BBQ at my house - updated

End of September is Alex's 9th birthday. Normally, we will celebrate with him on a low key. This year, since the Mid Autumn Festival also falls around the same day and the department staff was hankering for a BBQ, I decided to have a 3 in 1 for everyone. So on the 22nd, I had an Alex birthday/ Mid Autumn Festival gathering/ BBQ for the department all at one go in my house.

Right after I woke up, I went to the market to do the marketing for crabs, prawns, sausages, greens for the salad bar, sweetcorn, etc. etc.. Had to make so many trips back to the car to load up my purchases as each purchase was weighing kgs!!

After 2 hours, I started on getting the preparations started. Drinks went into the cooler box, with ice from 7-11. Garlic and small onions were diced. Chicken wings were marinated. The BBQ pit had to be cleaned up and sunned - 2 pits. Take a short lunch break. Then started cleaning up and preparing the crabs - 5 kgs/ 12 crabs.

By 5pm, took a drive to Leisure Mall to collect an ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins and a Classic Cheese Cake from Secret Recipe. Got back, started up the fire for the BBQ. Used the convection oven to get some of the lamb chops and chicken wings cooked - mainly for the "older" guests who would probably not be standing in front of the BBQ fire.

At 7pm, the guest started arriving. Sen and Teo were the first, followed by Elaine and family. Jayson and gang wasn't too far behind. That was my self imposed signal to cook the first round of black pepper crab. Got it a little undercooked - still - most of it was finished.

As the night wore on, Soh and family, Kim and family showed up - and I had a second round of black pepper crabs ready. By the time Siew Mei and her family arrived, the third and last round of black pepper crab was cooked and I was smelling like a crab myself. Should have gone for a bath and a change of clothes, but I was beginning to feel pooped!! I was feeling so full from preparing the BBQ that I was not hungry. Just took a can of Guai Loh Leong Char and a 100 plus to re balance my ions.


Then it was cake cutting time. The Baskin Robbins guy promised me at ;east 3 hours of dry ice. So there was still a couple of small pieces in the box. Used those to create a misty atmosphere around the cakes. Here are the kiddos waiting in anticipation.
Party started winding down around 10pm, with Soh and family leaving first. Soh wanted to catch his football game. The rest of the LSCA gang was having some card game and in the end Jayson was so pissed drunk - I offered him my garden to sleep it off with Berry my dog to accompany him. Naturally he declined. So he was not as pissed drunk as I thought. How did they get so drunk - they did something like these dogs.

The last guests (Siew Mei and family) left past 11.30!! Finally got to take our bath (Alex, lee Chiew and me) and we kinda passed out around 1am.

One of Alex's favourite presents was the one given by the LSCA team - Optimus Prime!! You don't know who is Optimus Prime?? Go watch Transformer the movie! Before he went to bed, Alex finally figured out how to transform Optimus from the Robot to the Truck. I really appreciate the efforts put in by the team to get Optimus Prime. Major toy stores in Klang Valley were out of stock for weeks and the LSCA team managed to get the last one from God knows where which was imported from Japan. So Alex had instruction sheets written in Japanese ;D.

Woke up this morning with sore butt (not sure why), sore back (from standing over the kitchen sink preparing the food) and sore legs (my pedometer tells me that I had walked almost 18000 steps, equivalent to almost 7km). Ayam tired!!