what's in, what's out...

What are these tiny red spots on the trees? Yes, cherries!

We drove some 45 min out of Frankfurt to a nearby town just to buy our favourite cherries. You must be wondering why the trouble? 2 years back, Alan was told that Frauenstein produced the best cherries in this region around Frankfurt. So we followed the instructions given, drove along the motorway, exited at Wiesbaden-Frauenstein, bashed through the village and found the famous Kirschbluetenstrasse (literally translated into the street of cherry blossoms). We did not do the ritual last year due to the terribly mild winter in 06/07. Cherries were already in season as early as April. And by this time last year, we were back in Singapore for Alan's mid year review at his company. But this year, we return with a vengeance to get as much cherries and cherry produce as possible.

Just a little of 3 kgs of fresh cherries we bought.

Have you seen this type of cherries before? First thought: Gee, they look so sour!

But no, they tasted even sweeter than the classic dark burgundy ones!

I was told that this type of cherries is called Renee. Not only do they taste sugary sweet, their skin is also much more delicate/thinner. I think just like your Royal Gala, they get "bruised" easily. But it means that the skin goes down easily. Now I don't have to worry about Kristin spitting out the skin, though I have to convince her to give these cherries a chance. She's not buying the colour. They look ridiculously sour to her.

The classic good old cherries, yum!

This is definitely out. We drove past the strawberry patch on Sunday morning on our way to church. There were still people picking them, but I wonder how much they would harvest at the end of the day. With some luck, you can still find some sweet and aromatic ones at farm houses. However, self-harvesting isn't worth it anymore.

So that concluded our little excursion on a Saturday afternoon.

bACk from the hottest musical...

Here are some of our favourites from the Philadelphia Chickens:

Bryan: Pig Island, Fifteen Animals, Jump Rope Jive, Cows

Alan: BusyBusyBusy

Cindy: Snuggle Puppy, Please Can I Keep It, BusyBusyBusy

Kristin: Belly Button, Cows, Be Like a Duck


Serena, Adeline & RK: Jive along!

The Cows Song

Here's the Cows song mentioned below, well only the first 20 sec...
I was going to upload the MP3 but I think there would be copyright issues...
:)

Philadelphia Chickens...

Nope, they're not for eating, and definitely not finger-licking good. Far from it!

It's one of Sandra Boynton's New York Times Best Sellers fun musical written for young and old. During our recent road trip to Lake Constance, this was among the repertoire of children's CDs we took along. My SIL, a primary school teacher, was acutely tickled by the songs, while my children sang along with great passion to the all the tunes, be it jazz, rock n roll or blues.

Just a couple of days back, as part of our daily wind-down ritual before bedtime, I decided to just sing. If I read a book, I would probably have to sing it too... so why don't I sing from songs I actually know?

And boy, was I surprised!

I got an in-house singer. As we hit the repeat button for the umpteenth time in the car, Bryan was secretly rehearsing and enjoying his favourite songs.

The opening piece to this funny musical is a jazzy tune, paying tribute to cows. After we sang the main stanza and chorus, Bryan continued, "A turn of the head and a swish of the tail and a tippity-*tup of the toes. What a glorious sight *on black and white, and a touch of pink at the nose!" My jaws dropped! He was singing the bridge to the correct tap of a jazzy beat and tune. Oh, how I wish he could tap dance at the same time! Tell me, I'm not asking too much here, right?

Note the asterisks? Well, it should have been tippity-tap and in. But what more can I expect? He can't read much yet. He's singing all of the song out of memory.

If you haven't heard Sandra Boynton's silly songs before, please, grab a copy from Amazon.com. I bet you'll never regret getting the Philadelpphia Chickens.

This is definitely my recommendation for the summer!

kristin's first year of school...

This was the apprehensive little girl on her first day of school. A little nervous and excited, but she did not shed a single tear! Yay!



Just before the Holiday break, here's Kristin posing as a little Santarina.



And now, a big girl at Preschool graduation!

I was always baffled whenever people tried to tell me how much Kristin has grown, or how she didn't look like a little baby anymore. To me, she's still that little baby I've been cradling since Day 1. But looking back at these three shots, yes, I hate to admit it, Kristin has lost that innocent baby face.

en route...

A wonderful shot of us on the German Autobahn A8 made possible by my SIL and brother following closely behind us on this: 

Guess who had the better car? 

Yes, we were driving down to Lake Constance for the weekend.

anniversary

Yep, it was 6 years ago on June 8th that Alan and I exchanged our vows. Our friends Andrzej and Elke flew in from Germany to attend our wedding. 6 years later, we're back at their farm visiting them with our kids. Hee... very nice. 

Nothing much of a celebration, but we were on a coach ride again! And we had sweet waffles with strawberry/banana milkshake and ice-cream for tea. No wonder the Brits call it the Sugar Anniversary! 

And precisely what we did? 

Hey... working hard to press out hay! 

