Kidz 2011 Year-end Party

The Kidz year-end party was held yesterday AFTER the trip to the Taman Pertanian Bukit Cahaya in Shah Alam. This event was held basically for kids ages 5-12 years old.  All the kids were told to come in a costume and prizes will be given to the best 3 children who took extra effort to dress up.

The party started with singing.

Even the teachers were in their costumes!!!

Most of the children wore a costume. Lion King, Minne Mouse and Mulan were invited for the party too.

Heather's 4 children were all looking good in their costumes.

More interesting costumes. 2 erm.. transformers, I think, the THING, a vampire, PHUA CHU KANG, Cleopatra, and a ballet girl.

Playing games with their costumes on is quite difficult!!

The green bean game. The children had to collect green beans using the back of their hands and transport them to another place. At the end of the game, even the floor was filled with tiny green beans!!

The judges picked out 14 contestants.

The contestants will have to act out their roles.

The judges decision was final. The warrior, the fairy and the vampire were the winners. I'm sure many children were disappointed that they didn't win.

Food was abundant but it wasn't long before the food was gone because the children were so hungry.

Taman Pertanian Malaysia Bukit Cahaya Seri Alam

This was planned as an Aspirers outing and my sis and I were invited to join the Youths. :D I called Minch along too. So there were like 4 adults and 27 youths who went for this trip.We paid RM15 each for entrance fee and transport. I don't think 31 of us covered for the bus fees itself. :(

So, we were told to meet at church at 7am. Jian took attendance. The bus came about 7.15am and we left at 7.30am.

It was free seating and I sat in front with one of the Youths. :D

It was drizzling lightly when we arrived at the park.

Anne got us our tickets and we were ready to go in.

The park was huge but 'walkable''.

Some of us wanted to rent bicycles, but we were too late to rent the cheaper ones. We expected to a RM3 - RM5 per hour bike rental but they have only have the RM10 per hour bikes left.

There are 3 ways to get from one place to another -
1)cycle
2)catch a tram
3) walk

 We all walked and were envious of the cyclists cycling ahead of us.

Our first stop was the Animal Garden.

We spent some time looking at the animals and taking pictures of them.

I think all of us have not been to this place before, so most of the time we just kept walking ahead hoping to get to somewhere.. anywhere interesting.

We stopped for a break. Some of us brought food while others bought mee-in-my-cup and burgers.

The next taman - the Mushroom Garden.

A look-out point.

It was very steep. Those with big feet would have trouble descending.

A mini exercise spot.

A moving wooden platform.

Jared was being vain again. :D

It started to rain again and Anne hurried us to a shelter. We were running late. It was about 12.20pm and we told the bus driver that we should be out by 12noon.

It didn't rain for long though and we walked back to the entrance. By 1pm we were all safely in the bus going back to Seremban. 

Baking with OLD New Equipments

Two days ago, I made these - chocolate banana cake and banana muffins. Both were delicious. :D

So, I already have 2 cake mixers. The Kenwood (white) mixer is quite old, probably more than 5 years and I send it for repair once last year and it's not that good now. I bought a new Faber mixer when I had the Kenwood repaired, so now I have 2 mixers.

Guess what? A kind elderly lady in church noticed my interest in baking and decided to donate her old heavy duty Kenwood mixer to me. She bought it 2nd hand for RM280 in the 1970s. She hasn't been using it for many years now and thought of giving it away.

Well, I'm the happy recipient. :D I always wanted to own one of these heavy duty mixers but my little interest doesn't justify paying so much, plus the very fact that I already have 2 mixers. 

It's a Kenwood Chef model A.701A.

Look at all the extra stuff it can do on this mixer. Gosh!! Anyway, I only received the machine (obviously), along with the "K" beater, whisk and the jug liquidiser. It's good enough for me. :)

Oh yeah, have I ever told you about my oven?

This is my first oven. It was given to me by my dear friend, Ruth, when she bought a bigger oven. Hmm... what was the year, I can't recall, but I guess it's probably in the year 2006.

And then last year, on the 27th of March, my aunt gave me her old oven. It's probably 30 years old or something.:) I love it. It bakes very well, much better than the small oven and I am able to bake more in a shorter time. 

