Christmas Day 2008

Christmas day came and went like a flash. The wife and I didn't stay up too late the night before simply because we knew that the kids would be up and early just begging to open the presents. We even got to see the remnants of the milk and cookies they left out from Santa. Turns out that Santa is a messy eater, just like our little girl! :)

The kids wasted no time in unwrapping the gifts and I got to say, nothing really beats the smiles of kids on Christmas morning. The kids must have been good throughout the year cause they did get what they asked for from Santa, and much more besides because they also got presents from both sets of grandaparents!



The boy and girl spent the morning playing with their new toys while the wife and I spent the morning getting ready for Christmas lunch. As what's fast becoming our family tradition, we hosted Christmas lunch at our home again this year. This time it was just us and our close family friends. It was a simple lunch of prawns, a roast strip loin of beef and roast pork and potatoes and a salad with a cheescake and ice cream for dessert.



It was good to be with friends on Christmas day, and as it turned out, the lunch soon stretched into dinner with lots of laughing and singing(!) and eating along the way. We watched a DVD and ended up playing Singstar until evening. A full Christmas day if you ask me.

Merry Christmas 2008!

Thought that the above photo was too formal. Here's what we're really like!

'Twas the Night Before Christmas

It's Christmas Eve again!

I had the day off today while my wife had to to go to work at least for a half day to attend Christmas function. The kids and I still had to wake up early as there was still some last minute Christmas food shopping to do. We went out early this morning to the fish market to grab some prawns for Christmas. Being in Australia, prawns during Christmas lunch has always been traditional and because we had friends coming over tomorrow, the lunch just wouldn't be complete without the prawns.

The fishmarket was quite packed with people trying to buy their seafood. I had to drag the kids into the crowds, making sure they didn't get trampled on. Good thing that they really did what I told them and stayed in a corner just looking at the live fish in the market's tanks. Good thing too that we came in early as we were in and out in under 20 minutes.

Next we went over to they city where the wife was having another Christmas picnic at one of the city parks. The kids and I stayed at a nearby playground until they convinced me to rent a rowboat and go around the nearby lake! We actually did end up rowing and I can honestly say it was harder than it looked! At any rate, we went around the lake a couple of times before we finished and picked their mom up from her picnic around lunch time.

On the way back we stopped at bakery to have some delicious meat pies for lunch. The kids ended up getting milk shakes as well so they had a full on meal. In the afternoon we got the kids to go down for a nap because we planned on going to church in the evening. We got to the 6:30PM mass early and we were glad we did. The church got real crowded real fast which was a good sight to see. We finished around 7:30 and we still had time to come home, cook a simple barbecue dinner and got the kids washed up and in bed by 10PM.

Not before having them put something out for Santa and his reindeer though, a couple of cookies, a glass of milk and a carrot!

Anyway, the kids have been really good this year and I can safely say that Santa doesn't need the added incentive to get them what they want for Christmas. ;) So, to coin a phrase, Merry Christmas to all, and to all a Good Night!

24-hour ban on electronic games

Now that the kids are on school holidays, I could not help but notice that they seem to spending most of the time at home doing one form of video game or another. Its either an internet game, a computer game, a game from the video console (playstation or wii). And when daddy comes home from work, they rush to greet him at the door, only to grab his IPhone for more games! We hear it on the news all the time, kids becoming obese due to these video games keeping them on the couch. Although the kids are far from that, even considered underweight, I did not want them to become couch potatoes.

So I had an idea last night, I dared them not to play any of these electronic games (or what the kids call 'screen games') for the next 24 hours. It started at 7pm, just before bedtime. We started just talking in the living room, singing christmas carols. Then, at bedtime, we proceeded to make up stories until about 9pm.

The next day, they were staying home with me. In the morning, I got them involved in baking, by mashing up the biscuits for the cheesecake crust. That was a very loud, yet fun activity for them. After that, i put on a DVD of a movie they wanted to watch while I baked the cheesecake. After that, we had lunch and they started making christmas crafts. The boy even made a gift for all of us, behind closed doors as he wanted it to be a surprise! The girl also spent some time getting all our pillows on her bed, and just read a couple of comic books.

