The Garden Wedding » Announcements

Wishlist for the house :)

Wife — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 16:41:21 +0000

Some people have been saying that I should put up a wish list so that people who are intending to get us housewarming presents can do so easily.. haha.. so here’s a list of things that we want/ need for the house that we haven’t gotten down to getting!

1) Microwave oven
2) Toaster oven
3) Waffle maker
4) Electronic toothbrush
5) Vacuum cleaner
6) Steam iron (my labbie friends have voiced that they will be getting this for us)
7) Small sewing machine (more of Peiying’s wants than anyone’s needs..haha – anyone got one that they no longer want and can pass on? Hee..)
8 ) Sofa bed (for potential guests)

At the moment, just these.. Anyone interested in sponsoring anything? wahahaha

Happy Valentine’s Day! Chinese New Year in New Home

Wife — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 16:33:27 +0000

Happy Valentine’s Day to all!

Today’s Valentine’s celebrations were just great! Thanks bee dee for taking the time and effort in putting together such a wonderful evening.. It was simply fantastic… Your surprise for me back home was just so thoughtful I felt so very very touched.. Love you dear! Happy 1st Vday after marriage!

It’s been a great CNY this year, with lots of meeting up with family and friends, and welcoming them all to our new home. Thanks dearest fellows for coming over on chu si to heat things up at my place! Hee..

Here’s who came over for lunch on the 4th day of the Lunar New Year:

And my dearest darlings! Thank you na Zingy dear, for the sweeeeet love (literally!) This was taken in our bedroom where we girls were having a TCSS session!

Love ya girls soooo much!!!

Anyways, wanted to showcase our CNY decor for our new place, so here they are! Our living room wall…

We got CNY themed tissue boxes too! Haha..

Even the TV is not spared from my CNY madness

My hamster’s not spared too! hahaha..

More CNY decor…

The CNY goodies we bought for our guests…

Our “breakfast table” full of CNY goodies!!!

Pooh & Cinamaroll make their way into our home too!

The mandarin oranges in a beautiful “bowl” we got at Chinatown on CNY eve (yes, amongst the insane crowd! haha)

Decors on some of the doors..

…and on the fridge!

And last of all, little things around the house to up the New Year mood…

We haven’t lou hei this year… wonder if we’d eventually get around to doing that.. It has been such a hectic week, both hubby and I haven’t had sufficient sleep at all..

Officially moved in! 8th Jan 2008 :)

Wife — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 14:01:29 +0000

To update (as we received complaints that we were no longer updating this space – busy busy busy!), we’ve moved into our new place for about a month now (much longer than I felt it was.. haha) and it’s been just great! Other than having to deal with household chores (cleaning the house is no mean feat mind you, along with washing the clothes, cooking, cleaning the windows, etc etc), the whole idea of coming back to our own home felt really good. Of course, being able to spend so much time together felt really good too!

We’ve come a long way since the beginning of renovations, and I feel really proud of ourselves for having accomplished building a beautiful and homely home despite our busy schedules… There were many things we had to DIY or find alternatives for in order to fit our budget, and there were good deals/ sales that we made use of to obtain certain items, that we required, at a lower cost. No doubt an interesting but tiring experience, putting the whole house together felt good for the both of us.

Here’s a peek at our ‘almost complete’ home (with many items from IKEA and Bangkok! haha)

The cosy corner..
Some DIY designs…
The storeroom door, on its way to becoming…

…this!

The lamp we lugged back from Bangkok (it’s about a metre tall ok! Not easy! )

The evening view from our window (Beautiful, but we don’t often get to see it ‘cos by the time we get home, it’s dark! haha)
The dining area…

House warming anyone?

(*Note: Thanks to all who came over for CNY to liven our new home! It was great having everyone over! Thanks to all who brought gifts, really thoughtful of you guys!)

Crappy HDB flat!!!

Wife — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 05:17:07 +0000

Having gotten our keys to the flat for a couple of weeks now, we’ve done practically NOTHING to our flat as yet. And why is that so? Simply because our dear HDB – the ONLY source for public housing in Singapore, does slip-shod work in building their flats. And who pays for it? The people who fork out HUGE amounts of money, almost a life-time of savings, to buy their bloody lousy flats – US. Yup, you heard me right, HDB DOES REALLY SLIP-SHOD and SLOPPY work. Or perhaps they might argue, it’s not their fault you know, afterall, it’s not HDB who builds the flats, the contractors whom they hire does the work.

