Cherating Revisited

Mummy is 33 weeks & 3 days preggie.....
Ethan is 5 years, 1 month, 3 weeks & 5 days old.....

My company organised a family day at Cherating and we stayed at the Legend Resort for 3 days/2 nights (8-10 July 2011). The first time me and hubby stayed there was in 2003, after our ROM. The timing for this trip was good as we get to escape KL. Otherwise, we will be stranded at home due to the rally.

Although I was 32 months preggie and knew it would be tiring to sit through a 3-hour journey, I was adamant to go because I want Ethan to have some fun before his little brother arrives. I don't think we will have any holidays for the next 6 months at least with an infant in tow. It was a right decision as we enjoyed the trip, especially Ethan. He participated in 2 of the games and won a chess set and I can see he truly enjoyed playing sand at the beach. Apart from that, there were a few memorable moments during the trip:

• We got to hold baby turtles for the first time and releasing them to the sea.
• Painting batik for the first time.
• Mummy got a Tissot watch and a multi-purpose cooker for the lucky draw. Daddy was even luckier coz the watch is for men.

The only minus point about the trip is the hotel room. Some of the rooms were refurbished but most of them were run down including ours. Since we don't fork out a single sen for the trip, I don't want to complain about it lah. Will let the pictures do the talking.

Yay!!! I can see the beach, the pool and had a keropok lekor in hand.

Checking out the beach shortly after checked-in.



Mark his territory?

Happily playing sand, wet or dry, under the blazing hot sun.

Sweets he collected in one of the games.

Trying his hand at batik painting.

The finished art work (with help from daddy and mummy).

Looking at the 1-week old turtles at the sanctuary.

Highlight of the event. Everyone was so excited
to hold and release a baby turtle each.

Mummy and her 2 babies.


The watch that mummy/daddy got

He is 5!

5 years & 2 days old.....

Somehow, Ethan turning 5 seems to be a big milestone for me. When he was a baby, I just like to imagine how he would be when he is 5. When he is 5, I'm in my mid 30s. When he is 5, perhaps we will have another baby (yeah, baby is coming). When he is 5, how will he look, talk and behave? I got all the answers now and I think it's a great achievement for us to have survived and cherished our lives in raising Ethan for the last 5 years. The first year was the toughest, I would say, having to cope with a baby who often falls sick and without extra help from our family. Thank God, things eventually got better and we were never happier before. We are truly blessed to have him in our lives.

This year, he celebrated his birthday at school on Thursday (19 May) and with my family on Saturday (21 May). His actual birthday was actually on a Sunday. We prepared party packs for his friends and ordered a double chocolate cake. He has chosen an edible image of superman (while I preferred Madagascar) for the cake and seemed to be very satisfied with it. His friends admired it too. We got all the party packs ready on Wednesday night. Ethan was happy to help with the packing and cutting the thank you cards. I bought colour papers and printed some simple thank you cards for his friends. Since the cake has an image of a superman, I googled for some superman pictures for the card and Ethan picked the one he likes. I think we finished everything at around 11p.m. that night.

Cutting the card. He cried when I didn't let him do it at first
worried that he might ruin the card.
Well, it's his birthday, should let him take part.


Sealed the plastic bag with the card.


All ready for the birthday.


The birthday boy with his superman's cake.

When Ethan woke up the next morning, he wanted to bring the party packs to school. I told him mummy and daddy will bring that to school with his cake later on. He was unhappy and shed some crocodile tears. He is one great drama king. I know, my son is the 'kan cheong' type, very eager to distribute them to his friends. After some coaxing, he was ok. When we reached his school later that evening, he was very happy to see us, beaming from ear to ear. His friends sang happy birthday to him and one of them asked him make a wish. He refused to because I think he doesn't know how to make one...haha!! I helped to cut and distribute the cake to his friends and teachers. We then got Ethan to give the party packs to the kids. It was a simple celebration but he was very happy. That's all that matters.

On Saturday, we celebrated his birthday at Spaghetti Grill at MidValley. I have ordered orange poppy seed cupcakes from FamilyFirst and collected them the night before. When I opened up the box, Ethan was happy to see Tom&Jerry and I was very satisfied with the look of the cake too. The nice aroma of the butter just made me salivating. So tempted to eat one that very moment. Ethan likes the cake and he ate the edible image too. Weird huh. To me, the image tasted like a paper. On the restaurant, I'm ok with the food and like their pizza too but hubby was not too happy with the food. He said Chili's and Hard Rock are better.

Orange poppy seed cupcakes.

His trademark pose.

Mmmm...can't wait to eat the cake.

As for his present, we bought a white/black board with easel for Ethan. Hubby wanted to buy a bag for him because the current one was quite worn out. I thought of white board and have been searching for one with easel because I know he likes drawing. He has been using a small white board all this while and it is already dented. Sometimes I teach him maths with the white board and he enjoys it. I don't like the typical classroom type white board and finally found this at Toys"R"Us. When he first opened up the box, he said "For baby ar? Then me leh? Not good la". He thought it was for babies because of the picture on the cover that shows a small boy drawing on the board. I said it's a white board and you can draw on it...blah blah blah.....then he was happy again. He opened up the present on Thursday after coming back from school and played with it for about 3 hours that evening. It showed money well spent. Sometimes, he just played with a new toy for 30 minutes and chucked them away.

His favourite new toy.