Cherry Picking

On Sunday, 09 December 2007 we went cherry picking at the beautiful Red Hill, Mornington Peninsula. This was the first time we picked our own cherries & it was another one of those fun-filled moment day trip. All in all, we had a great time. A bit cherries overload .. but it was fun nonetheless.

to be continued in the next entry...

This is how we say Hello ..

We attended Amirah's school art Festival last week. It was one of the major year end events organized by the school and the parents club. It started at 5pm and finished at 8pm.

There were stalls selling ice cream, (a big hit because of the sunny day and for more obvious reason, kids!!! Who could resist ice cream??), sizzling sausages (it's Halal too.. isn't her school great?) and coffees. There were areas for arts and crafts; the do-it-yourself pins, buttons and cards, and areas where children have free access to aboriginal musical instruments such as the drums and the didjeridoos. The school hall was transformed into art gallery, displaying masterpieces from the students. The way they framed and arranged the drawings and paintings make you feel that you're visiting an Art Gallery. The paintings were labeled with the names of the artists and where they were from; medieval, renaissance or modern (read : grade prep, 1,2 ,3 ,4, 5, or 6). I found Amirah's fish collage amongst the display, right next to Monet and Da Vinci collections :P .. I'm a proud mom ..

It's interesting to see the level of participations from the students, teachers and especially parents. Some did volunteer work, helping out with the stalls, and some were there to give support and watch the performance by their children. Amirah's class was the second to perform on the stage. They came out with colorful ribbons on their wrist and each wore a hat that has different countries flag glued to it. They formed a semicircle and to my surprised, Amirah and another boy stepped out to the front, being some sort of dance routine leader. The song was about how you can say hello in various languages. I gooooogled and found the lyric. Here are some of the pictures taken that day. As usual..enjoy the pics.

In France they say Bonjour
In China they say Ni How



In India they say Namaste
In Zimbabwe they say Jambo



In Mexico they say Hola
In Japan they say Konichiwa
In Greece they say Kalamera



Sometimes we shake hands
We wave and we grin
We slap each other on the back
We say hi, how've been



In Germany they say Guten Tag
In Lithuania they say Labas
In Russia they say Strasvecha
And in Australia they say Good day.

Anak mama ker anak papa ni....

Terjumpa site ni masa tengah browse F_riend_ster page member. Looks like fun... and sesuai untuk orang2 yang takde keje ni ..:P ... So kalau terasa korang pun takde keje ..boleh aaa try jugak.

Amirah's new friends

Hmm.. sebulan lebih takde update ... takde cerita baru sebenarnya.. every weekend dalam bulan syawal lepas almost cerita yang sama. Open house..open house and open house again... very tiring weekends... yeah.. orang kg victoria ni rajin betul beraya :P ..

Cerita baru...kitorang dapat jiran baru. Amirah yang paling happy because jiran baru ni ada 3 orang anak and ada sorang girl yang sebaya dengan Amirah. They were from Columbia, baru jer sebulan datang Melbourne, so semua orang tak tau cakap English except for the father. They speak Spanish. The only common words yang Amirah and kawan baru dia share ialah uno .. dos..tres..cuatro..cinco..seises.. (too much of Dora the Explorer and Handy Manny :P ..)

Memperkenalkan kawan2 baru Amirah, Estafan (kalau tak salah dengar -7 yrs old), Juliana (pronounced Huliana - 5 yrs old), and Taufiq's new friend, I dunno-what-his-name (2 yrs old).
As usual..gambar....

Kanak-kanak riang di hari raya

Yang paling happy bila pegi open house di hari raya ialah budak-budak. Not because dapat makan lots of foods.. tak bersentuh pun makanan kadang2... and not because they can get lots of duit raya.. it's not even a custom here.. Amirah even puzzled getting a money from her favourite uncle " Ma, apasal Uncle ni kasik duit kat Mirah ni..?"
But the joy of hari raya for these kids ialah get to meet their friends and play with them. Sometimes boleh dapat kawan baru. When they meet each other only one thing matters "It's play time!!.." Best kan jadik budak-budak.

Congratulation to my sis..

