Been busy over the weekends, it's Mum's birthday and we decided to have a simple loving meal at home.

The most important ingredient "LOVE" is not forgotten!

Dad and Mum taking a couple photo, they have come a long way, altogether 32 years of marriage down the long long road... raising two kids (my brother and me).

Of cos the party must be complete with a bottle of sweet tasting red wine, top with top quality cheese cake from Bakerzin!

Home cooked to go along, simple, but delicious!

Mum's still camera shy, smiling sweetly...

It's been a wonderful day, with 3 little boys running around the house, adding to the atmosphere. We took loads of photos, and tried out the wonderfully compact Selphy CP780 Photo Printer again on some undeveloped photos of yesteryears...

Turning out wonderfully fast, clear, bright and colourful!

My 3 boys had a fun time going through them with my parents...

To be continued...

CANON Selphy Connections Blog Contest

VOTE for me!

Finally, the official six bloggers choosen to experience and blog about the new CANON Selphy CP780 photo printer and CANON IXUS 95 IS camera

are fresh out of the oven and awaiting for votes from

their beloved friends and readers...

Following and outing to the Jurong Bird Park and a series of hands on trying out the lovely shocking PINK products, there are 3 sets to be given away.

Simply steps to winning the set would be:

CAST YOUR VOTE

for MY BLOG, the lucky voter picked would win a set of the cute user friendly IXUS 95 camera complete with the Selphy CP780!

Simply click on my entry which is choice No. 1 [Eileen Chua]

and complete your particulars to cast your vote!

Hurry, voting has already started and the last date would be on
22 July 2009 @ 2359 hours sharp.

The Canon Selphy CP780

The Canon Selphy Portable Printer

(Deliciously Pretty in Bright Pink)

*Alright guys, it does come in silver too, more manly for you

Once upon a time, everyone's camera is those that has a roll of firm inserted in them, they take pictures, developed them and placed the photos in album. The photos are sometimes framed up and placed around the house to reflect wonderful moments.

I forgot when was the first time I got my first digital camera, but it was the time I stopped developing photos, I stopped doing framing and displaying photos at home. Only on the desktop in my computer would you be able to see my family photo as I switched it on.

I love taking photos, especially of my family and friends. The bright goofy smiles on my 3 sons' faces are priceless, their birthdays, their first day at school and much more, are all important moments to capture. Only on the day I brought Selphy CP780 home and tried it out with the kids, then did I know how deprive they have been.

As I tried printing out a few photos from the printer, the 3 of them gathered curiously around it and fight to retrieve the photo as it's printed out. (I'm lucky the printer is so efficient that the photo is instantly ready and doesn't need to be dry like some inkjet printers) I printed out quite a few of the boys' photos, they were very excited and took the photos with them to their room. Over the next few days, I still found them going through the photos happily and telling to each other about where and when the photo was taken. (Only then did I knew how deprived they have been) All the photos I have taken of them, are always downloaded into my laptop's hard disk. They only get to see the photos once in a blue moon and it's always like 20 seconds per photo for them. I ignored the fact that kids always love to get a feel and touch of things at their own pace.

This portable printer is a genius, I tried bringing it out in my handbag complete with the ink cartridge and paper, it's a breeze. It only weighs 940g and the dimension is only 6.93 x 5.22 x 2.98 inches. The unit given to me comes with a power adaptor, but it comes with the option for a battery pack (which I will definitely get if I do get the printer) which really makes it all so easy.

The printer also comes with the memory card slots, as well as the Bluetooth function for your mobile phone. I just take out the memory card from PINKY and insert it into the printer's memory card slots, the photos just appear on the 2.5"LCD panel. There's even the information that photos printed on the quality Canon photo paper, is able to last for a good 100 years!

There's the Portrait Image Optimize, the Red-eye Correction, and printing speed is good at 47 seconds for a postcard size photo. I was going through the manual and found out it has the options for printing out on 4R size photos, name card size, and even Neoprint sizes! This is really good, if I use the Neoprint sizes which is a small label types of imprint, I can do a good deal of labelling jobs on my sons' water bottles, and books!

I'm planning to do a great deal of printing out our family photos on name card size photo paper so that a few of them can be inserted into hubby and mine wallets. Pinky is going to be busy helping me take more photos and Selphy is going to be busy printing out the photos since I am going to finish my exam paper this evening. There will be more time for me to experiment on them both!

Jurong Bird Park Outing with OMY.SG Team

The six contestants together with the families, everyone flashing their Canon IXUS 95

(Oh my god, just look at my very obvious tummy, guess my tummy's 4th child wants to have a share in the photo taking too. And I'm only 3 months' pregnant)

Special Day, Outing to Jurong Bird Park
sponsored by OMY.SG and CANON

Alright, I'm counting my lucky stars, I'm one of finalists among the sixth selected bloggers in the

Selphy Connections Blog Contest!

Special thanks to the hardworking OMY.SG Team, Alvin and his lady colleague including the ever patience camera man. While we were enjoying ourselves, the camera man was busy capturing everyone in his video! They even helped take lovely family photos for us!!!!

I got to meet the other five finalists whom brought along their families and friends, I'm sure I would have a good time with the lovely pinkish Canon IXUS 95 Camera, complete with the deliciously pink Canon Selphy CP780 Printer.

Our family was at the venue early and we did some exploration, my 3 boys even got all mesmerized by a magician!

Take a good look at all the lovely photos taken by my PINKY!

(Alright, I have indeed given the camera a name, it's PINKY)

Christopher, Nicholas and Bryan are busy learning all about the printer.

The printer's really portable and easy to carry around in my bag.

