Raya gathering at Elinna's

Over the weekend, I went over to one of my closest gym pal, Elinna's newly refurbished home.


From what I hear, her puasa month was spent juggling between work, being a housewife, an interior decorator for her house, as well as a buka puasa chef for her family. Fuh..it certainly sounds tiring. Hats off to you gal!

I was excited to see what she has done to her house as she has been hard at work redecorating everything.

To be honest, i was even more excited to taste her cooking, her raya cookies and her super uber yummilicious fruit cake. (i've tasted her fruit cake last year, it was da bomb!! the best that i've ever tasted...so moist, the texture just right...)

Elinna painted her hall with warm peachy/pink shades. She had free reign to pick whatever colour she wants. Her hubby was totally cool about it. So sweet ya!

L-R: Mr Lim (their friendly neighbour), Bahrin (Elinna's hubby), Elinna, and Hannah her lovely daughter.

Aww, isn't she the prettiest?

Us gals - me, Elinna, Hannah, and Doris (Mr Lim's wife).

Here comes the food..

Elinna's special fried meehoon and pekerdil.

We all loved her fried meehoon. Mr Lim said that it's nicer than those you get in restaurants. We all kept eating and nodding in agreement. This meehoon went so well with her home made black chilli sambal sauce.

Next up - her soto ayam. I'm usually not a soto ayam person but i gotta admit that I fell in love with her soto ayam. The broth was fantastic.

I had 2 servings of soto ayam. I added ketupat, pekerdil, and other condiments into my soto broth. (the black stuff on the ketumpat was da bomb. It's her home made black chilli sambal sauce. One word: ADDICTIVE!).

Her jelly with custard cream sauce.

Everyone liked this dessert cos it wasn't too sweet.

All these goodies were made by my uber cool pal. She's truly a woman with many hats!

What's more? Her cookies were all super yummilicious. The one thing I wanted to eat most was the fruit cake. Due to time constraint, she didn't make it this year.

She promised that she'll bake some later this year and she'll gimme some. WooHoo :)

Hannah's princessy room.

She's got butterfly-motive roman blinds, candy-coloured dragonfly wallpaper, sweet lilac wall, pink chest to put all her toys, and super girly ballerina bedsheet and quilt set. It's as girly as you can get!

Lil' Hannah loves her new room.

Elinna went to the extent of painting over her cabinets and drawers pink. According to Elinna, " I'm giving my daughter what I've always wanted to get, but couldn't...".

What a lucky daughter!

Hannah's lil masak-masak corner.

Elinna is one of the most blessed women I've ever known. She's got a loving husband who is also her best friend, 2 lovely children, a close-knitted extended family, a good career, a great home.

She too is really grateful for what she has. She said, "Someone once told me, the more you listen gratefully to your parents and not go against their wishes when they're helping you to prepare for your wedding, the more blessed you'll be... And i think it's kinda true".

Brides to be, you might wanna heed her advice. :)

Thunder Butt Sistas!

For your viewing pleasure.

Dun laugh okie? :P

Hot Stuff - Part 1

Was a lil disappointed cos some parts were not captured. :(. But nonetheless, it was a pleasant surprise that someone recorded this for us.

Hot Stuff - Part 2

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun - Part 3

Hollerback girl - Part 4

Thanks for taking the time to capture this video for us Sue Ann! Muahhh

Boogie-ing the nite away!

Warning: Overwhelming barrage of photos. This may take a while to download. At the meantime, go make yourself a cuppa.

Surely yesterday was a loooOoOong day.

We (the girls in our dance group) went to work at usual. But seriously, most of us were not in the mood to work, especially after Thursday's full dressed rehearsal. Alicia and Sandy confessed to feeling stressed out..and they were not able to sleep.

I told them i slept at 2am the night before too, cos i was doing a checklist of the things i need to bring for our performance.

We performers got to leave the office at 1pm, whereas the rest of our colleagues were given the consent to leave at 3pm to get ready for our Boogie Nite - which will start at 6pm.

