Mervyn Hoe: My Daily Happenings

A girl painting a picture of a girl 👧  The 3 girls and their own version of wall mural   Look! The children had their own chance to flaunt their creativity skills with the free samples of paint from GUSH. And it’s amazing that there is no apparent odour or smell. Easy to wipe off on surfaces too. They love the fun and we just let them paint the available walls in the house!  Kate and her garden plants 🪴  Sara kept saying that she is following her grandfather, who is an artist Yes! We are getting a fresh coat of paint for the whole apartment! Quite excited and this time we gotten the children to decide the colours for their own room. Hope that the whole entire process will be a smooth one!

 It’s truly blessed to be able to head down to a Reservoir with a wide selection of jogging trails! I am very thankful that I have the time to put on my jogging gear and head down to the MacRitchie Reservoir after sending Sara to school! The jogging was initially tough, with all the undulating and uneven paths. However the more runs I did, the easier the jogging. The amazing thing is that my running timing improved everytime and now it’s 10km within an hour.  I really feel good and refreshed after jogging and I hope it can inspire you to do too! Today I even asked my eldest son to come along with me. Since it was still within 14 days from his first vaccine jab, he was unable to do strenuous activity. Hence it became a walk for both of us! Had great chat with him and also visited our war hero Lim Bo Seng tomb. He is a man who sticked to his morals, and had 7 children! He fought till the very end, endured so much tortures and very amazed how God protected his wife and children w...

27 FEB 2007 This is the date I will always remember. The date that I joined Insurance as a career. I knew nothing about the industry and this was how I grew and learnt! Thinking back, the journey was not smooth but enjoyable. It was the rejections, countless prospecting and showing of plans that made me realise that financial planning takes more than just signing on the dotted line. Throughout these 13 years of experience, it made me realise that something didn’t change at all. People are still under insured and not knowing which are the suitable vehicles to grow their income. I am very pleased to know that the platform that I am at, gives me the flexibility to plan for my clients. In terms of fair scope of plans from various companies, my clients can choose and be well-informed on the changes of their coverage and what I can offer for them! Manulife Financial Advisers has given me a greater opportunity to manage my client’s well-diversified portfolios and it made me closer to...

Yes! 2020 is the new decade! It is the year of refresh and new beginnings. Honestly, I will pray that I will continue to strive for God and for my family. I am very thankful that I am blessed with a wonderful wife, Eve. She is ever supporting and forgiving towards me. Things have happened for the past 2 years. And I will feel that the only thing to do is to look forward! She is definitely my pillar of support in my life. I chanced upon a phrase that TIME is the only thing that keeps going forward! It is so true. Every morning when I wake up, I will tell myself to be thankful for what I have. My house, my children, have food to eat and to breathe! It is a year of change for me. Last year I stepped up as Assistant Vice President in my organisation and I ended the year with 4 agents! I am certainly very thankful for that because this is something not to take granted of. The agents were god-sent and they just messaged me, agreed to come and join me! I am really very very thankful. ...

Today, I managed to form another set of Escape Room game for my children and their friends.  When they entered the room, they saw this. This is actually a code for the grid that I have placed on the table. How to decode?  The yellow biscuits, green biscuits and red biscuits match the color of the Lego blocks. Hence the code is 534. Using the grid, they'll form a word BED.  Hence, they headed towards the bed to find another clue. At one of the bed legs, I hid this message.  They have to unlock another code using another grid. The pictures are all pasted around the room. And they managed to find them! These pictures form SEOSS. It makes no sense. However, when they managed to get it right,  the word LIGHT is shown in front of their very eyes! They have to go to a light bulb in the room. And they found a key!  Messy room huh! But that didn't dampen their findings. They only have fifteen minutes to solve! The key was found and they unlocked the luggage.  I...

Cycling has never been so exciting, and to see the children enjoying and exploring the new places, it's truly rewarding.  On Wednesday morning, our family with Josh's friend met to venture the Kallang Park Connector!  All geared up with scooters and bicycles!  We were thankful that the weather was fine and windy too!  Personally speaking,  I really love this bridge! The children were exhilarated when they reached it! Unblocked view 360 degrees!  Thanks to Kelly for the family photo. Initially, I intended to jog throughout the Park Connector. Instead, I rented the Ofo bike. I'm really thankful to find one at a nearby block.  We reached Potong Pasir, and it was well built with new bridges and greens. The Kallang River was clean, rubbish free!  We spotted many patches of plants mixed with lalang, cow grass, creeper plants and morning glory. We tried to find grasshoppers. Instead, we spotted butterflies, carpenter bees, Sting bug, water hens and their...

