Last week we celebrated Rachel’s 4th birthday.

Poey Chin ordered a princess cake for her because Rachel is in a princess and fairy tales phase.

Personally I don’t really like to spend so much money on cakes but it’s their special day so I give in.

The doll is non-edible plastic, and her tiara and blouse are made from fondant. Picture of the whole cake is at the end.

The birthday girl. I took the day off work and we dropped by her daycare with some Dunkin Donuts to celebrate with her friends. We then took her out for a special lunch treat at McDonalds.

We planned a small dinner with family members that night, so we bought some party hats from a party supply store. Turns out the kids didn’t wear the hats. Some of them didn’t like the feel of the elastic string on their neck, and the rest followed likewise.

Now that she is four years old, she is getting better at understanding what we try to communicate to her. But sometimes she’s still stubborn.

Okay, now is not a good time to talk about that. Maybe another blog post.

She has some weird habits, like she must arrange things in a specific way. For example, she arranged the plastic cutlery and plates in a specific colour sequence. One colour for each party guest.

Rachel’s mummy and grandmas spent the afternoon cooking. Here’s some of the food. Some of the dishes may look familiar to you by now haha.

Fried mihun.

Fried chicken.

Lettuce for wrapping the sengkuang dish.

Of course, can’t leave out the red eggs.

There were a few other dishes but I didn’t have time to take proper photos.

Me trying to pose with Rachel for a photograph. She wouldn’t stop making funny faces and I tried my best not to get upset.

An attempt to capture a family photograph. They didn’t stop fidgeting and they wouldn’t look at the camera at the same time. This is the best one in like 10 shots.

After dinner it was time to sing the birthday song. You can see the whole princess cake. Her ‘skirt’ is covered in buttercream instead of fondant (because we don’t like the fondant taste).

The two flower bouquets beside the princess are cupcakes.

We bought this birthday table cover from Toys R Us. Now, the cover is still there after Rachel’s birthday is over. Planning to re-use it for Daryl’s birthday.

Rachel was so shy with all the attention. I know exactly how she feels.

Blowing out the birthday candle with her cousins and brothers.

Rachel actually cut the cake with Poey Chin, but someone took this photo when I was helping her get the knife out of the cake.

The end of another birthday, and Daryl’s birthday is coming really soon.

Thanks to those of you who attended, making her feel so special. And thanks for all your gifts. All cash goes to Rachel’s education savings, and she’s enjoying her other presents too.

That night she asked me, “daddy can I marry you?”

I said, “Cannot. I already married mummy. You will meet your husband next time. But you must ask daddy first ok? If daddy says no then you cannot marry him.”

“Ok,” she said.

I think she won’t remember what she said so I better record down here first hehe.

A few days ago I realized this is madness. Those thousands of ‘followers’ I’ve gained have not bothered to reply even one of my tweets.

I can hardly read anything useful on my Twitter timeline. It’s like 99.9% of them are spam, and I had to resort to using lists.

I realize now that I need to stop. So from now onwards I am starting to purge my Twitter account.

I am unfollowing those who:

• Have inactive accounts
• Have accounts without profile pics (indicator of spammer account)
• Tweet in foreign languages (what’s the point if I can’t understand?)
• Tweet exclusively in inspirational quotes / links to products / promotions
• Tweet non-family friendly content such as expletives or adult content

I don’t want to get blacklisted or something so I’m spreading out my unfollow activity over a few days.

I realize I may accidentally unfollow some dear readers of this blog because I’m using a 3rd party tool to ‘mass unfollow’.

Please let me know (either in comments below or tweeting @adinochang) and I’ll re-follow you.

Why Am I Doing This?

I feel I haven’t been getting the full ‘Twitter’ experience.

My objective is to pare down my Twitter feed to the essentials, and hopefully I can interact and discuss more with everyone.

I’m trying to be more ‘chatty’ which is something against my nature.

I suppose my twitter followers count will plummet, but I don’t really bother any more. That obsession is a thing of the past.

Wait There’s More

I have started a second Twitter account to talk about work-related stuff. The account is @AdinoDev and you can follow that if you’re interested in discussing about software development and management stuff.

