Christmas Party

Yesterday we had our Christmas celebration at the Base hanger. We had the usual events like exchanging gifts, taking photos with Santa Claus and not forgetting food. The only difference is that this year is much colder than last year. Nevertheless, we still enjoyed ourselves at the party with food and good friends around us.

For this year, we won’t be having a party at our house on Christmas Eve as Jason & I will be spending our Christmas in Las Vegas. Really excited about it…

X'mas 2006 in Squadron

With my "kha ki" - (L-R) Jess, Ailing & Chenfeng

Another "kha ki" Daphnie who arrive later

Merry Christmas and have a fun one!

Lights, lights everywhere

Driving around the neighbourhood in December is always a pleasure thing to do. You will see houses and houses lighten up with hundreds of lights and Christmas decoration and it will sure set you in the mood for Christmas. It’s more important here since we won’t be experiencing a white Christmas here. However, there sure to be one or two houses that actually goes out their way to stand out with their christmas decorating.

Ever since we came to Arizona, Jason & I will drive around our neighbourhood to see how others put up their christmas decoration. I had snapped a few photos around my own neighbourhood to share with you guys and gals. It's something you won't be able to see in Singapore, not even Orchard Road....

Goodbye fall & Hello winter

21st December (Thursday) at 5.22pm marked the official start of winter. It was also the shortest day of the year and was followed by the longest night of the year.

Even though winter had officially begun, there still won’t be any snow here. While Denver is “battling” with their snowstorm there and others in other states are trying to keep themselves warm, we are enjoying the cool weather here (The temperature ranges from the 50’s to 60’s°F this week). Although the early morning and after sunset will be slightly colder than usual, I still see people in short sleeves and Bermuda!

So, enjoy the winter here coz before we know it, the heat will start creeping back to us.

Getting ready for Christmas

This is the time of the year where one holiday follows another. Although Christmas will not be here till the last week of December, people here started their decoration after Thanksgiving Day. Due to the “trauma” of Thanksgiving, we finally bring out our Christmas deco only last weekend.

Somehow decorating during the Christmas has become a routine for us since we got married. I hope we can keep this “tradition” of ours for a very very long time.

Happy Holidays!
















































The final result...

Sleepless nights of Thanksgiving

(note: This was half written on the 3^rd night but only managed to complete it now….hehe….)

While most people are excited when thanksgiving comes, I dreaded it. I just dislike waking up before the sunrises, decking out in the cold to queue up and trying to “snatch” stuffs that I don’t really need but just because it’s cheap!

This year, there isn’t anything on my mind that I am set to buy so we decided to “earn” money instead of spending it. Ever year, the Base Exchange (BX) here will give out a $20 gift card to the first 100 customers for consecutive 4 days (23^rd to 26^th).

For the first night, we started to queue at 3.30am as the BX is opened at 7.00am. As it’s the day before Thanksgiving, so there isn’t many people as the ang mohs are busy preparing for their Thanksgiving dinner. We managed to be the first 30 people. After that, we went home to sleep and later that night had our Thanksgiving dinner at Black Angus (a restaurant famous for their steaks) with some of our friends. After that, we decided to go home and rest before queuing at BX again. We had different people queuing at different stores so as to maximize our chances of getting some computer/electronic stuffs that Jason wants. Before we can really go to sleep, we got a call from Aaron asking us to come down soon as the queue at BX is getting longer. So instead of queuing at 1.00am, we went there at 12.00am. We are still within the first 50 people but we queue for almost 5 hours before BX was opened.

On the third day, we started to queue even earlier – at 11.30pm. Our sleep became so disrupted where we slept in the days and stay awake in the nights. This time, the time seems to past very slowly. Maybe it’s really cold and we are all shivering. We queue for 5 ½ hours, after that as usual we went back to sleep.

For the last day, we anticipate that there were be more people than the last 3 days. So we start to queue at 11.00pm. We waited for 9 hours in the cold before BX opened at 8.00am. Arrgh…it’s the longest hours of my life (not even this long when queuing for Hello Kitty)! Since I didn’t buy anything for the past 3 days, we shopped a bit. Jason bought an Oakley sunglass and I bought a game cube game. We didn’t use up our gift card but we can save them for a later date. After breakfast, we hit the sacks straight away to replenish all the sleepless nights.

Although we didn’t have a fantastic time this Thanksgiving, we are $160 richer….kaching! Thanks god that this is our last Thanksgiving this time round.

The queue for the last day








The gang that stay awake for 4 consecutive nights










See....how cold we are









Sign of victory...we finally braced through it!

p/s: As my computer crashes during Thanksgiving, all the photos for the first 3 days are gone! So what you see here is just the photos for the last day.

The Spirit of Giving

Thanksgiving is an annual one-day holiday to give thanks to the native Americans at the close of the harvest season. In the United States, Thanksgiving is celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November.

This is a great time of the year to give thanks to and share! It seems that as we grow older, we forget about all these. So let share the holidays with someone you love, and have a peaceful one! Remember when we share, we are being kind.

5 THINGS YOU CAN SHARE:

- smiles with people passing on the street

- time with someone who might be lonely

- good thoughts with people you love

- a great joke

- your favourite recipe

Autumn is a beautiful ragged season...

You see leaves changing to the colour of sunset after a summer of glorious blooms. Weather starting to cool down and the air is crisper, sharper and fresher. This is the season where people here will go to pick their own pumpkin at the farm for Halloween or Thanksgiving.

