Samuel on bike with YowCH
Posted on June 3rd, 2015 by yowch
Here’s the Yow-family cycling method for small children:
Weekend – Soccer games, Samuel, 2nd hand boots, box, paper-drum, holiday program
Posted on June 1st, 2015 by yowch
This weekend is the start of the June holidays. On Sunday morning, Joseph played soccer at Yusuf Ishak Sec Sch in the Under-7 team (the Under-9 team was also playing). David helped manage the U-7 team, and Esther was helpful in bringing Samuel about. There were 8 teams of U-7 and U-9.
While Joseph was playing, YowCH went swimming at Jurong East Swimming Complex with Esther and David. Samuel was asleep, so Grace looked after the small boy. After the swim, we returned to Joseph’s games, for the closing ceremony. Madam Halimah Yacob, MP for Bukit Batok, gave way the participation medals.
Later in the afternoon, Esther went to ballet class, and David played in a friendly match with BB East and Ulu Pandan at Queenstown Pri Sch. Joseph helped with the warm-ups and cheered for the Under-12 team.
A very tiring weekend. Thankfully, Monday is a public holiday, Vesak Day.
Here’s Samuel at KKH garden, after lunch:
With Grace at work with afternoon duties, YowCH picked up some 2nd-hand items which Grace have arranged for:
1. 1 pair of Timberland hiking boots for the children. The other two pairs were picked up some time last week.
2. 1 toy carry-box, Playmobil, for Samuel:
3. 1 Paper Jamz ultra-thin finger drum pad.
The pad has outlet, and sounds great when patched to our 40W amp! The built-in speakers are good enough for Samuel.
Lastly, here’s a look at our program for June 2015 (prepared by the children). We are fully booked!
Roland Cube-30 guitar amp for the drums
Posted on May 26th, 2015 by yowch
We picked-up a unit of 2nd-hand Roland Cube-30 guitar amp at $200 to pair with the drum-set. At 30W with 10″ driver, the amp is not as loud and powerful as the Fender Mustang-II, but fits nicely within the drum-set frame and works well, but certainly loud enough for our HDB flat, with reasonably rich bass. It looks very similar to our portable Roland Micro-cube.
Eco-park, guitar & drums, soccer
Posted on May 25th, 2015 by yowch
Last Sunday, we spent the morning at Rumah Tinggi Eco Park before our swim.
Samuel really loves to climb!
Up on the hill, it looks like some holiday scene!
Pillar hugging at the multi-purpose porch.
Back at home, Esther and David played the guitar and drums together, sounds good.
We managed to sell the acoustic drum set, at $200 which gives us $20 to cover the transportation expenses. Worthwhile for the short time we played the drums.
In the afternoon, the boys went for soccer training as usual, at Tanglin Secondary School.
Weekend – fan, Skylanders, digital drums, YowCH’s 10km run
Posted on May 18th, 2015 by yowch
On Saturday morning, while Grace is at work, YowCH mounted a new wall fan in the bedroom with Esther’s help.
We also update on some of our Skylander figures, which Grace manage get through 2nd-hand sales, all of good value.
After church, we also picked up a 2nd-hand digital drum set, the Yamaha DTXplorer from our church friend, Theolynn, for $500. A good buy, as the set is low-usage and in fantastic conditions. David and Esther did most of the assembly.
The set sounds great when connected to our Fender guitar amp.
Here’s David playing the drums. Samuel likes the drums, too.
The old acoustic set shall be sold, all packed and ready.
On Sunday morning, YowCH took part in the HometeamNS REAL run at Sentosa, successfully completing 10km of road, trail and sand. Click the photos below for the page.
YowCH ran 10km, Joseph & David shoe bags, Samuel with backpack, dinner at Porn’s
Posted on May 3rd, 2015 by yowch
This is the first time YowCH managed to cover 10km in a run. Well, there was included about 1.2km of walks (should have persevered and walked less for better timing).
Just short of 2 minutes and 37 seconds to keep the 10km under 1 hour.
