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Last Saturday, Steve was kind enough to invite the CG over to his new place at Castle Green near Yio Chu Kang for a much belated birthday celebration. Unfortunately (or fortunately!), he couldn’t join us the other time round at Se Ra Bel when we celebrated Pris’ and Changky’s birthdays. Though he would vehemently deny it, I’m sure the real reason he couldn’t make it was because he is still traumatized by last year’s sabo.

Ashley, Zhiyi, Mylene and I were the first to arrive at Steve’s new place all armed with our swimming gear. The last time Ashley went for a swim was probably months ago, and she had been dying to go ever since. Steve wasn’t kidding when he said his place had a HUGE pool.

Ashley: Why are we waiting, why are we waiting…

The crowd started to trickle into Steve’s place around 7+ and while the food - pasta, pizza, veggies, etc - was ready, we sat around chit chatting and waiting for Changky to arrive with Merv’s guitar in order to start praise and worship. Reina was very nervous as we kept hinting many times that if Merv’s guitar didn’t arrive in time, she would have to play solo (her first time!). Thankfully, Changky arrived just as we were about to go ahead and Merv and Reina led us with 2 lighthearted praise songs. Finally, we gave thanks for the food and tucked in!

Chris working up an appetite singing some love worship songs.

Apart from eating, we also had a good time catching up with one another, singing karaoke and playing boardgames. Pity everyone was so engrossed with the karaoke and boardgames that nobody took photos! Steve had this really interesting karaoke microphone that stores songs directly inside. No more clunky LDs or CDs to juggle! What was even more amazing was seeing all IslandHope Idol Wannabes scoring 90 points and above for each song (points awarded by the machine). I always knew the CG had a lot of hidden talent. Well, too bad, it is hidden no more!

Joseph also took the chance to practice using his new Canon DSLR. I must say his photos are getting better and better! Here are some of his photos that I’m helping to share out. You can click on the photos for a larger version.

Gab below a spotlight smiling away as usual. What can I say, he deserves to be in the spotlight!

Merv looking very attentive after a few whites.

MC and Changky having a good conversation with Aloysius at the dinner table.

Finally, here are the group photos! Sorry, Chris, Merv and Pris, you guys are not inside coz you all left early. I’d try to Photoshop you in but it’ll not do justice to the great photos. Translation: I’m too lazy! Hyuks!

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It’s hard to believe that a year has passed and Ashley is now one year old! Looking at her, I just feel so amazed at how she was once so small and fragile, but is now actively crawling around the house and constantly demanding that people play with her or carry her. She has also progressed from her milk-only diet to eating biscuits, rice, bananas, papaya, fish and… um… ice cream (shhh… don’t tell the mum!!!). Not only that, her vocabulary has grown to an impressive 4 words - “mama”, “dada”, “that” and “cat”. Ok, maybe it’s three coz sometimes “that” sounds like “cat”.

Anyway, for this important milestone, Ashley was very blessed that her grandparents (i.e. my parents) flew all the way down from Malaysia just to celebrate her birthday with her. It was quite a sight to see 4 generations of my family having lunch together on Sunday. On Sunday evening, we finally brought Ashley for a swim after she had been “hinting” to us for the past few weeks. Following that, Zhiyi’s family, Zaccheus and parents and my family had dinner together at this Chinese restaurant called Pioneer Spring Restaurant at Mount Faber SAFRA and I must say, the food was really good!

But the real highlight of the night was really Ashley blowing the candles on her first birthday cake and getting her tiny fingers dirty with cake icing! Congratulations baby! We all love you! May you continue to bring tons of joy to our family and those around you with your cutie antics.

The next few photos were taken the day before we celebrated her birthday (i.e. two days before the actual day) when we brought Ashley to Underwater World and Dolphin Lagoon at Sentosa. Ashley had the most fun dipping her hands into the “Touch Pool” at Underwater World although she was too short to reach the harmless fishes and sting rays swimming near the bottom.

The Raspberry Cheesecake at Secret Recipe Vivo City gets Ashley’s stamp of approval.

Mummy looking gorgeous despite constant lack of sleep and breastfeeding for a year!

Look, I can stand for a few seconds now!

Finally, if you’ve stopped by to read this entry, please leave some birthday wishes for Ashley. She promises to read them (and all other fan mail) in about 3 to 4 years time. Arigato!

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Ashley and family would like to wish you a Happy Birthday and for God to continue to pour his blessings upon our family. Thanks for being such a great dad all these years (and now a grandfather to Ashley) and we hope to see you soon! Do visit us if you can.

And, not forgetting, a Happy New Year too!

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One year has passed since we celebrated Tiger’s and Jerilee’s birthdays at Fish and Co. Ah, how time flies! It seemed like just yesterday that we were all still bonding as a care group and trying to get to know one another better.

And with the passing of one year, not only have these two lovely Islanders grown in maturity and character, but we get to see one new face at the party. Guess who?

While queueing for our table (hey, it isn’t easy finding a table that can accomodate 18 people and 1 baby!)…

Ashley and Tiger re-enacting a famous movie scene.

This is HALF the birthday crowd.

As always, Pris was our dependable sabo-IC. I can always picture her working for those corny Japanese or Taiwanese variety shows asking participants to do all sorts of ridiculous stunts. Something I learnt from her that day was that the best way to put “stuff” into a cake is to squirt it in using a syringe. That way you don’t mess up the icing and the cake remains pretty much intact. Brilliant!

The REAL ringleader. Yumm… why does the cake taste so good?

Make a wish! But the sabo won’t go away. Heh heh…

Unfortunately, after one year of constant birthday sabo-ing, I think the CG folks have started to grow a bit immune. I can still remember Tiger commenting that his slice of cake tasted too sweet when it was actually laced with chilli!!! Indeed, the Lord is merciful, but only on Tiger and not Jerilee this time around. She still found it quite a hot experience. Haha…

The next photo with Reina holding a wad of cash is here solely for the purpose of helping me remember that I paid!

Show me the money!

Another big coincidence is that Kaidy also happened to be visiting from Australia and just like last year, her return coincided exactly with Tiger’s and Jerilee’s birthday. If we had gone to Fish N Co. again, that would really have been deja vu.

Kaidy & Friends

After the lunch, it was back to S11 for a time of affirmation (somehow we just can’t get enough of that place, not!). In CG tradition, this is the time that we take to say nice things about the birthday boy/girl that has impressed us most during the past year. For Tiger, he has really matured a lot and grown in ministry and his relationships with people, and for Jerilee, it’s a joy to see her bonding more with the CG each and every week. I think we will really miss her when she returns to Manila in September.

Now, can someone tell me what those chinese characters say again?

MC was gracious enough to start when Sarah popped by.

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Today marked the belated birthday celebration of our dear sister Elaine and knowing how all of her friends are foodies, we decided to treat her to Lebanese cuisine (not that she minds, of course!). Prior to this, I had never tried Lebanese food before so I was hoping it would taste a bit like Turkish food, one of my favourites. Alas, wifey isn’t too fond of Turkish food so I’m sure she was hoping the opposite. *chuckle*

The venue, Baladi at North Bridge Road, was suggested by Mabel. How she got to know of such a restaurant that is in some alley 400m away from Bugis Junction is beyond me. But hey, I guess it’s small things like these that seperates people who eat to live from people who live to eat.

The Kwok family arriving at the scene.

Ashley: I wonder how Lebanese milk tastes like? Hmmm….

Ambience and decor are top notch, if one can put up with the lack of air-conditioning.

The gals really blending into their surroundings!

Ashley saying grace. Either that, or praying for milk.

People with long legs are at a disadvantage here…

Even KC is dressed for the occassion!

After waiting for some time, the food finally arrived and to the amusement of some around me, instead of digging right in, I proceeded to carefully arrange the dishes and take photos of the food. Finally, giving in to my hunger, I put my camera down and to my pleasant surprise, the food really did taste as good as it looked! I’m not going to deny though that Lebanese food is probably an acquired taste.

Without further ado - the food! Should’ve taken a photo of the menu though as I can’t remember what is called what now…

Mabel and YH, two of Elaine’s closest sisters and pals.

Chris looking sleepy after such a heavy dinner and realizing he got caught in the act.

All in all, it was a fun-filled celebration and I enjoyed the opportunity to fellowship with other folks in the unit. There was a lot of positive affirmation and heartfelt encouragement for the birthday gal who has devoted so much of her life to serve in ministry and to be a friend to people. And for that, we also spared her the sabo. Heh heh…

Stay tuned to see how IslandHope celebrated Elaine’s birthday!

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Finally, Good Friday was upon us; and, in tradition of care group dating back to the turn of the century, this meant having a picnic at Botanical Gardens. In true tradition, it was destined to rain as well. Serious! It’s been raining every Good Friday since as long as I can remember. Well, you can’t really blame the weather considering someone precious died on this very day for all of us!

Nonetheless, there was a Plan B - bring an umbrella (which I informed some folks meeting earlier to do). Unfortunately, this plan was also thwarted when cats and dogs started to fall from the sky right after lunch. Finally, we settled on Plan C - to partake in a sumtuous dinner while mischieviously plotting the sabo of our April birthday girl, Yixi.

Wee Leong and Yixi. Wee Leong wasn’t even aware that we were planning a sabo but somehow managed to end up on the receiving end of Yixi’s suspicious questioning.

