The time has come to bid farewell to 2010 and to welcome a brand new year, 2011. I shall not repeat what I’ve said but just say that it will be a year of anticipation. I love this picture I’ve taken and it just explains the feeling in me for the road ahead.
If I’ve to conclude 2010 with 1 word, it will be ENRICHING! What’s yours?
With Evan approaching his first month, the time has come to send out invites, book the venue and prepare for the food. Invites and venue is not too much a problem, but food definitely is. Personally, I thought other than Evan, food will be playing the leading role in the entire celebrations. For me, if I don’t have good food, then its going to affect me somewhat.
We brainstorm and shortlisted a few companies. We went item by item and compared, seriously, I didn’t do this for Ethan and Ezanne first month celebrations at all (Ethan did not have the celebration while I was busy at work for Ezanne).
We finally settled for Mum’s Kitchen since they had baby first month celebration package and so far, based on limited reviews read online, its still so far so good. I’ve got a few other recommendations from my friends, but I’m afraid they were not suitable at this moment.
If you’ve catered Mum’s Kitchen or tried their food before, do leave a comment and share with me.
*fingers cross and hope that the food is good*
Started 2010 with lot of anticipation as I was expecting quite a few stuff happening which will either directly or indirectly affect me. I challenged myself and cycled 32km, kayak 13km and trek for more than 40km. The result, a slimmer and more determine me. In 2011, I’m determine to continue with some of the physical activities that I’ve been doing and challenged myself even more.
There were ups and downs and 2010 ends with the greatest gift I get for Christmas and Birthday, the birth of Evan. Being a young dad is not easy especially when I’ve got to juggle between family, work, studies and community projects and to handle questions such as why I want children at such young age. All I want to say is that I enjoy what I’m doing now and I love to live in a big family environment.
Just before 2010 ends, I will say that I manage to do things that I’ve thought of doing previously and is quite satisfied with how things has happened.
I hope 2011 will be a better year and to celebrate this final entry of LookBack 2010, I’ve did a small video of myself to document the beautiful moments of my life.
I got married in 2006 and back then, my photographer used the traditional negative to capture the most beautiful moments of my life. If I remember correctly, to take photos in digital format 4 years ago was really a big and expensive thing. 18 roles of negative and more than 600 photos were taken.
I’m glad that I’m finally able to find some time to digitized it and manage to do it in time. Due to the humid weather in Singapore, some of the negative became moist and a lomo effect was created in some of the photos. I shall not re-tell my whole wedding day story again since it happened quite some time ago and it actually need a little bit of time to write it.
This will be memories and at least be part of the life story that I hope to tell in the future.
I’m quite proud that I’m able to get Project 30 moving day by day, at least, I am taking the photos and updating via the Project 30 microsite and Instagram. I’ve compiled the pictures but so far, I can’t really observe any difference between Day 1 and Day 12, can you?
At Day 12, his jaundice condition improve and is feeding well. At this moment, he is able to turn his head alittle (left to right and right to left) and prefers to be in places where there are many people. How do we know? Ah, we left him in the room and he started crying, but when we get his brother and sister and put him in the living room or at a location where everyone is around, he stops crying.
How will Day 13 onwards be? I guess we are all eager to find out.
As we approach 2011 and 5 years owning a flat in Punggol, a surprise came, Popeyes opened an outlet in Punggol and its just 15 minutes walk from my home.
Located at Punggol East in a location called @ Punggol (not too sure why this name), it is situated just next to soon to be open park connector which links Punggol to our neighbouring town, Sengkang as well as bringing you to Punggol Beach. The size of this outlet isn’t really big, which means it can’t really accommodate many people but it boasts Southeast Asia’s first Popeyes drive through. It might not be anything new to you, but this is definitely a big deal in Punggol considering now we have another F&B outlet to go to. Initially I thought there will be alfresco dining style at the outlet, but rather disappointing to see that there isn’t.
There will be a seasports centre and 3 other restaurants which are all under renovation or construction now. After your meal, you can take a walk at the park connector which I really love it as its really quiet and stress free.
