阳阳 @Joystar July 2024

This is one of those photo spams of 阳阳 at school. The last time I shared was sometime in Feb this year? Anyways, these are a selection of photos I found on the student portal since Feb.

Playing With Gorgor

Because of the renovation, we have been having dinner at 406 for the past month.  And every time we go there 阳阳 will be a good 哥哥 and play with Evelyn. She will follow him around and mimic his moves. 阳阳 likes the attention and company too. It's not so much for 萱萱 ... I think largely because they have a bigger age gap. 萱萱 tends to bark at Evelyn when she is naughty. 阳阳 on the other hand gives in and is usually bullied by the 2 year old. We took a lot of photos of the two having fun though which is heartwarming to see.

Swimming With The Kids

I think this might be the first time Meimei is in the water with the kids. So happy to see her getting better.

Officially A Perfect

萱萱 is being officially presented as a perfect in a school ceremony today. We are so proud of her!

Elixir Haul #20

 

Kiddo Talk & Pic June 2024

 

Getting Escalated For 'Wasting' Aircon

They say a picture says a thousand words. I received a single picture on my WhatsApp late last night.

I can't fiend ignorance since Meimei reads this blog. All I can say is ... I'll try to remember next time? 

Malicious Compliance Or Utter Incompetence?

Painter was here today to put a coat of fresh paint on the wall of the entrance to the kitchen. For reasons I can never figure out or comprehend, he decided that it is too much to complete the painting on the wall facing the front door. He painted one third of it and left the other two thirds ... which is extremely obvious. Dave says it will not be obvious when the paint dry but one look at the area above the curb and you can tell no matter what the difference will be clear as night and day.

Anyways I wasn't having any of it and insist Dave fix this. He was perplexed and shared that he will do it himself. Well so long as it's fixed I'm not bothered. He'll probably have a word with the painter on the side. This is really just absurd. All it would have taken was another 5-10 minutes to paint the rest of the wall.

Food At McAllen

A medley of food I've had over the past one and half week. Flying home this afternoon and will be back in Singapore on Saturday morning.

Overall the food's pretty good here. They have more seafood here since we are close to the coast. I tried a few "native" food but none of it was really any good. I guess its as best as you can get it since we are on the other side of the border to Mexico.

Flowers For My Deardear

Its really tough for Meimei to hold the fort at home while I'm away on business travel and the renovation is on-going. There is very little I can do other than try simple things to brighten up the messy place.

Nothing does it like a bouquet of flowers. The sight and fragrance is bound to put a smell on Meimei's face.

Morning Walks @McAllen

There is a gym in the hotel but the area around the hotel looks to be a popular area for morning jogs. I see people jogging in the area and have taken to do a morning walk. I would get breakfast as early as 5.30am and then go out for a run at around 6.30am. Takes me around 30-45 minutes to go one run and that's good enough. I get to see the area, enjoy the open space, cold breeze and emerging sun.

Twin Peaks

This is my first experience of entering a restaurants with half dressed ladies in bikinis trying to sell you drinks and food. It's pretty normal and decent place ... nothing shady. But what was surprising to me was seeing families coming here for lunch ... with teenagers and kids. I guess it's so common place here in the US that no one really finds it odd bringing young ones to such a place. Don't matter to me, I'm just enjoying the sights!

Making My Way To McAllen Texas

I had to take United this trip as United is the major regional carrier in Texas. So it was a gruelling 16 hour flight to San Francisco and then 4 hours to Houston George Bush International before another hour half flight to McAllen airport. Throw in 5 hours of layover and it sums up to a 26 hour journey.

I skipped most of the meals on the first leg ... I don't want to have to go potty on the plane. It was 10pm when I cleared customs at San Francisco so every restaurant was closed. I bought a cold sandwich from a convenience store to get something in the tummy. My first real meal was when I reach Houston. It was like 6am so many restaurants were still close and I had to settle for breakfast from a fast-food joint.

It wasn't all that bad, surely better than anything they served on United economy. I was just happy to get a hot drink and able to stretch out my legs before the next flight. The next one was on a small small plane. They didn't have any space for carry-on so I had to dock my luggage at the door.

Because it was a short flight it didn't ascend into the higher attitudes and I was able to catch sights of the landscape.

I finally landed at McAllen close to noon. The airport was a single storey small airport. I quickly got my carry-on luggage at the plane exit and went hunting for the Hertz counter.

The ride for this 2 weeks is a Chevy Malibu. Reasonable since I'm just driving within like 3km around the area. Onward to the hotel!

Years Of Dust

Our maid finally left earlier this week. Thank goodness ... she has been getting more and more toxic over the last couple of years. So with her gone we are revamping the balcony area slightly. We took out the tall Ikea shelving to replace with the Muji ones. And when we moved them, there is a thick layer of dust, hair and whatever else that happen to fall into the tight bottom of the shelves.

I'm trying my best to clean up the area before I fly off to Texas for work on Saturday. It is too difficult for Meimei to be moving all the shelving by herself. She insists she can do it but I'm definitely not going to let her try on her own. It's already bad enough that I'm going to be away for a fortnight during the renovation. So I do what I can before I leave to lessen the burden she has.

The balcony looks so open after moving the shelves away. Well, it's going to get cluttered again once we move the other Muji shelves in but we will try keep it clean and tidy.