And how do they engage the contractors? Give it to the lowest bid! I believe that everyone in their right minds would know that everything comes with a price. And the lowest price for something, more often than not, does not translate into something really worthwhile. Pay $400 to hire people to paint your house for example, instead of paying $1000. Then be extremely prepared to fork out another $1000 in the future to re-paint your home, as the people who do it for $400 will only do a substandard job which is unlikely to pass the layman’s expectations. A perfect alternative would be to do it yourself, if you have the time and effort to that is, if you’re not already tired out from working your ass off to pay for the house in the 1st place. In any case, it’s not like HDB forks out a huge amount of money to pay for the construction of the flats in the first place, given the enormous price tags they put to their flats. So why go to the extreme of giving the tender to the lowest bidding contractor? *disgusted*

I think I’ve not arrived at the main point after having ranted for so long. The whole POINT is, the pipes in our ‘new’ house were found LEAKING like crazy in the kitchen and bathroom. And after having complained to HDB about it, they sent contractors down to fix the problem, and guess what? The contractors left the water running (even after we’ve told them – the contact person for the contractors, the specific place where we observed the leakage) overnight, therefore staining our walls, up’ed the bills and somewhat made things worse. And they claimed they were looking for the source of the leakage – letting the water run OVERNIGHT? What a joke. PLUS, the pipes are concealed in the walls, how do you see where the water is leaking out from without removing the tiles???

Fine, so they said they’d make our leakage a priority to fix, as they say there are many other defects in the HDB flats in our estate they have to deal with. Haha, see what I mean about the flaw in getting the lowest bid to do the job? Fantastic. Whoo hoo. So clever. And it’s been a week since we complained about the running of water overnight (and almost 2 weeks since we first complained about the leaking water), and the progress is painfully SLOW. When asked about the progress, the contact person says she doesn’t know how it is as she’s not the one doing the job (so what IS she doing? Just answer the calls and tell the angry homeowners that somebody is working on their problems? There’s no need to communicate with the contractors is there?), and when asked further to check it out, she said she’d call us to update us on the progress. How naive we are to believe her. She hasn’t gotten back to us at all. And it’s the weekend, so guess we have to wait til Monday?

Perhaps while reading this, some of you may wonder, isn’t HDB going to bear the cost for fixing the defects, and so there is no problem whatsoever? In the first place, we BOUGHT the supposed ready-to-live-in house but found defects, and hence the seller, i.e. HDB, has every damn responsibility to fix it (and pay for it of course). The costs that they do not have to bear however, are the feelings of anxiety, anger and worry, as well as the inconvenience caused to us over the repairs (we have to go down to our new flat from time to time to take a look at what is going on don’t we? That takes TIME, EFFORT and MONEY), and wondering when we can start furnishing the new home. Painting, installation of lights, building of the kitchen cabinets and washing of the house CANNOT begin until they have fixed the leaking pipes and water-stained walls. So everything is delayed, and time and inconvenience is what HDB doesn’t compensate us for.

Angry? Frustrated? These are mere understatements of how we feel right now.

Absolute Haven – Special Day!

Wife — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 15:50:08 +0000

Today (7th Nov) is a special day – Hubby and I have been together for a whole 8 years now!

Although it was a busy lab day, the evening together was fantastic. Hubby surprised me with a bouquet of roses (for which I had lots to comment about, haha.. But dearie, THANK YOU! It was really such a pleasant surprise, really!) when he came to pick me up from lab today, and brought me to this place that serves really delectable food! Other than being too cold (but there was a tealight to warm your hands with – definitely not meant for that purpose though), the restaurant called Absolute Haven was absolutely heavenly.

The interior decor – we strongly recommend it for the great service, food and ambience!

Started off the dinner with soup and a warm salad with fresh greens, thin cheese and portebello mushrooms – super duper yummy! The mushrooms were tender and juicy, flavorful like no mushroom we’ve ever tried before! A must-have for mushroom lovers! We had their soup of the day – pumpkin with orange soup, as well as a mushroom soup (non-creamy version with many small bits of mushrooms!) – I loved the former, and found the latter very unique, but not ultra tasty.

Here’s the yummy pumpkin orange soup! And it’s in an interesting soup bowl

And hubbydy’s mushroom soup:

This is one of the most interesting dishes for the night: chicken with spinach and bacon in the middle of it!

And the tasty Stella Artois battered fish and chips with delicious tartar sauce! Don’t expect any taste of beer though

Now comes the sweet sweet things for the night – desserts! The yummy crepe with ice-cream came complete with flambe, so it was a really cool sight to behold yet so yummy! And my tiramisu was served in a tall glass, with the really yummy coffee liquer at the bottom of the glass! hee..