Otherwise I do hope we connect at my @adinochang account.

What a surprise. I was expecting the new 3rd generation iPad to arrive in Malaysia in May, but Apple pulled a surprise by releasing it a few weeks early.

I promised to get an iPad for Poey Chin so it was time to keep my promise.

By the way I just noticed that my past 3 blog posts have been about buying stuff haha. Don’t get the impression that I’m rich! Just that my company gave us a nice bonus and we have a bit extra to pamper ourselves.

After finding out the news, we made our way over to Harvey Norman at Citta Mall to try our luck.

I was expecting a long queue but surprisingly not many people were there.

After about 10 minutes I walked out of the store as one excited boy man. You know that feeling… that temporary, fleeting pleasure that comes with buying material things. Maybe I’ll feel worse when the credit card bill arrives.

Oh yeah, Harvey Norman advertised that they offer 0% installment plan for credit cards, but didn’t mention they will add on 4% to the iPad price. So I paid the full amount.

I didn’t get any accessories like screen protectors and a case, but I think I’ll have to get those. Can’t stand all the fingerprints. And the iPad needs protection with so many kids around the house.

I plugged it into the USB port to charge, and turning it on for the first time was a pleasant surprise. If you turn it upside down it says ‘padi’ hehe.

After all the settings were completed, a brand new iPad ready for work and play.

Here’s a zoomed in version of the previous photo, not sure if you can tell there’s any difference with the Retina display.

First impressions. It was a different experience for me. Initially it felt like a bigger version of a smartphone. I kept trying to hit the ‘Back’ and ‘Menu’ butons like Android devices.

I really like the larger screen space. I can type with all my fingers instead of just with my thumbs.

Apps on the iPad seem to offer more functionality and make better use of screen space.

I’ve never used the previous iPad versions so I can’t compare the display resolution and speed objectively.

The only thing I know is, my Samsung Galaxy S phone display seems to look really old now that I’ve used the new iPad.

I noticed my arms getting tired after holding the iPad for a while. You really need to rest it on something.

I’m also finding it hard to be restricted to sync everything via iTunes, and the iPad can’t play all our rmvb and avi files.

Browsing the App Store is a bit frustrating. The site can be so slow sometimes. And I know there’s a lot more apps but I don’t seem to know where to find them.

This iPad will be used by Poey Chin (and the kids), so I’ve stopped myself from installing a ton of games. So far she’s using it a lot for Facebook.

So now it’s like… okay… what do we do with this now?

Does anyone have any suggestions for nice Apps?

Yay my Starbucks card has finally arrived! I tweeted a couple of weeks ago that I bought a Starbucks card on JackCow for RM53.

How many of you bought the deal?

Anyway I waited almost two weeks and the package finally arrived last Saturday!

Photo of the small package:

Inside was the Starbucks card with RM50 preloaded, a free coffee voucher and six packs of Starbucks Via instant coffee.

Some of the benefits of the Starbucks card are a free coffee after you buy 10 cups and a free slice of cake on your birthday month.

I got a pleasant surprise when I registered my Starbucks card online and received another free coffee loaded on the card.

Quite a good deal.

As I mentioned  before, I can’t afford to have Starbucks frequently. The RM50 credit should last me six months.

P/S: That first photo of the beautiful cup isn’t really coffee, it’s leong sui hehe. But I thought the photo would fit nicely here.

We went to IKEA to take a look at some GORM shelves. I came home, made some measurements and we decided to go ahead with the purchase.

Last Tuesday night I went over to IKEA and brought these home.

Two sets of GORM Shelving Unit 78 x 55, with two sets of extra shelves. Total was around RM350.

Be careful to select wood that isn’t cracked or chipped.

We planned to use the shelves in the kitchen so I wanted to protect the wood from grease and make it easier to clean.

I wanted to get the paint from IKEA, but they were sold at RM25 per 375 ml. I decided to get Nippon Timber Finish at RM30 per 1 litre.

I bought 2 litres so I could give my new shelves multiple coats of paint.

After the kids went to bed on Wednesday night, I dragged everything out to my condo balcony and started work.

It took me 3 hours to finish putting the first coat of paint on everything (in semi-darkness).