I have been showing it off to my colleagues at work and they are impressed!

Even my elderly dad and mum are tempted to get one, we tried by printing out photos of their holiday trip to Taiwan and they were like WOW!Dad even praises mum that she looks lovelier than the flower in the photos! (he hardly praises her)

On Saturday morning in anticipation of the outing, our family planned to reach Jurong Bird Park well in advance of the appointed time. The park had a few interesting sights in store for us, with a pond complete with a swan, the flagship shop selling souvenirs, etc.

Picturesque corner at Main Entrance of Jurong Bird Park, featuring a African Waterfall Aviary

The rows and rows of cuddly soft toys, tempting my 3 sons and me, I had to take control of myself and resist the lovely white penguin.

The crowds at the entrance, tourists, locals, and staff of Jurong Bird Park

Surprises! Farid the magician approaches us and he is really good, my 3 sons were on Cloud 9 as he sprinkles his magic on them. I tried hard, but just couldn't see how he makes a third sponge duck appear on my our eldest son Christopher's hand. Then, he had Christopher sign on a poker card as a marking, he did some shuffling... Big surprise! He got Christopher to tab on the deck of cards, and the marked card appear on the top deck! More magical moments as he did some disappearing act with a simple red handkerchief. Needless to say, Christopher, Nicholas, and Bryan were totally impressed. The first time they ever came so close to a magician other than watching one on television programs.

The boys were reluctant as the magician had to take his leave, I expressed my utmost admiration and thanks to him!

The "Flap-bulous" Magical Moments - Another magical performance, our first venue as our assigned guide from the park brings us around.
Next is the Grand Show of the day at the Pools Amphitheatre, we all got good seats and lo and behold! The rest is simply breathtaking as we see all sorts of stunts and performances by birds flying near the sitting audiences.

There's just so many lovely surprises, audiences were picked randomly to take part during the show. With hands outstretched, a beautiful colourful feathered friend would fly over to the lucky audience.

After the show which seems to have ended too fast, our attentive guide brought us to another venue where the parrots were stationed. There's even a corner for people to take photos with the colourful parrots!

Grand Lovely Personal Favourite of our Family

THE PENGUINS

The penguins always manage to make our heart go soft as they are just so adorable but

they were enclosed and seperated from us by a huge viewing glass.The best is yet to come, read on...

MEET LOVELY PINKY, OMY.SG and CANON specially arranged for a close MEET-THE-PENGUIN session.

Yes, this lovely penguin is named PINKY, just like my camera!

Our group was given VIP treatment as a corner of the viewing gallery was closed off for us to meet PINKY!!! PINKY made a grand entrance, stunning and capturing everyone's hearts, all eyes were on him.

He must have felt glares on him as he just stopped in his track and paused!

The park keeper gently urged him on and finally had to carry him into the area which was sealed off for our group. All the kids were amazed at the close contact with a live PENGUIN! We adults weren't any less amazed and our hearts just melted.

Everyone went into high ecstasy over PINKY, everyone had their camera on standby to capture PINKY!

I took extra caution to switch my flashlight off so as not to send PINKY into shock... photos all came out lovely and sharp!!!!!)

PINKY was really shy, and he seems scared stiff as people crowd around him.

I waitied for awhile with my kids and then we approached it from a distance bit by bit.

The park keeper looking after the penguin glanced over at me and I asked him whether we could touch the PINKY lightly...

He said yes!!!! I thank him in gratitude, really wonderful, we could actually get a feel of the PINKY. My 3 sons were in CLOUD NINE again, I put their hand gently on the back of the penguin one by one and stroke PINKY as gently as possible.

Everyone around started to wait for a turn to get a feel of PINKY, all young and old were simply captivated by PINKY!!!! He's magical...

After the special PINKY meeting, we had to reluctantly bid farewell, my three boys were by this time wishing they could bring PINKY back home with them.

Making our exit, everyone gathered around to take more photos.

Suddenly, the video camera was facing me and I was asked how I felt about the CANON camera after using it

The verdict, this CANON IXUS 95 is simply user friendly, sensitive to motion which produces sharp picture on moving objects.

(comparing to my old digital camera, whenever I tried taking photos of my kids, I had to ask them to be still. Reason being, if they moved, the captured picture is blurish.)

PINKY is really smart, it senses the environment of each photo take with good supporting setting without me having to manually set it. All my photos turn out really natural and facial expressions were focused on with it's facial sensors capturing up to a number of 7!! I'm thoroughly impressed.

Another important factor, it's in my favourite color of PINK!!!!!!

We were told that it can be free and easy time, or we can go with the team for bird feeding session at the Bird Sanctuary.

Hubby and I decided we will do some exploration with the kids and let them decide where to go, so we thank the wonderful hardworking OMY.SG for all the lovely programs and effort they have spent on creating a memorable day for us.

Christopher loves owls after reading about them in story books, so we decided to visit the "WORLD of DARKNESS".

The OWLS here are really exotic and our favourite among them are the SNOWY OWLS!

I didn't take photos inside the exhibit as I don't want to utilise the PINKY's flashes and end up disturbing the peaceful owls...

Our family next stopped at the African Wetlands "ST LUCIA", heritage site located along the east coast of South Africa.

Egypt's famous expensive paper plant!!! It could be found in Jurong Bird Park, the product made from this plant is equisite, pricey and could last for hundreds of years!

Wow! If you haven't been to the Jurong Bird Park lately, you should bring your family down for all the wonderful exhibits there. You will be in for surprises just like us!
Love the photos taken using my PINKY camera?
I will be posting more wonderful creations from PINKY, be sure to come back for more.