France Road Trip in July

No time to blog, so let the photos tell the story... 

our photobook with Shutterfly. 

Having fun with hor-fun...

I never really appreciate simple hawker food until I'm overseas. One can buy simple dishes like char kueh teow, fried carrot cake or hor-fun easily at any hawker centre without thinking much of the preparation process. 

In my student's days, I had my share of experimenting in the kitchen. I used to stay up late at night working on a carrot cake (not the sweet cake!) recipe from my mom. Or I was always an eager player when someone needed help to make guotie or jiaozi. During one of Alan's birthday in Berlin, I remembered we made lots of finger food, e.g. curry puffs, po-piahs and pan-fried carrot cake. 

However, that's all history now. Those were the good old days where there were no children in my life. Nowadays, I'm not so BIG with kitchen experiments anymore. Cooking/Food isn't really a big thing now. The only BIG thing on my mind during each meal time is HOW CAN I FEED KRISTIN QUICKLY! 

Last Sunday, we decided to give the Chinese restaurant in Bad Homburg another try. It was disappointing the last time we ate there. But I thought it was because of the street festival crowd, thus the busy restaurant couldn't come up a decent hor-fun dish. Yet, dinner on Sunday was equally disappointing. I don't think we would be back again. 

Actually I had in mind to do char kueh teow for lunch today so that I could freeze some of it for dinner tonight. It would be an easy dinner since we have swimming for the evening on agenda. 

Then I thought, I could try for a hor-fun lunch instead.

It turned out pretty well. In fact, Bryan said it was his best lunch ever. (By the way, he uses the superlatives when it's something he likes). He hasn't quite tasted the original hawker hor-fun yet. In any case, it's better than what the restaurant served - that's what he said! 

Looks like I haven't quite lost it: A group of friends (2 from Munich and 2 from Berlin) once came to visit and cook hor-fun for me when I was a student in Kassel. Though it happened eons ago, the recipe is certainly still fresh in my head. So are the good old days... 

Ok, this was lunch: 

The fried kway teow...

The sauce... 

The dish... 

The verdict... 

definition of the week...

Bryan: Look, Mom, it's a bib!

Bryan exclaimed happily as he showed me how he had bitten off his Gelbwurst into the shape of a bib. 

Mommy: Do you know what a bib is? 

Bryan: Yes, of course. It's something a baby wears around her neck so that her clothes will not be dirty when she eats. 

Hmmm, looks like he hasn't forgotten why he had one on when he was a baby. 

France, Road Trip, Part 1

When Alan showed  this to me on our Lumix, I thought, "What? Blue screen on camera?" 

He told me he took a picture of the sky! 

So to prove to you that the weather was absolutely fabulous throughout our road trip, this was how the sky looked like, every day! 

These pictures were taken in Sault, one of the days when we did the lavender route. It was actually late in the evening about 8.45pm. 

harvest...

I still haven't watered my plants for obvious reasons: 

1) It's been predicted to rain the next few days. 

2) The weather's been cool. Definitely not a sweltering hot summer here. No need to drown my plants. 

A vast difference from the glorious week we spent in Provence and Cote d' Azur where temperature was always a pleasant 27 deg, dry and breezy. 

When we came home, we found some fruits/veg ready for harvesting. My mom always tells me to snip off dried leaves, wilting flowers and of course, in this case, fruits that are harvest ready. In that way, the nutrients in the soil will be used effectively for the other buds to bloom and thus yielding more fruits. No books there... just some wise words from someone who used to spend her free time in her youth working in a pineapple plantation - definitely not her favourite pastime though. 

The kids and the crops

an experiment in botany...

Question: Will a plant survive when all its leaves are snipped off? 

Before I left for our road trip to Provence, I snipped off the leaves on one of my rose plants. Well, I wasn't exactly doing this for the sake of a scientific experiment, rather there were too many aphids growing on it and I had to chop off the leaves since the pesticide did not work. 

When I came back late last night, rather in the earlier hours today, the first thing I did was to check my balcony of plants that have gone without water since July 5th! (I still haven't watered them this afternoon.) To my surprise, this was what I saw on my rose plant: 

Of course, the picture was taken much later today. It was pitch dark when we came home.

See the young leaves shoots? 

Hey, my rose did not die! 

Now I'm waiting for Lilian to report on her pea plant. Read her post here. 

P/S. Sarah, I don't think I'll try for a spice garden in Sg. The reason why I'm so into gardening here is that I don't have to water my plants every day, nor do I have to check the water on the dish below the flower pots. The flower boxes come with soil which is fertile with pollens from the Botanical Gardens in my backyard, and the plants don't require water every day. They are sort of out in the open! So even when I'm off on vacation, I don't have to bother anyone to help me water my plants. That's why gardening is made easy here! ;) 

a picnic a day...

keeps the children healthy and gay! Ok, I mean gay in the good old Middle English way!

Yep, we live next to the Botanical Gardens of Frankfurt. And I know back in Singapore, the Botanical Gardens will never be in my backyard. Not a chance, man!

So while it still lasts - the good weather, the good life here, I gotta be in Palmengarten on every possible sunny day. This was the third time this week. I'm slowly running out of ideas on how to entertain the kids. We did bubbles, rolling on grass, animal movements, football, soccer, water play, playing tag, pretending to walk on tight rope, scissors-paper-stone all this week...

While Daddy took a cab to the airport, we took a walk in the park. It's a fun lazy Sunday afternoon thing. Just the kids and me, a picnic under a huge tree.

Hmm, I think our toes really resemble one another!

Somehow, my kids never failed to attract attention as they trotted along behind me across Palmengarten. I guess it's the same back in Singapore: We'll be so enamoured with kids of a different ethnic group.

of greens, reds and purples...

This will be my last year of gardening. In the beginning, I was overwhelmed by the lavish space for flowers. I really didn't know what to do. We moved in November 2005, and that winter was long and hard. Most of the flower boxes were buried by snow for most part of the winter. But once spring arrived, I was pulling out weeds almost every week. That was when I was "called" to put some plants into the flower boxes.

So here they are... I'm missing them already. I won't be able to move them back to Singapore. And the next tenant will probably "murder" them all. Sniff! Though most of the plants won't survive the winter, my poor lavender and roses perhaps won't live to see the next spring.

Self-harvesting some lavender for the guest bathroom...

the longest word is...

SUPERCALIFRAGILISTICEXPIALIDOCIOUS... yay...!

When Bryan started to ask me for the 99th time about arriving at our hotel in Friedrichshafen in the car a couple of weeks ago - our road trip to Lake Constance, I decided to distract him a little:

Me: So Bryan, do you wanna learn the longest word in the world?

Bryan: Yeah.

Me: It's super-

Bryan: Super-

Me: cali- , fragi- listic- expi- ali- docious, while Bryan was mouthing each part after me. Not bad, the fella got it within the last 10 minutes of our drive, while Dad and Mom were a bit confused with the navigation.

We haven't thought much of the word since the episode until last Saturday evening. Bryan suddenly blurted it out after dinner, It's supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. Hmmm... he still remembers it. And oh, it's time he watches Mary Poppins, I thought.

When Alan left for London on Sunday afternoon, I decided to let Mary Poppins do the babysitting, for the first time ever. She was just perfect for Bryan. But the hocus pocus didn't work with Kristin. Sigh...

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.