Pre-event

There were 5 groups performing. Each group was given a day room each to freshen up prior to the event.

We checked into our room at Sunway Pyramid Tower Hotel to chill.

I had to go to Pyramid to buy a couple of things - hair clips and some food.

Saw some papayas by the wall at the corridors on my walk out. Was tempted to eat them but found that they were all fake! ceh!

Ended up buying some cute hair stuff and necklaces for Jazzlyn, fruits and a pack of Beard Papa's cream puffs for the girls.

We went to check out the Convention Hall at 4pm. All groups had to be there for full dressed rehearsal, trouble shooting, sound checking, etc at 4pm.

There were >100 tables @ the Hall. Yups, Taylor's has >1000 staff. Amazing eh?

Other group rehearsing. They did not need to be in their costumes yet. (cos they're only wearing 1 set).

Whereas ours had to be a full dressed, cos we have to practice changing our costumes in between songs.

We have 3 songs (starting with Hot Stuff, to Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, and finally Hollerback Girl) to signify the change of time and era.

I have time admit that it was both challenging and exciting having to choreograph the entire dance routine for the songs.

First of all, the steps have to be sexy and look great. Secondly, they have to be easy enough for the girls to learn and execute. Thirdly, the steps have to match with the moods of the songs. These were all the factors I looked into prior to coming up with the steps.

This group was doing a Salsa number. They are called Bella Rose.

Eric and Daryl dressed in their 70's best. They're in another group called The Boogers.

We've had our rehearsal twice.

We were all fine with the steps and all. Our only concern was whether or not we'll be able to change our clothes on time.

The first change was easy, we just have to remove our feather boa, wear a polka-dotted skirt over our existing skirt, and put on our beaded necklace (for the song: Girls just wanna have fun).

However, for Hollerback girl, we had to remove the 2 skirts and slip on a pair of gym pants, wear a beanie, remove our shades and necklaces, and wear a pair of gloves (garden gloves by the way :p) - all in approximately 30 seconds.

Now, that was a huge concern for us.

@ the Changing Room backstage. Doing my hair. The hair stylist is backcombing my hair to create a puffy effect ala Brady Bunch.

Our event organiser hired 4 make up artists from M.A.C and 4 hair stylists from Crimpers. Good thing we didn't have to go out and get our hair and make up done cos we seriously did not have the luxury of time to do so.

In case you're wondering...Yes, this top is from SugarPoppins (will post it up soon) and it's for Sale. :)

My puffy hair couldn't defy gravity.*sigh*

Games and karaoke counters opened at 6pm

I was pretty disappointed to find out (at the last minute) that we performers were not allowed to wear any other outfits except the one we're performing in.

Why? Cos we'll need to be on stand-by as soon as the 2nd speech was over. Then there will be a short lucky draw, after which we'll all be performing back to back.

In a way that was good cos then we'll be able to eat after our performance - hence the earlier the better.

Most of the gals (me included) did not dare eat much cos we're afraid that our tummies might bulge out during our performance. Yes, that's a Fear Factor! :P

And so i thought, okay fine. I'll change into my dress after the performance. But then my team leader said, "No, the Chairperson said we have to be on stand by to wait for them to announce the winning team. After announcing, very likely that team will have to perform again. So, there's no way we could change la.."

Was a tad bit upset cos i (we) wasn't dressed according to theme.

Introducing the Thunder Butt Sistas (TBS). TBS is also the acronym for our institution, Taylor's Business School.

L-R: Alicia, Sandy, Janice (she's wearing a blouse and tartan skirt cos she's performing the Opening Act with the upper management), me, and Elaine. Our team leader, Geraldine's missing in action.

We were joined by our Managing Director, President and the rest of the Upper Management. They looked so cool. It was a total transformation. :)

The Opening Act

Our bosses doin their thing, the atmosphere was amazing! Everyone went wild!

