Blessed Christmas from Us

We, Vicky, Niki and myself would like to wish each and everyone of you and all your loved ones a

Blessed Christmas and a jolly new 2008 year. May this blessed season bring you gifts of joy in every way.

Lots and lots of hugs and kisses

Us

And woot woot, there'll be a Christmas potbless at Siva & Joey's tomorrow and I'm bringing corn on the cob! Have reason to celebrate & eat corn at last *sorry this is an inside joke* Don't you just love the holiday season to bits especially when it's peppered with some soiree or another which means endless eating and reasons to make merry ;-) Yeah, we simply adore life simple pleasures ..

As usual will update with as much photos as I can lor!

Heading into the holidays

Ever noticed how when the December month is in full swing everything including yourself get into a warped slow-mo version of your former energizer bunny self? Well that's how I am at this point .. I'm feeling all holidayee .. and not in much of a mood for work thought there's still work nonetheless ..

Niki feels it too I guess coz it's getting harder & harder to get her out of bed in the morning, when I do wake her she'll just roll back into a gentle slumber with her blankie wrapped around her neck .. (much like a muffler!) even if I turn on the tv with cartoons it won't break her morning mini snooze .. since it's so close to Christmas I'm giving her a break too.. poor kid's gonna be in Nursery come January 3rd so .. little chicca can live a little .. :-)

And tonight Chicca is gonna have a sleepover at her Amama's as a prelude into her holiday .. she is so looking forward towards it just because her Amama, Tata & Ammu-ka spoils her silly .. ! And she gets away with everything including being a bratty brat.. but .. let's hear it again .. it's already the holidays & well she's off the hook.. for now at least

Just think by this time next week it's already Christmas!!! So excited at the prospect of going home .. *loses plot and starts singing a carol* .. "tis the season to be jolly, falalalala ..lalalala .."

Ok .. so what was I saying yup .. everything is really holiday moodsy .. and tomorrow we're gonna go Christmas shopping to get gifts for all the kids .. I've asked them what they wanted under the tree weeks in advance so at least I don't have to go around thinking what to get ..

Vicky wants to check out some hip jeans&t shop from turkey and I'm going hunting for my knee high leather boots .. already saw them a few days back and they have my size .. yay! I'm just thinking it over for another day .. before I go get them .. *ok ponder, ponder* ..

Ok it's about time to get my butt to the salon for my hair appointment .. I've been putting this thing off for the past few days already and my hair is practically wailing an s.o.s, so I'd better listen to it and go get it done already .. so ciaos my darling journal till my next post ..

A quiet dinner

My hon asked me out on a date last evening.. being an adult only type of invitation we left the the kid at home with Ammu. Felt like ribs and my honey always had a soft spot for steaks so went to tony roma's in sunway .. and had a wonderful dinner .. while overlooking the nightime sunway lagoon view which is quite pretty at night ..

I highly recommend the boneless ribs .. it was totally yummy and might I add that it's one casual dining place that provided us with one heckuva service, we enjoyed ourselves immensely and our server was wonderful ..

But you know what's better .. the company I had ;-) and of course being enveloped in his warm arms as we chatted the evening away definitely scored big in my love-o-meter! Thanks for an utterly wonderful night out honey ..

xoxo

Spot Me!

can you see little me here .. (middle row, and second from the right)

first row nearest to the grass, third from the left, yes, that's me trying to look coy!

Go ahead try and spot me la in this old pic taken while in school .. vicky had a good laugh when I showed him this .. thanks to Mimi & Azlita for the pics, which I shamelessly took from their fb!

Pic One : the primary one (the one where everyone's way shorter & wearing the navy blue pinafore -- I think we were like in Std 6 or something)

Pic Two : my form 5 class .. I had long hair and liked to pin it up to back of my skull ..

Enjoy ..

Enjoy laughing I mean .. ;-)

Siew Hoon

my friend, siew hoon

I met with Ah Hoon last Wednesday at Dome.

It's been like nearly ten years since I last saw her. And might I say that she's looking mighty fine .. but then she always had ;-)

And even though its been ages we picked up where we left off so naturally, well I guess childhood friends has that special magic don't they?

And so we ate & talked the evening away while laughing our heads off..

And of course we talked about the good ol' times and stuffs that's been happening in the lives of our mutual friends since Form 5 .. to put it mildly .. it was good to catch up .. and it felt good..

