Happy Winter Solstice!

It's Winter Solstice today.  Our ROM date too  :-)

Decided to try making "tong yuen" this year.

I didn't realise it's so easy to make!

Basic tong yuen without filling is just glutinous rice and water. To make it colourful, I used beetroot for red colour and pandan for green colour (but cheated a bit. My green turned out really pale so I used a wee bit of colouring)



Elyssa rolling Tong Yuen

She's pretty good at it! Better than her daddy. heh.  She complained daddy's tong yuen were not round enough so she practically re-worked all of them.

Erin uhm....wasn't so good at rolling

Just look at the masterpieces on her plate  ;-)

 

Before Cooking

Simple syrup to go with it - Gula Melaka, Ginger, Sugar and water boiled with Pandan leaves

Enjoy with wine!

Girls enjoyed making the tong yuen.  But as for eating it - Erin refused to swallow the ball.  Elyssa came down with a slight fever and went to bed right after dinner.  *sigh*.   Maybe next year!

 

Cameron Highlands Holiday - October 2014

From Penang, we stopped by in Ipoh to pick up MIL and then drove to Cameron Highlands. This part of the holiday had been planned months ahead. 4 families altogether - Neighbours holiday!  We live within the same housing area and we each have 2 kids around the same age.  How great is that??  Kids super, super love playing with each other!

Random photos-

Family photo at the tea plantation

My lil poser

At the strawberry farm

Afternoon picnic

We booked a lovely bungalow with 6 rooms called Valley View.

Hubby pitched a tent at the garden

 

Telematch time!

 

Some quiet tv time before bed time

Next day - did strawberry picking

 

Girls with their grandma

 

Cactus valley

 

Time Tunnel

Love these photos!

Playing while waiting for food

 

Best part is we didn't have to entertain the kids cos they were busy entertaining themselves. 

Already planning our next holiday together!  :-)

 

 

Penang Holiday - Oct 2014 (Part 2)

More photos from the Penang holiday-


After building sandcastles by the beach, we moved on to the swimming pool.

I loved the kids pool!

Why ?  1) Giant tarpaulin to shade them from the morning sun  2) Gradual descent into the pool (no steps) so it was easy for them to go in and out.   3) shallow (i think the water in the baricaded area came up to Elyssa's waist only)

The girls spent HOURS in the pool!  Hubby and I got tired after a while, so we just lounged around on the deckchairs. Yup, that's my giant feet in the pic  :-)

For lunch we decided to just order and eat by the pool.  Holiday meal - pizza, burger and fruit juice to share.  :-)

After lunch, we happily sent  allowed Elyssa to go to the kids room for their FREE kids programme. Whoo hoooo! She actually went 2 days in  row. A bit unsure on the first day (since Erin couldn't go and she didn't know anyone else) but was an eager beaver for the second time. On both days, she went for the 2pm -6pm slot. Can even extend up to 9pm for dinner (also free!) and a movie, but we decided not to.

Chilling and playing with daddy's phone while jie jie was in the kids room 

I love the resort-ty feel of the uhm..... resort  :-) 

From Day 2 of the kids program 

(for Day 2, we had to pay RM25 cos of the t-shirt painting. Day 1 was completely free)

Personalised T-shirt

Decorated Paper Bag

They made mini chocolate balls that day 

We walked along the beach after picking up Elyssa from the kids room. Lovely sunset! 

Went back to the hotel after dinner and managed to catch the last bit of a cultural performance. 

Next morning - buffet breakfast

My 2 princesses 

The Penang holiday (4d, 3n) just flew by so fast. Right after that, we continued our "up north" holiday to Cameron Highlands with 3 other families.

- to be continued-

Penang Holiday - Oct 2014

Some photos of our (not-so) recent Penang trip in October during Deepavali :

Jumping on the sand

Yay....my girls are finally ok to touch sand!

 

The 3 darlings in my life  :-)

I just love this photo!

Early morning walk before breakfast (Elyssa was still fast asleep)

 

Good way to learn numbers!

Erin happily stood in front of each door and read out the numbers as she walked down the corridor : "Theee faive nine, Theee faive seven, Thee faive faive and her favourite room : Theee Theee Theee!"

Needless to say, each walk up or down the corridor took up quite some time  ;-)

 

Playing ball in the kids playroom

Our hotel - Golden Sands Resort

Elyssa going down the water slide..... Wheeeee!

 

 

Building Sandcastles

Relaxing tea time...

 

It was really a relaxing holiday where we spent most of the time just lazing around.  Bliss!!  

Nice Smile for the Camera

I don't have many photos of a nice smiley Erin.  Why?  Because when I ask her to smile for the camera, I usually get this.....

SMILE!

and this....

SMILE!!

so I said, Erin OPEN your eyes.  Yes, she did that, but she forgot to smile and I don't know why the mouth must OPEN too.

Mummy say must OPEN eyes

Another attempt..

SMILE!

SMILE!

Wait..... try one more time

SMILE!

 

 

Oh, I give up!!  ;-)