THANK YOU HUBBY for a wonderful wonderful evening!

May we have many many many more memorable anniversaries to come…

WE’RE GETTING OUR HOUSE!!!

Wife — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 14:29:04 +0000

OH MY GOODNESS! I simply cannot hide my excitement and surprise that we can get our apartment next week! We were not expecting to collect our keys til the end of the year! And Hubby just received a letter that announces that we can collect our keys next Tuesday! How cool is that?? Haha… To think that we went furniture scouting on Saturday, and I was busy browsing through websites for ideas on wall decorations (I seriously so want to paint my own walls! Though I don’t know how they will turn out, haha), and were just planning our budget for the kitchen based on IKEA kitchen prices! They will all come in handy really soon! Haha..

Looks like our constant complaining about ‘when will the keys come?’ have paid off, hahahaha YIPPEE!!!!

We are successful for our flat balloting!

Wife — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 12:01:27 +0000

Yup, the title of this entry says it all – we are getting our new flat in Jurong West extension! Yipee! A 5-room flat, we are now having a headache of which unit to choose, since we are not allowed to go into the units to take a look for ourselves. Nonetheless, it’s getting exciting! With all the thinking about how we want to do up our new home, how I can design a Pooh corner (my dream!) and where to get our furniture from. Hee.. But excitement aside, there’s also the reality to face – money money money! Not only do we have to fork out money to pay the downpayment (which varies from 20-28k depending on which unit we get), we now have to budget for our renovation/ furniture shopping too. Not to mention we will have to pay for our numerous bills once we get our key. Man, living on our own is no mean feat! Growing up means greater responsibilities…

Beautiful photos from Adrian

Wife — Sat, 25 Aug 2007 14:40:11 +0000

I spent almost one whole day (but an enjoyable one) editing the photos to create effects that I personally want, and I must say a most sincere thanks to Adrian for capturing the day at awesome angles, with shots that depict such great emotions! Here is a sample of my favourite shots, many after editing (majority of them are taken by Adrian)

I simply LOVE them! Do you?

Guests at the photo booth…leaving well wishes on the photo guest book..

Behind the scenes…on the way to a beautiful bride…

Hubby looks on curiously…

My jie meis hard at work!

Our guests waiting for the moment to arrive…

A shot in Vanilla Pod before we proceed to the ceremony *nervous*

The groom waits eagerly for the bride…Here she comes!

A walk to remember…

All smiles for everyone…

“With this ring I bind thee…”

A lovely shot of daddy popping the party popper!

Showers of blessing…Streamers overhead…

…and orchid petals too!

“Here goes the bridal bouquet ladies!”

“We are married!” *jumps for joy*

A walk in the garden…

We look forward to a new phase of life together…

With our multiple volunteer photographers, man, were they fantastic! Thank goodness for all of them!

One of my favourite shots… a focus on my heels… (one can’t expect for the bride to walk in the garden with heels constantly right? It sinks right into the soft soil!)

I love photo editing! Brings out my creative juices and makes me happy…

Photos from photographer are out!

Wife — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 16:47:47 +0000

After almost 3 weeks, we have our hands now on the soft copies of the photos from our ROM! Thanks to Adrian our photographer, we now have lovely shots as memories of that important day.

It’s now time to make prints! I’ve been waiting to do this for a long time. Hee.. And special thanks to Adrian also for eventually acceding to my every request, I sincerely appreciate it, a whole whole lot. I guess I was kind of a difficult customer

Cheers to photos!

Some photos of that special day :)

Wife — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 04:55:27 +0000

It’s been close to 2 weeks after the day Aaron and I officially signed on the dotted line and are legally declared husband and wife. Despite being sick for most of the past week or so (coughing so much I feel breathless ever so often), I still have this floaty feeling and am basking in the happiness of the new marriage. Haha.. I told Aaron I want to bask in this kind of happiness for a few months without having to do anything else, but we both know this is impossible.

For now, I am looking forward to the photos from Adrian, the photographer hired for the event, then deciding which ones to develop! I’ve already printed out about near 30 pics of what I have on hand from what Zing, Sue/ Angela and my brother shot that day. I want to see more! Haha.. So bear with us for all who want to see more pics but find that there are hardly any here.

Here are a few that I particularly like though:

Click on this for more photos that Zing darling has kindly put together for my wedding for the moment!