Due to rough handling by guards (changing the IC for entry pass) at government buildings (LTA, PUB, HDB, etc.) the very poor quality Singapore IC is broken. The replacement is $60.
If a person loses the IC, $60 is certainly reasonable as a fine and replacement, but the IC was broken due to poor materials…
Saturday evening, after church, our friends called us over to share 2 VERY large pizzas that were wrongly ordered.
Very nice dinner and fellowship.
At home, you can see Samuel very interested in the terrapins.
Sunday morning, YowCH went with David and Joseph to the Football Fiesta at Mattar Road. Nice pitches, but pitches are small and the games management was poor.
Both David and Joseph played well.
Leaving football at 12:00 (the event finishes at 3:00pm), the boys joined Grace , Esther and Samuel at the Lees’ place to celebrate Elliot’s birthday. Nice food, drinks, cakes and a movie to go!
Grace left early for work starts at 12:30. After the party over lunch, Esther went for ballet while the boys went home to shower.
An update on the bedbugs, the double sided tape is very effective in stopping them from reaching us when we sleep. We will keep it up for a while more and hopefully solve the problem.
Our car had a minor puncture, where YowCH noted a little bulge on Wednesday. After filling air again, and checking again on Friday, the bulge returned. So YowCH brought the car to Arrow and patched the hole. The puncture was due to a very small nail.
Could have been hit back when we were in Malaysia last weekend!
The ultrasonic emitter we got 2 weeks ago was not very effective, the bugs were somewhat annoyed, but did not leave. It shouldn’t be so easy…
Next step, Grace bought some natural repellent scents placed near the beds and non-toxic (to humans) spray which we spray onto the bed-frames.
Another defence we employed: double sided tape. We taped all round the mattresses to trap bugs crawling up to us when we sleep.
Rather effective, as most of the bugs get stuck and we did not have bites during our sleep.
A few did get through and took some blood, the last photo shows a freshly fed bedbug squashed, and our blood spilled.
The steaming continues, too, and we will also regularly vacuum the house.
We made a trip to PJ over the last weekend (30 Jan, Friday to 1 Feb, Sunday) for TYLin KL annual dinner, family gathering, celebration of YowCH’s dad’s 70th birthday, and a good time together as a family.
Click on the photos below to get to the page.
Grace got a new laptop today, actually a tablet hybrid, the Lenovo Miix 2 10″ which s running on Windows 8. Bought at Challenger, the unit was $559.00 with a free Belkin bag, free McAfee Anti-virus for 3 years and free Microsoft Office Home/Student edition.
This unit will replace the aging and slow Acer AspireOne bought in 2009.
Here the unit is set up in laptop mode.
Why this model? Full HD (1920×1200) touch screen, JBL speakers, 2 full size USB ports and 1 micro USB port, 64GB eMMC storage, and we added a 64GB SD card. The build is nice and solid (unlike the newer Miix 3, which is rubbery and has no full sized USB ports).
Here you see the unit as a tablet, closed and a display.
24 Jan 2015 marks the official ground-breaking of the MRT Mount Pleasant station under YowCH, part of the Thomson-East Coast Line. Works had already begun on site several months ago. The ceremony was shared with Stevens station, which is not under TYLin.
Minister for Transport, Lui Tuck Yew was the guest-of-honour.
Today, Samuel was walking unsupported for quite a good distance. He also enjoys the playground rides.
Today we replaced the car wipers with Bosch Aerotwin wipers. Slightly more expansive than the Crystal silicone wipers, but Bosch claims better durability. We shall see…
The Bosch is black, the blue ones are the old pair we picked up (someone discarded, but new and usable).
The next phase in our bedbug fight (refer past post no. 1, post no. 2 and post no. 3), we bought the Maier Pest-out repeller with effect on both ultrasonic and electromagnetic to annoy and chase the bugs away. Again, let’s see how well this works.
We are still steaming them regularly.
Sometime along this week, Samuel started taking a few steps on his own, unsupported. At age close to 15 months, a bit later than the norm, but we will start him on hiking trips earlier…
On Friday evening, we joined Esther for the Secondary 1 end-of-orientation performance at Queenstown Secondary School. That’s Esther with her classmates:
She was assigned a middle-row locker:
On Saturday, we noted Samuel climbing up the front gate:
He has also started walking a few un-supported steps.
Our church, “The Bible Church, Singapore”, celebrated the 57th anniversary in a simple service and dinner at church.
After church, we invited the Ngs to our place and we had a movie night, Guardians of the Galaxy.
Sunday was busy as ever, with our swim at noon-time. Samuel is now able sit on the back of a swimmer
Then, Esther went for ballet, and David and Joseph played soccer, in the rain.
After soccer, we met Grace’s parents and Gene for dinner at Sin Hoi San.