It was 11:30 pm when I finished, so I just left everything to dry outside. Here’s a photo I took the next morning.

I was on leave, so after breakfast I spent another 3 hours putting on the 2nd coat of timber finish. I missed a few spots from the night before because it was too dark.

After I finished the 2nd coat, I used up the rest of the paint putting a 3rd coat on the main surfaces.

Here are the results.

I left them out on the balcony to dry (in the shade) for 4 hours, then I brought them inside.

You can see all the components just waiting for assembly. I didn’t want to start assembly right away because the kids were around.

My RM350 Lego set.

Here’s a comparison of the wood before and after painting.

Not very scientific of me, because I took photos of different pieces of wood and the lighting was different.

The difference is a deeper colour, and they surface is glossy. It feels kind of waterproof.

We waited until the kids were asleep on Thursday night, and began putting the pieces together.

Tip if you want to try this at home: get some power tools!

I had to use my small screwdriver attached to a socket thing, and it was such hard work putting in all the screws.

If I had a powered screwdriver I would have been done in minutes. But it took me (and Poey Chin) 2 hours to put one of the shelves together.

It was so tiring we had to finish the second shelf on the next night.

Our kitchen went from this:

To this.

Still not perfectly organized but hey, we were so tired after all the hard work.

The next night we used 1.5 hours to put up the second shelf and put it near our washing / storage area.

It went from this:

To this:

The re-organizing is still a work in progress. I’ll whip out my electric label machine and assign proper zones for everything.

I’m so happy we have some extra shelves to store things properly, instead of piling them on the floor or stuffing our store room.

It took me and Poey Chin 10 hours to get everything done, in the span of 3 nights.

I’m so happy with the results that I’ve forgotten the pain.

We’re thinking of another IKEA project soon. Saw some shelving units that would be great for organizing the toys and children books!

We’ve found a nice neighbourhood mamak shop that is clean and well-ventilated.

We used to go to another shop, but after eating all our clothes will have a greasy smell. And cigarette smoker has nowhere to go.

So we like this new shop. It’s airy, open and the kids have proper baby chairs.

Once in a while we will go for dim sum. We found this nice restaurant in Damansara Uptown.

Service is quick, the place is air-conditioned and food is nice. They also accept credit card payment, which is an indicator of the price we have to pay for all those amenities.

If the kids behave after breakfast (meaning no screaming or fighting), we will spend some time at the playground.

Daryl is old enough to start playing together with Rachel.

I think there are two factors: he can finally run and keep up with her, and he can start talking so she understands him.

I love this photo of Daryl because he seems so grown up. He’s no longer a baby.

We bought him a drink to reward him for being so well-behaved when having his hair cut.

We will have an Indian meal at least once every weekend. We will either buy from a vegetarian Indian stall or we will go for banana leaf.

We found a new banana leaf restaurant opened near our condo.

The rain has certainly been in the news these past few days.

Massive flash floods all over town, and next week we will have water supply cut.

If you are puzzled about the dark photo above, it is a wet road that I was afraid to cross.

I stood there for a while. I was deciding if I should get the umbrella from my car or make a dash for it.

It wasn’t even raining very heavily. Just a light rain.

The cold wind blowing against me brought back memories of my youth.

I used to be able to walk, cycle and play around in the rain without any ill effect.

Now I’ll fall sick if I get a few drops of rain on me.

I don’t know. Is that a sign of old age? Or is this a sign of a weak immune system?

I was brought back to the present moment with a flash of lightning. I took a photo to commemorate the moment.

Then I went back to my car, and finally decided to use an umbrella.

Lydia has an Australian PR but she came back to Malaysia to work, then she got married to Eric. Now they’ve decided to move to Australia together.

My sister has a house there, which was being rented out while she was working in Malaysia.

The previous tenants didn’t maintain the garden, and the grass was so overgrown and they have to cut the grass by themselves.

Anyway, they have started a blog to document their exciting new life in Melbourne. Go check it out!

The Adventures of Eric & Lydia

If some of you are living in Melbourne, maybe you guys can network.

Photo By: Eric & Lydia

I just read something that I feel is important to share.