In the afternoon, they brought out the LEGO and we all started to work together to build up this vehicle. We took turns, 10 minutes each, to complete the task. I even gave them a deadline to work with, like by the time daddy gets home. After about 30 mins, we noticed that some of the pieces we missing. Too bad, we could not make the car as specified on the manual. But they did come up with another design using their imagination. We also had time to play outside while I took out the laundry. that was really great!

It was about 5pm when daddy did come home, they took a bath while i prepared dinner. By the time we finished dinner, it was nearly 7pm and they could not wait any longer. We got them to clean up the living room a bit more, and then we did our countdown .... 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 ..... its video game time! its 730pm now and all my 3 kids (including hubby) are in front of the TV again, playing video games as usual.

It was fun family experiment, glad to know the kids can survive without electronic games if needed. I'm happy to know they are not as addicted to electronic games as I expected. The only downside to it was that more mess was made by baking and crafts, meaning more cleaning up to do. Still, for me, a good outcome. Maybe I should try this 24-hr ban on electronic games again, say on a monthly basis?

'Twas The Weekend Before Christmas

And we all got sick. Not really, just myself and my wife. Good thing we recovered right away because Christmas is just around the corner.  Can't believe it's been a year already and we're celebrating Christmas all over again.

The kids are now on school holidays and are enjoying the break. Next year they will move up a grade level. The girl will be Year 3 already and the boy is raring to go to step up to Year 1. They go their end of year school reports the other week and they got really good remarks from their teachers. We're so proud of them of course ( and I have to write that because the girl is sitting next to me reading every word I type!)

Seriously though, we are so very proud of them and quite happy to know that they are still enjoying school. Although right now, they seem quite content to be on School Holiday mode.

Because we got sick we didn't do much this weekend, trying to recover and store up energy for the Christmas week. We are inviting our friends over for Christmas lunch and it is now becoming an almost tradition with us. We're still fretting over our menu this close to Christmas. But, not only do we have to plan Christmas, the girl is also being makulit and we have to plan for her birthday as well!!

( Not True! :) - B )
-->( Yes True! :) -N )

Although we didn't do much, we did do some things. We actually bought a Wii a while back. Now, all of us are enjoying this early Christmas present. We even bought a Wii Fit, which is actually being put to good use. Not that we're seeing any results yet but having a video game that gets you up and about and sweating is a huge step up for all of us.

Hasselback Potatoes

Hasselback Potatoes
Originally uploaded by chazzvid

I've seen this recipe for Hasselback Potatoes done on TV a few times before and I decided to try out for Sunday dinner. The wife bought a cut of beef for roasting and we served it with these potatoes and some veggies. We found a recipe for roast beef served with garlic mayonnaise.

The beef turned out quite well although a bit on the dry side. The garlic mayonnaise really went well with it. For a test run, it wasn't too bad. We wanted to try it out the recipes first because we wanted to serve this during our Christmas lunch with friends. Maybe next time we'll get a better cut of beef too.

Christmas Picnic

We spent the morning at my wife's office Family Christmas Picnic. It was good to be out and about on such a nice day. The kids were quite happy to play around the park and we caught up with some of my wife's friend and officemates for a typical Aussie barbie.

The kids had fun playing frisbee and badminton and got acquainted with a few kids of my wife's officemates. They even got to play Twister outdoors!

At any rate, it was a good time. We actually stayed to the very end and were one of the last people to have left. After all that activity the kids would be semi-tired and resting by now. No such luck, they're still up and about and being as kulit as usual!

Anyway, here's a couple of shots when we visited the Magic Cave a couple of weeks ago. We actually went to the Magic Cave three years ago and I took a couple of photos. We can't believe how much they've grown!






In fact, I was digitizing a lot of old videos recently and we could see a few videos from when the kids were still small. It's amazing to us how we can still remember them so tiny in the videos and we can't imagine how they could have grown up so fast.

The Newest Vidal

Welcoming my nephew, the newest Vidal. No name yet, hope my brother names him soon. I don't want to call him baby boy Vidal all the time... :)

Welcome Paolo Nero C. Vidal!!

