YowCH & Grace

Esther had school prefect camp over this weekend, so she stayed over in her school.

David went to youth service early on Saturday, leaving Joseph adn Samuel to play in Sorrento pool with yowCH while Grace was knitting.
This is Joseph’s dive.

And this is Samuel’s dive (actually, YowCH threw him):

He loves being thrown into the water!

For dinner, we met up with the Phans (from Taiwan) and Wei Yeu who is in Singapore, and yowCH’s sister for dinner at Tunglok Signatures. Nice time for the families.

Lastly, on Sunday, at the wedding reception of Grace’s colleague, the boys had some playground fun, before going for football.

Tags: David, Esther, Family, Joseph, Samuel by yowch
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We had some fun time in the pool after our swimming lesson, the coach lent us his whale floats and we played in the water. Another advantage of having lessons from 11:30 to 12:30, the pool is almost empty as it is lunch time and the sun is hot!


This is where we explained to the children that the weekly training prepared them for fun like this. If they can’t swim well, they won’t be playing like this. Even Samuel enjoyed the whales.

In the afternoon, while the boys were at their soccer training (including Samuel), YowCH went for a short 1.5km run. It was very hot and the air was stifling. A re-start after several months of not running at all.

Tags: David, Esther, Joseph, Samuel, YowCH by yowch
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Tags: David, Esther, Joseph, Samuel by yowch
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On the eve of New Year, we went to church for the Thanksgiving Service, then returned home to have some quiet family time. Grace worked on 1 Jan 2016, and YowCH brought the children out to cycle.


We even rode to the home of our friends, Quincy and family. Later, we had chicken rice for lunch, and started Samuel on the small bike to see if he can balance. Not ready yet:

Then we had a nice Western meal at The Ship to start off 2016.

This restaurant was where YowCH brought Grace out for a nice meal the first time when they dated back in 1994.


A nice dinner!

On Saturday we went to church, and just before reaching church, we had the children pose for this photo, showing all our children rolling their tongues:

Then we had a nice grill dinner at Grace’s parents’ place.

On Sunday, just before school re-opens, Grace went to work again. YowCH brought the children to swim class and chicken rice lunch thereafter. Then Esther took bus to ballet class while YowCH brought the boys to the West Coast Wolves soccer training. Samuel was happily joining in the fun.



This is Joseph:

And David:

Tags: David, Esther, Family, Joseph, Samuel by yowch
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As we did for the past few years, we went singing carols with our church on Christmas Eve. YowCH was with David and Joseph at NUH lobby, while Esther went to the wards of NTFH.

Here’s Esther leaving church, getting on to the bus.

And this is the NUH lobby.



David played the cajon, Joseph played tambourines and maracas, while YowCH sang and played guitar or, ukulele.

We gave Joseph a set of Lego City Advent Calendar, which he started last night.

And Samuel, now older than 2 years, we took out the Duplo box, and he was overjoyed, saying “Samuel’s Lego” immediately.

We then had dinner with Grace’s parents, packed Indian-Muslim food from Al-Amaan.

Tags: Church, David, Esther, Joseph, Samuel, YowCH by yowch
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Esther went for the 5km Hello Kitty Run with Gene, which was held on Saturday evening.


Here’s Esther at the starting line.


And here, at the finishing line

From GPS, the run measured almost 5.89km, which is closer to 6.0km, and at 54 minutes, Esther kept a rather good pace. It didn’t help that there were many slow ‘runners’, making it difficult to run.

Here’s her tag and the Finisher Medal.

Tags: Esther by yowch
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A busy weekend, starting on Friday evening, with YowCH’s company, T.Y.Lin, having the Annual Dinner with Peranakan theme. The company band played again.

The food is certified Halal specially for the event.


The food is peranakan style, and tasted pretty good for hotel food.

YowCH was the lead singer and played the electric guitar.