You know how it seems society is becoming so apathetic? I don’t know if you remember the story of passers by not helping a child knocked down in a traffic accident in China.

I was reading a book that talks about this type of event.

Imagine you see a man lying down on the street.

Then imagine some people walking along that street.

The first or second person to meet this man may be uncertain what to do. Is he a drunk or homeless person? Is he pretending and waiting to mug me? Should I disturb him? What if he’s hostile?

Maybe they think they are not qualified to help. They are not strong/medically trained/can’t speak the language. They turn back and see other people coming (who may be more qualified).

So they pass him by.

The next few people see the first two people pass by, so they assume everything is ok. Then they pass by too.

Soon everyone is passing by and when a curious person goes to check, it is too late.

This happens because as people we are subconsciously being influenced by the behaviour of others (social influence).

This doesn’t mean we are lesser or defective in any way. It’s just the way our minds seem to be wired to work.

You should also read about the bystander effect, where bystanders do not react because they are just unsure if they should. Or maybe they wait for the others to do something.

So what do you do if you are ever caught in a situation like this?

Don’t just scream “help”, or worse just wait for others to come.

Chances are nobody will help.

What you should do is  to focus on one person. Maintain eye contact with that person, point to them and tell them what to do.

“Call an ambulance”, “Get the medication in my bag” or whatever.

When you place this responsibility on one person, chances are that person will respond to assist you.

When others see this, they may also join in.

If you are a woman and a stranger tries to grab you, don’t just scream “Let me go”. Others may be thinking you’re a couple having an argument, and leave you alone. Instead say “Let me go, I don’t know you”.

Photo By: Enrico Corno

I think this was his second or third time.

Poey Chin mixes about a spoon of cereal powder, liquified with milk.

He’s still not used to the flavour… he always has this strange look when he takes his first bite.

After that he enjoys it.

I don’t think it will be long before he moves on to porridge and soft foods.

Caleb’s physical development is so quick compared to his siblings.

In the next photo you can see his first tooth from his gums. Daryl only had his tooth at nine months if I remember correctly.

Caleb can pull himself up to stand against the sofa or against the crib, but he still can’t sit unsupported.

Daryl has picked up the trick of climbing on chairs. His new trick is to climb on the computer and press keys at random.

Here he’s trying to figure out how the mouse works.

I feel less stressful when I see the boys growing up.

Mostly because I get so worried when they seem so fragile.

It’s a bittersweet feeling. As time passes by so quickly I start to miss those times when they were so little.

I received this cheque in the mail a few days ago.

It was a cheque of RM312.59 from Global Test Market, an online survey company.

How it works:

1. Register
2. Answer surveys and you will be given points.
3. Points vary depending on the survey, but on average it seems to be 40-50 points
4. 1000 points = $50 USD, so each survey averages 50 points or $2.50.
5. When you reach 1000 points, you can redeem your points for cash.

I signed up in 2009 and cashed out my points at the end of 2011, so it took me 3 years to accumulate about 2000 points.

Payment is by cheque only, so I sent an email to request them to ensure that the cheque name was according to my IC.

At first I was worried that the cheque would be in USD (which required foreign cheque clearance), but as you can see from the photo, they issued a Malaysian cheque from RBS Kuala Lumpur.

If you are interested to join, you can head over to globaltestmarket.com. However, they do have a referral program. If I refer you then I get 20 points (50 cents).

So if you are kind enough to allow me to earn the referral bonus, just leave a comment below. Make sure you fill the correct email address in the “Email” column and I will send a referral email through the GlobalTestMarket system.

It’s not a lot of money, but every little bit helps to pay the bills.

I’m just happy to get this extra bonus.

We made a trip to Tropicana City to try Papa John’s for the first time.

We arrived around 6:30 pm and the place was empty. We chose the table on the right. The place slowly filled up around 7pm.

We ordered Set Meal A that included a regular pizza (Super Papa’s), bread sticks, baked potato wedges and two drinks. We also ordered a Little Papa set for the kids, which came with a plate of beef balls spaghetti bolognaise and juice.

Here’s a photo of the drinks. We had strawberry soda, 100 plus and orange juice.

