pest

not too long ago, the hubby and i woke up in the middle of the night to a really loud scratching sound that seem to have come from above us. almost as soon as we heard it, it stopped. we waited and waited hoping to hear it again but nothing o_O we were paranoid that there were rats in the house, or maybe a possum stuck somewhere. there was pretty much nothing we could at this time of night so i went back to sleep while the poor paranoid hubby started surfing for pest control.

we didn't hear anything for a while until suddenly one night i woke up to what sounded like the same scratching sound and this is what i saw....

G was sleeping so close to the wall that when he stretches or runs in his dreams he scratches the wall -_- well at least there isn't any pest in the house.

the year 2012

almost a year since i was last here and a lot has happened since then. here's a recap to the year 2012 in random order.

i assisted in cooking my first turkey ever.. of course with chef father-in-law and i have to say it turned out mighty fine. defrosting that 5 kilo bird was painful. it took 24 hours to defrost, marinated overnight, about 2 hours prep and another 3 hours and 45 minutes to cook. but it was definitely worth it. the meat was juicy and tasty and of course we had heaps of food. it's may not be my first home cooked christmas but it's a first traditional one with turkey and all.

after much travelling back and fro home to kl, the hubby and i managed to end up in new york this year; all in 2 weeks planning and luckily enough flew out a couple of days just before hurricane sandy hit. as expected, loved the city and everything about it - the lights, the late nights, the atmosphere... everything. i manage to catch up with friends i haven't seen in a decade and now everytime i watch a movie shot in new york, i scream "new york!!". someone's gonna get sick of me eventually >_<

the beginning of the year was a bit of a whirlwind. started with ups and downs. some downs too private to share and some downs turning into ups. there was the difficulty in selling our apartment but yet we were able to buy the house we wanted and surprisingly it all worked out. the hubby and i always grateful that although we may not be the rich, but we're lucky in what matters and that we do live comfortable lives.

i turned the big 3-0 this year with no major parties since the hubby was overseas. i did however get a very belated surprise giant birthday cupcake when he came back. and when i say surprise i mean surprise considering i starting singing along to the birthday song not realising that it was for me.

became the proud housewife when i made tong yuen (glutinous rice balls) from scratch for the winter solstice. not that i wasn't the proud housewife before ... but seeing it was so pretty and something different from the everyday house cooked dinners i couldn't help but beam in happiness. one step closer to being a stepford wife. hahahahaha .. that's never gonna happen!

i got the chance to overcome my slight fear of go-karting and now go full throttle without that thought stuck in my head that i will overturn at corners. now i just need to learn to cut the corners right. *evil grin*

dyed my hair purple... then pink. welcomed a few cute adorable babies into the world, non of which are mine of course and built more lego this year than i have ever built in my life. this year flew by so quickly i didn't even have time to blog about it. now to bring on the new year!

happy new year!

tv shoots are fun

shotss our new mother's day tv shoot. this time something different - a cool roller track to move the video camera! it makes the clip look sooooo awesome and of course, have gorgeous girls makes it all so simple.

experiment 626

occasionally (actually quite often) the kid in me comes out to play and i give in. i was always fond of experiment 626 a.k.a. stitch and was comtemplating getting this phone cover when i first saw it. it was pretty pricey so the adult in me said no... today we saw it again for a lot cheaper and managed to bargain it down even more. check out the video... the ears pop out. oh and it stands!!! *claps hand in glee*

sometimes we're just lucky

i just a phone call from D while i was at work and i could hear an excitement in his voice. he asked me if i was busy and if i was in front of my computer and of course i was. i was at work after all ^_^ he then sent me an email, i could hear the eagerness in his voice while he waited till i got it...

it was a link to harvey norman. the nikon J1 was on special and it was 60% off!! D had been eye-ing this camera for me since he realised that it works with our current lenses. apart from the camera on my phone, i always have a compact camera in my bag and when i destroyed it (by smartly flinging it out of my hands on a cliff which landed on a very hard rock o_O), i was thinking of getting a smaller lens so i can carry the dslr in my bag. wasn't a very smart idea plus it would make my handbag even heavier. it so happen we were looking at this camera yesterday but i didn't think i needed another camera and refrained from getting it and then this. how could we not?? oooooo new camera.

four years ago...

D took me to the cliffs at coogee and pushed me off. no i'm kidding ... hahaha >_< ... he proposed. yes, it all happened on april fools day which made it just a little more difficult to have my friends believe me when i told them. it was simple, sweet and suited just for me. when we think back about it, it's hard to believe that we've only been married for such a short time coz it seems like life without each other was a long long time ago.

unlike all our other sundays where we sleep in till noon, today we woke up really really early; and i mean really early. we were up around eight am to go for what was apparently the best buffet breakfast at the hilton hotel. before you think it's some fancy wancy romantic breakfast, it was with our whole bunch of friends and because we have a 2-for-1 voucher ^_^ waking up so early definitely makes the day a whole lot longer. after breakfast, we went shopping in the city and almost... just almost came home with the chanel wallet that i really liked. instead i came home with a new pair of boots. happy proposal anniversary sayang... you made this date sooooo much easier to remember *grin*

G - the cleaner version

you know when you have a dog, your phone is full of photos of him whether he doing something stupid, not stupid or even just sitting there and just because you think 'awwww so cute'  SNAP! i'm lucky my photographer accommodates me when i plop G onto the white perspex and go 'pleaseeeeeeee'. well G just had a clean and now you can see his face. isn't he just adorable??

dumplings dumplings ... and more dumplings

after spending the whole afternoon in the city shopping and coming home with lots of goodies we headed to shanghai town for dinner. ashfield is known to be a little shanghainese community so when you're on the main road through the town, you'll come across quite a number of shanghainese restaurants. we got to new shanghai and oh great, there was a queue. good thing we didn't wait long. our dinner consists mainly of dumplings - steamed pork & chive dumplings, pan fried pork dumplings and siu long baus. all of which were really tasty. the funniest thing was when the fried rice arrived. everyone was dissapointed coz it looked pretty pale until D took a bite and his eye lit up and went "wah, damn good". that was when everyone else dug in ^_^ it was only a pity that the food took a while to arrive. the dishes come out one at a time and by the time the porridge i ordered came i was full. oh and they gave our siu long baus to the wrong table so we had to wait somemore; not only that i didn't think the skin was thin enough -_- something must have been happening in the kitchen coz it wasn't alex's first time and he had no problems last time.  maybe next time we won't go on a saturday night. hmmmm thinking about the dumplings are making my mouth water.

273 liverpool road, ashfield nsw 2131
look for the bright red and white signage

superstar G

i managed to get my photographer take a few shots of G while we were on shoot. he was quite good, got him to sit still and tilt his head but only for a while. clearly his hair is a mess so he will be going for a nice little groom soon. oh he's soooo cute!

peking duck

what is a birthday without your friends... we finally celebrated D's birthday over the weekend with our friends at a place we use to frequent when family was in town, someone graduated or when something special happening. i remember graduation season and the many times we went there with friends and their family. those were uni days... we thought since it's been a while, why not. we always enjoyed the peking duck there, sang choi pao and all. this time there was no screaming surprise but a mouth watering chocolate mud cake which our waiter eyed bringing it out and jokingly asked if he could have a slice in return for for helping us take a group shot. haha that was really quite funny but i happily gave him a slice at the end of the night. we ate and we merry and ended up in mackers for supper later that night. it's always about food.