My Birthday 2014

Late, late, late! I've been so late in all my posts but I'm trying to catch up. Today is already the 27th of January but the date on this post is 29 November just to coincide with the actual date of my birthday.

So Saturday, 29th November, 2014 was my birthday. The Lovely Wife had initially suggested spending the weekend away but we then realised that my son had Band Practice on Saturday morning so I said we'd just take it easy at home.

I woke up bright and chipper early on Saturday morning to wake up my son. There's nothing like a birthday to make you wake up bright and chipper! This didnt go unnoticed by The Lovely Wife either who remarked to the kids something to the effect that "daddy is so chirpy on his birthday but on normal days grumbles about waking up early!" The Lovely Wife and kids wished me happy birthday and I then went to have my shower and get ready to drop my son off at school.
After my shower, I got the smell of frying bacon and when I went downstairs, I found TLW and my princess in the kitchen - but they quickly shooed me away, saying the kitchen was out of bounds. I proceeded to sit in the lounge and watch some TV while the smell of bacon teased me!



Finally, they brought out a plate consisting of bacon, sausage, mushrooms, an egg sunny side up and a slice of toast together with a small salad. I love my bacon and eggs and it's an inside joke that even when we go for a holiday and there is a full buffet breakfast, I will still have my bacon and eggs. The breakfast was lovely and what a wonderful way to start my birthday!




Before leaving to drop of my son, my princess presented me with her hand made Birthday Present - a new camera for me! My son also presented a lego he had made of a camera held by a lego minifigure. How sweet of the two of them. I had been mentioning that I was thinking of upgrading my camera and so that was the theme of their presents.

TLW then showed me pictures on her phone that she had taken of some Le Gourmet cast iron cooking pans. She had wanted to get me some pans but my wise son said it would be better to take me along to make sure they got the right pans. As they say, its not the present but the thought that counts and there was certainly a lot of thought that went into all this!

I dropped off my son and then returned home to relax for a while as I was supposed to go pick him up again at 1230. He called however at about 11am saying that they had finished early and so I left to go get him. When we returned, we found that TLW and my princess were both dressed to go out and TLW smiled and told my son and I to go pack a bag for the night. She had booked us into the KL Sheraton and had got a really good rate on the room with Club Lounge access! Woohoo!!

We arrived at the Sheraton and the room was really nice and quite spacious too. There was a small sofa that Sarah immediately said she wanted to sleep on. There was also a small walk in wardrobe with a separate door where you could store your luggage and shoes.




After offloading our luggage, we headed up to the 38th floor to check out the lounge.
The views from the lounge were really nice and I made a note to take some pictures later on in the evening. We relaxed with some soft drinks and cakes before heading out for a late lunch at the nearby Yut Kee. As usual Yut Kee was packed but we waited for a little while and then had some char siew rice and belacan fried rice.
It had started to drizzle slightly after lunch and so we quickly made our way back to the Sheraton. We contemplated going across the road to the Quill shopping centre but as the rain had become heavier, we decided to just head back up to the Club.





Another round of soft drinks, cakes and cookies and then I spent some time taking photos while TLW enjoyed reading the papers and magazines and also watching CNN.



The kids spent some time playing games on the Internet and enjoying cups of tea and hot chocolate. The tea was served in shining teapots and it was all rather fancy! It was really relaxing just chilling with the family too.



Time passed quickly and soon it was 530 - that meant it was Hor's Deuvres and Cocktail time. I ordered a white wine for TLW while I asked for a Scotch. The scotch that they served was unfortunately a Red Label that I took as an affront to my palate! I switched to beer and after 2 glasses, I asked TLW if she would like to share a Long Island Tea! She was game for it and I asked for a Shirley Temple for the kids as well.



TLW and I ended up sharing two glasses of Long Island Tea while enjoying the snacks. The snacks weren't all that varied but I did enjoy the pretzel rolls, the cheese platter and vegetable crudites. The kids enjoyed the 'Peking Duck' styled wraps which consisted of chicken, duck and also bbq chicken. There was also a chocolate mousse that was passable. Michael overloaded on his Moroccan Mint Tea and Chamomile tea as well as his latest favourite - sparkling water!

