Birthday Dinner

My fantastic birthday dinner took place in a stunning 5 star hotel - the Radisson Blu Plaza Bangkok  (you can also visit here to check out fantastic reviews on the hotel)

We had pre-dinner drinks in the lobby bar.
Here is the birthday girl (me!) and my besty Isabel.

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Plus... Oscar... 

I always regret not wearing massive high heals when it comes to a photo session... I look so short :(

But I AM very happy with this photo :) 

Then the main event! 

Check out my new Desigual bag. I've been looking for one for a long long long time. 

Finally I own one, yeah!

We were very lucky to be in a private dining room. Having 5 (noisy) kids with us it was definitely a wise decision to close the heavy door. 

The general manager of the hotel showed up and gave all the kids a Radisson bear each! Ashley named her one - "Bear", Oliver named his "Birthday" and Luca named it "Cookie".

Entertaining each other while they waited for some nice pizza and pasta:

Of course Luca entertains himself...

Ashely was licking her plate.

Our main dish - Filetto Al Due Funghi. 

Here is the description from the menu - aged 180 days grain fed wagyu tenderloin with morel and porcini sauce - It was just divine, amazing amazing flavours!

And delicious Tiramisu birthday cake for dessert:

(Just in case you are wondering, even though there were 4 candles on the cake, I am not 40 yet) 

I was totally spoiled! I am very glad the kids were there with us too. Such a perfect way to spend my special night! Thank you Matthew, Peter and Isabel xxx 

Birthday getaway in Bangkok

This year I didn't want to have a big party for my birthday, instead we chose to spend my special day with our wonderful family friends - the Ferans in Bangkok.

We were at the airport just before 8am. I love these short plane ride holidays. Only a couple of hours to entertain the kids - painless and cheap fares with staff travel :) cannot go wrong!

It didn't take too long to get out of the airport once we were off the plane. The car ride to the Ferans residence wasn't long either. Since their school was on holiday for the week, Lucia and Oscar were there to meet us :) Having spent a weekend in September together, the kids didn't need any reconnection time - they were so happy to see each other straight away!!

Since Peter was at work and Matthew was very tired from the flight he did on previous night, Isabel and I decided to take the older kids out of the house for a couple of hours. Well... where should we go and what can we do? Isabel and I together? Of course some shopping!!!

We took a tuktuk like truck and went to the nearest mall around their apartment. They live in such a great location. Everything you need is close by and so easy to get to. 

I didn't actually buy much except for some more Halloween decorations for the party I am organising next weekend. But I can tell you I could spend the whole day looking around at some great bargain deals!!!

Coffee morning

Finally my days of putting things away and organising each room in the apartment has came to an end. I still have more tidying up and reorganising to do but for now I am happy with our house and we are very comfortable living in this new place.

We finally have a dining table too (took 5 weeks to arrive!) and we can accommodate more people.
Until now we only had 4 bar chairs and the kiddy table...

Yesterday the lovely Japanese ladies came around for some coffee and catch up. Chieri one of the super mummies baked this absolutely divine lemon cake. I have booked myself to have a private baking session with her. She is just amazing! Maybe this Christmas I can bake something special... or I order a cake from her maybe the better option?

It was so nice to catch up with them all. We talked about kids, school, cosmetics, cleaning materials, food, drinking - pretty much everything. 

Spot the difference in the photo! 

Yes, Ashley and I are in the second picture. 

Later, Naz my Singaporean friend in the same condo came around to introduce her products to us. We had some product testing and tasting. It was fun! 

Everyone suggested we should do this more often. I have more time available next year once Ashley starts kindy in January so definitely yes! Thanks ladies for coming over :)

The Rugby World Cup - quarter final

It has been quite difficult to watch The RWC games live with the kids because of the time difference between here and England.  Last weekend the All Blacks played against France. It was on from 2:45 in the morning... Matthew was flying in around 1:30 so he told me he would stay up and watch the game. I set my alarm and managed to drag myself out of bed and joined him. 

Surprisingly when they started the national anthem of NZ, someone got himself up and joined us. 

He stayed up for the whole game! It was such an awesome game to watch. Lots of tries and excitement. Even though by the time we put him back to bed it was almost 5 am...

The next game is timed slightly better. New Zealand vs South Africa this coming Saturday at 11:00pm. We are arriving back from Bangkok at 10:30pm so hopefully we can make it home before then. 

Go All Blacks!

Dress up queen

This is happening EVERY morning while the boys are at kindy...

Something pink for breast cancer support month

For the month of October Matthew is wearing something pink when he goes to work. 

Have a wild guess

This is what Ashley draws all the time at the moment. Can you tell what they are??

It's Olaf from the Frozen movie. She has got the hair right :)

Zoe's birthday party

We definitely get invited to less birthday parties from the boys school than in Brunei. I am not sure if it's a Singaporean thing to bring a cake and goody bags for everyone in the class instead of inviting friends to a proper party. As our boys' birthdays both fall during school holidays every year, we haven't had any party to invite their friends either.

Anyway, Luca was extremely happy to be invited to this rare occasion last week. He was on top of the moon as it was for his favourite girlfriend (as he calls her) in his class - Zoe.

It made me smile a lot watching Luca behave so differently around Zoe. He really really likes her!

The party was at an indoor playground in one of the malls. Princesses and Superhero theme. Zoe is sitting next to Luca so he couldn't do his natural smile, it was too exciting for him!

They got to eat lunch together and even parents got a great selection of local food. 

A huge ice-cream cake for the little 4 year old!

We rarely get to mingle with the parents of the kids at school as lots of the kids are dropped off / picked up by helpers or grandparents. It was very nice to talk to some of the local mummies. Luca wants to make sure he will have his birthday party with his classmates next year. We will see what we can do.

Sushi Night

Finally we managed to put on a sushi dinner night with Fabrice and Christina and their girls. We must have been talking about it for almost a year! We provide Japanese sushi and they will bring nice French wine! Sounds perfect right? Somehow we couldn't find a suitable day before this weekend... Always someone is on holiday or either Matthew or Christina is busy working. So I was very happy to have them over :) Their girls are so good. They are excellent sushi chefs!

They made most of our dinner. We had lots of fun making it.

Finally the annoying haze is start to ease - we managed to have dinner on our balcony.

It turned out to be a great rugby night in the end. Samoa was playing Scotland in the Rugby World Cup. Having a Samoan&Kiwi family upstairs you couldn't miss this game. Plus it was an important game for Japan. If Scotland won the game, we couldn't have go any further in this tournament. So we were all cheering for S-A-M-O-A!!!! 

I love our apartment - the boys can have fun while us ladies can enjoy some gyoza and wine. Having the big TV we can still watch the game at the same time! 

It was a super good game and so much excitement but Samoa lost in the end... 

Lucky we still have the All Blacks to support for the rest of the RWC!

A cat lover