Ushering into the Roarrrrrr Year

CNY Eve

Headed over to my parents-in-laws' place for reunion dinner. It's a yearly ritual. Weather was hot and humid. It was crazy... urghhh..

The variety of cookies my MIL made. She's a super-woman I tell you!!

Everybody arrived shortly after we did. They brought food for the night as well to complement our reunion dinner together.

Can you guess what these bunch of people are doing?? So sneaky hor...

They were preparing the 'Yee Sang' for the night!!

Here's everyone having a go at it, except me, because I was the camera wo-man!! ;p

One of hubby's cousin asked, 'eh, Gerry, you don't want to 'lou' meh?', and darling hubby replied on my behalf, "trust me, just 'lou' only.. she with her camera, she is very very happy already!" Lols! Hubby understands me soooooo well.. Love you, baby!!

Checkout the amount of food we had!! And this amount is X 2 (meaning 2 tables servings!)

CNY, Day 1

11pm, Midnight

We welcomed the CNY at 11pm on 13th Feb 2010. According to Chinese calendar, the official start of the day is 11pm, and not at midnight. Anticipating the hot weather the next day (14/2/10), we (parents-in-law, SIL and us) decided to headto the temple at 11pm.

Unfortunately, I was advised not to bring the new toy for safety reason. I agreed. So no photos for this. Thea and I only went into one temple because I wanted to show her what a temple was. But we did not light up any joss sticks at all because I felt that it was smoky enough and didn't wish to contribute to the already-unbreathable air. So Thea and I waited outside after a short walk in the temple. When the others proceeded to the second temple, Thea and I loitered around in front of a flower shop which was still opened. I used to take my stocks from there when I still owned a florist shop. They are actually a wholesaler to the florists all round KlangValley. I bought a packet of mix flowers for bathing purposes. When Thea and I were left alone, we looked at the flowers and even made a purchase - but this story, I will share later in another entry. ;)

We finally departed KL at about 12ish midnight. We got home, changed Thea and then slept. It was a peaceful sleep, knowing that we won't have to force ourselves awake just to head to the temple the next morning! Lols!

Afternoon

We arrived at my uncle-in-law's place at about 12:30pm, where my grandma-in-law resides. What I had initially expect of a full feast of lunch (as previous years) was consoled by a pleasant surprised when I was told that we were having 'mee-hun-kueh' for lunch!! How splendid! It was easy to cook and light for lunch!! Especially after a whole night of feasting just the night before!

Preparing lunch! The dough was cut into smaller pieces to feed all of us! Lols!

Here, everyone was helping out to put the cut pieces into the soup. One of our aunties commented that if we were to open a stall, we would surely lose money because we need sooooo many people just to help out with lunch! Lols! Another aunty laughed and said that this whole thing was actually fun because it got everyone (all the ladies + one boy cousin) involved as it is always nice to do things together! I couldn't agree more.. eventhough I was not involved in the preparation of lunch myself.. lols.

My MIL & Thea

Late evening

We visited Dad came last evening after each one of us had a nap after lunch. We just needed to S-L-E-E-P!! And here's dad and Thea huggin' wishing each other 'Gong Xi Fa Chai'!! :)

My Dad & Thea

We had dinner and played some cards. I can't remember if we stayed long. But it was a loooooongday for us, despite the nap in between.. lols!

CNY, Day 2

Gerry Can Cook!!

My dad has this ritual too for the family - 2nd day is 'hoi-nin-fan', meaning opening year rice in direct translation..lols!Please don't ask me what it means. I was just in-charged of cooking 2 dishes - the 'lap mei fan' and the 'hou si broccolli' a.k.a. dried oyster with broccolli.

Apparently, turned out to be yummy! Lols! So, Gerry CAN COOK!!! LOLS!

Luncheon

After lunch, we played cards. It was really fun.. unfortunately, we couldn't stay long because we had to visit theTais(hubby's colleague) and they had requested me to cook 'lap-mei-fan' too! Hmm, I must be talented in this dish. ;p

So to make up for the lost time with the siblings, all of us agreed to meet again the following evening for dinner together and games. We just wanted to spend some sibling time together. It's nice and cozy. :)

Evening

Proceeded to the Tais' new residence after the cooking storm. The kids had lots of fun; hubby had lots to catch up with his other colleagues whom he doesn't meet on a frequent basis due to their roster; and me, I was busy snapping away. ;)

Andrew & Vinnie

Thea having her dinner while playing with the Twins!

Poor Elaine was really tired by the end of the night. Coupled that we only left at about 1amish, so we only got home at about 2am. Thea was starting to sniff a little and I got a little disappointed.. because I made plans to visit Alina, Mike and Cash the next morning. :( I am too blessed for Alina's understanding when I
text her of the situation. We agreed to meet some other time.

So that was our first 2 days of CNY. Mostly busy, tiring and hot!! ;p