YowCH & Grace

Together with Beacon Cell Group, we had a dinner at Dining in the Dark, under the Singapore Association or the Visually Handicapped at Toa Payoh Rise on 15 Feb 2019. The boys were at Quincy’s place together with the other children, while Esther was out with her CJC friends.

Click on the map to get the Google Map location:


That’s our group photo before dinner.


We ate in total darkness and got to experience the world of the blind. It was a very challenging and humbling experience.

The food was OK, but the fellowship over the dinner table in absolute darkness was a very special experience. We learned to appreciate our sight and understand the struggles of the blind better.

Tags: Church, Friends, Grace, YowCH by yowch
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On Friday, 8 Feb, SJ had lion dance in the office.

YowCH also took the Odyssey to servicing on Friday, but Honda screwed-up the alignment. The next week, on 12 Feb, the car was sent to Kenny Alignment for a proper job, much better drive now.

Kenny also re-centered the steering wheel.

13 Feb 2019, the first day Esther wears her CJC uniform. 4 children in 4 levels – kindergarten, primary, secondary and junior college.

We dug up two old photos of ourselves, taken back in 1995. That’s 24 years ago.

Tags: Family, General, YowCH's work by yowch
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Grace had to work on the 2nd day of Chinese New Year (6 Feb 2019) and the rest of us went for sports, with YowCH, Esther and David going for a run. Here are our Nike shoes:

Warming up before running. Samuel and Joseph didn’t run, they played at the playground and basketball court instead.

After exercising, we went out for dinner before fetching Grace from work. However, there was no hawker food, and restaurants are way over-priced for CNY, so we ate McD (after a long time of not having any of it).

Tags: Family by yowch
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Esther joined the Church’s mission trip to Cebu, Philippine from 8 to 13 Jan 2019 while waiting for the O-levels results. Click on the photos below for the page:

Tags: Church, Esther by yowch
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Chinese New Year started on Sat 2 Feb for us, as we drove to PJ. After 2 nights in PJ, we returned to Singapore on Mon 4 Feb because Grace was on standby duty for Monday night. We had great food and family time in PJ with YowCH’s family and also in Singapore with Grace’s family.

Click on the photos below to go to the page.

Tags: Family by yowch
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Here is Samuel with his Lego set, he can follow the instruction and build the three different models:

On Sunday, 20 Jan, the three boys had their distance swims. Samuel had 8 laps, Joseph had 60 laps and David had 80 laps.

That was the start, spirit was high and good!
Samuel completed 8 laps (400m) in 31 mins 38 secs, way below the 60 mins passing time.

Joseph completed 60 laps (3.0km) in 1 hour 33 mins 55 secs, which is just beyond the 1 hour 30 mins passing time. Examiner says he may still pass if the exam board agrees to take into consideration his height (short) and age (10, most take 60 laps at 12).

David completed 80 laps (4.0km) in 1 hour 38 mins 12 secs, which is below the 1 hour 45 mins passing time.

Esther, Grace and YowCH also swam to accompany the boys, and to pace for them. Esther swam about 20 laps total, Grace did 32 laps and YowCH 10 laps (very hard swims, after recovery from 2 weeks of flu). Overall, the boys did very well for their swims! We had a nice lunch at Henderson after the swim.

In the evening, we visited the Lims for BBQ, a birthday party for Ezra. The evening started with the children in the pool.

Then it was great food!


We contributed mala chicken, Bloody Mary, cider and shandy.



The fellowship and food was great.


That’s the birthday photo with the children.

The night before, Grace made a draw-string bag as present for Ezra. The bag was done very nicely, and the Star Wars fabric was really cool.

Tags: David, Friends, Grace, Joseph, Samuel by yowch
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Esther received her O-levels results today, 3x A2, 3x B3 and 1x C5, good enough for Junior College as her L1R5 = 15 (lower than 20) and she gets 2 more points off for activities.

She will start school in Catholic Junior College on 1 Feb 2019 (Friday).

We thank God for blessing her with good results and letting her continue her studies in CJC.

Esther also received Meritorious Service Award for her duty as Deputy Head Prefect, and Commendable Service for her role in the Choir committee.

Tags: Esther by yowch
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Here’s another photo, now with all the boys. Esther is still waiting for her O-levels results and start of Junior College.

On Saturday, YowCH went cycling as usual, but noted that after about 200km on the roads, the rear tyre has worn out. He will swap front to back shortly.

The usual weekend activity, we had Soccer training, and in this first session of the year held on 6 Jan, the children had games and training at Clementi Stadium, while the parents met with the managers and coaches to discuss the year plan at West Coast CC.


YowCH spoke on safety and proper behaviour.

At 5:30pm, the children reached West Coast CC by bus (David helped coordinate), and we had dinner together.

Grace helped with the food orders and serving.

The following weekend 13 Jan 2019, we had dinner with the Yongs for Siu Hei’s birthday. Esther was absent as she was in Cebu with Church on a mission trip (more details later).

Tags: Family, YowCH by yowch
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At the end of 2018, YowCH and his colleagues in KTP managed to secure 3 new projects – 2 North-south corridor expressway contracts under LTA, and 1 HDB masterplan and flats. The Infra team will start 2019 very very busy.

On 31 Dec, we had a simple dinner at home. Esther was in church for prayers, and David was suppose to be in church, too, but he had fallen to virus attack.

At night, the 2 younger boys joined YowCH and Grace for the countdown to 2019, and we watched it on TV.

On 1 Jan, Grace had to work afternoon shift. YowCH went for a run at 6:00pm but a sudden rain storm with heavy lightning ended the run early. He clocked only 1.0km in 4m45s. First run of 2019.

For dinner, we ate at Wee Nam Kee chicken rice before picking Grace from work.

After dinner, David did some last minute ironing of his new uniform. YowCH also ironed on Joseph’s name tags.

2 Jan, first day of school for David (upper secondary now) and Joseph.

Esther is still waiting for O-level results (school starts in Feb) and Samuel is at home as Grace is off today.

Tags: Family by yowch
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We celebrated Christmas with service at church in the morning. We attended first service at 8:30am (after breakfast at the West Coast hawker centre). Then YowCH and Esther sang in the choir for the Chinese Service at 10:30am.

Right after that, we rushed to the children’s programme at 10:45am where Esther and David were in the worship band and also helped with games.

In the afternoon, we prepared dinner and had a nice Christmas dinner with Grace’s parents and Gene. We cooked white wine clams, mala baked chicken, saugages, beans+mushrooms, steak, cucumber, ABC soup and century egg.

We had fruits and wine, too.

And at the end of dinner, we had a fruitcake (bought from Han’s) soaked with XO and Cointreau (we infused on Sunday, so there were 2 days of soaking).

After dinner, we enjoyed singing Christmas carols.

Tags: Church, Family by yowch
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