Sorry, no photos of the food because we were too busy taking care of the kids when the food arrived. Okay that’s just an excuse. The food looks so delicious I totally forgot about taking photos.

We really liked Papa Johns because the pizza tasted fresh and the dough was light. The bread sticks were delicious especially served with a garlic butter dip.

Total cost of the meal was around RM44.

Last weekend, we made a trip to Citta Mall. It was raining and we were glad to discover the underground car park.

So many car park spaces, on a weekend night. This is just wonderful!

We ate at the brand new McDonald’s. It still smelled so new, and we really liked the comfortable environment.

It has a new interior decor design. Plush round stools, long communal tables and wood panelling. It reminded me of the new McDonald’s that opened in PD.

Took some photos but they were too blurry to show here.

Oops now you know our secret… we visit McDonald’s quite often.

No wonder I’ve gained a few kgs.

After dinner we took a walk around the mall and saw some nice cafes. Will be nice to go there for a quiet cup of coffee with Poey Chin, without the kids running around.

“Rachel, don’t run off by yourself… Daryl, cannot touch that! No we cannot buy that. Don’t poke the papayas!”

Stress 100%.

There wasn’t much to see at Citta Mall. There was a Harvey Norman, but why go if I couldn’t afford to buy anything?

Heard rumours that a cinema will be built there.

It’s tiring for us because we have to carry Caleb, the baby bag, and run after the two older kids.

But at least the kids enjoy themselves. It is a nice distraction for them to be out of the condo for a few hours.

I’ve been spending a lot of time on my new year’s resolution. Still can’t tell you what it is yet, but stay tuned hehe.

Here are the latest updates on the kids.

For my new readers, these “kids updates” serve to update everyone on how our kids are growing, and also as a recording of our memories.

The boys are growing quite close. They get along pretty well. Daryl will always ‘sayang’ Caleb.

Caleb kissing Daryl. Caleb is at that stage where he wants to put everything in his mouth.

Daryl is really testing his boundaries nowadays. I am so strict with him but it doesn’t seem to work.

Recently he picked up this biting habit. When Rachel and him fight over toys and he can’t get his way, he will bite her.

I have no idea how to discourage this behaviour. We always have to be careful when he’s around Caleb.

Daryl is testing his independence and new abilities of climbing and running. He climbs on everything. The piano, the dining table, the TV cabinet.

When we go out he refuses to hold our hand and will run off by himself.

I am dreading what is to come, because the last time I dealt with a two year old toddler I went into a year of really negative emotions.

To make things worse, Rachel will imitate Daryl, which is bad because it reinforces his behaviour, and we end up with “double trouble”.

Caleb is now six months old. He can crawl a few feet to grab his toys, and he’s starting to push himself to sitting position.

He is strong enough to sit up, but he hasn’t mastered the balance yet so he will topple over if we don’t support him.

Sometimes when I feel unhappy I just pick him up and he cheers me up again.

He’s such an angel, but time will tell if that will change.

Daryl is three months away from his second birthday.

As mentioned, he can run and climb pretty well, but he’s still clumsy. At that age he’s still unaware of dangerous things so I’m always so stressed.

He’s starting to pick up new words, and can string a few of them together into basic sentences.

He can imitate how we scold Rachel. The both of them will fight over everything. Toys, food, even where to stand in the elevator.

On the other hand he’s quite protective of her. Sometimes when I discipline Rachel, he will scold me, “Hey” and then try to beat me.

Sigh.

A photo of the three kids together.

Rachel is almost turning four. She is so chatty and can talk from morning until night.

She has endless questions, “why”, “when”, and “who”.

We can actually have conversations with her where she can understand what we’re trying to say to her.

She can read some basic words by herself, but can’t really write yet.

Back to Caleb. He can now sit in a booster seat. My colleagues got me this seat as a gift when Caleb was born.

We needed another seat because Daryl was still using the other one.

The two boys sitting together. Caleb can only watch because he can’t eat solids yet.

Soon we’ll be trying to introduce Caleb to some soft baby cereal, and I hope he likes it.

Tomorrow will be the start of a brand new year in the Chinese Lunar calendar, and it’s time for another round of family reunions. It’s a time to observe traditions, to remember the past and to hope for a better future.