I must say it was really nice to just lounge about with the family, chatting, picking on snacks and enjoying drinks - both alcoholic and non alcoholic. We decided to call it a night just passed 7pm and headed back to our room on the 33rd floor. We considered dinner but we had stuffed ourselves with the breads and snacks as well as the liquids!

Once back at the room we lazed around for a while. I asked my son if he wanted to just pop round to the shopping centre next door and he was game. TLW and my princess were happy to just stay in the room so the two of us trotted off. It was beginning to drizzle again but we managed to make it across to Quill. The shopping centre was still not fully tenanted but we walked about anyway and visited some of the shops.

Michael noticed a toy shop that advertised Schleich animal figurines. He loves the details on these figurines and we went in to have a browse around. There weren't many nice toys but the Schleich range was pretty good. I got my son an elephant that he was immensely thrilled with. As we walked round the shops, I found a shop selling shoes and i bought myself a pair of Obermains that were on offer. Mike spied the Hush Puppies shop next door that in addition to shoes, had stuffed Basset Hounds on display and Mike asked if we could go have a look. They had various sizes of stuffed Basset Hounds, most of which were at ridiculous prices. We finally decided on a key chain with a small stuffed Basset Hound attached to it. Michael said that Sarah would like it and if she didnt, then he would take it!

Finally for TLW, I got her a Reebok t-shirt. As we left the Shopping Centre it had started to rain quite heavily. We put the bags over our heads that afforded us some shelter from the rain as we made our way back to the hotel.

Both Sarah and TLW were thrilled with their presents. Sarah promptly named her puppy Hush and Michael seemed to like the name too. I rolled my eyes and there was much giggling and laughter as I told them how original they were to name the dog Hush - after all its the blasted logo of Hush Puppies. Hmmmm....

After a quick shower, we watched the Suzuki Cup football match between Singapore and Malaysia where Malaysia needed to win to make the semis. After a tense game, Malaysia won 3-1 with a penalty in the final minute and another goal in stoppage time. The match finished at 10pm and TLW was fast asleep at this stage.

The kids and I went back up to the Lounge for a cup of tea and hot chocolate. The kids also wanted to play some game or another on the computer. We stayed in the lounge for about 40 minutes although the kids wanted to stay until closing time at 11pm.

It was back to the room where Sarah proceeded to fall asleep on the sofa while Mike and I stayed up and watched some EPL Football before dozing off.

The next morning, we woke up and had a choice of having breakfast in the Lounge or downstairs in the restaurant. We opted to go downstairs as the spread was supposedly bigger. They had a lovely fresh juice station where we had a variety of different freshly pressed juices. Sad to say the breakfast buffet wasn't all that nice. There was a good spread but somehow the quality of the food wasnt very good. As an example, I had an eggs benedict. The egg was nicely poached with the yolk nice and runny. However, the Hollandaise sauce was all clotted and the they used a chicken slice that was rather tasteless. Sarah had an eggs benedict too but the yolk was almost set. Nonetheless, we had our fill of breakfast and then we returned up to the lounge where Michael had a cup of tea, I had an espresso and TLW had a fresh orange. We caught up with the news on tv and the newspapers and then headed back to the room to relax. Mike and Sarah played chess with the chess set they had brought along while TLW and I watched TV and read the papers. Soon it was time to check out and we contemplated going to see a movie on the way home. However, since I had the camera with me, I wanted to offload it first. We went home and unloaded everything from the car and then headed off to Tropicana City Mall to watch Hunger Games:Mockingjay Part I.

The kids had been wanting to watch the show for a while but they were 'prevented' from doing so as I hadnt seen the 2nd installment of Hunger Games whereas they had gone for it previously with TLW. I had just finished watching it a few days earlier so we were all able to watch Mockingjay and we enjoyed it too. We then had a really late lunch and then whiled away some time at the mall before going for evening Mass at SFX.

Finally, to end the day, we bought some fried rice and took it over to my parents place to have dinner with them. It was really a nice way to spend my birthday with TWL and the kids and I had a really great time!




Thanks TLW and thankyou Mike and Sarah!