Weekend wanderings: Corrections, cleaning and celebrations

It was a busy and long weekend for us, since the hubby was on leave on Friday and Monday (happy happy!).  Spent quite abit of time rushing out my draft for my dissertation, and did a substantial amount of writing in bits and pieces, while occasionally dropping my work to do housework or cook.  Sometimes, the little boy would climb into my lap while I was working, asking to "take photo!", so that called for mini-breaks and funny pictures like these:

Along with doing all my corrections for my draft, we managed to do massive spring cleaning for the house.  We've recently pin-pointed the cause of Junior J's chronic off-and-on cough: dust (and possibly, the dog, which we might be making arrangements to give away before the boy gets too attached to Nicky).  This meant the hubby has had a 360 degrees change with his attitude to dust, turning from someone who used to scoff at me if I asked him to vacuum more than once a week, to a cleaning maniac.  Between the both of us, we managed to wash all the curtains, clean the windows and grilles, pack up the place (its been really messy especially since the 2 trips)... and even made a trip to Salvation Army with 3 bags of books and clothes, plus get a new vacuum cleaner that functions as an air-purifier too.  Quite amazing what the hubby is willing to do, for the sake of the little boy...

Since we needed to get some CD boxes and other stuff, we also headed down to Ikea on Friday night.  Turned out the little boy is not only sensitive to dust, but also to Ikea! :S  He started coughing during dinner at the restaurant.  By the time we were almost done shopping, he was wheezing, so we dropped the idea of getting Christmas decorations, and rushed him down to his regular PD, who was thankfully still open.  He ended up on the nebulizer, and the PD said he was probably sensitive to the fumes from the furniture (she told us about one patient who always came in on a Friday night with rashes, and it turned out that the girl always went to Ikea on Friday with her parents, and she was probably just sensitive too).  Seems like this year, we're not going to be able to set up the tree again...

Ok, then Sunday came, and I hit the big 3-0!  The hubby gave me this really nice chef knife, even though he didn't need to get me a present (he had got me a sewing machine last year, and that was supposed to be worth 2 years of presents, heh).  It was church as usual, then a nice lunch with our DG mates and a new friend the hubby met in service... Then the fun started in the evening when we got dressed up nice and spiffy, left Junior J with my parents, and headed to Marina Bay Sands:

The view on the way to MBS...

We were rushing for time, so we opted for a nice simple dinner at the food court in MBS:

We opted for simple food, since we didn't want to sit in a fancy restaurant and get stressed about time since we were rushing for the show.  Also, I've realized we're more street food than fine dining people. :)  

Then we proceeded to watch Riverdance!  YAAAYYY!  I had casually mentioned to hubby that I loved Riverdance, so he secretly went to buy tickets when I went to get my materials at Papermarket the other time.  Unfortunately, he left the tix lying around, so I found out pretty quick... Nonetheless, the show was pretty amazing.  The hubby loved the furious fiddling, the flamenco dancing, as well as the singing (He said he could dance like them if he just had a pair of tap-shoes, just to get a heated response from me, sigh).  I loved those aspects, as well as the catchy, foot-tapping inducing music and dance!  (I admit that I can't really appreciate ballet, as I think men in tights are weird... and contemporary dance just stumps me... so Irish step-dancing was just nice!)  Now I'm telling the hubby we should go for tap-dance lessons together, and he's just rolling and rolling his eyes at me.  :p

The view when we were heading home after Riverdance... :)

Taken by a couple, whom we helped to take photos.  They put us smack in the middle of the shot (its been cropped and edited), while the hubby put them at the side of their photo.  He was grumbling that they should have shot us at the side, I bet they were grumbling about why we shot them at the side, and not in the middle, haha!

So all in all, it was a really good, productive and enjoyable weekend! :)  Thanks dear for arranging everything! :)

PS: The knife turned out to be a red herring... the hubby actually bought pearls! (I've never been a jewelry person, but those pearls were really pretty!)  He thought I might have stabbed him when he gave me the "fake" first gift...

PPS: The last birthday gift I got was a bad cold. :(  Thankfully I fell sick AFTER Riverdance on Sunday!  So if you don't see me around, its probably because I'm busy drinking honey drinks by the gallon, or rushing another part of my draft.  Have a great week everyone!