The target was originally 8km, but along the way, high in adrenaline, he decided to push to the 10km.
The swim with the family after the run (and breakfast) was very relaxing!
In the afternoon, Joseph and David went for soccer while Esther went to ballet. The boys had new shoe bags, matching colours with their water bottles.
For dinner, we went to Star Vista. Samuel carries his own backpack with water bottle and diapers and changing stuff.
Dinner was Thai food at Porn’s (Pornsak’s). Very nice!
YowCH’s run gear, Samuel’s iPod casing
Posted on May 2nd, 2015 by yowch
In preparation for the run, YowCH got some useful stuff:
A belt pouch to hold essentials, a clip on blinker light (from his bike, for night runs), a small water bottle (advice from friend, the water point is often too crowded with people), and glucose tablets (advice from CCK, wrap in paper for ease of access).
Grace got a nice second-hand ($8) Fisher-Price iPod/iPhone holder for Samuel, nice handles and he can be prevented from pressing the screen accidentally.
RealRun race pack, Salvation Army, dinner at Moc Quan, Skylanders
Posted on May 1st, 2015 by yowch
We collected the Hometeam NS RealRun 2015 race packs at Novena Square during lunch time, meeting up with YowCH’s colleague, Geoshua.
YowCH is no. 0980.
As there was no queue, all 24 packs for TYLin (including 1 for Gene), each with T-shirt, bib, radio-tag, and some goodies, were very quickly collected.
In the afternoon, we visited the Salvation Army Thriftshop at Tanglin (near home) and bought ourselves plenty of cheap stuff – bags, umbrella, CDs and DVDs and coffee cups.
For dinner, we went out to collect some second-hand Skylanders and ate at UE Square, Vietnamese Restaurant. This is the second time we ate there, nice food.
Here are the Skylanders, together with the Wii game. All second-hand.
Sengkang Swimming Complex, guitar for Esther
Posted on April 29th, 2015 by yowch
Grace is off today, and YowCH took half-day leave in the afternoon to bring the children to Sengkang Swimming Complex. The place was very nice and fun, with many water-based play areas. However, the fun was cut short by lightning risk, we spent only about 45 minutes there, having driven for 30 minutes from home.
Being a weekday afternoon, the place was rather empty of people. This swimming complex has indoor Olympic-sized pool, training pool, children play area, baby pool, water slides and jacuzzi.
Samuel had so much fun that he kept running back to the water-play area even when the lightning warning was on.
After the water-play session, we drove to Tampines to pick up a second hand (practically new) Takamine 3/4 Acoustic Guitar GX11ME-NS for Esther. This is partly given to her as birthday present, and partly paid by herself.
At $330 with a nice padded bag and strap, it is a good buy. The “Taka-mini” sounds very bright and the pick-up works very well.
Here’s a photo of the guitars on the rack (5 total, Takamine 3/4 acoustic, Ibanez acoustic, Congress 3/4 classical, Aria 3/4 electric, Ibanez electric)
Samuel’s new uniform, YowCH running, Drum set, Transformers
Posted on April 26th, 2015 by yowch
Firstly, we bout the new school uniform for Samuel, the smallest size XS, and yet he is too small to wear. We’ll keep them for later.
As YowCH started running again, the building up progress is good, with records up to this morning as below:
Here are some selfies of the very sweaty YowCH after this morning’s 6.0km.
Target to reach 10km before the HomeTeamNS REAL Run 2015 Sentosa run on 17 May.
Yesterday, we got ourselves a second hand drum set, Fender Starcaster, with hi-hat, snare, bass, floor tom, 2 tom-toms and a crash. All for $180, not too expensive, but taking up lots of space at home.
Esther can play pretty well, David is picking it up fast, and Joseph is keen.
Samuel was also very excited over the drums! Very loud.
We will need to sell the set and buy digital instead (for space and also lower noise).
We got ourselves Superion (Aerialbots) and Menasor (Stunticons), for Joseph and David respectively. The models are not too nice, but simple and fun enough for the boys, and rather affordable (each set about $140). Both can be posed very nicely.