First of all, let us wish all our family, friends, and dear readers a very happy Chinese New Year.

I wish you all the best in health, family, love, career and wealth.

I don’t know what came over me. This year I’ve suddenly had the urge to decorate my home for CNY.

First we put up some wall decorations. A “fook” (good fortune) poster.

I think some people put the “fook” upside down, but this wasn’t pasted at our door so I don’t know what the rules are.

A fish, because the word for fish “yu” sounds like another word for having abundance.

Paper fans made from ang pows.

Poey Chin decorated our shoe cabinet outside our condo with a cute little arrangement.

We started putting up red stuff all over our house. Even Elmo got drafted into service.

Last night we packed gifts for our relatives, then we packed ang pow.

And here’s something I’m really proud of.

Poey Chin told me she wanted flowers, and at first she wanted to buy those artificial flowers. I didn’t want that because we didn’t have space to store the flowers after CNY.

So she said she wanted fresh flowers. I told her I could arrange the flowers because I watched my mother do floral arrangements when I was a boy.

So we got some fresh flowers, and here’s the result after half an hour. My first ever floral arrangement!

Here’s our dining table, transformed and decorated.

Everything is red, orange and golden.

The kids and ourselves are really excited to wait for Chinese New Year.

We’re starting to teach Rachel some of the traditions and customs.

Hope all of you have a good celebration and holiday!

The point of the article was:

1. There are too many public holidays in Malaysia
2. Public holiday misuse happens when you take leave to stretch the public holiday into the weekend
3. Public holiday misuse makes employers cry because employees are not productive

Take the example of the next couple of weeks. If you take 7 days of leave, you could have an 18-day stretch without work.

Anyway, I’m not the kind of person who marks out all the dates to maximise my leave.

Don’t get me wrong. I love public holidays as much as anyone else.

It’s just that I’m a little strange. I don’t like to have holidays when everyone else is on holiday.

If I had a day off when everyone else was also having the day off, it would just feel like a normal weekend wouldn’t it?

Restaurants and shopping malls would be packed. You can’t travel anywhere because highways and tourist destinations would be jammed with traffic.

But imagine if you opted to go to work when everyone else took the day off!

1. Smooth traffic to and from work
2. No work disruptions (from customers or colleagues)
3. High probability bosses not around

If you ask me, I wouldn’t know what to do if I had a stretch of 18 days at home. I think all the days would be wasted away.

3 or 4 days are nice. Anything more and I start to go mad.

I prefer to save my annual leave for those special treats:

1. To watch a movie on a weekday and there is no one else in the cinema
2. To travel during off-peak season and feel like I’m the hotel’s exclusive guest
3. No traffic jams when driving out of town
4. No crowds at tourist attractions

I guess, for me it’s a matter of quality versus quantity.

We had a wonderful family holiday last month at Port Dickson with my parents, sister and brother-in-law.

It was the first time we went on a long-distance drive since we had baby Caleb.

It was a nice to get a chance to relax and enjoy ourselves away from the stresses of daily life. I enjoyed the chance to spend time with my family, and the kids really enjoyed themselves.

We stayed at Avillion Admiral Cove again. Daryl was not even born last time, so it was nice to go back.

This time we managed to stay in the new Vista wing, which was still under construction the last time we were there.

The rooms had a different theme compared to the old wing. It felt like some sort of garden / victorian theme.

I didn’t adjust the white balance on the previous photo so you could see the room in actual light.

There was a daybed in the room so we had extra space for the kids to sleep.

I always have this bad habit of taking photos of hotel bathrooms. I’ve been doing this since I was young. I guess I’m always fascinated by the luxury, something I could never afford to have in my own home.

I liked the experience of rain shower, but it was quite difficult to bathe the kids because they were terrified at first because we couldn’t prevent water dripping on their faces.

We also had to bring a basin to bathe Caleb.

We arrived in Port Dickson on the day after Christmas, and the traffic was horrible. We were stuck half-an-hour at a 5km stretch from PD hospital to Teluk Kemang.

We had our first lunch at Weng Yin seafood, which we tried last time. Last time I remember we ordered just some fried rice and a vegetable dish which was okay. This time we ordered a few Chinese dishes and we were quite disappointed at the taste and rather costly price.