Goofing Around

Goofing Around
Originally uploaded by chazzvid

Just a random shot of the kids goofing around. They're eating a chocolate sundae from Mcdonald's and were showing their chocolate covered smiles. :)

Garage Sale!

Garage Sale
Originally uploaded by chazzvid

We've been accumulating so much stuff over the last few years. Most of it is clothes and toys that the kids have outgrown. About a few weeks ago we decided to go ahead and have a garage sale to at least try and get rid of some of it.

I advertised in the local paper and the wife and I spent over a couple of weekends to sort and lay out stuff we were going to sell. On the day, we had our friends help out with putting up some signs around the neighborhood as well help man the sale.

There were quite a few early birds who dropped by to have a browse even while we were still setting up but there weren't so many throughout the day. Even though we advertised it we didn't really end up getting rid of a lot of stuff. We think it's probably because our house isn't exactly on a main road and it takes a while to find the street we live in.

We did sell a few things at the end of the day but not enough to really clear out our ever messy garage. We ended donating some and packing up a couple of larger boxes to send back to the Philippines for our relatives.

It was fun though and maybe we'll have another crack at it. Maybe after a few more years of accumulating stuff. :)

Start Trek Trailer Online!

Here you go, the Star Trek trailer is now online. May is such a long wait...

Official Start To Christmas

It's been a while (again) and I know we haven't been updating our blog. I guess real life just catches up.

Anyway, it's officially Christmas season down here in Adelaide. We went and watched the annual Adelaide Christmas Pageant last week. The Pageant sort of kicks off Christmas down here. It's a big parade that winds across town with floats, marching bands, and lots and lots of clowns.

We don't usually go and see the pageant every time and we usually skip a year or two. This year we promised the kids we would go see it and see it we did. We left home early as the pageant was slated to start at 9:30. The kids also wanted to get there early because they wanted to take part in a record breaking Mexican wave which aimed to get everyone to do the wave from one end of the parade route and back. Unfortunately, I heard that the Mexican wave wasn't successful because there was a break in the wave somewhere.

At any rate, because we were relatively early, we were able to get a good spot but unfortunately the weather wasn't the best for parade watching as the wind and some rain picked up a little bit. Nevertheless the kids were excited anyway and stood enjoying the floats and the bands. The kids loved the bands but they were really just waiting for one person: Santa!


Santa was on the last float so as soon as he arrived and waved to the kids, we made our way out of the parade. We decided to stay for lunch in the city and did a bit of food shopping.

When we got home from the pageant, we put up the Christmas tree which is our usual Christmas tradition after the pageant. We've had the tree for a few years now and I can really see how small it's gotten when the kids stand next to it. I guess it's time to get a new one because by next year these kids might just be taller than the tree now!

Pictures From The Dentist's

This is me being a lazy blogger... :) Last week's pictures from the dentist.

A Trip To The Dentist

I've availed myself of a blogging break there for a little while. It's been sort of a hectic couple of weeks, both at work and at home and I find myself not being motivated enough to sit in front of the computer and type.

At any rate, today we took the kids to the dentist again. It was the girl's second time but the boy's first. The dentist we went to came highly recommended by our good friends and I have to say that I was impressed by their setup. From their SMS reminders to their high tech dentist tools to the little kids corner with toys, books and DVD's.

The kids did very well and behaved wonderfully. A trip to the dentist is no more the traumatic experience it used to be now that that they have DVD movies, a choice of flouride treatment flavours and even a free toothbrush and toothpaste after the visit! The kids passed their checkup with flying colours ( sort of as the girl apparently has a cavity in one of her milkteeth ). As for the parents, well, that's a different story.

Chinese Fried Chicken

Fried Chicken
Originally uploaded by chazzvid

There is a Chinese restaurant here in Adelaide that makes the best fried chicken. It's served in this broth which, as far as I can tell, is made up of Chinese rice wine and soy sauce as the main ingredients. The fried chicken is cut up and the broth is poured over it. I've never tried to make it myself until now.

I was only going to make fried chicken for dinner. What I usually do is boil the chicken for a bit in a mixture of water, garlic and soy sauce then dry the chicken and quickly fry it to crisp it up ( Thanks to Thess for this tip! ). This time, instead of pouring the resulting broth away, I took a taste and noticed it was almost close to the broth that the restaurant serves it's chicken with. I experimented with the broth a bit and came up with something similar.