I have been guilty of not staying in touch enough and well I told Siew Hoon that's its a lesson learned and that I promise with *scouts honour* to keep in touch more often .. i reckon we get more sentimental as we grow older *cough* .. and friendships are appreciated more ..

at one point our waiter shot us a "how can girls talk so much?" look so I asked him to pour more water into my tea ..hehehehe ..just to let him know that we'll be staying a wee bit longer ;-)

Weekend daze

I was in a daze all weekend because I was sick ..

with fever, a sore, sore throat, headache and everything else..

I told Dr D to give me hardcore meds so I can get better & get myself to work by Monday,

the meds worked like a charm and I felt all better by yesterday evening ...

note to self *augmentin is a super duper antibiotic that cures all!*

Birthday shoutout to Niki's Amama!

Niki's Amama blows out 55 candles today, yay!

Happy Birthday, Amama!

Collage of Pangkor

uncle lim's chinese restaurant

in bed with niki & her blankie

picture perfect

leaving PLR

at the infinity pool

our villa's front porch, surrounded by the lush green jungle

our villa

niki and her daddy

at the Feast Village for dinner

around the resort, breathtaking views everywhere

chapman's bar at emerald bay

here's us the Lumut office

in PLR's ferry

arriving at PLR

the night turn down in PLR

Here's our holiday album of our time in Pangkor Laut Resort.

I can't even start to tell you how beautiful the resort and the island was, it's hard to believe that it's nearly 10 years old coz it is in superb condition and the people there.. are fabulous and made us feel really warmly welcomed at this island paradise, the picture doesn't actually do PLR much justice, and let's just say we were so heavy hearted to leave this morning.. PLR is a spectacular getaway, and it's so romantic ..yes, even with Niki with us, it still can be romantic, we just need to improvise ;-) ..

Did I mention earlier that our villa was just next to the pavarotti suite? To think that the famous late tenor stayed just right next to us in another place and time..

A Day for total R & R

What to do after filling in a sumptous breakfast?
Go to the pool for the rest of the day of course with a good book ..
and the love of my life .. Vicky & Niki!

:-) photos on our return k, k gotta go lap it up!

Here we are at last...

After dreaming for such a long time about Pangkor, today Vicky whisked me and Niki away for a short vacation..where else if not the beautiful &luxurious Pangkor Laut Resort or as they call it here PLR. I'm writing now from the library lounge surrounded by books and day beds and plush sofas, if there is a heaven on earth I think this is it, or as close as it can get in M'sia. The last time I lapped up such luxury was we were in the Holiday Inn Phuket.

The people & service here is impeccable and we are in the hill villa, which is overlooking the hills and the sea at the same time, with a huge balcony and an open garden bath tub made out or marble.. just now the room maid came for night turn down and also helped us draw our bath water and scattered rose petals into the water .. it was beautiful, right now we're heading back to the room, and we're gonna light up the scented candle that the maid left by our bedside to calm our senses before we turned it.. we're feeling pretty pampered at this point I guess. Niki is sitting on my lap as I am writing this..and she's humming a song while instrumental christmas carols are playing softly in the background ..

And we're gonna be here for a couple more days before we head home ..

ps. and yes the food here's excellent as well .. :-)

And yes for you guys who are planning to holiday in Pangkor, don't go anywhere else .. come here .. if you want to read more go here ..www.pangkorlautresort.com

Prawnie galore!

everyone caught at least one (even me!!) .. joey i think caught the most, she's a natural!

the pond's got pond scum, the bait which was chook liver and sea worms, the prawnies, and yeah that's joey with her rod, she caught at least 15!

Fishing .. frankly bored the heck outta me, went once quite a few years ago and nearly keeled over with boredom..yesterday was another story altogether .. we went prawning! Yup you've read it right .. there is such thing .. and nope its not as yucky as one thinks ..

I pretty much enjoyed it once I was there though ..

The prawn farm was somewhere near the desa water park .. but the great thing is they have food there .. and available food is always a good thing innit?

Prawning is pretty much similar to fishing .. maybe except that it's so much easier .. even klutzy and unsporty me caught one ;-)

Ok now for the math;

1 kg prawns from Tesco would cost one about RM40

We spent;

RM 180

breakdown of costing

3 rods @ RM15 per rod/hour ..

we were there for 4 hours last evening

and caught a total of 1.5 kg of fresh prawns

But all in good fun .. it was (it pains me to say this .. but it was fun!, ok i've said it, it's heckuva lotta fun!) .. will I do it again .. possibly yes, but maybe not on a weeknight ..

So guess what are we having for dinner tonight ..? We're all heading to Barbara's tonight to dine on our catch!

