Gingerbread Houses - Trial Run

A few days ago, Anne (Aspirers Youth Leader) asked if I could make a gingerbread house for the Aspirers Christmas party next month. I hesitated because I haven't mastered the cement, also known as the royal icing to glue the pieces together to make it into a house.

I thought maybe I should have a trial run first, so yesterday I called Becky to see if she wanted to help and she was like YESSSSSSSSSSSSSS. I also asked if we could use her kitchen to set up the houses. It wasn't a problem, she said. 

So I made the house pieces and with the left overs, I made some gingerbread men.

Notice my plug? After baking, I tried to pull it out from the socket, but I couldn't. The next day, Mctc helped to pull it out and lo and behold...the plug was a goner. The socket was damaged too. We had to call an electrician to replace the socket and plug.

The next day, my sis and I arrived at Becky's house at 4pm. Liz was there too. Yay! The more the merrier. :D

I made the cement while the others set up the table and arrange the house pieces. I made 3 different houses.

My cement worked. The secret was, to beat it for at least 10 minutes!!!

The girls were having fun decorating the houses.

Here's Becky's masterpiece.

And here's Liz's.

The girls and their men. :D

Becky's doing an operation on one of the men.

Having fun mixing the colours.

It was nearly 8 pm when we were done.

We cleaned up the kitchen and and called Shaphan, another youth, to yam char with us. We passed the biggest gingerbread house to him because we don't know what to do with it. :D On the way to the shop, we called Jian to join us too.

Some random pictures of the youths at the makan shop.

It was certainly a fun evening. :D

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.