I ended up frying some garlic, adding Chinese cooking wine and the broth together and boiled for a bit. I think it worked too because the wife took a taste and declared it exactly like what we would have had in the restaurant ( even better! ). At any rate, it was my first attempt and I think I can improve it with a few more ingredients.

Unfortunately, the kids had a taste of the broth and both didn't seem to care for it. So, they just had the fried chicken sans broth which they both finished anyway.

An Indian Night Out

Ever since the wife and I went to an Indian restaurant, we've talked about bringing the kids to one. They are quite adventurous when it comes to food, especially the little girl. We've tried lots of different cuisines before like Vietnamese, Italian, Mexican, Chinese and Japanese but this was the first time we took them to an Indian restaurant. We like exposing the kids to different kinds of food. We sort of discourage them from refusing food the first time without even tasting it just so they can appreciate new things.

We were already out and about the other afternoon because of a birthday party the boy was invited to so we decided to make an evening of it as well. After the party, we found Charminar, the closest Indian restaurant. It was lucky we came early and found a table because soon the restaurant began filling up. The restaurant itself was small but well presented. The girl noticed that there were candles used all around and she remarked that it most energy saving restaurant she's been too.

We started with some appetizers of a selection of tandoori meats and samosas. Then we had the mains of butter chicken, beef malabar with jasmine rice and naan bread. The girl like the mild curry of the butter chicken. Unfortunately, the boy thought it was too spicy and he ended up eating only the naan bread and rice. It was a good meal and I especially liked the beef curry with the tender pieces of wagyu beef which just melts in the mouth. With it's mixture of spices, I don't think it's something I can replicate at home at all.



The kids were well behaved and we kept reminding them that it was a "posh" restaurant so they were at their absolute best. As the night wore on, they understandably got a bit restless but good thing we had some activity books that they got into while waiting in between dishes.

All in all, a good evening, despite the girl having a little too much spice too soon. She sort of complained about her tummy when we were finishing up the meal but we needn't have worried. In the end she still said she really liked the food!

Kitchen Renovation

It all started when our oven broke. It gave up the ghost midway through winter when we really needed it most. Then again, the oven, the cooktop and the whole kitchen was probably more than 10 years old so we shouldn't have been suprised. After a lot of thinking and looking at options, the wife and I decided to take the plunge and get a new kitchen along with a new oven, cooktop and rangehood. We've always had issues with the lack of space we had, so we though that getting a new kitchen would give us a fresh start.

It took us a while to get started, but once we chose our kitchen supplier, we were off and running. We first chose a colour scheme and benchtops at the Showroom. Then the designer visited our place to plan the new kitchen layout. After he did an initial design, we went back in to look it over and decide any special drawers or cabinets. After that was done, it all came down to the price which wasn't too bad but luckily we still had some financing options available to us.

After that it was just finalising the plans and going over the exact measurements of the kitchen and ordering the components. Delivery of the kitchen didn't take 2 weeks and it was good that the kitchen supplier took care of organising all the tradespersons ( plumber, electrician, installer etc. ) as everything was scheduled to be done and dusted within 3 days. All we needed to to was clear out the old kitchen and move the fridge, which took us about day to do. It was surprising how much stuff we had in the old kitchen and we had to scrounge some space in the dining and our own garage to store it all. In the end we got the old kitchen cleared our ready for the builders to dismantle. The kids even had a last play inside the old kitchen cabinets.

On the day the kitchen components were to arrive, the tradies were at our door. They worked quickly, the old kitchen was dismantled and taken out in the morning and all the pluming and electrical pre-work was done in the afternoon. We thought everything was going swimmingly but we got a call that the tiler couldn't make it. We hurriedly had the kitchen supplier schedule another tiler to come in but that meant our kitchen couldn't be completed within the 3 day time frame. That was the first disappointment.

The next day, the installer came by bright and early and started assembling the kitchen right away. There were a few hitches in that a component for the range-hood was missing. This was the second disappointment. We were never informed that this part was required when we bought the new kitchen appliances from the store. I was stressing because every store I rang didn't seem to have the part and would have to order it in with a 2 week delivery estimate. That would have really delayed the installation and would have cost us much more. Luckily, one store had the part in stock and despite it being almost an hours drive away we just had to go and get it. In the end, the part cost less than $25!