An All Girl Weekend!

even my hubby joined in the fun *beams*

ta da! the finished work of sandart

This is the follow-up to my previous post, our weekend last week was indeed filled with peels & squels of laughter..not a dull moment and lots of giggly ones. Made me remember my own childhood when my best buddy Yip came over and we'll be laughing and laughing until I started wheezing really badly. It was the same albeit in a totally different era :-)

Niki thoroughly enjoyed herself as did her cousins, it was such a slumber party and all of them all slept in one room (with us!) .. it was all comfy & cosy and our room was practically one gigantic bed with pillows, bolsters, blankies and stuffed animals strewn everywhere, it was a heavenly bed of mess!

Also took the kids out to the Bukit Raja mall for food and sand art. Vicky himself was teaming with Lei and came out with a really colourful one!

See pics above .. just puts a smile on your face doesn't it?

Tech&U today

Friday rolling in

This weekend will be branded specifically a kid fuelled weekend, Yanu, Lei & Darsha will be having sleepovers for the whole weekend and are set to cause a lot of noise with Niki. I feel bad for my neighbours (not that bad la!) coz u know when girls get together there'll be lots of screaming, giggling, shrieking, laughing fits and etc. But I'm sure the kids will have tons of fun & i'll b stocking in some extra healthy snacks for them .. or alright and maybe some not so healthy snacks as well. Okie .. have a great weekend y'all! I know we will :-)

Niki at 3!

It's been quite sometime since I gave an update on that sweet child o'mine. Niki's great, she's really mischevious these days and basically can talk quite a bit from the time she gets out of bed till we tuck her in .. she's can go on & on with her stories and along the way she makes up cute jingles as well. And right now her fave ad is the Digi one with the yellow man army. She does the Hercules pose at the end really well :-)

And Niki has made great progress in school, she can now completely recite her ABCs, write them via trace of course, she can understand & count right up to 10 right now, write them as well & and is gonna start on Peter&Jane reading exercises soon. She loves her block puzzles and I bought her alphabets fridge magnets so that she can play with them whenever she's in the kitchen with me. I have to give recognition to her teachers in school especially Teacher Fam, Teacher Alice and her doting class teacher, Teacher Shariah.

I actually can't wait till she can read with me but till then I'll continue to read to her, which sometimes pretty much scare me coz she'll have me read the same story at least 5 times within the same seating. I know I've had it pretty good and shouldn't be complaining since she enjoys story time so much.

In terms of size .. well she is still petite! Must be her genes (from her Dad) I guess., coz for sure I'm not considered a "petite" like ever!

The programmer and the pilot

Here's the complete article from Business Times about Niki's Daddy.

Newsflash: Barbara Anne DeSouza Surprised at Uncle Chilli's

the band sang Happy Birthday while Barbara made her wish and blew out the candles

all the couplets and the last is the pimp pimping his dad

the bartender, the pimp, Mohan doing his best impression of usher and the rocker chicks

Another surprise party means another whole lot of snooping around, and outlandish excuses in order to preserve the element of surprise. Apparently, Mohan managed to keep Barbara in the dark (literally!) and made her sit in the car in front of Nestle House while waiting for us to text him the coast is clear. Barbara must've thought that Mohan was aiming for some Gasing Hill type of action with the back alley park :-)

Anyways, the usual suspects and an unsuspecting bottle of JD was the order of the night, shouted as loud as we could without upsetting the rest of the diners there in Uncle Chilli's when Barbara and Mohan walked in hand in hand. So the romantic la!

The band sang Happy Birthday and the candles of the cake was blown out as the band ended the song, timing was perfect!

Happy birthday, Barbara! And *points up* are all your mug shots!

Another November Baby

Ok, so right now here's the list of November babies that i've shout-out to so far:

1st November : Niki

10th November : Shaarvin

20th November : Vicky & Yip

And today, the 24th is my sister-in-law, Barbara's birthday. She turns 32 today!

Here's a fuchsia shout out to you .. Happy Birthday Barbara, we love you and many more birthdays to come!

My hubby in today's Business Times!

Today has been an exciting day, this morning had an installation at a client's place, after that went to the bookshop to get my monthly load of mags, and lo & behold to my surprise found that software village was featured today :-) in the business times; such a nice end to a great week.

I am posting the feature here, ok for your reading pleasure! The website is www.btimes.com.my or go out and get the paper itself coz there's an extra section about his childhood dreams of becoming a pilot which is not featured in the online version, that part i must say is a nice personal angle.

Have a good weekend everyone!

Dreaming of Pangkor

I haven't ever been to pangkor, but a lot of friends have and came back with the extremely frangrant keperek ikan, but as for i, i have yet to set foot on the island paradise, and so i spent a bit of time today to just browse thru some of the nice photos of plr coz if i'm going there, i'm definitely staying in plr .. a girl is allowed to daydream even on a weekday, isn't she?