Baru perasan ada gambar graduation dia kat her friendster.. so curik dua tiga keping ..and upload kat sini ...

12 years ago..I still remembered impian sorang budak kecik nak jadik doktor.. I think it was driven by my grandpa's death.. tokwan rupanya ada cancer paru-paru.. kitorang semua tak tahu until his death... i think even he himself tak tahu... as long as i can remember..dia tak pernah sakit... until that evening when dia jatuh semasa nak berwuduk ... and 3 days later, we lost the most loving and sporting grandpa we ever had...x-ray from hospital showed that his lungs was damaged beyond repair...

It's such a cliche saying that I want to be a doctor one day to help others because I lost my loved one, but that was what my sis did. And today I am a very proud sister. My little baby is now a doctor (oh..few of my friends still remember my sis as budak darjah 6 lagi..hehe.. time flies kan... ).

Congratulations Dr. Azad Eryani, Tokwan would be proud :)

Raya Update...

I was not feeling well during hari raya. The worst was the night before raya. Kalau tak memikirkan besoknya raya, and there were food to prepare, I would have slept the whole night thru. Instead, I did telan panadol sebijik (universal-cure-all-sakit-ubat), slept for 2 hours lepas maghrib, and woke up at 10.30 pm feeling a little bit better, and started all the preparations for cooking. The menu was Nasi Dagang and Nasi Impit with Kuah Kacang (sama jer menu macam last year..hehehe). Macam signature dish la pulak di pagi raya :)

Inilah rupanya nasi dagang bergulaikan ikan trevally and nasi impit with kuah kacang. No cookies as I am terribly bad at making cookies plus i have no tolerant for tedious cookies making. Carrot cake pun beli jer dari Sara Lee, sebab Ihsan tau how 'good' wife dia on baking.

What's the difference beraya di Malaysia and di Melbourne? Lagi meriah kot. Hari raya here started at Malaysian Hall, where most of us went there for sembahyang raya. Then, pegi beraya rumah kawan-kawan. There will be houses/hosts that volunteer untuk diserbu di pagi raya. Of course it was pre-arranged prior to raya on list of houses to visit. Emails were full of raya plan, tapi biasa lah.. on paper jer tu.. hari raya kan .. semua rumah always terbuka untuk diserbu :). Kalau ikut plan, my house 'bukak' on Hari Raya kedua...tapi alhamdulillah and nasib baik jugak buat extra nasi, ramai pulak tetamu di pagi raya. We then pegi from one rumah to another, sampailah ke malam. Raya kat Malaysia pun takde lah sampai 12 jam non-stop. It was fun, despite me being not well. Being surrounded with friends, kurang sikit rindu kat family in Malaysia. In a way, we have each other, friend are like families here.

So, selamat hari raya everyone. Enjoy your Syawal...

More pictures soon....

The best 2 years of my life ...

.. and more to come !!

Happy Birthday to ME !!!

Selamat Hari Raya

Ada yang nak buat sushi bukak puasa hari ni ker?

Kalau nak buat sushi, kena ada :

1. Sushi mat
2. Nori sheet atau seaweed sheet
3. Beras for sushi. Usually ada jual dalam packet special for nak buat sushi..or you can recognize beras tu by the appearance. Gemuk2 and pendek2. Common misconception ialah sushi was made using beras pulut ( i did :P..) sebab texturenya yang melekit2 dan berkilat. But really, it's the beras and the vinegar solution yang make the texture looks like that.

Any special skills kena ada :

1. Basic skill masak nasik.
2. Rock n roll :P

The first step for making sushi is to masak nasik. I usually masak the old fashion way atas stove, 2 cups of rice with 2 cups of water, ratio 1-1. Kalau nak guna rice cooker pun boleh jugak..sajer jer kasik tradiotional sket.
While rice is cooking, boleh prepare the vinegar solution, which consist of 6 sudu besar rice vinegar, 4 sudu besar gula,1 sudu teh garam, mix all and cook with api kecik jer until semua melt.

Bila nasik dah masak, kaut and put in a bowl, biar dia warm sket and start putting the vinegar solution sket2. Kacau slowly as not to smash the perfect sushi rice. Bila all dah nampak cam glossy shine and sticky to the touch, then voila, your rice is ready for rock and roll.

