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!

holidays should always be like this

this was a longer trip than the last but there was so much more to do! we touched down and pretty much planned a wedding (well the hubby did anyway)..caught up with family and friends, attended another wedding.... we were pretty much at the mamaks every night and always never failed to leave the place with heaps of glasses on the table. we ate and ate and ate, i attended a drift event for my first time which was really fun (with all of us hoping someone would crash into another) except that i wasn't feeling too well and the hubby had to rush me home after a couple of hours. however there were people i still didn't manage to meet, there's always so much to do .... oh and did i add how adorable my little nephew is??  too bad he's sooooo far away. well we had an awesome time but we are pretty happy to be back home.

the long awaited gold coast trip

it was such a long time since we planned this trip. i remember how excited we were when we had booked our tickets and accomodation in .... i think it was may! o_O we had gorgeous service apartments at surfers paradise due to some staff benefits *grin*

it was my first proper trip to the gold coast, the first time i've seen the metermaid and had to pay five bucks for pictures -_- ahhh well.....this trip there was a lot of eating and i meant ALOT, walking and funnily enough of coin dozer. hahaha we were at the timezone amusement centre every single day! and at the end of the trip, we came home with a new sandwich maker, photo frame and random little things. it definitely kept us cheaply entertained for a very long time.

we did play other games apart from coin dozer. see the boys serious face car racing and clara's super kan cheong face playing pacman vs. i guess it has been a while since we've played these games.

for dinner we got a very entertaining show at shogun in bundall. the chef and show was much better than the one i tried in north sydney. portions were decent and it really fun. of course there was a little wastage since we girls weren't very good catching food with their mouths and alex got a whole chunk of egg thrown at him >_< oh and the highlight of my night was watching hot girls strip at hollywood! pheweeetttt....

dinner 11020608

when G's hungry, he climbs up onto our dinner chairs to remind us to feed him 

ever so often i try cooking a new dish for dinner. and every time i do that, i worry that it will taste bad and everyone will be stuck with a bad dinner. so to ensure they at least have something that they will eat, i try to make one dish that i know will for sure be tasty i.e the super unhealthy potato salad >_< the other problem i have with cooking is that i never taste my food before serving it which i know is terrible coz then i won't know if i'm missing anything. ah well..... nothing you can't add a little bit of salt to. hahaha last night i tried oven baking bread crumbed pork chops. probably healtier but the bread crumbs weren't crispy; either that or i made it wrong -_- at least the boys didn't complain and they looked like they really enjoyed their dinner. no one had a tummy ache so alls well *grin*

cj hawker food night

apart from family and friends,  malaysian food is one thing i will always miss. lucky enough, we actually know people who can cook it so well, it even smells like a restaurant in malaysia when walking into him home. this round CJ made nasi lemak, sambal with fried chicken as well as his famous curry chicken (all ingredients are from scratch!), cucur udang which should be eaten hot and fresh, hokkien noddles and wa tan hor which is to die for.... we even got to tapau (takeaway) so that we could enjoy it again the next day. omg just looking at the pictures are making me hungry again *slurppp*

note: pictures all stolen from audy as i was too hungry when i smelt the food and completely forgot to take any pictures. thanks audy!