Some itty bitty info on plr to whet ur senses ..

Pangkor Laut Resort and Spa Village is sandwiched between a 120-hectare rainforest in Malaysia and the Pangkor Straits, Pangkor Laut has 43 overwater bungalows set on stilts. Designed to resemble a Malay sea gypsy village, each bungalow has an oversized bath with ceiling-mounted shower and large balconies with stunning views. A treatment at the Spa Village starts with a 40-minute signature ritual including Chinese foot pounding, Malay bath, Japanese-style soap-and-scrub, a dip in a hot spring and an exfoliating Shanghai scrub. Sounds heavenly doesn't it? ..

ok back to work ..

A Super Surprise Party

the teatre, the cuppacakes (with a ferrari & lamborghini theme) and the flaming lamborghini

the boys

the kiddies making merry

gettin' down

T'was Vicky's birthday yesterday and we got him at surprised! It was a super surprise!

It was so hard for me to keep a straight face when he asked me all forlornly if i had forgotten his birthday last sunday but i did and that's why last night was a super surprise.

And last evening i told Vicky that i didn't get any cake coz I was to busy in the office, and told him that we get one from secret recipe since we're already there, that must've stung but ... it was kinda fun seeing him all sad for a bit. Walked around aimlessly a bit just for effect as well.. :-)

Told him that I'll like to check out MTR and lo &behold when we got there, everyone sprung a surprise on him, it was a million dollar expression which i did not manage to snap coz i was too caught up in the excitement.. the surprisers were vicky's mom & dad, sis Ammu, Siva, Joey & all their kids and Mohan & Barbara and their kiddies & of course me & niki :-)

MTR made a wonderful buffet spread and there was non-alco screwdrivers for the kids and the rest of us had JD compliments of siva & joey.

We had such a wonderful time, and I would like to personally thank everyone here for coming and joining us to celebrate, for all your gifts&wishes & most of all for being our family, we love you guys all very, very much xoxo

Pix later people!..

Yip's Birthday Shout-out

My BFF shares a birthdate with my hubby, how ironic is that..

This post goes out specially to

Yip Wai Yan, my best friend from Darjah 2

Happy Birthday, buddy! Far away but you will always be near to my heart!

Happy Birthday, My Honey

Vicky is celebrating his birthday today, his twentynineth .. and so this is a super special shout out to my honey, we love you and have a wonderful birthday!!!

Happy 29th Birthday .. Honey!

In today's NST

Vicky is featured again in today's NST. Foo Eu Jin of NST's Tech&U interviewed him acouple of weeks ago on the company and our business focus. Read on.

Niki's PTA last Saturday

We went for our very first PTA meeting last Saturday and we met up with her class teacher. It was exciting at least for us coz well, it's the first. Made us feel like Niki's really all grown up. Niki's teacher was really great and explained in detail how Niki has been performing in school -- and we are also glad for the fact that she's Niki's teacher as well, it's pretty darn hard to find teachers who are truly dedicated and passionate about kids, and well she's one of those rare few..To Teacher Shariah, thank you from the bottom of our hearts & we appreciate all that you're doing for our little girl.

And to our Niki, we're so, so proud of you and how well you're doing in school. And her colouring skills has certainly improved. I'll scan a couple of works in here later, so that you can all get a peek.

And being the ever doting parents that we are (ahem!), we took her to Toys&Us and asked her to pick whatever she wanted (ok...ok...maybe she didn't have that much liberty and being the "concerned parents" that we are, we did help push her into the right direction especially of those edu-toys) :-)

And Niki was especially attracted to a certain princess barbie but i think we'll save that as her christmas present..

christmas afterall is very fast approaching..

facebook & skype

recently due to necessity i've become more IT savvy, which is pretty odd since i actually have my own IT company. i've since got myself facebook and skype, the former for meeting up & finding my old friends from school & connecting with my other buddies that i've met along the way during life's journey ... and the latter, skype because a high school friend of mine joycelyn asked me to get it and not be such a dinosaur, it's like msn and you can message & everything, ya ya i know call me "jackoon" it's ok ... coz i know i am one... anyways these days i'm kept pretty busy coz now i need to update both my blog and my facebook, but it's been fun coz for someone who's guilty of not keeping in touch with my friends often enough.. it is an ingenius way of touching base with them... so way to go zuckerberg!

on a non related issue altogether,i just read somewhere that tom cruise does not have an e-mail or a cell phone .. well, i won't too if i have a whole platoon of people working under me & running after my every beck & call, would i?