Nak roll ni i wud consider tricky part sikit. Odds are, the first time roll tu memang tak akan dapat shape yang diinginilah... so sabar... with practise, you'll be just fine. Letak seaweed atas sushi mat tadi and start putting your rice on top of the seaweed. Ratakan, leaving only about 2 cm seaweed uncovered at the end (to seal the rolling end). Don't put too much nasi, as long as you can still see seaweed sikit2 dicelah2 nasik tu, then you are on the right track :).

Letak la apa nak letak dalam sushi ni.. my favourite ialah crab stick, zucchini and avocado (potong panjang2). Roll your sushi. Kat last2 tu, basahkan the uncovered part of seaweed tadi and seal the whole rolling process.

Potong and ready to eat.

Gambar from my old entry. Aku ni pandai kasik resepi jer.. the last time i made sushi was hmmm.. bila ek?

What to do?

Been YMing with a friend... and you know when girls talk (err.. boleh lagi panggil girl ke kita ni eh?) .. we were rambling from one topic to another... about life being married..loving it... 'geram'ing it..loving it back..hehe.. you know the usual.. and somehow di bulan ramadhan ni.. kalau tak bersembang about makan tak sah.. what to do .. perut sometimes controlled what's on our mind... so yeah.. she said she made some major improvement in cooking .. proudly made a whole family dinner of nasik ayam last week... (okay if you really been blog hopping..hehe.. you sure know sapa yang aku tgh chat ni..hehhe.. ) .. and again she made nasik minyak yesterday.. bravo! ... apparently, married life agrees with you darling.... anyway.. while we were sharing my sushi recipe .. I did said to her that I've been thinking of uploading any recipe yang aku tau in my blog.... (considering errr.. how very dedicated I am to blogging) .. at least there will constantly be a new entry..(hopefully) ..
She said to go for it.. but hmm.. suddenly terasa macam malu pulak.. macam ler terer sangat aku ni masak sampai nak kasik recipe2 ni..hehehe.... don't we have too many of a recipe blogs/websites/FPs already? Takkan mine pun nak turn into one kot...hmm... so what do you think?

Mt Buller trip

Gambar-gambar ihsan daripada fotopages anor and asyiek.Gambar from our camera was accidently deleted.Ingatkan dah transfer masuk computer, rupanya belum lagi. The whole July collection was gone.

This was the first time kitorang sampai kat Mt Buller. First salji untuk Taufiq and Amirah. This year pegi sight seeing dulu. Hopefully next year boleh main ski.

Ramadhan Kareem

I got this from my mailing list email. There were lots of Selamat Menyambut Ramadhan wishes..and one of them got my attention. The email simply said "Ramadhan Kareem..... Allahu Akram" when asked, the sender explained that this is amalan dalam Islam di negara-negara Arab. When the month of Ramadhan comes, mereka akan mengucapkan Ramadhan Kareem, dan di jawab dengan Allahu Akram untuk mengalu-alukan kedatangan bulan Ramadhan.

Ramadhan Kareem - ertinya Ramadhan yang mulia
Allahu Akram - ertinya Allah itu lebih mulia

So now you know :) (for those yg baru tau mcm aku jugak..yg dah tau tu tak salah kan refresh the memory..)

RAMADHAN KAREEM!

Selamat menyambut Ramadhan

It's gonna be my second Ramadhan here. To all muslim out there, use this opportunity wisely. Perbanyakkan amal... semoga Allah ampunkan dosa-dosa kita.

" Tuhanku aku tidak layak untuk syurgaMu
Tapi aku tak tahan siksa nerakaMu
Dari itu Ya-Allah kurniakan ku taubat
Ampuni dosaku
Sesungguhnya Engkau Maha Pengampun dosa-dosa besar"

Selamat menyambut Ramadah al Mubarak.