The band consisted of YowCH, Mark (vocals and acoustic guitar), Vincent (percussion), Arlinga (bass) and Sandi (keyboard). YowCH sponsored the Malay shirts for the band members. Click on photo below for link to the low-res video uploaded to Facebook. The performance was 30 minutes long, and the video is large file (unlimited Wi-Fi connection recommended).


The band played 1. Engkau Laksana Bulan, 2. Medley of Rasa Sayang, Lenggang Kangkung, Chan Mali Chan, Dayung Sampan – 甜蜜蜜, 3. When You Say Nothing At All, 4. Tetaplah Di Hatiku, and 5. Hotel California.
At the end of the dinner, we had a company group photo taken.

After the dinner event, we went to a nearby pub to have some fellowship with our foreign guests. Grace had a margarita while YowCH had a mojito, rather than beer.

Thanks to Grace’s parents for helping us look after all the children.

On Saturday morning, David continued his games in the soccer tourney disrupted last week by heavy rains. David played in Under-12 while YowCH managed and coached Under-10.


We had some snacks while waiting for the prize giving ceremony. Under-10 won bronze, but U-12 was sadly eliminated at the knock-out section.

After church, we had dinner with YowCH’s sister and family at Tung Lok Teahouse at Square2.


We ordered some strange food – pan-fried charcoal bamboo meat pao, and truffle crystal skin dumplings.

On Sunday, we went for swim, then YowCH, David and Joseph went to church for carolling practice. Grace took Esther and Samuel to Funan, for Esther’s ballet lessons and collection of the Hello Kitty Run Kit (Gene will run with Esther, 5km). This is Esther with the run kit.

We also bought another Fujifilm camera, the XQ1 (nearing end-of-line, since XQ2 is coming out very soon), for $300 to replace the spoilt XF1 (only 2 years old, but repaired several times, we decided to retire it).

The price when newly launched was about $500+.

Tags: David, Esther, Family, YowCH, YowCH's work by yowch
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We had a nice dinner at Shin Yeh (Taiwan food) at Liang Court on Sunday night. We ordered quite a large selection of dishes.


Here we are, all digging in:

We actually finished almost all the food!

And then, we had dessert (red-bean pancake and yam balls):

Later, YowCH sent Esther, David and Joseph to their grandparents’ place at Sorrento. Esther and David will stay over one night, then go to Church Youth Camp at Kota Tinggi on Monday morning, and return on Friday. With the older children away, we sent Joseph on a holiday-stay, too.

They will come home on Saturday, after YowCH’s company annual dinner on Friday night. We will also send Samuel to Sorrento on Friday for one night stay!

Tags: David, Esther, Family, Joseph by yowch
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On 26 Nov, Thursday (just before our trip to PJ), Esther performed at Victoria Concert Hall. Grace, David and Joseph went with Gene (YowCH was at a corporate event).
This is the combined choirs of several schools:

That’s Esther highlighted.

This is Queenstown Secondary School choir.


Esther in her choir gown (the gown is a little short, as she grew quite a lot in 2015).

And the family photo, with thanks to Gene.

On Saturday, YowCH brought David and Joseph to the Yuhua soccer tourney at Shuqun Sec school. That’s Joseph playing the goal-keeper:


YowCH helped with admin work for the West Coast Wolves.

And that’s David at training/warm-up.

The medal presentation for the Under 7 teams. The Wolves took 3rd place (5 teams participating).

Towards the afternoon, the games were stopped due to lightning and rains.

Sadly, our Fuji XF1 camera spoilt again during the games. The photos above are all from our soccer friend, Liew, except for the combo of Joseph.

Tags: David, Esther, Joseph, YowCH by yowch
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Grace and I got back from TYLin annual trip to Beijing on Sunday night, in time to spend Monday 26 Oct with Samuel for his birthday. We had dinner with Gene, and grandparents at Brotzeit Star-Vista.



We will update on the Beijing trip later.

Esther’s school project, Life-straw, is on display in the school. It is a project to improve the filtration straw to may muddy water drinkable.

Tags: Esther, Samuel by yowch
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