Today, initially I wanted to hold one Escape Room for my children, because Gwen kept asking for it. So I planned it and invited our neighbors to join in. After playing, they enjoyed it so much that they requested me to form another game! Hence making it 2 sets today! It's challenging to me, and I'm glad because it tested my creativity.  I'm just sharing some ideas here (not all)...  I hid the Uno cards in the blinds and they managed to find eight of them. The clue was to make the room dimmer! And they used the numbers to call someone to unlock another clue!  Josh told them to wind down the blinds fully! That's tactical of him!  Kate went to another side of the living room to find more cards!  The children solved a puzzle together and found out the missing alphabets!  I made my very own decoder kit. It's very simple and I'm amazed by myself to engineer this at the very last minute!  And after they turned the dial to the coded text, they had to look arou...

It's really thank god that we managed to complete the MacRitchie TreeTop Walk this morning with four children, Eve and I!   We just wanted a nearby trekking experience and it's very near our place.  Hence we started from Venus Drive and started on our trekking trail from 9.30am and ended at around 12.30pm! The trek towards the TreeTop Walk was one that was motivating because the sign boards just kept showing shorter and shorter distance. From 2.5km to 500m,  we were thrilled!  Initially Gwen didn't enjoy the trekking, when she reached the suspension bridge,  she was so excited and wanted to come again! The view was spectacular and we spotted monkeys on the supporting beams of the bridge!  Eve and I took turns to sling Sara. She slept midway and she woke up when we reached the TreeTop Walk! I felt a sense of achievement once we reached there as a family!  The journey back to the starting point was a challenge. It's around 3km of trekking but we jus...

This morning, as I was cycling back home from market, I skidded and fell on my back! One of the bicycle's pedal pressed onto my left ankle. I felt the entire weight of the bicycle on it and it's very painful. I couldn't move. I used my arms to push up the bicycle, but it's too heavy. Everything happened so fast. A moment, I was cycling and I'm just a few steps away from the house lift. The next moment, I was on the floor, stuck under the bicycle. I used all my might to lift the bicycle up slightly. And I managed to get my ankle away from the pedal. I came out of it eventually. A passerby came and asked if I'm ok. I was fine, sort of. I didn't feel any pain yet. When I reached home, Gwen saw me and told me I was bleeding. I said no because I didn't feel any pain. She pointed at my left knee. Indeed, she was right! I was bleeding. And suddenly, the extent of the pain slowly intensified. I felt it in my left ankle, my left shoulder and my left bleeding k...

Recently, we have dismissed our helper (21 Aug 2017) due to theft and things are back to normal. Now, we prepare meals for everyone, and do the marketing, household chores etc. Yes, we had much more things to do. However, we were pleased. We have gotten back our control of the house! The cooking In fact, I have missed cooking and preparing of the food for lunch and dinner. Most of the time, the helper had been preparing and I would do some of the cooking. For the past week, I managed to whip up 4-5 dishes within 30 minutes! It's amazing! I enjoy cooking so much! We grew our own mushrooms too!! It's really amazing! They took about 1 week to grow to this size Look at the amazing mushrooms! Breaded Almond Chicken Fillet Boiled Organic Asparagus, Potato Salad and the Breaded Almond Chicken Fillet  A meal served with brown rice The dining table Josh and Kate will assist in the laying of plates, utensils and making sure that the din...

Wow! On 24th May 2017, our 4th baby was born! It's a new milestone in our family! The day when we have a new family member in our family!! We were so excited and amazed that we witnessed the whole birth process! The Estimated Due Date (EDD) was supposed to be 22nd May 2017. We waited and waited and was so blessed to have God to choose such a wonderful date for the birth of the baby. Wonder Woman: Eve's pregnant at 40 weeks! Happy picture of us! However, immediately after this picture, she had contractions! Schedules of the Contractions Early morning, Eve woke up with contractions and they were not the Braxton Hicks contractions. They were regular and quite immense. I noted down the first timing, which was around 8am. Here is the list of timings that I noted till birth! It was very owl of me. However, it's important! 827am: Left home and took cab. 833am Contraction 837am Contraction  839am Contraction)  We went to the delivery ward. 842am Contraction 8...