Caleb opening up his present. Sarah and Jude try to lend a helping hand.
It's a book on aeroplanes! Uncle Mian had seen it when he was on biz trip in Germany and thought Caleb might like it. It's a really cool book coz they not only explain the different kinds of planes and which famous person flew them, there are also instructions and ready to cut out shapes to build the planes and fly them. Between ND and me, I'm the one likes doing such things so I've been nominated to build the planes with Caleb. Now, we just need to find the time to get started...
ND, Sarah and Caleb looking at Caleb's new aeroplane book
Other than the book, he also got a dinosaur T-shirt!
He really liked both his presents. Thanks Godma Mei!
After breakfast, my plan was to bring Caleb and Sarah to Explorer Kid to play but unfortunately Sophia came down with a very bad bout of stuck nose and appeared to have difficulty breathing through her nose so I had to bring her to the docs and so that plan got shelved.
I did drop Caleb and Sarah off at Yeeyee's house though so that at least they could go play with their cousins while I was at the doc with Sophia.
After the kids' lunch, the plan was to bring Caleb and his cousins to Snow City to play. Caleb heard about Snow City from his teacher in school and came home talking about it. I thought that it was some place that was new to him and he doesn't quite remember his experience with snow so that would probably be a memorable place for him to go celebrate his birthday. Caleb was quite excited when we told him that we were going to go there.
Caleb, Sarah, Nat and Nic.
Sarah just woke up from her power nap so she was very grouchy.
An unhappy looking Sarah with ND outside Snow City
No photography was allowed in Snow City as they've got their own photographers standing around taking photos of all us and then they try to sell the photos to us at $15 for a 5R photo of us inside the snow chamber!
Heehee, but Yeeyee still managed to sneak 2 photos of the birthday boy using her camera phone.
This is Caleb all dressed up in the snow jacket and boots. We took quite a while to dress up all 5 kids and by the time we were all properly dressed in the jackets, shoes and gloves, we (the adults) were all exhausted! It's really no joke trying to grab them and make them wear all the bulky gear.
Inside the snow chamber. Caleb's standing next to a fake igloo.
There's really nothing much inside the snow chamber except for a 3 storey high slope that is made of hard ice.
We're all given a round rubber tubing and then we got to climb all the way to the top, sit on the rubber tubing and then slide down. Caleb went twice, once with ND and once with me. The first time that he went down the slope, he said it was so fast that he felt like his heart was flying out of his mouth. The second time that he went down was with me and the experience was not as good. Either we were both too light or I didn't sit on the rubber tubing properly. We went down really fast and then halfway through, the rubber tubing changed direction and we actually went down with our heads first rather than legs first. The ice was really hard and we both suffered a couple of bumps on our elbows. That was my one and only try, and I decided once was enough.
ND made the most value out of his entry ticket coz he went down once with Caleb, once with Sarah and once with Nic. The rest of us, other than Caleb, Nic and Yeeyee's helper, went once and decided we didn't want to try it any more. Ya and we all suffered a couple of hard knocks on our bums, our backs and our elbows.Hmmm, I think it'll be a long while more before we'll come back here again.
Oh, and when we were about to leave, at the exit, there was this spout that started spitting out foam. I think they meant to create the snowing effect but the foam could only reach a very small area so it wasn't too impressive. Nevertheless, Caleb was quite easily pleased and didn't quite want to leave the place.
After Snow City, we walked over to Macs at Science Center for dinner.
The kids enjoying their happy meal.
Nic and Caleb had a quick dinner before going with ND to the Omnimax Theatre to watch a movie on Beavers. It's a show tracing the movements of 2 beavers living in Canada and how they found and built a home for themselves. The last time we brought the kids to the Omnimax Theatre, Caleb was about 2 plus. He didn't last more than 5min in the theatre and wanted to leave coz he was scared. This time round, both Nic and him enjoyed the show and bombarded ND with a lot of questions throughout the show.
After Caleb and Nic finished their show, it was almost 7pm. We walked around the Science Center a little before making our way home.
The kiddos posing and monkeying around
Us and the older kids
The last surprise of the day for Caleb was at home. The plan was for Grandpa and Grandma to get a cake for Caleb and surprise him at our house. Grandma was a little late in arriving so we had to delay the kids a little at our void deck by letting them run around for a while.
Caleb, trying to man handle Sarah...
When Grandpa and Grandma were all ready, we gave them the signal that we were coming upstairs and they lighted up the candles, switched off all the lights at home and went to hide.
Caleb was really surprised when he entered the house and saw the lighted cake in the living room and we all started singing him his birthday song. See how he's grinning from ear to ear in the video.
Birthday boy with his sisters, cutting his cake
And that's the end of Caleb's 5th birthday celebrations! Phew!
Actually, at the end of the day, me and ND concluded that bringing Caleb out to play for the whole day was almost as tiring as us organising a birthday party for him.
Now I wonder how we should celebrate his 6th birthday???
