Naz and Shem's Wedding - Part 1

The first part of the exciting day was at the Siglap Community Centre. Naz and Shem had already done the official Malay ceremony the night before, so this ceremony was to come out in public as Bride and Groom.

I thought I wouldn't be attending another Malay wedding for a while after leaving Brunei (I don't know why) so gave away the boys' and my baju to friends. But here in Singapore I found that people dress much casually so it was easy to dress ourselves.



There was supposed to be a big bus coming to pick us up at the bottom of our tower so we gathered there and waited. We waited and waited for over an hour and finally the bus arrived. But that meant we missed out on Nazs' arrival at the reception hall - booooo!

As soon as we got there Shem, the groom was ready to enter to meet his wife.







When we walked into the hall we found Naz hiding her face with some fans:



And Shem had to do some chanting in Arabic. Then they spiced it up with a Kiwi cultural touch - the Haka from Shems' high school! Yap Matthew was there to support Shem too :)





Some more loud Malay drums were played (Oliver really liked it, and somehow the noise put Luca to sleep!).



And they were up on the stage together - what a beautiful couple!!



There was lots of photo taking with their families and friends. Meanwhile we were asked to enjoy some lovely Malay food (we miss it sometimes!). They invited over 1000 people, yes one thousand!! So we didn't stick around too long - eat and go style as you know.



Unfortunately Luca woke up and was very unhappy so we had to leave the reception before they did the cake cutting :( This is the photo I got afterwards at a family BBQ, they had a 3 tier cake with Shem and Naz on top of it - very cute ha!?



While we were waiting for the taxi Shem and Naz came out of the reception hall to get ready for the second part of the day - the Western wedding in town.

They left in this beautiful limo:



We also had only a few hours to get changed and head into town. Busy busy busy day!

Lego - Oliver this time

I love this Lego made by Oliver - People playing janken / rock-paper-scissors!

Little orangutans

We bought these orangutan backpacks for our nephews and nieces both for the Japanese and the Kiwi side. The other day Matthew came back from his KIX flight with two of them. The kids in Japan are growing older so my sister packed them for our boys.



They just love them and have to take them everywhere now!

Play time with Luca

Now that Oliver is at school I can spend precious time alone with Luca in the morning.

He really enjoys playing with Lego at the moment:



I was very impressed when he got the giraffe on top!



We are really enjoying Luca-alone time and I am sure he is too!

Hens afternoon & night out

Our beautiful friend Naz is getting married this weekend. To celebrate her last few days of single life I was invited to join a fun filled afternoon/night with lovely girls.

We were all asked to dress in pink and Naz, the bride to be, in white. She had no idea where we were heading or what we had planned at all!

Stunningly beautiful bride to be:



We arrived at the Fullerton Hotel for High Tea.

Nicola and Naz:





I felt so short next to Naz: (thanks Boel for choosing the dress with me, I managed to squeeze myself in!).



Group photo time!



I honestly ate too much and couldn't really move.. but we were off to the suite at the Marina Bay Sands Hotel for more fun!

Naz had her eyes closed from the lobby so she was very impressed when she opened them in the room.



The bridesmaids had been working very hard to organise this special day. They had ordered some yummy finger food and prepared fun games for us.



We had a best toilet paper made wedding dress competition!



Gabi and I close-up:



As always, the stunning night view from the hotel room:



We had so much fun chatting away and enjoying bubbly. We even had a surprise (!) stripper for her!! (Sorry I cannot put up any photos here for multiple reasons... ha ha ha).

And it was time to hit the last destination for the night - Clarke Quay!! Even though it was Thursday night the place was happening!! (It was my first night out in Singapore!)





Me, Nicola and Alice:



Well... had to be done!?



The band playing was awesome! We had so much fun. My friend and I left around 1am but the rest were going strong until 3 or 4am. Well done girls!

White tiger in the water

It was the first time we saw him/her? in the water!

Fab afternoon at the Zoo

Our annual pass for the Zoo is coming to an end next week (thank you so much Merryn and Dennis! We had so much fun with it!). So we thought we would go spend one last afternoon there after Oliver's school. We bought annual passes to the S.E.A. aquarium this year so will have a break from the Zoo for a while.

The funny thing about zoo visits is that even when you go and see the same animals they are doing something different each time.  This time we were lucky to participate in the Manatees' feeding. I have never seen them so close - they are such cute animals!



Even Luca could get close and feed them:



See the cute eyes?



The zoo keeper was great and he showed us how to pat them and even showed us little details of their body - finger nails!





Very happy Roses!



We planned to go to the water play area to cool down but unfortunately it was closed for maintenance :(

We also enjoyed watching very active orangutans and the white tigers on this visit.

4 dresses in one day

I have a great husband who sends me to the shopping mall alone and lets me shop without crying children! I had a very important function to attend this weekend - our good friend Naz and Shem's wedding. But I still hadn't organised a dress for it.

I spent maybe 2 hours wandering around the shopping mall and came home with these 4 dresses (I wore the gray dress on the top left for the wedding), 3 extra than I planned to buy!

The shop had a great sale and I am growing out of most of my usual clothes at the moment, so why not!
The pink and blue dresses are exactly the same design but they were 75% off! So I had no choice but to grab them!!



I also managed to get a nice carry bag and a pair of sunnies. Tried to find some shoes but no luck with that mission.

Anyway I was very happy to find something I needed and I want :) Thank you Matthew!!

The first school project

The kindy kids always come out together from their classroom in line and sit on the steps until their parents arrive. Today I found someone who was very very proud of himself in front of the line - marching away with his little star!



He was very very happy with his art piece and continued marching until we got to our lunch spot.





Both boys enjoyed their favourite, Hawaiian Pizza with extra pineapple!
Great lunch out to celebrate Oliver doing so well at school :)

Relaxing on the sofa

It is very unusual for Luca to sit still on one spot for more than 1 min!