Unless you drive, the location is currently alittle of a hassle to walk into at the moment as its still being developed. Hope to see more exciting stuff in Punggol soon.
In 2009, I spent my Christmas with wifey and Ethan in Sydney. It was wonderful, we see Santa almost everywhere we go and it was definitely a memorable experience having our Christmas meal at Sydney Tower.
This year, Christmas is spent back home in Singapore and its rather different. Other than Christmas Trees, I don’t recall we see Santa at all. What we were busy with were spending and spending at shopping malls in order to get the photo opportunities with the different cartoon characters.
Ethan, Ezanne and Evan has got their fair share of Christmas presents this year which they were pretty excited especially Ethan. I guess it was a torture for Ethan as he got his presents in early December and we told him that he could only open it up only on Christmas Day. Over the last 20 over days, he had been asking everyday so when exactly is Christmas and told me that he saw from the TV that Christmas is here. I can only tell him that its not Christmas yet and will let him know when the time is right.
Ethan finally managed to open up all his presents today. Unfortunately, I’m not too sure what happened to the camera, all the pictures captured were GONE! Well, at least, I’ve still got the Christmas song that Ethan has sang for everyone. Enjoy.
Ezanne is growing and is slowly learning to be independent. I’m not too sure if every children with a sibling behaves like her, but somehow, we observed that she is more independent as compared with Ethan. She is more confident in the things that she does as well and alittle more courageous than Ethan. Why do I say alittle, ultimately, she is still a shy girl when she sees stranger or in public places where she is not familiar with.
She can be a stubborn girl as well. When she doesn’t want something, she will make sure that it doesn’t appear right in front of her. She can be quite fierce too. She will never allow Ethan to bully her and if her brother does, she knows what to do to him.
As we grow, we begin to understand her better, her temper, likes and dislikes. She is a strong and independent girl by nature. I can’t wait to for her to start schooling as she will very soon begin another phase of her life.
Sometimes, learning is not just about sitting down, teaching and reading to them on what the things around us is all about. Sometimes, they need to learn by themselves through exploration. There was a night when both Ethan and Ezanne started exploring light. Ezanne was shining the torch light and Ethan was trying to catch hold of it and both were simply enjoying themselves exploring it.
When I first got my flat in Punggol, I thought how can a young town like Punggol not have any presence online? With some developments at that time on-going, there was a need for residents to get informed and updated of what’s happening. In 2006, I started a portal about Punggol and later with the support of a fellow resident began the journey of no turning back and launched Punggol.org.
Once started with just over 100 members, it has grown to over 5000 members today. Over the past 4 years, I’ve known many fellow residents who eventually became my friends (you know who you are). Gatherings, discussions, arguments, whatever could happen, happen in and out of the forum itself. Earlier this year, I did an interview with Straits Times and shared on what the forum is all about.
On 2nd March 2010, I started the Punggol 21 Facebook fanpage. With almost everyone registered with a Facebook account, I thought it was time to bring Punggol to the Facebook world as well. With no publicity, the fanpage hit 1000 fans within the first 6 months. Its an achievement I thought. With the creation of the fanpage, it has brought me numerous activities. I’ve covered 3 LIVE events in Punggol and even did an interview with my MP, Miss Penny Low. It an experience that I will always remember.
Today, Punggol’s online presence has grown from strength to strength. I’ve created what I think its an integrated social media experience for Punggol residents. It is the compliments from residents that keep me moving and encouraging me to keep updating and maintaining the forum, Facebook and Twitter account. With the 3 platforms, it is now reaching out to more than 5000 Punggol residents. In my opinion, the objective of the forum has been met and the concept that has evolved over the past 4 years has been a success (I’ve seen many similar sites created over the past 4 years).
I’ve been asked many times how many people run these sites? For the forum, I’ve got the support of a team of moderators and for Facebook and Twitter, its just ME! I guess, I will never get tired of updating as long as there are people who don’t find me a nuisance.