After another round of traffic jam we checked in to the hotel and rested.

I saw this insect that looks like a stick. I had no idea what it’s called but I found it fascinating. Its feet could stick to a plastic sign!

Sadly I later found someone had smashed the insect.

For dinner we paid another visit to Kemang Seafood and it was much better compared to lunch, in terms of taste, portion size and pricing. We arrived around 7 but by 7:30 the place was packed.

We ordered crab, fried squid, prawns and there were people hovering around waiting for our table when I was eating my crab. I need to take my sweet time because it’s so hard to extract the crab meat.

My sister said those people drooled each time I dipped my fried mantou in the sweet and sour crab sauce hehe.

We went to bed early because we were tired from all the travelling and traffic jams.

This is a sunset photo I took with my phone.

The next morning we brought the kids to the beach after breakfast at the hotel. Just a quick note about the breakfast. It was the typical hotel buffet breakfast. Nothing too fancy. The normal Malaysian and Western choices, and we had to go eat before 8am to avoid the crowd.

It was Daryl’s first encounter with the sea, safe in yeh yeh‘s arms.

We borrowed a sand toys set from Rachel’s cousins and they proceeded to play with the sand. If you look back at the very first photo in this blog post, you will see Rachel found a coin.

I was so excited because she found it within seconds of digging. “Rachel! Rachel! You found money!”

Rachel: “No la, cannot take”. Then she threw the coin away.

I went to retrieve it, “No no, this is TREASURE!”

Rachel: “No, cannot simply take”. Throw away again.

Sigh.

Daryl concentrated really hard trying to scoop sand in the bucket.

Rachel was enjoying herself at the beach and at the swimming pool after that.

A nice family photo. Poor baby Caleb stayed indoors most of the time.

For our second dinner at Port Dickson, we hunted down the new McDonalds that just opened in PD.

There’s this whole new commercial area that opened on a piece of reclaimed land near the Store Oceanic Mall in PD. There’s a seafood restaurant already opened, and another Chinese restaurant being constructed.

It was predictably packed but we managed to find a table upstairs. It was nice because this McDonalds had a sea view and you could feel the sea breeze. There were a lot of flies too, so they should probably install some bug zappers.

We spent the night playing Risk. I last played the game when I was 14 and I’ve forgotten everything. It is such an interesting game!

On our last day, we spent some time taking photos. Rachel and Caleb.

Rachel and Daryl on some sampan display.

We visited the little petting zoo at the hotel. There was a rabbit, some tortoises and some hamsters.

Daryl kept touching the rabbits and called it a “cat meow”. Rachel kept screaming each time the rabbit came near.

A final photo before checking out.

We paid less than RM400 for two nights stay. Not bad considering it was super peak room rates (public holiday plus school holiday).

I hope we can go for another holiday at the end of this year, but definitely during off-peak season.

Some of the books do not have proper covers because the images were not available on GoodReads.

A total of 66 books, which is an increase of 8 books compared to last year. I just joined the library in 2009, which explains the low number for that year.

Goodreads.com even has a pages statistic: 19,120 pages read.

The books are in chronological order, so it’s interesting to see how I started the year with poker and baking.

Then I moved to vegetarian and environmental interests. I picked up a few biographies (which are my favourite) including Janet Jackson’s new book.

Finally I ended the year reading more about relationships and communication.

There were only a couple of books on fiction, compared to >10 in the previous year.

My favourite books were:

1. You Don’t Need Meat by Peter Cox – opened my eyes to what I was eating and dispelled vegetarian myths.
2. Becoming Holyfield – this biography is a great inspiration for having a positive attitude, forgiveness and good work ethic.
3. No One would Listen – how the SEC and media ignored warnings about the Bernie Madoff ponzi scheme.
4. A Colossal Failure of Common Sense – an insider’s story about the Lehman Brothers collapse and how the 2008 global credit crunch happened.

I’m happy to report that my reading habit has influenced Rachel. She wants us to read to her all the time, and I’m teaching her to read her first words.

