Little Gail & Kate: Gail's 1st Birthday Party at Aloha Loyang Chalet (17-19 Oct 08)

The day finally arrived – My Gal’s 1st b’day party! Days of preparation – buying party deco & gifts for the kids, thinking of how to decorate the chalet, packing her barang-barang, preparing the food stuff for BBQ on Day 1, ordering buffet on Day 2, searching for cake shop for her 2 ‘Strawberry shortcake’ cakes & thinking of the design of the cake, and of coz, drawing + colouring + doing up the deco boards (those strawberry shortcake characters free-hand drawn by mummie which took at least 3-4 hrs to complete each board), painting the photo frame and doing up the photo collation & wrapping the gift packs - All just for a 2-day event!! Just a 3D2N chalet, we like shifting the whole house there!!! Vincent has to make two trips while my FIL has to make one trip to be able to bring all the barang-barang…So Vin said this will be the 1st & last time that he will do a chalet thingy! No more for 2nd one…2nd one will be a function room thingy…Haha ~

We actually wanted only a one-day celebration thingy, but then we will not able to book the Aloha Loyang double-storey chalet. Booking can only be done 3 months before the check-in date of the chalet, so I thought since we wanted 17-19 Oct 08, it’s ok to go online on 18 July 08, but oh man, when I went into the online system on 18 July 08morning around 9am+, all double-storeys were taken up!!! Then I was told that because of its popularity, people will starting booking on 18 July 08 at 12am as they will stand-by at their notebooks/PCs by 17 July 08 11.30pm!!! Oh mine, can u believe it??? So Vin was afraid that there will be too many people on 18 Oct 08, and hence split into two days – Day 1 for his colleagues & Day 2 mainly for NUS gang, family, my colleagues and some of my close friends.

Day 1 (17 Oct 08)

That morning was a busy one for us as well as my MIL. In the morning, I have to run another check to make sure all stuff are packed (can’t even recall hw many bags we have to ‘lug there’! Think 10-20 bags!!) while my MIL was busy preparing the food stuff for that night as we were to have BBQ that night. Thanks to my MIL for all her hardwork that made the BBQ a success as I know nuts abt preparing food. And thanks to my mum for taking care of my gal from noon till early evening before Vincent picked her up to the chalet coz need the noon time to do up the place at the chalet with my maid.

We were supposed to leave our house at abt 1pm but it started to pour just before we left. We waited for a while more but the rain continued, so no choice, we still left at about 1.15pm that afternoon as there were simply too many things to do before Vin’s colleagues came that evening.

1st stop to my mum’s place to drop our gal with my mum before Vin picked her up at about 5pm+. 2nd stop at Parkway Parade to pick up the three balloons that I have ordered from Party Joy…then finally to Aloha Loyang Chalet to check-in! We got the keys abt 3.15pm…as soon as we stepped inside the chalet, after checking all the nec stuff in the chalet were in order, my maid and I soon started to decorate the place. Thanks to my maid who has more strength, she pumped all the balloons (except for the three helium ones) and helped me in putting them up on the walls. It’s not an easy task as it really need strength to pump all those balloons – total 30+! Vin still have to head home for another round to pick up some of the stuff, and also to collect the 1-kg ‘Strawberry shortcake’ cake (a simple round cake with the ‘Strawberry shortcake’ design on the cake) from Prima Deli (well, although the design was nice but the cake was not gd…texture of the cake was rough and though we added mango as the fillings to the vanilla flavour, the taste wasn’t good), picked our gal before heading bk to chalet; my in-laws then came abt 4pm+ with the food stuff.

Vin finally returned at abt 6pm, and soon after, he went to start the fire to get the BBQ pit started. Most of Vin’s colleagues came abt 7.45-8pm – the earliest being Cavin, Jean & her gal, Gwen at abt 7.15pm! Vin’s eldest sister & her family also came about 8pm+ while Vin’s 2nd sister & her family reached about 9pm+. His family came on Fri, instead of Sat as his 2nd brother-in-law’s sister is getting married on Sat (which was the Day 2 of our gal’s party), so all of them came on Fri instead. That night was super tired for all of us, esp my gal has difficulty getting to sleep as this was the 1st time she spent the night outside, so it really took me some time to pacify & coax her to sleep! And there’s still Day 2 the next day… J

Friends who turned up on Day 1:

Cavin & Jean & their gal (Gwen), Hwee Ping & Kian Boon & their boy (Ziyang), Caiying & Daniel, Tian & Desmond, Siong Leng, Federick, Watson

Day 1's photos taken:

Day 2 (18 Oct 08)

My gal woke up at abt 7am that day, as always. Though very tired, no choice…still have to wake up to keep her company. My in-laws came around 8.30am, with the portable ‘yaolan’ – no choice as we really have a hard time to get her to bed the night before, esp she’s very used to sleeping in her ‘yaolan’ during the day! I really resisted the idea of having to bring it all the way to the chalet, but guessed no choice! As my gal loves swimming, we brought her for a short swim at the pool at around 9.30am…

Day 2 was more relaxed as most of the deco preparations were done the day before, so not much to do, except waiting for the caterer to set-up at 5pm & our friends to arrive around 5pm+ onwards…As there’s nothing much to eat at Aloha Loyang, we went to Downtown East’s MacD for our lunch, jalan-jalan there for a while and also took a train ride with our gal. She was so happy as this is her 1st time on a train ride!

Oh yes, the 3-kg ‘Strawberry shortcake’ cake was finally delivered to the chalet at abt 2.30pm…the 2–D design was requested by me as I gave E-Creative the design drafts to make the cake. This is my first time I ordered with them, as not many cake shops take orders for customised designs. It turned out to be quite nice and certainly, I am happy with it. Although the ideal size that I wanted was a 2-kg cake, E-creative told me it cannot be done with the design I wanted as it won’t turn out nice. So a min. 3-kg has to be ordered. Well, the texture of this cake, as compared to the Prima Deli’s one, was definitely much better. However it wasf too big, so cannot finish…a bit wasteful...

Most of our friends arrived between 5pm+ to about 8pm…my family came about 6pm+. We only cut the cake around 7.30pm coz we were waiting for my brother to fetch his girlfriend from work to arrive. As it was a Sat, the whole vicinity was packed…just around the Garden Terrace chalet, there were at least 3 birthday parties going on!

The whole party ended about 9pm+ as all of them have to go home to put their kids to bed, except for JacG as she’s waiting for Dan to finish his friend’s wedding dinner! J As there were more than 10 bags of pressies for our precious, Vin purposely made a trip back that night to bring back all the pressies and other stuff (as much as possible), so the next day, we have lesser stuff to bring back when we
checked out.

The whole 2-D event was certainly tiring!! But of coz for our precious, still 累得开心!J However having said that, as said earlier, I think chalet thingy is really too tiring for a 1-year old b’day c’bation coz simply too many things to prepare and bring. So for our 2nd one, function room should be the next alternative…haha

Friends who turned up on Day 2:

JacG, Lishi & Alan & their kids (Ashley & Euan), Huiying & Charles & their gal (Valerie), Vivien & Sam & their boy (Ian), Michelle & Daryl & their boy (Zavier), Fiona & her boy (Jordan), Jamie & Eric, Jimmy & Lijuan & their gal (Chloe), Edmund, Susanna & her hubby, Evonne & her hubby & their two gals (Stephanie & Nikki), Jessica & her hubby & her boy (Ivan), Mike & his wife & his three kids, Peng Kiat & Cheryl

Day 2's photos taken: