Latest feature - Millwater Magazine

It does feel like a lifetime ago since my life was full of camera, talk show, fashion week, interviews, behind the scenes and all sort of kind of glam - and i kinda forgot how it feels to sit in interviews. 

So when the editor from Millwater magazine asked if she can feature me and my story, i was taken a back a little - it's been a while..shit, what to say..how to behave? like literally not knowing what to do and didn't really understand why my life story and Singapore blogging journey was such an interesting topic to cover in this beautiful local New Zealand magazine. 

But hey, it was indeed one of the best interview i ever sit in, the magazine is about supporting local and sharing everything local :) and looking back, my blogging journey was definitely one my best experience in life and i am proud of what i have achieved :) 

Growing up in Indonesia, i bought almost every issue of "Gadis" magazines - reading the article and seeing girls featured for awesome stuff they did, their makeup style or winning some contest that sent them to USA or somewhere. That magazine really inspired me to dream, lol! Day dreaming in fact, because of my facial feature - i know at that time, my face wasn't in demand for that industry, let alone the look - the size of being overweight or always on the big size according to Asian standard is already a problem. Lol.

Anyway, fast forward to years laters.. I was featured in newspapers, magazines, became a brand ambassador, winning trip to Japan, non stop events and sponsorship! And all of that, was once a dream. Very grateful and humbled to be able to live my dream and shared my journey with many kind and beautiful people around the world. 

So, thank you once again Millwater Magazine to once again allowing me to experience my dream.

Our Little Date!

It's one rare day for us to have a lunch date without kids! I took my birthday leave and decided to go for a gym class then hanging out with this guy here for lunch!

We went to Oyster & Chop to have tempura oyster fix! So good!

Hands down the best oysters tempura to date! Nice and moist in the inside and crispy on the outside. 

We had 1 kg Tomahawk Steak for our lunch and again, the best 2nd steak i ever tried to date, too. 

Nyaaaaam, like enak banget! 

Gw suka cut yang berlemak, lol - jadi ini steak pas bener di lidah. Trus pilih sauce nya yang Brandi apa gitu sama Mushrooms and cream. Yang mushrooms asin bener, kakak - mas nya ngawur ni ngaduknya. Yang brandi enak banget, ampe nyocol fries nya kemari juga. Lol. 

It was a really nice day, a couple of hours being just the two of us. Kapan lagi makan tenang sambil ngobrol santai, ga pake potonging makanan anak en ngejerin arielle yang lari keluar. Lol. 

I really enjoyed having a good uninterrupted conversation with le mr. - kayak rasanya refreshing banget having adult conversation ga pake disela "mommy, mommy!" 

We then had a good walk to Commercial Bay for coffee! 

I was once a slim lady, too, Mr. Innocent packaging, tapi ya udalah ya..yang lalu jangan dibahas. Lol. Anyway, kopinya biasa aja. :) Goban melayang nya ga puas. 

Anyway, we celebrated our 10th Anniversary. Many ups and down, and even after 10 taon.. Le mr. TETEP GA BISA jawab kalo ditanya "why do you love me?" - tetep ngambang jawabannya. Rese. Lol. 

1 decade down and am hoping more decades to go with this one. Semoga ga ada yang nyeleweng dari kita dan selalu be faithful to each other. Semoga our marriage full of blessings selalu dan jadi panutan buat koko dan nona. 

Happy 10th Anniversary. 

Easter on Local Village

We are enjoying our new neighbourhood so much! This community is so active and we have a very active facebook group as well. Loving the new vibes of " Kampong" style in modern living. As this is our first Easter in the area, we explored this village around the corner where we were taken decades back to how people in early days lives. 

Mesin tik, telpon yang puter puter ampe nokia yang gede model botol minum juga ada di village ini. Hari Easter kemaren, kita ada yang namanya Easter Bunny hunting di tempat ini, jadi kita ke tempatnya satu satu di dalem village ini trus liat ada berapa gambar kelinci dan ditulis di kertas. Kalo bener, dapet 1 Marshmellow Egg. 