You would think that I would be the first to get an e-book reader, but unfortunately that would not be practical unless there is some electronic library system (or I join the dark side and read pirated books). I can’t possibly afford to buy over 60 books a year.

Who knows what books I will read next year? What books will I discover at the library in the coming days? It’s so exciting and I look forward to report my 2012 reading list.

Happy New Year! Some believe this is the final new year for humanity.

Anyway just want to wish all of you a very Happy New Year again. May all your wishes come true.

Toward the end of last year I was spending a lot of time thinking about my new years resolution.

At one of our company meetings, the HR Vice President shared this video, and it has some very useful reminders about achieving success and greatness:

This is the link if you can’t view the embedded video.

I have this list of life goals. I won’t share the details here, but I can tell you there are 15 things I wanted to achieve by the year 2015.

After viewing this video, I realize I need to narrow that list to just one thing.

I have a few choices and I haven’t decided what my “focus” will be.

Choosing just one thing is more difficult that you would imagine.

First of all, as a Christian you would be expected to choose God as your one thing.

As a husband and father you would be expected to choose your family as your one thing.

As a valuable employee, you are expected to choose your company, cost savings or profits as your one thing.

Choosing anything else would make me seem sinful, or selfish, or a bad “team player”.

But I’m going to choose something else anyway. Something I am passionate about.

Now, you ask me. What about all my other priorities in life? Do I abandon them?

Definitely not! I am still a husband, father, and employee. But in my spare time, this is what I will be pursuing.

And if you think about it, this goal of mine does not mean excluding everything else. Other areas of my life can be aligned along the same path.

My hope is I can do much more with the single focus. Then next year I can move on to other things.

I’m feeling really excited about this.

Hope you have a great year.

Photo by: Billy Alexander

What a year it has been. Where did all the time go?

At the end of last year, I announced the exciting news that we would be having our third baby.

Now Caleb is here, and it feels like it was years ago when I read my old blog post.

I guess now is the right time to review what I’ve done this year.

First of all, my new year resolutions for 2011 were hit-and-miss.

At the start of this year I was going through a minimalism phase, which prompted me to stop giving (and accepting) Christmas presents. That didn’t work, and it’s not something I want to try again.

Another resolution was establishing some form of routine and order. We managed to do that quite well after baby Caleb was born.

Our life has settled into a predictable routine. Stress levels are lower. We’re actually finding we can enjoy ‘family time’.

We made the decision that Caleb would be our last baby, and that decision really helped me to settle down.

No more keeping things around the house “just in case” another baby arrives. No more uncertainty. I can finally firm up on some financial plans.

Talking about finances, this year hasn’t been a good year. The expenses have just gone beyond what I am comfortable with.

We spent a lot of money on baby Caleb, and we started the two older kids at daycare. Things around the condo are starting to break down.

Honestly I am really stressed about this. It makes me go into moods of depression, self doubt and even desperation.

I don’t really want to cover the things that went on in our country, or the disasters that happened around the world. I’m sure you’ll get full coverage in the newspapers.

I would sum up this year with one word: “Caleb”. He is such a joy. As parents you always worry how a new baby would change your family dynamics, but it seems like he’s a perfect fit.

I end the year with a feeling of contentment and thanksgiving for all the blessings we enjoy.

Have a happy new year everyone.

Photo by: markovje

In these times of celebration and year-end festivities, I hope you all are blessed with happiness and health.

On the night before Christmas, Poey Chin and the kids spent some time making some party hats.

Here’s a close up on Daryl. He didn’t really know what was going on.

The kids got a lot of presents. Here are some of them.

We want to take this time to thank all my family and friends for thinking about our children. They really had a magical time opening all the presents.

The kids really loved all the toys you bought for them. Daryl holding an Angry Bird plush toy.

We parents really loved all the cute clothes you bought for them. It is very timely since Chinese New Year is just around the corner. Thank you!

Some of Rachel’s clothes:

For Daryl:

Clothes for Caleb (and some toys for the boys):

We got Daryl this Barney bag, and he was so happy and excited that he almost burst into tears.

There are a lot of other cool presents, and I didn’t have the energy to take so many photos (since the kids were running around).

Thanks again everyone for your gifts.

Have a wonderful Christmas everyone!