Al-Fatihah

Papa Ihsan telah pulang ke rahmatullah tengahari semalam. Alhamdulillah, semua telah selesai. Biarlah Papa berehat. Allah lebih mengetahui apa yang terbaik untuk Papa. Kami sekeluarga redha. Semoga roh Papa dicucuri rahmat dan ditempatkan dikalangan orang2 yang mulia. Al-fatihah.

Spice Girls with kids

Baru perasan ada gambar me and my kids dalam blog Konot. Padahal, that was like her 2,3 days old entry oredi..hehe.. either she was too committed doing this blogging thing..hehehe (which is true) or I'm the lazy ones (which is also true).. I checked my own blog pun kadang2 tu sampai 3 hari sekali okay.. apatah lagi nak dutifully checked other people's blog... sorry dear..but i do read yours religiously (if not everyday)..

Go here to see rockin' mommies :P
This was during my short visit to KL. We did a short get together at Konot's house. It was fun :).

We missed KL

We were in KL for 5 days. So many things to do, so little time... tapi yang penting sib baik sempat shopping ..hehehehe..

*yawn*

Lagik entry cut and paste.. see.. dah ada tulis siap pun lama giler aku nak upload kat sini..hehehe... kalau dah malas tu...

***

Dah 2 minggu di Terengganu.. having nothing to do .. time seems to be running rather slowly.... My highlight of the day would be Amirah asking " Pa / Ma .. hari ni kita nak pegi jalan mana?" So that i don't feel as guilty going out of the house.. Amirah yang nak keluar jalan2 kan.. :) ..


Jalan2 pun, paling best was going to Mydin...jangan gelak.. bukanlah macam Mydin kat Jalan Tar tu.. ni kira updated Mydin, version Giant Shah Alam. So, ada playground for budak2 nak main.. ada kedai mamak with wifi connection, so that we can have our teh tarik while updating ourselves with Internet world (how i missed my broadband kat rumah... huhuhuhu) .. and ada popcorn yang sungguh sedap... everytime datang mesti tak miss beli.. apa ntah yang dia letak kat dalam tu sampai it's a must-have. Pop corn kat Melbourne tak sedap.. very masin. Malaysia jugak yang best.. (but not recommended untuk orang2 yg ada diabetes)..

Satu lagi kegemaran balik Terengganu ialah pegi pasar malam.. almost everyday mesti ada pasar malam kat mana2 .. i mean different areas sekitar rumah my in law... and everytime pegi, I will be looking for this particular guy yang jual apam balik . Semua pasar malam mesti ada mamat ni, which is good because i so like apam balik. Kalau aku tak pegi pun Ihsan will come back with at least RM 2 worth of apam balik from this guy (6 bijik size mini) for his beloved wife. Senang kan nak ambik hati aku ni.. hehehe.. beli apam balik jer..:P

I think bandar Kuala Terengganu dah running out of places dah kitorang nak jalan2.. so we decided to naik bot pulak. There's this jetty depan Pasar Payang yang ada boat service for people dari pulau2 kecik kat depan tu untuk datang ke bandar Terengganu, so we hopped in one of those boats and made pegi balik trip. Taufiq and Amirah was very excited. Me however, was worried about my white trousers getting stained with minyak hitam yang ada all over the lantai :P .. Anyway, the kids were happy and Ihsan finally fulfilled his 6 years long of promise nak bawak aku naik bot tu. Thanks dear. (Satu lagi ye promise tak buat lagik.. jgn lupa nak bawak I pegi Pulau Kapas pulak ok ...).

And Taufiq was introduced to his first experience of mandi laut. We went to Pantai Chendering near Ihsan's house. I was very excited for Taufiq, until Ihsan said " You tau tak diorang tak allowed orang mandi2 kat sini sebab ada orang dah mati.." err... okay... maybe not full mandi laut..just main2 kat gigi air jer .. anyway Taufiq and Amirah were having a good time main pasir and main air . I think they too, like their mum.. love the beach. There's something very romantic about walking by the beach.. feeling the sands in between your toes .. watching the sun comes down.... ---- stop day dreaming lah Ayu..anak tengah nangis tu...heheheh...

Okaylah..till next time..I am looking forward for next week. We are going to KL.
*sigh* .. I wanna say "yay'.. but somehow it felt so wrong..