Our initial plan was to have dinner at Marche Heeren. However, thanks to their policy of not allowing outside food in, Changky, Merv and Guppy (encumbered with Yixi’s birthday cake) had to hunt for another place to eat. Finally, after meandering about, the birthday SWAT team settled on NYDC just outside Heeren. Interestingly, NYDC allowed us to bring the cake in but not consume it on their premesis. Argh, thanks to that, I was scratching my head thinking of Plan D!

In the meantime…

Ashley - the other center of attraction!

Looking around for food, as usual. Could there be coco-cows up the coconut tree?

Aha! Found one! Wait… Ashley smells something fishy here… “Mum, does that one make strawberry milk?”

If you stare hard enough, you can see Ashley grabbing onto Guppy’s finger below.

Amleth, our new chairperson, getting into the groove of his new IslandHope role. “Chairbear, STARE!!!”

After sundown, Guppy transforms into an undercover NYDC waiter with a pony tail!

Dinner ended around 8.15pm and throughout the night, we all played our part by planting ideas of a horrible and messy sabo in Yixi’s head. Sometimes, the power of suggestion can be worse than the actual thing itself if done on the right person! As we couldn’t eat the cake at the restaurant, we decided to head back to my place where there was more freedom to take our time and, umm, carry out our “plan”. On the pretext of needing extra time to prepare for the sabo (something we purposely made sure Yixi overheard), Changky and Guppy left earlier to actually purchase movie tickets for a 9.25pm show at Tiong Bahru.

While waiting for the remaining few to arrive, we indulged in a game of Text Twist. In between, Andrew somehow managed to usurp the keyboard away from our resident “Twister”, Pris.

Somebody looks disappointed! *Pouts* Just kidding… Pris was more than happy to let her fingers have a break!

Finally, the moment we had all been waiting for! Yixi and her soon to be hubby enjoying her last birthday as a happily attached single!

After that, it was affirmation time for this dear sister and there were many encouraging words spoken that night about how she had made use of her gift of creativity to bless the care group. In addition, many were also inspired by her stepping up recently to assume the unit administrator role, something that nobody would’ve thought possible one year ago! Indeed God is working through her life as she serves and takes care of the people in His flock.
Note: Yixi’s birthday is actually on the 17th of April but we decided to celebrate earlier anyway. What’s a few days!

All together now!

Finally, the highlight of the night - breaking the news to Yixi that there wasn’t any sabo after all. You should’ve seen the relief on her face when the truth was out! So much for all that effort spent negotiating a way out with Merv and Changky, the masterminds, during dinner!

Zhiyi and Ashley, appearing just in time as we were about to leave for our show!

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For the first time in IslandHope’s history, we had the priviledge of celebrating 3 birthdays at one go last Sunday. Steve was kind enough to open up his house for the event, and even cooked and catered food for us! If it were me running the universe, Steve would be celebrating his birthday everyday.

Sumptuous Italian themed lunch.

Cooking is hard work so we munch on chips while waiting for the chef.

Steve showing us the arcane art of boiling pasta.

The first batch of IslandHopies who arrived for the feast.

Pris, Steve & Changky bask in the glow of their magical birthday cake.

Brown - the theme of the day!

And for the record…

Did I mention that having 3 birthdays at one go opens up room for more, um, creativity? Heh heh… stay tuned for the next installment! Hint on Pris’ blog on what’s in store!

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I suppose many folks will be wondering how I spent my birthday this year. Yesterday, a lot of colleagues were asking me if my wife and I would be doing anything special, to which I gave them my standard reply.

“Ummmmmm….”

Anyway, I must say, I’m really blessed to be able to spend my birthday on leave doing absolutely nothing related to work for a change. To be specific, how I spent my birthday this year:

• Slept till 3pm.
• Ate honey cornflakes for lunch.
• Christmas shopping.
• Dinner at Fish n Co.
• More shopping!
• Arrived home and got a SURPRISE from my mom and sis who were faithfully waiting for me with a nice chocolate cake. *burp*

Present from wifey!!! Finally, a more “formal” looking watch to wear to work.

On Tuesday, I was also very blessed to be able to celebrate my birthday together with Dave (albeit a belated one for him) and the other unit folks. We went to this place called Sistina Restorante at Jalan Merah Saga (it’s one of those small lanes across the road from Holland Village).

Check out the romantic ambience! Hope our rowdy bunch didn’t ruin it for the other couples. *chuckle*

I must say I’m really blessed to have such caring “seniors” in church like Elaine, Mabel, Chris, Yihong, David and Li San; who are all always so willing to help me out with advise on how to take care of a Care Group. It’s indeed a real joy to be able to serve together with such sweet spirited and cheerful folks!

My partners in crim… I mean, Christ! Serving faithfully together since the beginning of 2005.

(Click on the image above to download the original)

Finally, if anybody is interested in trying out the food at Sistina, I wholeheartedly recommend the Pasta Carbonara. It’s one of the best I’ve ever tasted so far.

