YowCH & Grace

Christmas day, during Covid pandemic. We went to the 12:00noon church service.


During service, the song Esther and YowCH recorded was played:

We then visited Sorrento for a short while.


At home, just before dinner, YowCH, Esther and Samuel sang some Christmas songs.

A photo of our Christmas presents. The lemons are from YowCH to the children (this year’s joke).

We prepared hot-plate dinner and ate with Grace’s parents and Gene.



David bought some donuts for the family.

After dinner, we opened our presents.

On 27 Dec, we had mince meat pies for breakfast. Actually, there is no meat, mince meat pie is an English name for fruits pie.

We invited the Yongs over for dinner, and prepared the seafood earlier.

Again hot-plate.



The children had a good time cooking and eating.

We drank Swedish Glogg, Ikea brand, which Yan bought.

For dessert, we had fruit cake and Christmas pudding.


The Christmas pudding was really too sweet.

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On 23 Dec, YowCH visited Chye Joo office (his new employer starting from 4 Jan 2021).

His cubicle, large space in the middle of the office.

And his Asus Zenbook 14 UX434 laptop with touch screen and second screen at the mouse pad.

Esther wanted to play an electric bass guitar, and YowCH found a unit on Carousell. It was $320 with bag, and it is actually very new (the previous owner didn’t play much with it). The Ibanez Gio Bass:


Here are our 4 Ibanez guitars, basses (acoustic and electic) and guitars (acoutic and electric):

Grace took Joseph and Samuel out to cycle, they both did well.

Today is the last day and the Lego Advent sets (Star Wars and Harry Potter) are both completely opened.

Our Christmas eve dinner.

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On 21 Dec, YowCH visited the North-south Corridor N111 site at work.

In the evening, the BCG ladies met at our place for dinner.


YowCH and the boys went to ARC for sushi dinner. Also went to 3 different NTUC to get tong yuen, but couldn’t get any as it is mid-winter today. Finally settled for the small ones.


The small tong yuen, shared with the BCG ladies.

And the highly alcoholic (but very nice) fruit cake.

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YowCH visited the dentist for routine cleaning, and also got advice to wear a mouth guard to prevent grinding during sleep.

Our dinner, with 6 pieces of pork shoulder meat fried on the large skillet all at one go!

YowCH visited his Simpang Kiri Bridge on 18 Dec.

On Saturday, after Samuel’s Chinese tuition, we had lunch at Shi Li Fang.

Our church had a Star Wars themed Christmas service for the juniors, Samuel dressed up!

Roll back to the past, Grace bought a Tetris game.

We had lunch at Tiong Bahru Market after swim on 20 Dec.

Mom made a fruit cake, and YowCH marinated the cake with rum, brandy and Cointreau.

We had satay and otak-otak (bought from NTUC) for dinner with Grace’s parents and Gene, followed by tong yuen, as tomorrow is mid-winter.

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Our lunch and dinner on 12 Dec:


YowCH bought an even larger skillet (30cm/12″) from China, at only $21 including postage! The skillet is very much larger and heavier. Again, YowCH did the rope-works on the handles for better grip.

As part of his Junior Camp, Samuel wrote a card to a friend.

16 Dec 2020 is our 20th wedding anniversary. Earlier, on 4 Dec, Esther took the photos of us re-creating our wedding photos. Joseph helped to carry things and set up the scenes. YowCH then got the photos printed, laminated and made into a large album and several small albums as a surprise for Grace. Click on the photos below to get to the page.

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We brought Samuel to Bishan for some Bishan Park fun with his cousins. Also gave away Esther’s mountain bike to Sui Hei and Si Wan.



As the sun set, we returned to the Yong’s place and had some more fun time before our dinner.

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Samuel had his Junior Church Camp (Z-Supa, organised by Scripture Union) which was held on-line this week.


YowCH continued this regular runs.

Our dinner, with young coconuts as dessert.

David tried out making caramel sweets, very nice! Grace helped.

Youth camp started on Friday, 11 Dec, with online meetings.


Samuel wasn’t in Youth Camp, he was just playing games on the iPad.
After the Youth Camp meeting, YowCH and Esther recorded the Christmas song for the choir, with Grace’s help.

YowCH runs, and also does his gym exercises.

Esther bought some strong sour and hot noodles online for the family. Very tasty, can buy more!

Samuel at tuition again, extra-time again.

Samuel at church.

We bought peanut snacks which is a type of traditional sweets, very nice.

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We bought some satay from NTUC to grill on our charcoal stove, very nice!

Here’s Samuel at the Chinese tuition centre, he couldn’t finish his work, so he had extra-time at the front counter.

After tuition, we ate noodles, while Esther, David and Joseph settled their own lunches as they went to church in the afternoon.

5 Dec, our church service resumed the week before, and this week, BCG attended.

That’s Samuel in his junior class.

And we had dinner at Sorrento with Grace’s parents and Gene.

On Sunday, we had our regular swim, followed by lunch at Henderson.

YowCH ordered an amplifier from China to hook-up with the old mini-hifi speakers (from 1995). Costing only $25 including postage, the amplifier works well, and even has Bluetooth to pair with the children’s phones. We placed the set in the kitchen to have music while cooking.

We went to United Square for dinner before picking Grace from her afternoon shift.

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We booked tickets and had a visit to the Night Safari on 3 Dec night. It was drizzly but we were able to walk the park and see the animals. Click on the photos below to jump to the page:

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On 01 Dec, YowCH brought Samuel and Joseph to the school carpark for more cycling practice. Joseph is back in good shape and Samuel is now able to cycle quite well, proper balance and going a long distance before stopping or falling.



Grace and Esther went to do their hair colouring. After the hair-do, they had lunch with Grace’s parents and Gene.

Here’s a photo of Esther teaching Samuel piano at home.

On Thursday, 03 Dec, we went to Ang Mo Kio to have lunch at this bak kut teh place, very nice.

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