Barang barangnya beneran kuno banget buat kiddos, tapi buat kita..kayak pernah liat barang ginian di rumah oma waktu kecil. Kayak ember metal di kiri atas ini, kayaknya oma eke pernah punya tapi ditarok something else. 

Abaikan tampang kami yah, ini beneran bangun tidur, sarapan trus pergi. Hari itu daylight saving pula, jadi bingung adjust body clock nya.

Disana ada oma opa yang tugas running village ini, dan mereka semua itu biaya donasi. Oma yang ini tugas ngajakin anak anak belajar cara nyuci baju jaman dulu. Masi pake papan gerigi yang diucek ucek gitu..sabung nya juga sabun batangan. lol. Jadi inget sabun batangan biru buat mbak nyuci dulu. Mereknya apa ya?

Si Ethan demen nyobain ginian, trus dia bilang " Thank God, mommy has washing machine " :D

Overall, it's a good experience kan yah buat mereka nyobain ginian..supaya bisa bersyukur idup di jaman wifi.

Sapa yang masi ada pompa aer ginian di rumah? Rumah mama mertua gw masi ada and it's so fun!

Ngeliat nona ngepompa nya kayak uda dia yang mo keangkat pegangannya daripada aernya yang keluar. LOL!

Trus sibuk antar mompa aer ama maen aernya, yang akhirnya dia tinggal karena usaha mompanya kegedean dibanding aer yang kuar. LOL! She pick her battle well. Kita move one yah non, kalo hasilnya memble.

Overall, such a great morning to start our Easter. Happy to be able to spend time with kiddos on days like this. :)

How was your Easter break?

Happy Easter!

It's the first Easter in our new nest and I'm so excited more than ever!!

Growing up, I don't have much privileges' in having house decorated with beautiful ornaments for special season - so now, I feel like am catching up to make up for those times. :)

Last year we had a lockdown Easter and we kept everything low key with just Easter Egg Hunt in our front yard. So this year, i decided to celebrate Easter in a fancier way to make up for last year. 

I was in the hunt for Easter decorations, man, it's hard! Kmart is pretty much sold out and luckily I managed to find few good stuff!

I picked bunny forest for the theme. I use green and earthy wooden colour as base and accentuate the whole decoration with magical white, hence we have LED light and Beauty & The Beast dome to add a little whimsical feel to it. 

I had fun decorating it and it does bring joy to me. I guess am gonna start doing home decorating things more often. :)

I found plenty of beautiful Easter Decorations at Bed, Bath & Table, and they are on 50% Off. Am planning to go back after Easter, hoping to grab some Easter clearance for next year. 

The grass table runner and the placemats are from Kmart. The rest are from my wonderful friend, Alana. She has like her own kmart in her garage. :p

Am in love with this cute vintage bunny in a cart. The workmanship is so pretty, just really nice to add some colour to the table. Bought the blue one for Ethan and the pink one for Arielle.

I set the table up at night and hoping to surprise our little human the next morning. I think i did a good job. :) 

Do you like this little birdie?

The Easter Breakfast

It was a nice morning. 

Sun is beautiful and weather is just fantastic. Everyone was up late, except Ethan. 

Kids were thrilled and excited to see the decorations!! Arielle was exploring non stop and Ethan can't wait to open up the Easter's treats.

We had Eggs, hot cross buns, Sausages and hot chocolate. It's really nice to have 4 of us to sit together and enjoy our busy breakfast together.  So precious, I do hope my kids will remember this moment as part of their childhood and continue the traditions when they have their own family one day.

Can you spot 2 little bunnies?

My first born attempt to crack the shell open using the spoon. He said " I saw this many times in movie, let me try" LOL

Uda kayak mendadak gede banget si koko, maturity levelnya juga mendadak naek..gampang dibilangin, semoga kamu terus get better and better ya, ko.

While this one is enjoying her egg as is. :)

The Easter Treats 

Got most of them from The Warehouse! 

Good bargain and really have things for my both kiddos. 

Ethan picked small Paw Patrol surprise egg and Arielle picked large Playdoh surprise egg. 

Surprise Egg is definitely one of the most requested toys in our house!

Buka nya ga pake sabar, dan langsung liat ke sebelah " What do you get? "

LOL

Tapi kayaknya rumput tetangga selalu lebih ijo ya, yang ada tukeran isi dong. Lol. 

Abangnya pinter, dia bilang " Hey Arielle, ini gw ada something for you - dia kasi sebungkus jelly bean dr egg nya dia, trus si non nya seneng dan kasih balik sebungkus jelly bean nya dia" 

Trading yang ada. 

I'm honestly in a happier place compare to Easter last year and I am hoping to continue making memories with them. 

Masa kecil mereka pendek kan yah? 

Our New Nest!

We have moved to our new place! It's been a good 3 months since we moved and we are loving our new nest!

The whole process of building from scratch was rather stressful but totally worth it! We picked every details as per what we want and we are pleased on how it turned out. The whole journey took a solid 12 months with covid and lockdown in between. It is not a flash house but it's beautiful and it's located in one of the loveliest neighborhood.

Tapi asli, ga pernah ngebangun sendiri..riwehnya yaowoh. Dan disini ngebangun rumah kok ya mahal bener rasanya..rumah sepetak kecil gini, kok bayarnya segitu. Ngebayangin kalo di Indo, kalo bayarannya segini..bisa dapet rumah sebagus apa coba. 

Tapi yaudalah ya, soto ayam aja $16 disini..apalagi nyambung aer ke rumah. >.<'

One thing yang kita berasa banget, the whole journey kita ngebangun ini..semua jalan dibukain. Semua urusan dilancarin, dan kita selalu berdoa biar rumah ini selalu jadi rumah penuh berkat dan kita selalu blessed to be a blessing.

It was started just like this. Plain section and we had no idea on the ideal house we want. Lol. I always wanted ultra modern house, but i do like classic too. I like those wood exterior but i do like black and white too. I was just very confused, and times that confusion by 2 - because Arief has his own 'ideal' home too. 

Kayak maen The sims tapi real life with real money - kalo salah ga bisa di undo dan ga di save kayak sims. LOL.

This is my bedroom.

We built with Maddren Homes. One of the award winning builder company. 

But honestly, being award winning something doesn't impressed me much on the company. No, I lied -  It does give me assurance that at least the house won't look like shit.  Admit it, there are ugly design houses. 

What impressed me the most about Maddren are the people! We first dealt with Nita Wong, this lovely lady from Maddren Homes is da bomb! As a first timer in building, we had no clue on the process and all. She is with us from day 1 and am so grateful for her. Then, when we started dealing with Maddren's team, I realized they are so deserved to be award winning company, apart from their craftmanship - they definitely a Gold award winner for the most positive bunch!

Like in any business, there are issues!

In doing building, there are plenty of issues, miscommunication and something get missed out along the building journey. With Maddren, they will find solutions and fix it when they can, if they can't - they told us and we have to compromised. It's sucks in some moments, but i guess mistakes happened and no one dies, so.. move on! 

Just a disclaimer, am not sponsored by Maddren Homes to post this. I just want to start jotting down our life in New Zealand again and this feels like a fresh starts. 

Slowly the house started coming together nicely. It's so hard to imagine the plan on the paper, luckily Maddren has 3D AR Apps thing that able to visualize our house. This is pretty cool! 

Bokap nanya..itu rumah cuman dari kayu bisa terbang ga kalo angin kenceng? lol.

We felt there's a lot of things to think about, even the colour of switch or which way our spotlights gonna look like. It felt overwhelming yet exciting in the same time.

They have their individual vendors to take care of our roof, paint, kitchen, doors and windows, landscape, etc. There are few vendors that stands out ans easy to deal with, and there are some that i wish to just not deal again in the future. Overall its a sweet journey in the end. Thank you Maddren.

Thank you for those that reading my blog, following me on Instagram and commented on how beautiful this house is. We like this house, although not the most beautiful on the street - it is surely the best looking house we ever have and we are grateful for it.

I still owe you the house tour. :)

We are still waiting for some furniture and few works around the house. Will definitely gonna do house tour in my IG, if you haven't - follow me on @eldiona :)

See u in Instagram.