Wendy's CCIA Big Yum Cha

Wendy invited us to a fund raising yum cha on Sunday 26 Oct at 11am. Linda and Tones offered to give me a lift, so I took them up on the offer, and we drove in. Tones parked in Wilson Parking $10/day and we walked up Sussex St to Market City and the China Grand (Previously Kam Fook) Level 3 9 Hay St, Market City, Chinatown.

The fixed menu is as follows for $18/person and is 1 item or serving per person:

1 Fried spring roll
2 BBQ pork and BBQ roast duck
3 Steamed dim sim
4 Steamed prawn dumpling
5 Steamed BBQ pork bun
6 Steamed vegetable with oyster sauce
7 Fried noodle with soy sauce
8 Fried spicy squid
9 Fried rice

10 Egg tart

11 Chinese tea

No photos taken as the photographer, Evan did not attend. But in attendance was:
Linda, Tony, Jim, Lilly, Marisa, Steve, Chris, Eliza, Briella, Casey, Shirley, Matty, Paul, Trudy, Mark H, Julie, Bevan, besides another 33 or so guests..5 tables in total.

Pink Night In

Jane and Veronica held a Pink Night in for ladies only to raise funds for Breast Cancer. Teresa picked up Mar Mar and came over to our place, before all the girls dressed in pink piled into the blue bus and took off for Jane's place. Dinner was $15 for adults, $10 for Teens, and raffles were sold $5 for 3 tickets. Also $3 nail polish and manicure sets..donated by a friend of Janes were available for purchase. Guess who owns the bra managed to raise a few more $$$...only Jane was daring enough to show off her boobs and bra. Finger food was served..with curry puffs, chicken wings, party pies, mini quiches, egg rolls, cupcakes and marshmallow teacups. Only Janet managed to win with 2 of her raffle tickets, a crocheted bag and a box of Wendy's sorbet icecream. Megan, Lily and Teresa had no luck in the raffle draw, with most of the prizes being won by a friend of Mary's.

Dragon's Abreast Challenge

I had arranged to visit baby Matty, Casey & Shirl, but they cancelled, so with a free day, I decided to tag along with Evan to the Darling Harbour DA dragonboat challenge. Had Maccas for breakfast and then watched a few of the races with Evan taking pics. Tony was racing for Unilever..as a pink apache. Missed his first race but managed to catch his second race. After watching for a while, I decided to go for a walk and visit the shops at Darling Harbour...window shopping...saw some nice stuff but only bought 2 tops at Cotton On. Went back to watch the races again and see the Roses on the Water salute to women who've died through breast cancer. Saw the hospital challenge, and was on the lookout for Jane, who was out last year as cheer squad. This year, we spotted her in the boat for Fairfield Hospital..rowing her heart out.
The races finished around 2.30pm and we walked to QVB for malaysian laksa and ipoh hor fun..late lunch..before heading home on the train.

Spring Cleaning

Saturday and I don't have to work, so it's time to do a bit of spring cleaning and wash the windows. Janet has to move all the roses away from the windows.

Lily's 50th Birthday Surprise

Mark wanted to organise a surprise birthday for Lily, so he roped Janet and I in to help organise the invites and sort out everything else, while he took Lily overseas on their annual holidays.

Also while the Seeto's were in US and HK, he got us to message them to buy a present for Lily..stipulating that it be a diamond costing HK$???? .

Where: Bankstown RSL Star Buffet.
When: Saturday 11 October at 7.30pm
How many guests?: at least 50 people

So how to get Lily to the venue, without her catching on...after much thought and discussion, Missy came up with the idea. Since Ken was graduating on the Friday, why not issue an invite to his graduation dinner, so Ken worked on an invite and sent it out to the Tsui's and Chan's. This put paid to Mark getting to the venue early...since Lily knew he didn't work on Saturday night.

Lucky, for the rest, I managed to convince her that I had a Stamping workshop that afternoon and then I would meet up with them at the restaurant.

So Saturday came around...and we had all managed to avoid letting the cat out of the bag. She probably had an inkling..but Lily being Lily...she wasn't too worried about anything..just that we were going out to dinner for Ken's graduation. Justin's plans of catching the train to Daniela's fell through and he asked his mum to drop him off...since I needed the car, there was no way else for him to get to Daniela's, so mum came to the rescue. Janet and Kaylene went with her, so they could go shopping after. While they were out, I went shopping for last minute supplies (the candles) and then popped over to the Seeto's to wait out the day. Also went to pick up Fiona at 3.30pm and then to pick up the balloon bouquets I had preordered. Then to pick up the cake, which Aunty Cath had preordered for us.

We left for the RSL around 6.45pm..got their around 7.15pm and most of the guests were already there waiting in the front foyer. I had to organise with the staff to get all of us in and seated. They apparently had not reserved enough tables and we had to wait for them to clear out patrons and make another table for us.

Janet smsed me when they were in the parking lot...everyone was all seated and ready to surprise her. Ken went out to meet them and explain that I had already settled paying for them, so they could just come through without lining up and paying. When she did come in and looked at the table, she could only wonder why Mitchell was sitting at the table with Nathan and Justin...SURPRISE...the whole Chan clan screamed out..and you could hear a pin drop...everyone looked our way..but Lily says she didn't hear it. She didn't have her glasses on and couldn't see everyone else...only as she got closer did she see and then I asked her to sit with her friends and she was really surprised to see her work friends also there.

Everyone ate as much as they could..seafood, sushi, fried foods, salads, chinese food, roasts, soups..you name it they had it. Everyone was too full to have the cake, so we invited everyone back to Strathfield for tea/coffee and cake.

Preparations for Lily's 50th

While Lily and Mark are on holidays, I have been very busy making thank you gifts as well as making a scrapbook album of Lily's photos...I only have 2 weeks to do this and finding photos of Lily is pretty hard.