On the third day, when the kitchen was expected to be completed, we found that we were missing a couple of door handles. This was the third disappointment. Turned out that they weren't delivered so we had to wait for those to come in too. That was a relatively minor thing but the kitchen was mostly completed by then.

Despite having no tiles and a couple of door handles missing, we started moving stuff back into the new kitchen. At first we thought we couldn't fit everything back in! But then we realised that we actually took things that were out of the old kitchen and got to fit it all into the new one. We officially have more space!

A few days later, we got the tiles and the door handles put in and the kitchen looked pretty much complete. We just needed someone to look at patching the floors because when we put in the new layout, we left a patch of floor that didn't have any of the floating floorboards we had put in last year.

At any rate, the kitchen is done and despite the little hitches we're completely satisfied with it. We got the extra storage space, a larger work area and most of all, we got an oven again!

Here are before pictures:



And after:



More pictures here.

School Disco!

Last Friday the kids got to attend their first school disco! It was actually a junior disco sponsored as a fund raising activity by the parent's association. The Junior Primary kids had an early disco starting from 5:45 to 7:15 with the Senior Primary kids having theirs after that. It's a parents-free zone at the disco so the kids get a huge kick out of it.

Our own kids were very excited and were one of the first to arrive for the event. They were actually practicing their own dance moves at home, behind closed doors at that! We parents dropped them off and we were able to have one of our rare dinner dates.

Dropping them off was easy, picking them up was a challenge. It was so crowded to pick up the kids but eventually we got them back in the car. They thoroughly enjoyed their night as they chatted about the music, the lights and even the Macaréna as we drove home.

Better Homes and Gardens

We watch Better Homes and Gardens every week. It's one of the few shows we all watch together as a family and is actually one of our favourite TV shows. So, when we learned that they were shooting an episode in Adelaide, we wanted to catch the team in action. They were actually shooting at a Bunnings Warehouse store, sort of like a huge hardware chain store, close by and we were lucky enough to come in just in time for them to shoot some of the opening sequences.

The kids were even able to get a picture taken with one of the presenters, Tara Dennis. Unfortunately, the little boy was a bit shy and missed his chance to have his picture taken with Rob Palmer, the builder in the show. The boy always likes Rob's segments on TV when he starts building stuff. He always says he wants to be a builder someday and Rob is like an idol to him.

At any rate, we stayed around a bit to watch some of Fast Ed's cooking segment but too many people started crowding around so we decided to head home. We got Olympians yesterday and today we had TV celebrities. It's been an exciting weekend so far.

Maybe we might end up on the TV show one of these days, hehehe.

Olympians At School

Olympians At School
Originally uploaded by chazzvid

This morning, Claire Woods and her fiancé Jared Tallent, both Australian Olympic athletes visited the kids school.

It was awesome to see them both as Jared brought his Silver and Bronze medals along. Claire is actually an old scholar ( alumnus ) of the kids school so it was terrific to see them come and talk to the kids.

To think they are actually going to get married tomorrow and still took time out to come meet with the children says a lot.

The kids were clearly excited to see them as it was all a bit of a surprise. We were there because it was our boy's assembly day and he had a part to play being one of the commentators. We had no idea that they were having such distinguished guests this morning so it was also quite exciting for both the wife and I to see Claire and Jarrod in their Australian tracksuits. We saw these athletes on the TV from Beijing a couple of weeks ago and to see them at our kids school was quite a thrill, even for us parents.

Lumpiang Shanghai

Lumpiang Shanghai
Originally uploaded by chazzvid

I was still recovering from the flu even over the weekend so we decided to stay at home for the most part. It was still cold and real soup weather but because we had prepared and frozen some Lumpiang shanghai from last week, we decided to have that for Sunday lunch instead.

Lumpiang shangahi or meat spring rolls is one of our easy cook meals we usually prepare and store in the freezer ahead of time. All we would do is just defrost the spring rolls and just shallow fry them a few minutes and there's a meal already.

