Double celebration 140214

This year, the Western Valentine and Chinese Valentine (Chap Goh Meh) fell on the same day, 14 February 2014. Apparently, this only happens once every 19 years, or something like that.

To avoid all the crazy commercialism outside, we decided to have a nice meal at home with some friends. As it was a weekday and a working day, we decided on steamboat (again!) as it didn't take long to prepare. In fact, Hubby prepared everything the night before and stocked up the freezer, and his mum helped us to prepare the soup and fry some squid.

Here is the table all laid out with the yummy food, table arrangement also courtesy of Hubby ;)

The kids had fun playing together:

And the adults had fun eating and chatting :)

So that marks the end of the Lunar New Year this time around. Here's to a good year ahead of health, wealth and prosperity!

CNY 2014

Is it just me, or did Chinese New Year this time around seem more quiet than previous years? People must be scaling back due to the increasing cost of living :p

Anyway, this year lil Heidi was big enough to appreciate the food, fireworks and of course, the ang pows! As usual, we had our steamboat reunion dinner at Hubby's parents' place. The food was enough to feed the whole kampung, as Hubby would say ;)

The two youngest girls had similar cheongsams bought for them by Hubby's brother and his girlfriend. Heidi was busy posing in her little outfit and refused to take it off!

Our two little girls on CNY eve:

And at home on the first day of CNY:

It now seems mandatory for us to have a a few family picture on the stairs every CNY, usually before leaving the house (and this year, also on other people's stairs :p)

As usual, Heidi loves posing for pictures and here she is giving us her widest, cheekiest smile :)

The four youngest cousins on the 2nd day of CNY:

My dad was with us on the 3rd day of CNY so we had the "stairs" picture again, first with his granddaughters, and then with all of us.

A very Italian birthday

My birthday every year always falls sometime around Chinese New Year. Having said that, eating Chinese food is not really an option, since we have been eating it for the past few days straight, not to mention that Chinese restaurants normally increase their prices during this time.

So when our friends asked where I wanted to go for my birthday, I chose Italian food as it is one of my favourites, and I've probably tried all the Italian restaurants in Penang already. However, after doing some searching on the Internet, I found this place which we have not tried before. It's called Il Bacaro and it is located in a little boutique hotel called Campbell House in Georgetown.

The ambience was pretty nice, and the food was not too bad as well, although I have had better. We forgot to take any pictures of the food, as usual, but the Vanilla Panna Cotta with Berries Sauce which they decorated and fashioned as a birthday cake was pretty yummy.

Hannah and Heidi joined us as well for the dinner, and as expected, they were more interested in the "cake" than in taking pictures!

Family picture of the four of us and then of everyone together:

A few days later, another group of friends treated me to dinner at Itallianies, Gurney Paragon. I have always enjoyed the food there, and kids eat for free! 

My favourite Sicilian chicken salad and stuffed mushrooms:

We also had a ginormous pizza with four different flavours:

The girls were very excited to go outside and look at the dancing water fountain display, but we managed to convince them to come inside and take pictures when we told them there was cake!

Again, a picture of the four of us and then one of all of us:

And here are my birthday gifts from hubby and the girls:

Instead of a cake, I chose Haagen Dazs ice cream, and there is no denying that the girls enjoyed it more than I did! :)

And here was my proper gift - a lovely necklace chosen by hubby and Hannah. I have had the one I had been wearing for many years now (given by Hubby before we were married), so he thought it was time for a new one! :)

Another year older, and hopefully a little wiser!