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SATURDAY

The exciting weekend started with Zhiyi and I taking part in the Straits Times 160th Anniversary Car Hunt. Everyday, starting from 1st July, we would search for letters scattered throughout the papers and collect them for pasting onto an entry form released only on 16th July in order to complete the missing pieces of a riddle.

Here’s the completed contest form! Can you guess the answer to the riddle?

If you guessed Macs at East Coast Park, you are right! That’s the only place where there’s a statue of Ronald MacDonald facing a bowling alley. After pasting all the letters and having a nice breakfast at home, we set out to ECP with 40 mins to spare (we had to drop in the contest form by 11.30am).

“No problem!” I thought.

Horror of horrors, when we arrived, there was a massive jam and a huge crowd of 6000+ people (according to reports the day after). As a result, we had to get off and walk from the beginning of the park all the way to Macs (about 1-2 km). I can never remember running so hard in my life just to meet the entry deadline. In the process, I ran past a lot of people also rushing to try to submit their entries on time.

“Poor folks I thought,” as I zipped past them. “They are not gonna make it!”

Thankfully, I arrived at the scene on time and dropped my entry form into this big blue box. 5 mins later, I saw people carrying off the box to the stage where the lucky draw winners would be picked. The prizes? 10 consolation prizes of $160 each and a grand prize of a Mazda 6 (without road tax and COE) worth at least $80k. I was fortunate enough to drive a Mazda 6 during my honeymoon in New Zealand and I can safely say that this is one beauty of a car - good looks, good handling and great features! In short, *drool*

My dream car.

Anyway, the event was marred by usual images of ugly Singaporeans, e.g. who persistently argued with attendants despite arriving after the entry window had been closed, a family who lost 2 kids in the crowd, and kiasu people who pasted their entry forms onto cardboard (nice try!). They were promptly disqualified.

The winner turned out to be a lady aged 34 who was in sales and who had just bought a Mazda 3 two weeks before! And the biggest irony? She only submitted her entry form 10 mins before the draw!!! Haha… oh well, so much for zipping past people and thinking they couldn’t make it, though I do pity the folks who had been there since 6.30am despite the rain and crowds.

SUNDAY

This special day saw us celebrate the birthdays of two folks in the care group - Tiger and Jerilee, after church at Fish and Co. next to Park Mall. The food and atmosphere there was great (us being the first customers of the day and having virtually the whole place to ourselves).

Greedy Tiger and Chirpy Jeri. Happy 21st Birthday both!!! Just kidding… about the age.

Yet another picture of the care group eating. And, yes, Changky is around for once!

Zhiyi and her Mermaid Freeze. Notice also how well colour coordinated she is!

And, what are birthdays without the SABOs! Yes, the plural form of the word was intentional. Muahahaha….

Sabo #1: Tiger and Jerilee had to blow out the birthday cake without bending while standing on a chair.

Sabo #2: *PIAK* Snort… Need I say more?

Sabo #3: An impromptu song and guitar number in front of everyone.

Oh, the agony! Anyway, wanna say a big thank you to Tiger and Jerilee for being so sporting, to Merv who wrote the cool sabo song, Zhiyi for preparing one of her trademark sticker cards and buying the presents, and to everyone else who took part in the festivities! I’m really looking forward to the next birthday celebration. Ain’t it great to be part of this family!

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Congrat’s to the happy couple who tied the knot on 14th May 2005 after many years of courtship! Look at how happy they are. Need I say more? God Bless you guys with a wonderful lifetime of marriage and companionship! Here’s a photo of the wedding that was held at the Singapore Arts Museum. It’s like a nice and cosier version of Chijmes.

Speaking of a wonderful lifetime of marriage, here’s one woman who has lived it - my dear mom-in-law. On that same night, we took her and dad out to Fish-and-Co at Park Mall to celebrate her XXth birthday (not revealing! Actually dunno… ha!). The waiting time was long due to the popularity of the place and the fact that it was a Saturday night, but the food and ambience was worth it in the end. There was even this one-man-band singing and playing a guitar on stage who must’ve sang over 5 “Happy Birthday” songs that night.

Finally, to top off the hectic Saturday, we rushed for yet another birthday party at Christie’s condo near Bukit Gombak MRT. Alas, due to rain, we had to have the gathering indoors and hence miss out on a glorious opportunity to see Elaine, the birthday girl, demonstrate synchronized swimming to the happy birthday jingle. Here are some excerpts from the event (and checkout that ahhhbsolutely fahhhbulous house!).

I learnt tonight that junk food and ice cream can actually constitute a full meal.

The pillars of our church are founded upon these group of great and untiring leaders.

Girls always insist on having one photo without guys (we take up too much photo real estate).

Two language books and “A Brief History of the Human Race”.

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