YowCH & Grace

Joseph received a wood craft ship from his classmate Katelyn. We built it on Saturday. The sails were plain white, so we printed some pirate design instead!

David also suggested painting the ship. We’ll see how to go about that.

On Sunday, Joseph played at The Rainforest again, friendly matches.

David was at the neighbouring Centaurs Sports Park with five other West Coast boys on loan to the another team that was short of players. Good exposure and made new friends.

Samuel had 4 teeth erupting over the past week (with fever) and missed one week of school. He was having his teething holiday with grandparents at Moh Guan. Now he has 6 teeth!

Esther will be baptised this coming Saturday.

Tags: Joseph, Samuel by yowch
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It is a long weekend, with Hari Raya Haji on Sunday, Monday becomes a holiday.

Joseph went on an excursion to the hydroponics pond and the brought some plants back.

For Children’s day on Friday, Samuel dressed as a ‘farm animal’.

Samuel is also very fast in crawling and climbing, as seen here with him inside his toy box. Rather dangerous. But he has yet to learn to stand up and walk.

David and Joseph had soccer training, even in the rain (as long as no lightning risk).


Esther has no exams and no ballet, so Grace, Esther and Samuel were at soccer training.

Lastly, after soccer, we had dinner with Yan’s family at Brotzeit, Star Vista.


It is October Fest. We had knuckles, rosti, grilled pork and a beer mix. Samuel had some pork knuckle meat, too.

Tags: Family, Joseph, Samuel by yowch
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Lots of freedom for Esther now, PSLE is over! Praying that she did well.

Tags: Esther by yowch
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Here’s a photo of Esther studying for her PSLE (Primary School Leaving Examinations). She worked hard over the past few weeks. The last paper is on Tuesday 30 Sept (tomorrow).

Today, YowCH brought the Isis to Mova workshop to repair at 10:00am before going for a meeting. Mova gave a very beaten up Toyota Vios as a temporary car to get YowCH to his meetings.

The rear right seat was repaired and aligned (not perfect, but acceptable) so as to be not a safety concern.

Also, the spare tyre cage has been bent to be curving up to reduce the scraping against higher kerbs, especially with the car loaded.

Mova’s service is reasonably good, the Isis was returned at about 3:00pm.

Tags: Esther, General by yowch
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With the Isis returned, we first reinstated the spoiler on Friday night. The workshop placed the 3M double sided tape (for car) and we measured off the bike rack before putting up the spoiler.

David was helping on this as Esther was focusing on her PSLE exams. Below is the before and after photos.

Here, you see David doing a load test.

On Saturday morning, YowCH brought the Isis to Tong Lee Wee (Lengkok Bahru) to repair the wing mirrors. The right wing mirror was repaired on Thursday. However, after opening up the left wing mirror, the motor was found to be spoilt, and a replacement part must be found. We will have to return to the shop in a few days.

While waiting for the wing mirror repairs, YowCH started on the gear knob cover (a project that was conceived a few weeks after getting the Isis back in 2009). Here is the before and after photos. The plastic knob is now grey-coloured fake leather, and stuffed to be bigger (nicer grip).

Here is the process:

Started with a piece of tissue to get the shape and size. Then marking out on the fake leather and cut.

After trial fitting by hand, the slow work of stitching took about 1 hour. YowCH’s stitches are not very neat.

Then the stuffing and finally wrapping onto the gear knob and secured by tie-wires.

On Sunday, the boys went to The RainForest Sports Hub to play friendly tournament with 7 other clubs, under the Community Football League (www.apsm.com.sg).


The opponents were mostly Caucasians and larger in size, plus more experience. Our West Coast team didn’t do very well, but we still had some goals and some wins.




Samuel had fun, too.

While the boys were playing, Grace drove Esther to and from church (baptism class) and then to and from Chinese tuition (prep for PSLE).

Tags: Family, General by yowch
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Here’s a photo of the children at the playground near our home. Samuel can climb the stairs right up to the highest level by himself, and he is now trying to stand up.

It is Formula 1 in Singapore again, we watched it on the big screen, and the TV + monitor provides the internet real-time news feed and race data updates.

And for convenience, we brought home KFC dinner.

Tags: Family by yowch
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We introduced Age of Empires to Esther and David about 2 years ago, but they were just too young then. Now, David started again, and plays reasonably well. The game teaches management of resources, manpower and battle strategies. Very good for mental development.

We had a nice dinner at Tiong Bahru, Two Face. The pizza was great.

Tags: David, Family by yowch
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Trouble: Kit Kat (Android 4.4) restricts apps from writing and accessing the SD Card directly as a form of security. You can Google “Kit Kat SD Card” and learn about this issue. One example is here.

After transferring most of the files and data from the “Desire X” to the new “One M8″, YowCH spent the night shifting manually data from Whatsapp, YouVersion Bible and Docs-to-go files. This is problem as the data will reside on the phone and when the phone crashes, the data is not on SD card hence not independent!

Tags: General, YowCH by yowch
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With re-contract and new hand-set purchase, YowCH got a large phone, HTC One M8 with a free HTC 8000mAh Powerbank and 3 months free subscription to Amped (online music, not useful), for $148.00, street price is $750, RRP $1000. The phone is a nice gun-metal gray, and comes with a silicone wrap to protect the brushed aluminium casing.

This is the package that arrived from Singtel:

The phone is really large, as compared to YowCH’s previous phone, the HTC Desire X.

It runs on Android Kit Kat (4.4.3), had stereo speakers, front and back cameras (4MP), and a 5″ full HD screen. Also available in gold or silver, but gun-metal looks best for YowCH. The large screen is helpful for aging long-sightedness.

Tags: YowCH by yowch
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Grace was working overnight shift on Saturday, so YowCH brought the children to the swimming class, 8:00pm to 9:00pm, after Church.


The pool was absolutely empty by closing time, 9:00pm.

On Sunday, Joseph brought Samuel along with YowCH to buy breakfast, and Samuel was in the Maclaren pram.

After this photo was taken, YowCH did some wheel swapping to balance the use, as the back wheels are practically fully worn out.

Then the boys went to soccer and Esther went to ballet. After our showers at home, we went to ARC for dinner, and ate at OKG Express. Rather nice food.

Tags: Family, Samuel by yowch
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