and so back to the subject .. i have since got re-acquainted with a lot of ex-convent girls from AS, well once a convent girl, you're a convent girl for life; and it has been fun, it's wonderful to note how much we've all grown and evolved in our own personal lives. and it's pretty much been a good thing for me .. and no more teenage angst or complexities to worry about now ( i have quite a few!).. we just ravel in & accept who we are and how we have grown up in our own ways .. and yes those memories both happy and maybe some not so, are still memories, and it is by going thru life's tribulations that we become who we are today.

sometime back an acquaintance once asked me whether there's anything in my life that i would change or do differently, and i told him no i wouldn't want to change anything at all coz if i did i would not have been who i was and who i am now .. i live life with no regrets for yesterdays but full of hope for tomorrow .. pretty sappy i know .. but perhaps this is what comes with age .. whoever said aging was not a good thing .. must be quite young i bet!

Queen B

For those whom have not seen it already, i've posted it here, the poptart everyone loves to hate .. here's britney's new single gimme more!

Music Video:GIMME MORE (by Britney Spears)

Music Video Code provided by Video Code Zone

Show opener

This is a video i shot when we were in melaka.

Here's vicky & siva opening the show lah so to speak.

The kids are practicing for the dance which was performed during darsha's & shaarvin's birthday party .. and vicky & siva were the ones to like "intro-ed" the dancers..

enjoy and "ranee, you'll surely enjoy this .. since you haven't actually seen vicky & siva dance since our iguana days .. :-)"

Shaarvin & Darsha's Birthday party on the 10th

mummified

dj google and the hot dancers; yanu, lei & darsha

everyone sings happy birthday to darsha & shaarvin

the party and pinky the clown

All in all there's 8 musketeers which means there's always a birthday party most recent being the co-party of darsha and shaarvin, niki's cousins. Was held at Mohan's spanking nu home in KU. I was the evening's photographer.. i am an amateur at best ..!

There's also pinky the clown who irritated ammu till no end, and there was lots of food (which is not surprising, right?!!?)

All of us had a ball of a time..and finally went home around 3am, Niki was still awake .. and to our opinion has the makings of an owl ..

Our short break to A'Famosa Resort Melaka

splash!

telematch champions

niki's cake no.3!

at the waterworld, very the national geographic moment

da' life

a'famosa's waterworld

ze villa

ze villa pool


Well we went away for a makan angin short break for 3 days and 2 nights and the whole Narayanan family (that's 9 adults and 8 grandchildren) caused such a ruckus there. To top it off Mohan brought his lap and his super duper megadb speakers and it was it was like le villa zouk! But it was great fun ..

First day : checked in and jumped into the pool and stayed there till we were all shrivelled up. then went hunting for food in this case it was purchasing kfc from tampin town which was 4 km from the resort..bought our food supplies at the store and nearly cleaned out the supermarket! and between the four of us (vicky, myself, vick's dad, siva & mohan) got lost on the way back and went thru some backwoods for like half and hour before we stumbled back to a'famosa..it was damn funny actually.. I'm so not a good co-pilot!

we bought another cake for niki so that she can get to cut it with the rest of her cousins .. and got kisses from the 3 boys; zack, jaden and lavin.. which was just too cute

at night there was telematch games and vicky & i emerged ... the champions (cue : we are the champions song over here) ... and i found out that i can eat really quick!

Day two: jumped out of bed so that we can drive to waterworld just 5 mins away but wanted to get there before 8.30am so that we can get free parking (yeah we're a bunch of cheapskates!!) and got free parking, ate in a whirlwind before heading in ..

feeling like a beached whale i sun-ed abit before heading out to the water .. the kids and the kiddults were all over the place, we played everything in there, had lunch left the place ..

went back to the villa and jumped into the pool there ..

in the evening we played charades .. which left us in stitches .. and mine was meet the fockers .. and ai sei i seriously do not even want to remember what i did *inside joke* And vicky's was kerosene oven and the fella pretended to douse himself in kerosene and set himself on fire .. it was so, so funny .. cant' get better than this ... we realized that joey is a really good guesser and thank God she guessed mine before I embarassed myself any further!!

Day three : the kids had pool time again before we checked out .. by the time we left we all very pruney!

It was so much fun I can't even begin to tell and so I know that this post will not do justice to all the fun we had but I hope the photos can!!

We're a crazy bunch but you know what .. we love each other to bits! photos will be uploaded tmr coz i have to rush out now to fetch the little chicca from school, ok ciaos for now!