Pumpkin patch is a popular event in the fall where people gather for food and activities. We went to Tomachoff Farm in hope of experiencing what Pumpkin patch is all about. Maybe we went there too late (after Halloween); we didn’t see much pumpkin at the farm (left only a few miserable out of shape pumpkins lying around). Furthermore the farm is not very big, we walk around a bit and took some photos. Overall we stayed there for less than an hour. Although we didn’t have a fantastic time there, it was a new experience for us – our first visit to a farm!

Autumn is a second spring where every leaf is a flower.
- Albert Camus

How I spend my Halloween...

Halloween is a tradition celebrated on the night of October 31, most notably by children dressing in costumes and going door-to-door for trick or treat. This is a day where most children look forward to because it is the time they get to eat a lot of candies.

This year is slightly different as last year. Apart from giving out candies to children, we are joined by Daphnie, Jess and Kathryn and not forgetting Valerie (who is dressed as lady bug) and Koen. We do have a fun time giving out candies and snapping photos.

Pumpkin Spice

Went to Starbucks today and saw a new item on the menu – Pumpkin Spice Frappuccino! Had always enjoyed the taste of pumpkin so I decided to give it a try. Ordered a tall one just in case I don’t like it.

The first taste on my tongue is a tad of bitterness. Eweee….there is no trace of pumpkin taste. Doesn’t even have the aroma of a pumpkin. Jason commented that maybe I should have order a hot latte instead and it may bring out the aroma of pumpkin more. After almost half of the drink and you guess what….hey, it doesn’t taste that bad lah. However I don’t think I will order that again. Anyway it’s up to individual preference, so maybe some of you will like it. As for those friends in Singapore, I don’t know whether they have it there. So Happy drinking!

Ikea in Arizona

Yes! There is an Ikea in Arizona. It is also the only one in Arizona. It is about 35 miles (56km) from my home and the journey is about 40mins.

Since Jason was on leave last week, we decided to go on a weekday (not so crowded and looking for a parking lot will be easier) instead.

The Ikea here is almost identical to the one in Singapore. The only difference is the food that you find in the cafeteria. Other than the Swedish meatballs can be found on the menu, the others are entirely different. Miss the fried chicken wings, chicken rice, nasi lemak etc etc. Items sold here can also be found in Singapore but the price is much more expensive here. We spent only a few hours there coz there is nothing much for us to buy and also try to leave before 3pm to avoid the traffic jams on the interstate.

The blue building











Our "sumptuous" lunch include swedish meatballs, shrimp & egg sandwich, vegetable soup and marsala chicken















Yum yum...

Happy Mid-Autumn festival ~ 中秋节快乐

Today is the 15th day of the 8th month of the Lunar Calendar, which Chinese people celebrate as Mid-Autumn Festival (Zhong Qiu Jie). Originally named the Mid-Autumn Festival, the Moon Festival is celebrated by Chinese communities around the world.

Traditionally, it is celebrated in observance of the bountiful autumn harvest. Although old rituals are no longer followed, families continue to gather for a day to relax and eat moon cakes. Upon this occasion, the legend of the Moon Goddess, CHANG-O, is often told to children.

When young, still remember my mum bought me those lanterns where one candle will sort of balance on a looped wire. Without fail, my lantern will always caught fire! My parents had sort of given up on me and bought me those battery-operator lanterns which had light and music! However, I still prefer those candles one. Will always went down to the park and joined all my friends. Can’t believe that a simple action of lighting candles around the park can bring so much joy and happiness at that time! Life must be simpler then. Remember the old days and miss it so much...

This year wouldn’t have much celebration or gathering as partly we are currently in States. However, I do make a batch snow-skin mooncakes (冰皮月餅). I am quite satisfied with the results but still waiting for Jason’s comments.

Thanks for your friendship

This year I had a wonderful birthday. Not because Jason bought me expensive gift or take me out to fancy dinner. In fact, I celebrated with my friends. Well, you may think what so great about it but I would said I really appreciate it. Thanks for taking the time to celebrate with me, sending me warm wishes, cards, gift or hand-made gift. These little things just made me feel so treasured! I am glad that I found true friendships during this trip in the States and I will treasure them.

p/s: Although Jason can’t take leave on my birthday, I still thanks him for making me feel special on that day.

We’ve moved to a new place, but …

The place is still in one big mess.

I guess it applies to everyone whenever you move – for the first few days (if not weeks), you’ll be busy unpacking and wondering what things go to which place. The only tidy place now is the bedroom and bathroom. The rest are still trying to figure where goes where.

Things to love about this place:
· It’s so convenient. Less than a mile from the base (where Jason works). Less than a mile and half where the gym is (hope it’ll motivate me to exercise more). Less than two miles from the commissionary and BX (where I do my groceries).
· A much bigger house (1600 sq ft) as compared to the previous house (less than 1000 sq ft).
· An automatic garage door opener and now I no longer need to open the garage door manually!
· The house comes with a den which means we can finally have a decent guest room.

Things NOT love about it:
· There is no window in both the bathrooms. So used to walking in without switching on the lights and now have to do so.
· The house does not come with washer and dryer so we had to spend money and time looking for a used one (hopefully we can sell it off later without losing much money).


Although we’re exhausted from the moving and unpacking, we still like it. It’s going to be a spacious and cozy nest for us!

Chocoholic me???

I love chocolate especially dark chocolate. When I saw this at Target and it is on sale, I can’t resist not buying it. The moments I came out of Target, I popped one into my mouth. Gosh! It tastes fantastic...the bittersweet taste and the truffles inside “burst” into my mouth as I bite on it. Popped a second one before driving off to do my grocery but realized that it had started to melt. Must be the scoring hot weather. I quickly put the whole bag aside and try not to touch it anymore, so that I can put it in the fridge when I am home. For those who really like dark chocolate, I recommended that you must give it a try but don’t know are you able to find it in Singapore...