Preparing it is easy as especially when we use prepared lumpiang shanghai mix. We just combine pork mince with some oyster sauce, soy sauce, chopped carrots, chopped onions or spring onions or coriander. We'd then top it off with Mama Sita's Lumpiang Shanghai mix. Then just roll the meat mixture store bought spring roll wrappers and freeze for another day.

Flu Season...

And I got it. Actually, it was our little girl who had it first. When we picked her up from school last Friday, her teacher told us that she actually was so tired that she had a nap in the middle of the afternoon. It turned out that she caught some virus and she ended up getting a high temperature that night. She got better over the weekend but sure enough, it soon passed on to me and I got waylaid by chills and aching joints early this week. Although, I thought I got over it but I'm still not feeling 100% so might have to take some more rest.

It's not easy getting the flu, maybe next time I should take the free flu vaccines they've been giving out in the office...

Olympic Weekend

We did nothing this weekend but watch the Olympics on TV. It started with the spectacular opening ceremonies on Friday, the kids and I even tried our best to watch all of it but we all fell asleep halfway through the athletes parade. On the Saturday, we watched as the first of the Aussies battled it out for the early medals in the cycling. It was quite exciting as we all got carried away cheering on the Green and Gold. On Sunday we got to see Stephanie Rice's gold winning 400 Individual Medley in the swimming. It was quite something and we ended up cheering her on in front of TV.

It was fun to see the kids getting into the spirit as they cheered the Australian Olympic team on with chants of "Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oi, Oi, Oi" from our living room.

A Night Out

The wife had an office function last night. It was a dinner out with the grown-ups and we decided to go. For the first time, we actually left the kids over at our friends' place and the wife and I had a nice proper dinner out, albeit with several other people! We were at first anxious about leaving the kids but because we've known our friends for a long time now we weren't really worried.

We actually arrived early at the Indian restaurant so we killed some time walking around Rundle Street, one of Adelaide's night out spots. It was still really cold, not really walking around weather but it wasn't long when we were all seated in the warm restaurant with my wife's co-workers.

Dinner was nice and quite a change for us without the kids. We had a good time and the night just went past so quickly we found ourselves driving back to pick up the kids soon enough.

We were glad to know our kids behaved themselves. So much so that we could find ourselves making this into a habit! :)

The Last Frap...

Starbucks will be closing almost two thirds of its stores here in Australia. Unfortunately, this includes the ones here in Adelaide.

I was genuinely excited when Starbucks opened a place in the city sometime ago. Although Australia certainly has lots of other good coffee places, only Starbucks had the frappucinos we like. Nothing beats a good frap on a hot summer day. Even though it is the middle of winter, and seeing that it was the Adelaide store's last day today, we just had to go and get that last caramel java frappucino. Needless to say, we savored the cups till the last drop.

Spaghetti and Meatballs

Spaghetti and Meatballs
Originally uploaded by chazzvid

We had some left over uncooked meatloaf from last week so I decided to make it into the classic spaghetti and meatballs. Pasta is one of the easiest meals we can make.

In this case, I cooked the meatballs first by frying them. Then I took the meatballs of the pan, made a quick pasta sauce with garlic, onions and a can of crushed tomatoes in olive oil while the noodles was boiling away. When the sauce and noodles was ready I just mixed the meatballs, pasta and sauce together. Garnish with some parsley and parmesan it's a quick and easy dinner.

Exercise Bike

Exercise Bike
Originally uploaded by chazzvid

And speaking of exercise bikes...

It's the height of winter now and so we can still keep active we decided to get an exercise bike. Think of it as a birthday present I suppose. It's great to get the heart pumping especially when it's too cold to get out in the morning.

Hope we can keep it up! ;)

Scenes From A Dinner

Yesterday's dinner was great. As my wife posted, the kids behaved perfectly and the food was just as good. Here are just a few pictures.





The food was good as usual. The kids had a simple spaghetti napoletana and a wood fired hawaiian pizza. Myself I had a small rack of lamb and the wife had a ham, salami and mushroom pizza. Washed down with wine and gelati for the kids while the wife and I shared a tiramisu. Yummy. Now to hit the exercise bike!