2013 – the year that was

The year started with the little one entering her first year in kindy.  She was rather reserved and wasn’t willing to join in the activities with her friends the first couple of days but she eventually got used to kindy and made several close friends.  Her kindy organizes the sports day and concert on alternate year and this year was sports day.  However, she didn’t join in the school trip to Farm in the City as I had taken her and her jie-jie there earlier.  She also missed her year-end class party as we were holidaying in Australia then.  Study wise, she’s not doing that well – after a full year in kindy, she still doesn’t know all the 26 alphabets.  Been coaching her the last few weeks to prepare her for kindy reopening next week.  Since we missed the Parents-Teacher Day as we were in Australia, I collected her progress report recently when I went to collect her new books for 2014, and was pleasantly surprised to find that she was awarded the Most Caring student for her class.

Yiu Yiu is progressing along in her studies, settling near the top 1/3 among the 600-odd Standard 2 students in her school.  She was also awarded the Exemplary Student award in her class.

This was a photo taken from the school's notice board

After two years of learning gymrama, she finally took her first grading exam in the free hand and ball routine for the Little Gymnast category, which she passed.  She will have to wait till June to take the exam for the last apparatus, the rope, which she missed as she didn’t have enough time to practice due to our being away to Australia.

The girls also started piano sometime in Aug/Sept.  We initially only planned to enroll Yan Yan, since Yiu Yiu is already learning the violin but she likes the music centre and the teacher, and requested to learn so we agreed.  She has also started swimming lessons with her cousins in April so she’s one really busy young lady with piano, violin, swimming, gymrama and art classes.  We’ve asked her to drop some classes but she loves them all, so we’ll just let her continue for the time being.

We went on some outings…

- to Legoland and Hello Kitty World in January

- to Kidzania in June

- to Farm in the City in August

…and a holiday to Penang during the June school holidays.

We were also blessed to have been able to go on two overseas holidays this year – to Central Vietnam (Hoi An, My Son, Hue and Danang) in March and to Melbourne and Sydney during the recent year-end holidays (which I have yet to blog about).

On a personal front, I didn’t travel as much for work this year, but somehow ended up in Bangkok three times J  During the last trip in October, I took some time to visit Ayutthaya, Maeklong Railway Market and Damnoen Saduak Floating Market.  And after sporting long hair for umpteen years, I chopped if off for a bob.  Here’s a shot taken at the saloon after my cut and colour.  Please pardon the dark circles under my eyes - this was just a day after we returned from Australia and I was reeling from lack of sleep.  I like my new look, as does many other people who says I look 10-15 years younger...haha.

 

We wrapped up the year with a Hi-5 concert at the KLPAC.  The girls (and Yihao & Xiaoyu) had a blast, singing and dancing along with the group.  We even scored a Meet & Greet session pass and the children had the opportunity to take photos with the group.

So that wraps up our 2013.  I don’t typically make resolutions for the new year but here’s my to-do lists for 2014:

- start exercising again and lose some weight.
- spend less time at work and come home earlier every day.
- have more patience with the girls
- go for facial, massage and pedi regularly.
- enroll Yan Yan into a ballet school, as she’s been asking for it for a long time now so I should seriously start looking for a class for her.
- enroll Yiu Yiu into a Money Tree program, and Beginner’s Camp at Radiant Retreats.
- encourage Yiu Yiu to read more, as she hardly reads.
- teach the girls to cycle.  Yiu Yiu was cycling regularly on her four wheelers until her bike broke down several months ago and we never replaced it, so will have to buy new bikes for them both.

Lets see how many of the above can I accomplish this same time next year.

Wishing everyone a blessed 2014 filled with an abundance of laughter, joy, success and great health.