Weekend Camp at Radiant Retreats - Part 3

-- continued from Part 2 --    (Ooopss....am super slow these days!)

After their nature art activity, we went on a short drive to an organic farm.

               Caretaker explaining their planting methods

    Some of the plants we saw - cabbage, asparagus, passion fruit and pumpkin

        Kids in a wagon.  Hehe......I think this picture is so cute!

       Erin "harassing" a poor dog. Kids followed the dog everywhere until the dog ran away :-)

Hubby and I enjoyed the organic farm visit too!  Pretty educational.

After the farm visit, we had a short break and then it was time for the next activity - Outdoor Obstacle Course. Forgot to take photo of the whole obstacle course, but the highlight for Elyssa was the wall climbing.

     Wall climbing

Elyssa was very scared initially, but still managed to climb all the way to the top to ring the bell! 

She was super proud of her feat  :-)

Ding! Reaching over to ring the bell

She climbed this wall twice

Feeling brave after the first wall, she eagerly climbed the next wall 

Next activity was paintball. (or more like using a paintball gun to hit a target).  Kids happily queued up but the activity was cancelled cos the paintball gun ran out of gas.  :(

Ah well.....what to do. We went for lunch shortly after.

It started to rain a little during lunch.  But that didn't hamper the kids enthusiasm at all.

Happy to wear their raincoats for their fishing activity

Elyssa and Erin fishing

Uhmm....actually, Elyssa was fishing.

Erin just took her fishing rod and stuck it in the water ;-)

Hubby and I tried to catch a fish without any success. When Elyssa took the rod from us, she was THRILLED when she caught one!! 

Elyssa with the fish she caught

Ok, it was a super small fish. But still better than mummy and daddy!

She caught 3 more after that. She shrieked in delight in time.  Priceless moments :-)

 

 

Next was a classroom activity about understanding plants -

 

 With Teacher Kenny

Then, a short session about Roselle Plants-

Explanation session about Roselle

Tastes like Ribena.

We took some seeds back and planted in our garden already. Hope they grow :-)

Next was a nature walk to identify plants/trees. Each kid was given 10 tags - durian tree, cempedak tree, banana tree, rambutan tree etc.  The facilitator explained major characteristics of each tree (Hey, I didn't know durian tree leaves are green on the upperside and golden on the underside!)

Elyssa tagging a durian tree

 

And sadly that was the last official activity of the camp.  How time flew by!

 

Elyssa requested to go and play in the tent one last time (Erin fell asleep during the nature walk)

 

Happy in the tent

 

Since Erin was still sleeping, we stayed a little longer after the camp ended. No complaints from Elyssa!

Playing with other kids

So, that concluded our very first camping experience!!  Both girls enjoyed it very much indeed. Back home, Elyssa couldn't wait to tell everyone about it.

My take on it?  The first day was ok, but I think it was the second day that really hit the "great" mark. It took a while for us to get used to the whole outdoor and camping thing (ok, the silly forgot-the-bag incident on the first day didn't help!).  I also heard other kids complaining about stuff like muddy shoes and heat at the beginning but they were ok by the second day.

Oh yeah, also on Day 1, hubby complained about paying (this camp is not cheap!) to "torture" overselves. But when we got home, he was happily whatsapping photos to his friends telling them to bring their kids next time.

Really happy we went for it  :-)

Renewing Passport for Elyssa

Just came back from renewing Elyssa's passport.

Our experience?

Elyssa and I arrived at the Kelana Jaya Immigration Department just after 7am on a Sunday morning. And got greeted by this :

Already more than a hundred people ahead of us! I googled beforehand and I knew they would only issue 200 numbers on a Sunday. Judging from the numbers, I should be able to get my number. (still not certain.  What if a big family wants to renew but sent only 1 representative to queue? If there's a few similar cases, then that will reduce my chance. But of course it could be the reverse situation, where there may be 2-4 people in a family queing up but only 1 needs a passport).

Anyway, we patiently waited until the official opening time of 8am. Just after 8am, a officer came to the crowd and said "Harap Sabar. System offline!!!"

What the heck???  Already waited 1 hour!!  When I asked him how long it would take for the system to be up, he said it can be hours or even the whole day. Aaarghhhh!  

I decided to wait for a while. 10 minutes, 30 minutes,  1 hour, 1 hour 30 minutes......  Just wait and wait.  As time went on, more and more people left the queue but majority still stayed.  I kept thinking "Am I silly for waiting so long for perhaps NOTHING? But then the other thought was "We have already waited so long, maybe just another 10 minutes). And thankfully, Elyssa didn't fuss at all.

Just after 10 am (3 hours of waiting), the system was back online. Yay!  Then came another news - due to the delay, they would only process 100 number that day. Oh nooooo! The queue had become slightly shorter but we may or may not make it. Aiyo.