Doors finally opened at 7:00pm. Look at the hippie crowd!

My besties at work.

L-R: Sue-Ann, Alice, Me.
Sock Wee, Christine.

Everyone listening intently to our MD's speech. Boss, can we get extra bonus ah?

My chair...but somehow i didn't get to spend much time sitting there.
Our colleagues from TBS were so supportive, they made pompoms and brought whistles to cheer us on.

On my chair: one pompom, a star (our table won the "highest balloon tower" challenge and we got a big pack of plush stars), my bag, my invitation card, and my RED feather boa.

Our cheerleaders getting ready to cheer us on. It was our turn to perform next. So sweet ya!

We opened to HOT STUFF.
I still have that song in my head now...ahh, it'll take a while.

Us posing. What? You can't tell which one is me here?

I'm in the middle. Look out for the red boa.

In this dance, I incorporated 2 body rolls. The girls hated it at first, all complaining that body rolls are difficult to do. Now, after gazillion times of practice, they all can do sexy body rolls. :)

Wearing our polka-dotted skirt dancing to Girls just wanna have fun.
Our retro dance.

Hip hopping to Hollerback Girl.

After we ended the dance, the pompom gals actually popped the party poppers thus we had confettis all over us. We were so touched.

We were all so relieved after the performance.

I could finally eat to my hearts content! woohoo!! Delightful!

While making my way to the foyer, many friends made such comments (or of similar nature):

"You gals were great!! Super sexy out there".
"It's very obvious who the winners will be. Congrats gals!" (this was said many times by different ppl)
"It's amazing how you guys managed to change so quickly. I was worried that you guys wouldn't be able to change and return to the stage on time. It was so well done!!" (this one too, was way over-said)
"Your dance was great. It was so captivating. Very creative presentation!"

Wow!! That was a real confidence booster man!

Sue Ann and me with the red boa.

The boa and us - Christine, Alice, Me, Alice.

After the dance, many colleagues wanted to take pictures with us Thunder Butt Sistas.

Best dressed Award

Both Michael and Diana were nominated for best dressed.

And the Best Dressed award goes to Tony Liew aka Elvis Presley (in yellow).

With my cool colleagues from other campuses:

Me, Diana, Theresa, Andrew aka Austin Power, Eric, Melissa, and Evelyn.

Celine, me, Theresa babe.

With colleagues from our rep offices.

Me, Tony@ Elvis, Alicia, and Keith.

Where's ur mojo Austin?

Mel, Celine, Me, Theresa.

Kaven and i.

Us gals with the casanova, Mr Rahul R.
Unbuttoning his shirt to reveal gorilla-like chest hair. :P

Oozing with sex appeal...LOL!

I seriously do not like chest hair. This picture can be very misleading ya. :P

Rahul warning me, "You'd better not blog this girl!"

Too late dude! :P

And the winning team for the Shall We Dance competition is.....the.....
*drum roll*

Thunder Butt Sistas!!!

We were all ecstatic that we won..*tears of joy*. All our hard work were well worth the pain.

After party

Most of us adjourned to Flam's.

I changed into the dress i wanted to wear. Mum made this dress for my sis, Claudine.

Just realised that last year, I wore an evening gown that mum made for Claudine too (the theme was Masquerade). And I was nomiated as one of the Best Dressed then.

Us girls with Darren.

Inside Flam's.
Diana, Candice, Rahul, Michael (without his wig), me and Eric.

Theresa and I gooving to the beat.

This kwailo on the right is a lecturer from ICPU.

I was stading beside Rahul at one point. He actually dropped his glass on the floor and the alcohol spilled onto my brand new shoes as well as leggings.

Below is a picture of my shoes, really cacat after all those practices and walking around.

Oh, just in case you wanna know..

I didn't win anything from the Lucky Draw. :(

Someone please gimme a laptop, or a 4-day-3-night HK trip inclusive of 1 nite stay in Disney World hotel. I'll be extremely grateful :P