other Singaporeans who had  procrastinated with the installation of the VEP, we started panicking as the 30 Sep deadline approaches. The only saving grace was that we had registered for the VEP many months back and were one of the luckier ones with an appointment date.

There were limited appointment slots when we finally got to action and managed to secure one on the last Sunday of September. The opportunitist in me sprung to life and it became a short 2D2N Austin Height holiday. Hehehe, I am a sucker for holidays.

The plan was to enter via 2nd Link on late Friday night. By late, I was expecting 10ish pm and didn't expect the 2nd Link to be very jam from evening all the way until midnight. The kids were tired from the waiting and Zaky was particularly grouchy. Tired go sleep lah and they finally did but with a lot of whining before that.

We finally dug the kids from the bed and made our way to the 2nd Link at 1am on Friday night when the traffic seemed to ease up. The stretch on the map was still very much red but at least the red line was much shorter. Hohoho.

The kids continued their sleep from the bed to the car.

Of course it was far from comfy but sleep consumed them. Poor kids. At least the immigration officers were nice enough not to wake the kids up for identification verification.

We clear both immigration in an hour's time with the longer jam at the Singapore side. It was another 30 mins' drive before we arrived at the airbnb. Along the way, we found super low value in our Touch n Go card but thankfully enough to pay for the foreign car fees and 2 tolls. With the new VEP and eTouch n Go, there were a lot of uncertainties. We tried topping up the Touch n Go card at both toll stations only to be told that we were not able to. Huh? Then how?

We stayed in the same building as the last Austin Height holiday. I like the building given its proximity to facilities and the last unit was clean and nice. We picked up the access card from the mail box and finally made our way to the unit.

The unit was just as clean and nice as the last one. The kids crashed and so did I. Only Daddy Lim had the energy to find supper bcos his growling tummy scared away the Zzzz monster. Lol.

I was only able to take pictures of the unit the next morning. The unit has a double bed in the living room and another double bed in the bedroom.

They have track lights! I am now into track lights. Haha.

We started our day early with the 1st itinerary at 10.30am - cake baking. We simply heart it. Bfast was tabaoed from the Boss Toast downstairs and the nasi lemak was good!

Daddy Lim opted to skip the cake baking this time. He took the car for a wash while I took the kids. I love the baking session; for a fraction of what it would cost in Singapore, we get to mess up other people's kitchen. Hehe.

The kids were urged to do simple stuff and stay away from the complicated cakes and decorations, which not only take a long time to complete but also a long time to consume. We all chose to bake cookies this time; simple and fast.

The kids hurried to collect the ingredients. All experts liao.

All ready.

My 2nd attempt to look homemaker-ish. Aiya, my camera not as good as Daddy Lim's and cannot capture that aura. Lol.

Baking, baking.

My teddy bear cookies were the easiest bcos there was no need to cool the dough.

The kids enjoyed cookie cutting theirs and I helped while waiting for my cookies to cool so that I can decorate them.

Tadah! So cute!

We started eating as we waited.

These were the sole survivers of my teddy bear cookies. In fact, we only brought back 7, one more sacrificed before I got to pack them.

Zaky's better cookies were not much better off. These were the only ones left. Haha. I love those butter cookies. Hoho.

Only Lil Shauna's racoons survived bcos they were the last to leave the oven. So cute! We are so creative with the decorations.

We had so much cookies that we didn't need lunch. Lol. Baking cookies was definitely a right choice; they were so easy to munch and we finished every one of them in the 1.5 days. No need to waste food.

In the afternoon, we brought the kids to the drift cart.

While the kids worked on their drifting, Daddy Lim worked on his snoozing. Lol.

We headed back for a rest and the kids tried their luck at the claw machine. These claw machines are really in now and several shops littered the street. Finally, Lil Shauna caught something! She had been lamenting her lack of luck and skill and hadn't been able to catch anything from the last few attempts.

We rested until it was dinner time. We saw several Korean restaurant along the way and chose one that took so long to serve. We only had 45 mins before rushing for the next activities - VR games, booking made at 6.30pm.

The VR games were really good. The last time, only Daddy Lim and the kids tried; I was worried that I would get dizzy. They raved about it and we all tried this time for 3 games in a row somemore. The games are not cheap at RM69 per pax but it was good fun for about 30 mins. No, I didn't puke but my arm ached from carrying the "gun". I wasn't too bad and came in 1st 2 out of the 3 games. Hoho.

The last activity of the night was KTV. We sang for 2 hours the last time and it wasn't enough so we booked for 3 this time. I ended up too long. I was so tired of singing by the end. Only Daddy Lim and Lil Shauna kept going.

Towards the end of the session, I was stoning at one corner but I got to sing Chinese songs and Zaky claimed that he picked up Chinese words from the songs! I must sing more Chinese songs the next time. Lol.

What did Zaky do? He literally fell asleep in the middle of the session despite the singing. Lol.

And he slept and slept.

He even drooled big time. Lol. The saving grace was that he was willing to walk back to the hotel when the KTV session ended. Seriously, nobody can carry him that far now without risking breaking his/ her back.

Sleep was so easy especially for the boy. He basically continued with part 2. We didn't wait long too. Tired lah.

The next morning, we left after tabaoed bfast from the same Boss Toast. Then it was a 30-min drive to the designated VEP installation station. The kids and I hid in the aircon Starbucks leaving poor Daddy Lim to wait for his Q no. to be called. Though it was under the shelter, it was still warm. I got buy ice mocha for him hor.

Finally, the VEP had been installed!

It took us about 1.5hour all in all. Then it was time to head back to Singapore.

We must be lucky, there was barely much of a jam at the immigration and we cleared both sides in about 30mins. Hohoho. That marked the end of our very short and sweet Austin Heights holiday. Yay!

Mummy Lim