Plesseburg

 

Here we are again in Plesseburg in summer. Compare this with our little picture in the right hand column of our blog. Take away the snow and snow suits, add a couple of years. That's us again! :) 

farm-fresh strawberries... part 3

Alright, there's no need to scroll down for part 2. Part 2 was last Thursday - a spur of the moment decision after the kids and I had ice-cream with my brother and sister-in-law, plus some tai-tai's in Frankfurt. We didn't know what to do. So instead of loitering around in the city centre while waiting for Alan to knock off work, I thought picking strawberries would keep the children busy out at the field and the adults relaxed and happy. Ha... did I sound like I was making my kids pick strawberries for me? No, I meant to say their energy would be well expended. Bryan would be hopping around from rows to rows, picking only a handful of strawberries, while Kristin would be too busy eating whatever she could lay her hands on.

Anyway, yesterday was part 3. Alan was in Berlin and I had the car. Forecast had it that it would be raining by Thursday... and rain? The good strawberries will be gone! And this is considered the high season! So what are we waiting for? Harvesting strawberries after I picked up the kids from school was the only thing on my mind. Another spontaneous idea, yet again without my Lumix!

We came home with 6+ kgs!
And I have been having
1) crushed strawberries with cream - yum!
2) strawberries on butter cookie with whipped cream - see the pic? Yum!
3) strawberry on cream pudding on cake - yum! Had to make plenty of these to give away in school.
4) strawberry + banana milkshake - yum!

I think crushed strawberries with sweet red wine (served chilled) would be next!

Bao: You gotta go pick some this weekend before it starts raining again.

happy handprints!

This was something I wanted to do with Bryan since I read ky's blog 4.5 months ago. I asked her for permission to reproduce the idea when Bryan's birthday draws nearer.

Bryan's a summer baby, but by August most of his friends would have either left for the States or would have been off on vacation. So everything is in fast-forward. We're planning a big 5 bash for him in an indoor playground on Saturday in 2 weeks. And the fun starts now with the DIY invites. Besides, it's a great way to have a pair of handprints for keepsake since we all know how fast children grow.

Of course, it will not be fair if Kristin hadn't tried her hand at handprinting too...

summer's here...

Like my new header? Yeah, it's getting scorching hot here. I think we might have got a little sun-burnt yesterday at our friends' farm.

Here's Alan earning our stay there... we the city-dwellers were trying to press out hay. Hard work, sweat!

it's here!

It's finally here. My brother and sister-in-law arrived on Tuesday night and handed me my swanky MacBook! It feels goooood! Yes, it's official: I'm a Mac convert now! 

Though there are tonnes of getting to know with my new toy, it feels great to be able to surf freely everywhere at home. With my old laptop, I was locked to the desk even though there's wireless connection at home. I needed AC power all the time and the battery would die on me after 5 min. But now, it's at least 3.5 hours of surfing in the bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, living room, at the dining table, out at the patio, everywhere and anywhere!

Ok, I know this is not Macbook Air, but this song is ringing in my head for two days now: 

After all, I just relocated, virtually.

ms bean next to Palmengarten...

Hee, I've been inspired by Lilian's post. The question she asks is really quite intriguing, but I guess I can't just sacrifice Kristin's seedlings for an experiment. Hers are doing pretty well since early April.

Oh... I just remember what my mom told me: Don't nip off the shoot though.

Lilian: If you put Sean's seedling here on my balocny, I bet it'll still thrive even without leaves! I told you before, anything and everything grows. I spent two years to get rid of my mint, which, by the way, I tried to eradicate by pulling out leaves, roots and all but somehow some little bits of it were left in the soil and they infested my flower boxes like weeds for two years! They even managed to "strangle" my sage!

did you know...

Bryan: Mommy, did you know that this is called the carapace? The shell part here.

Bryan was giving me a lesson on zoology this morning as I emptied his art bag from school. He was waving his hand around what a normal person would just say the hard shell protecting the tortise. According to the Dictionary of Difficult Words on the Internet, carapace means "exo-skeleton; protective shell of tortoise." Of course, I didn't know.

Me: Who told you that?
Bryan: Ms Judy.
Me: Are you sure? I'm gonna check it later on the Internet.
Bryan: And Mommy, the other side is called plastron. The belly part. (Then he flipped the tortise around.)

Me: Hmmm... ermm, ok, I will check.

I did check. He's right. I didn't even know how to spell the words. But thank goodness, phonics helped me to get them right.
Ok, nothing impressive here since he's regurgitating what he learnt in school last week.

This doesn't show how much my son knows, rather how little Alan and I know!
Best part was this:

Alan: Wow... you know, you can tell me this again tomorrow. Because I won't remember what they are by then.

Hey, so our son is doing a little better. He still remembers his turtle after a week!
Yesterday he was trying to tell me something about the anatomy of an insect. Now I can't treat what he says lightly, can I? I might learn more than I think I would.

a cool morning...

We awoke to a little cooler morning at 18 deg C!
I have absolutely no idea how we've been sleeping the last two weeks. It's getting a little too hot for my comfort.

Rain will come, more often this week - so the forecast has it.