Mum's birthday, 10 July

For mum's birthday, we had a simple and healthy steamboat dinner last Sun together with Simon's sister, Catherine, her bubby Bryan and baby Megan. After that, mum cut the birthday cake together with dad and Megan, and she thought that was it.

On Tue, Simon and I went to help Dad buy her a bouquet of 2 dozen roses. She has not receive flowers from Dad for a loooong time. We said we had to meet a friend who was driving down from Brunei. Of course, we confessed and repented of our sin later. Then we hid the flowers in our bedroom till all of them returned home from work. Dad came up and got the flowers from me and he surprised her with the bouquet.

I already asked Dad if we could go to mum's fav vegetarian restaurant. He said it's really up to her. She may very well want to cook herself. I managed to catch her in the kitchen ready to defrost a fish. Told her since it's her birthday, we should go out for a meal. She agreed. Cat and Bryan came too. We had tom yam curry veg, deep fried mushrooms done cereal prawns style, sichuan pot of mushroom and tapicoa, and sambal kangkong (but not too hot as mum and Cat can't take spicy stuff) .

How do your parents celebrate birthdays? My mum is the same as my MIL, she always cook for the family and the husbands of her generation always eat what the wife cooks. Sometimes, it's hard to convince them to take a break and have a meal outside. As for presents, best to give ang paos, but once in a while, presents will be a lovely surprise.