post-christmas dinner and gathering…

same to previous years, i made a christmas dinner for friends and enjoy at my home. last year, we got roasted prime ribs. this year, we got roasted lamb chop. lamb chop isn’t cheap ($40 per oz) but it’s mainly b’cos of christmas season. i managed to cook lamb so i can do it next time.

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Menu:
Starter. Tuna Salad with Basil
(similar to http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/soup-and-salad/hot-tuna-salad-with-basil-creme-fraiche, but without creme fraiche on top)
Main. Roasted Crown Rack of Lamb
Dessert. Creme Brulee
Coffee (Nespresso, Latte, Cappuccino)

For kids:
Main. Pasta with Sausage in Cream Sauce

For Sherrie:
Main. Prime Ribs
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too busy to cook so have no photo at all. :(

maid triggered a crisis at home

my new maid suddenly didn’t come back on sunday and she told she was afraid of my cat dingding. it is exactly a crisis at home and we executed our BCP (business continuity plan). hopefully with some helps from our parents, we should be able to cope with it until end sept. it’s also lucky that markus will go K1 from aug 13 so we have only jayla to take care in daytime.

we heard a lot of bad rumors around us on maid. it’s the first time we have this in person. i almost throw her belongings to lift lobby and pick up by her own.

bad mosquito :(

we are all busy whole day, but why mosquito?

markus had his 3rd birthday party in mcdonald and followed a casting in kowloon. we’ve been to toyr’us and had pizza at night. however, markus got 2 mosquito bites while we were leaving my parent home for dinner on saturday. it is a bad mosquito and the bite swell and hurt. i brought him to canossa hospital for outpatient, but doctor recommended him to stay overnight. mom was worry when nurse put the needle into his right hand. he got into bed before 1am with hospital supplied barney vcd. i will stay in hospital with markus and mom is staying at home with jayla.

i am off on monday and planned to go shek o beach for fun. now, i spent my leave in hospital instead. anyway, it’s part of parent life, right?

no worry on markus. he will recover soon when he saw his birthday gift at home. it’s a lot!!

we got a twins?

no worry.. toppy isn’t pregnant again (we will not follow my japanese colleague suzuki-san who have a twin following his 2nd kid).

i didn’t realize they look alike. however, a number of people (on the street, in the lift :) did ask whether they are twin (?). maybe they looks like twins if we have them the same hair style one day :P

it’s good to see they always play together (except markus always grabs the toy from jayla’s hand). jayla always learns from her brother (good and bad) from handstand, shouting, running… however, she doesn’t speak well comparing to markus at the same age. she can only say ‘ba ba’, ‘ma ma’ and ‘or yiu sick’. she knows everything we are talking and doing but she is lazy to learn how to speak it up! really want her to improve soon.

markus potty training

potty training is always a topic for ~2yr kid family blog :)

markus was very insisted to be on potty last year (~1yr) and we were very afraid how he will be in kindergarten from aug 2008.

luckily, we started the potty training in feb-mar, 2008 and i think it took ~10 days to complete. i think we are lucky that he just vee-vee and poo-poo on his underwear ~5 times (and we got a maid to clean them up :). he will tell you if he needs to go potty. he is saving my $ to have only 2 diapers per day (nap and sleep)

onon is leaving us :(

i have no choices to send onon to another family, jacky.

we scheduled a vet visit at 9lives in central and jacky picked him up in central then. onon seems that she knew we were leaving her and kept meow-ing on the way to vet. i intended to bring markus with us and i did tell him onon was leaving us 2 days ago. markus seems ok when i told him (i did tell him why). however, when jacky brought onon away from us, markus kept crying almost half hour until we have lunch at granddad place.

his reaction did remind me an incident 20yr ago when i lost a small pet at home (really forgot what kind of pet). i didn’t cry but feel sorry for onon. really hope she got a better owner / place to stay. god bless.

the first tag on stroller

the first tag on stroller

Originally uploaded by louis, toppy, markus and jayla

many of you may know we’ve been to singapore (4D3N) last week with markus and jayla. we flied on 19 nov and so happened it was jayla birthday. we were so busy (taken care 2 kids) that we forgot to buy a cake for her in singapore. cathay didn’t upgrade her infant ticket to economy or business class as well.

we’ve been to a lot of places….
19nov
- after settling down in hotel, we had dinner with my singapore colleague. many thanks for the dinner in newton hawker center. glendon also drove us around in the city after dinner as well.
20nov
- we got a 2-day pass from hippo tour. we were around the city by the open decker and have been to DHL hot air balloon as well. we have been to china town and try the hainanese chicken rice 海南雞飯. it is now markus favorite and he can finish half dish of it. however, markus called it 海“泥”雞飯. we have dinner at clarke quary, but jayla vomited on her stroller during dinner (ruined our dinner actually)
21nov
- we were in an hour duck tour which was included in the 2-day pass. we also have 海南雞飯 at mandarin oriental for lunch :) place is really relax comparing to hawker center or china town. we were also to night safari at night. it was an experience while we were sitting on a tram waiting lions, tigers, elephants and giraffes closely. we missed the show as it rained.
22nov
- have kaya toast 咖椰烘烤麵包 in china town. not really enjoy the coffee and tea as i have to fix markus and toppy has to fix jayla for lunch. way back to hong kong

family visit to ocean park

group photo

Originally uploaded by louis, toppy, markus and jayla

this photo showed who were in this trip to ocean park. of course, i am the photographer and the man behind the scene. sum of age could be almost 400 year old :P

jayla got fever for 3 days already :(

we are exhausted!!

toppy found jayla got temperature from thursday afternoon. her temperature keeps from 38-39C (below 40C). we have been to doctor twice and we did a lab test just in case she was inflected by virus. nothing found on her blood and ‘v v’. we did what we can do in last 2 days to avoid any possibility as we are going to singapore for vacation on monday.

we really hope she recovers by tomorrow so we can go singapore without any worry.

this weekend really upsss and downsss!!

this weekend seems to be a very very long weekend to me. a lot of things happened to me.

down
1- i have to work remotely on saturaday. everything was out of my control and was running out of my schedule. the event was supposed to be from 1pm to 4pm and finally it’s from 1pm to 11pm.
2- markus was terribly naughty. really out of our control. parents were losing temper. i believed whole floor can hear we were shouting (blaming) markus in the weekend.
3- my 2 laptops were broken. yes. my ibm t40 (~4 yrs) and my company dell. my ibm t40 had a dim screen and my dell’s encryption software crashed :(

up
1- the event finally finished at 11pm. yes, it’s delayed, but it’s fixed.
2- it seems he resumed normal tonight after i told a story (curious george again) on bed. let’s see this week…
3- i am lucky to have maria (thanks) provided me a broken t40 and i replaced the lcd from it. i spent 2 nights to test and replace. now, i am managed to replace an ibm laptop lcd in 1 hour.

one thing. if you got a dim screen on your laptop and your notebook has no warranty, check below website. dim screen is likely to have problem on ‘inverter card’ which convert low voltage to high voltage for the lcd.

laptoprepair101.com
– notebook displace diagram
- how to replace inverter to fix backlight

at last, i highly recommend everyone to buy ibm notebook (i don’t know the new lenovo series) x or t series should be fine. you can easily find ibm notebook parts from internet and it has a maintenance manual available so you can replace any parts by yourself.

ps. really hope my dell can fix it tomorrow. :(