Happy Birthday Lester!

Lester's birthday is on March 25 and we wanted to surprise him at midnight but there were a number of difficulties:
1. which time do we use? if Singapore time, it'll be at an odd hour before dinner; if UK time, we don't know if he'd sleep early as he claimed he would
2. how to surprise when all of us are around each other 24/7?
Never fear! We'd surmount all obstacles! There were a few hitches though... hehe

I started baking apple strudel early in the morning. I tweaked the recipe (conventional rolled-up apple strudel) I found to make it look more like ritz apple strudel that Lester likes. I was going on nicely when he burst in for breakfast. To my chargrin, he said,"Wah, look nice, apple custard ah?"

What do you think? The top crust was the 3rd batch to be baked. 1st time I thought not golden enough when checking... the next time I check, it burnt; 2nd time I had to attend to something else and it burnt. Poor Xianhong ate the burnt ones, haha!

Then I drew this doraemon for him. Like doraemon with its magic pocket that produces anything asked, Lester has everything, sleeping bag, cooling tea sachets, string, you name it, he has it. The accessories represents his roles here: chef and cameraman.

Meanwhile, Lydia cut out "HAPPY B'DAY" from yellow paper we filched from printers in school. Print jobs in this school waste an extra paper with the owner's name and article printed. Meanwhile, Xianhong makes sure he doesn't suspect anything.

When night came, Lydia and I were on our toes in our room, waiting for Xianhong to tell us through msn that the coast is clear for us to spring into action. There was a narrow shave when Lester rushed in to ask Lydia for something not once, but twice! Xianhong's alarms came seconds before him, and Alwyn, who was there had to hide in our bathroom with the strudel. Luckily, I was in the kitchen, else the closed door would be amiss.

Finally, he went to bathe and we rushed in and decorated and waited. It was awfully hard to remain silent and refrain from giggling as we could hear all his movements in his bathroom! The sounds enabled us to anticipate his exit, so we all stood at the bathroom entrance and sang "Happy Birthday" to him when he came out.

Then, we all fell into eating. We had also bought Ben & Jerry's ice cream, the other 2 flavours on offer that we didn't try the other time, luckily, it included Lester's favourite flavour -- vanilla.

Yummy! As we lick our way through decadent dessert, it was time for us to fast forward our time by one hour, which is known as daylight saving. This is because the sun rises earlier in summer and when summer ends, we have to move back the time by one hour. So, has Lester been one hour into his 24th year or do we refer to Singapore time? Well, all we know for certain is that the surprise was a success!