YowCH & Grace

Samuel took his Swimsafer 2.0 Bronze level exam on Sunday afternoon, after our regular weekly swim. He was the smallest size taking the exam (probably one of the youngest). Most are actually taking Stage 3, with 3 taking Bronze. Samuel took his Stage 3 recently on 17 Nov 2019.

First to take an on-line multiple choice questions text. Then swim survival-backstroke, survival-sidestroke, back-stroke, freestyle and breaststroke, each for 1 minute. Wear float in the water, take off T-shirt and shorts while in the water and to thread water for 2 minutes.


Francis (our coach) was present, too. Tobby was the examiner.

The Bronze cert:

In the morning, Grace swam 20 laps continuously, YowCH did 10 (freestyle) in 17m40s (5 secs faster than last week), while the children did resistance training. We ordered lunch from Kay Lim to eat before Samuel’s exam.

In the evening, we visited the Yongs, and had dinner together. We brought along spam-fries and maoshanwang durians.

After dinner, we enjoyed gin-rummy:

UPDATE 01 March 2020: Here is Samuel with Coach Francis and the certificate:

Tags: Family, Samuel by yowch
No Comments »

Here are photos of Joseph and Samuel at ther piano class with D-flat Studio, Tanglin.

YowCH has been running 3x 2.5km weekly, and going fast. On 1 Feb 2020, he had a fast run of finishing 2.5km in 12m05s.

Tags: Joseph, Samuel, YowCH by yowch
No Comments »

The car air-con broke down when we went on our trip to PJ for CNY. We sent the car to the workshop for repairs once we returned to Singapore. So o Wednesday morning, Joseph and Samuel walked to school while YowCH walked to work.


Esther, David and Grace took bus to school/work.

Here are some TVB wuxia series that we have watched (except for The Duke of Mount Deer, 鹿鼎記, which we just started watching).
Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils, 天龍八部
The Return of the Condor Heroes, 神鵰俠侶

New Heavenly Sword and Dragon Sabre, 倚天屠龍記
The Duke of Mount Deer, 鹿鼎記

We have posted The Legend of the Condor Heroes, 射鵰英雄傳 earlier.

Tags: General, Joseph, Samuel by yowch
No Comments »

Our soccer team, West Coast Wolves had the annual meeting and dinner on 19 Jan 2020. The children had their weekly games/training, while the parents met at West Coast CC. David helped with the training, and Joseph had to sit out because of his fracture. Here is a photo of the meeting to discuss training needs, strategies, development and plans for football leagues.

At 5:30pm, the children joined the adults at West Coast CC for dinner. We catered nice food.


Grace helped get 2 sets of ‘yu sheng’ (we paid for these). Unable to find the prepared sets, she bought the ingredients from Sheng Siong and sliced the raw vegetables in Church before bringing over to the CC.


We had fun at the party.

Tags: General, Joseph, Samuel, YowCH by yowch
No Comments »

YowCH’s company, KTP, had a Chinese New Year lunch on Friday 17 Jan 2020.

Later in the evening, YowCH, Esther and David prepared dinner for BCG as we hosted the cell group at our place.

Some miscellaneous stuff:
Wi-fi biscuit:

Pomelo skin helmet for Samuel:

Tags: Church, Friends, General, Samuel, YowCH's work by yowch
No Comments »

Esther decided to cook a dinner on 8 Jan, so she when to Ikea after school and bought the stuff to cook for the family. Nice!

YowCH bought some durians from a vendor who delivers to KTP, 3 fruits of Mao Shan Wang ($18/kg, total $72) on 9 Jan. We had durians as part of dinner, after YowCH’s regular run.

Just a nice screen capture of the Parents Gateway app on our phone, showing that all 4 children are registered with MOE (Ministry of Education). Esther will be out next year.

This was Esther’s bag for a few years, then Joseph used it for a few years (David needed a new bag because he overlapped with Esther), and finally Samuel used it for 1 week before the strap broke. The straps were just too old and the plastic deteriorated, and too much trouble to replace them, so we threw the 11-year-old bag away. Deuter Scholar series is very good as school bags. This old one is Small size.

Now Samuel uses Medium size (David’s bag). A little too big for his small body.

Tags: Esther, Family, Samuel by yowch
No Comments »

YowCH attended the meet-the-parents session for Primary 1 students at GESPS on Monday, 6 Jan 2020.
Here’s Samuel’s first piece of work in primary school:

His classmates:

His buddy (P5 assigned to guide P1), and his classroom:

And the pinning-of-the-badge ceremony to mark end of orientation.

Tags: Samuel by yowch
No Comments »

Our first soccer training in 2020 on Sunday, 5 Jan. Joseph and Samuel both trained well.

On Sunday night, David helped cut and fry arrowroot for snacks. Not easy to slice them evenly and thin with a knife, and frying takes a long time.

Here are some final photos of Redhill Close, our home from 2001 to 2005, before they are demolished (likely some time in 2020). YowCH regular runs and the daily commute to Gan Eng Seng Primary School still goes past these flats. We stayed in Block 10 unit 04-122, the corner unit at level 4 furthest from Jalan Bukit Merah.




Refer earlier post here.

Tags: David, General, Joseph, Samuel by yowch
No Comments »

Samuel enters primary school today, joining Joseph at Gan Eng Seng Primary School.

And here is a photo of all the children on the first day of school. This is the year of major exams, Joseph taking PSLE, David taking O-levels and Esther taking A-levels.

We pray for God to bless them with focused minds for their studies.

Tags: David, Esther, Joseph, Samuel by yowch
No Comments »

YowCH ran 2.5km on the morning of 31 Dec 2019 and again the evening of 1 Jan 2020. Both runs were quite fast, at 12m40s.

We went for the Church Thanksgiving Service on 31 Dec 219 (7:30pm to 9:30pm), then visited Grace’s parents until past midnight. Esther and David went out with church friends for their youth groups activities.

We stayed at home on 1 Jan 2020, mostly to prepare for school, to clear the home and to rest.
Here’s a photo of Samuel, his is well above the 1.0m line on the wall now.

Compare with Feb 2019.

Esther and David reached home in the morning. We had chicken rice for lunch and then walked to Carrara for dinner.

We slept early at about 10:30pm to prepare for school and work in the new year.

Tags: Family, Samuel, YowCH by yowch
No Comments »