I also got this cooling tray recently. It's so useful because I bake a lot of cookies at a time. I first spotted it in a kitchenware type of shop and it cost about RM49. I thought it was too expensive so I didn't get it at that time. After a few weeks I saw the exact one in a DIY shop. It was only RM25.90. I grabbed it and was very pleased with how much I saved. :) 

Aspirers - The Next Level

Aspirers is finally moving from the chapel to ARC, the bungalow right behind our church. Anne, the youth leader was especially pleased about the move. It means, more space to grow since the chapel is really cramped for space.

They started their move at 4pm in the chapel. After reminiscing about how far Aspirers had come up to this stage, they were ready to leave the chapel which they called "home" for 5 years.

 

They even SEALED the entrance. NO TURNING BACK!! 

Walking towards the new bungalow.

Pastor Sally officiated the opening of the new Aspirers place by cutting the ribbon. It is a 2.5 storey bungalow and Aspirers will only be using the 1st floor.

Aspirers entering the hall after Pastor Sally and Anne.

First worship and pray in this place. There were about um... 70 people and the place looked cramped to me. The hall is small, but there's another hall at the other end of the floor and the compound outside this floor is big. 

Makan time. Too many people, not enough food, or maybe the Youths were just too hungry. :D

Souvenirs From Hawaii

My sister is back from Hawaii. This is her 2nd trip there. This time I didn't really expect much souvenirs from her because she should have all the interesting gifts covered during her first trip. :)

She got me these :-

A pink T-shirt, a um whatchamacallit waterproof container, a short stainless steel cup, a mote pad, a hair-clip, an ANTI-BOTTLE, and a pair of create-any-pattern-you-like sandals. 

I find 3 items interesting :-

The waterproof container is practical for our PD outings.
The anti-bottle is a flexible container that stands when it's full and folds when it's empty.
The sandals. With just a pair of rubberize soles, strings and patterned hooks you can create so many designs.

Merdeka Day - 16 Sept 2011

We started our day playing badminton. It was a holiday here in Malaysia and many of our youth friends turned up.  

Since there were so many youths, Rachel's car was full, 7 of us in her sedan.

We went for breakfast cum lunch. We were so looking forward to have our 3-layer tea, but FS, the food court which we usually go to did not have it. So after lunch, Jared, my sis and I purposely went to Ah Seng's coffee shop to have our 3-layer tea.

Oh, it was also after UPSR, a compulsory nationwide exam for the primary school students, and my niece had already made plans to go to PD with her friends.Rachel and I decided to tag along. We called Arnold and Brian too. Earlier during badminton, we also told Danny (knew him from our recent Kinabalu climb) about our plans to PD and he said he would bring his family and meet us at Teluk Kemang, a popular beach spot in PD.

At about 3pm, it started to get dark and we could hear thunder and the rain eventually came down. In the car, my niece prayed for the rain to go stop and that the weather would be good. When we reached Teluk Kemang, the sun began to shine so brightly and it was so hot that all of us put sun block on our faces and bodies. 

We brought along our colourful tubes. There were only 3 tubes, so they had to share.

Sue-Yi's first visit to the beach. She enjoyed it so much.

En and her friends.

Danny came slightly later. We played volleyball on the beach. It was fun.

The kids came out of the water to build sand castles.

Later, Danny and Rachel tried to set up her sailboat kite. They took more than an hour to fix it. A guy came along to help too. By that time it was too late to fly the kite.

Beautiful sunset. :)
As usual, we left way after the sun set. It was close to 9pm when we reached Seremban.

We had dinner at Bidara.The children weren't that hungry because they ate the sandwiches and cakes we brought to the beach.

Rum & Raisin Slice

Had the sudden urge to bake something. I had rum, I had raisin and just enough eggs to make a rum & raisin cake. :)

I also had a very short time to bake because I had a waterfall outing appointment in 1.5 hours.

I switch off the oven 10 minutes sooner than I should, but it still turned out nice and moist. I can't really taste the rum. Maybe the next try I'll put more rum, or get a better quality one.

Gonna bring it for my badminton kaki tomorrow. :) They are my guinea pigs and they won't feel guilty on putting on weight because I will offer to them only AFTER a few games of badminton. :D