It took approx. 40 minutes till we got to the door.  Our number : 82.  Phew! If we came 10 minutes later, we would have missed it.  Or if some people ahead of us didn't leave, we would have missed it too. While waiting, I chatted a bit with the couple in front of me and the small family behind me. I tell ya.....we were sooooo happy with our numbers. Before we reached the door, we were already asking each other " Can ah? Can ah?  Should be ok hor?  But got risk cannot". When we got through, we were all smiling ear to ear like we won the lottery. haha.

As expected, there were plenty of noise and complaints from those who just missed the numbers. I would be too!  Imagine standing in line for almost 4 hours only to be told to come back another day.

After getting the number, it still took almost 1 hour. Our actual time at the processing counter was only about 5 minutes.  Few minutes later, our number was called for payment and finally...... DONE!

By the time we left the Immigration office, it was around 12pm already.  Imagine this - 5 HOURS in total to renew passport!  The system down-time was the main reason for the delay.  But not being able to renew online and not being able to renew at the kiosks were 2 big factors as well. Why or why did they do away with that?? I won't be able to renew via those 2 methods for Elyssa's passport anyway, but that would have reduced the crowd significantly.

So, that's how 5 hours on a Sunday was wasted. But at the point, I am more relieved than upset. At least we got it all done.  Phew!   (passport collection is tomorrow onwards, but that should be fast).

And I like this shot of Elyssa having her photo taken yesterday :-)

 

Weekend Camp at Radiant Retreats - Part 2

--continued from Part 1--

One of the main highlights of the weekend retreat was spend the night in an actual tent. Girls were mighty excited!

After brushing our teeth at the bungalow, we headed for the tent that hubby set up that morning.

Playing with torchlight and shadows in the tent

They loved it!

After playing and singing for a while, then came the tricky part - getting the girls to actually SLEEP. I was actually kinda worried before the trip.  What if Erin can't sleep? What if she fusses/cries/screams at night and wakes up everyone else in the campsite? Luckily, nothing dramatic of that sort happened. Though it was far from a good nights sleep. (my own bed at home felt sooooo good the next night!). After all, it was still a tent!  Enough said  ;-)

Next morning, girls woke up bright and early-

Enjoying view from the tent

They were pretty keen to get out to explore but we asked them to sit and enjoy the view for a while first. Trying to get few more minutes of sleep. hehe.

 

Walking around Campsite

Walking to the bungalow to wash up

 

After washing up, we headed down for breakfast - 

 

Nasi Lemak spread for breakfast

After breakfast, we were informed there was going be round 2 of the "Create with Nature" art activity as the ones made the day before were too wet. Ah well..... it was a pity we didn't take a photo of the art we created (hand print for Erin and smiley face for Elyssa).  But kids were more than happy to do it again.

Morning Nature Walk

Kids collected pretty flowers and ferns for their art activity. The camp director also explained about the various plants.

Elyssa hard at work with her art

And of course Erin didn't want to be left out  ;-)

Their art

--- to be continued --

(time to sleep now!)

Weekend camp at Radiant Retreats - Day 1

2 weekends ago, we went for a 2D/1N nature camp trip at Radiant Retreats, Janda Baik.

 

Yup, a REAL camping trip where we sleep in an actual TENT. Hehe... first time experience for us! I read some very good reviews on the net and I thought it would be a good experience for the girls.
 

Will let the following pics do the talking:

Introduction Session

There were 11 families in total.

Setting up our tent

I was pretty impressed with hubby's skills!

Almost ready

Yay......daddy did it!

After setting up the tent, we had a quick lunch and then it was time for some river fun.

Happy girls

It took Elyssa a while to get used to the surroundings but Erin was very happy right from the beginning.

Erin trying to catch some fish

Lovely site

 

 

After the water fun, we missed the next activity (music & sound movement) cos we had to make an unexpected trip out. Why??  Cos we forgot to bring the girls bag!!!!  Aiyoyoyoyo!!!  Couldn't believe we made such a silly mistake.  I spent hours carefully packing clothes for them and then we left the entire bag at home. Silly, silly, silly  :( 

I normally make a quick check before leaving the house, but this time I didn't.  Cos while we were loading the bags into the car that morning, both girls were so excited about the trip that they happily sat IN the car while waiting. So were quickly loaded out stuff and went off without that bag. *sigh*.
Note to self : always, always do a final check!

The unexpected trip to Bentong town costs us over 2 hours cos we stopped at quite a few places looking for clothes.  In hindsight, it would have been easier if we had headed home instead! Anyway, we managed to get 2 sets of clothes for each of them in the end. On the plus side, both girls napped in the car.

When we got back to the camp, we caught the tail end of the next session which was the "Create with Nature" activity. We quickly dived into the activity so I forgot to take photo  ;-)  Basically, we made an "art base" from flour, salt and water, and then decorated with little pebbles/ferns/flowers taken from the river activity earlier.  Took this photo from the camp's FB page:

Outcome from "Create with Nature" activity

These were from round #2 done the following morning

After that, it was time to take our showers before dinner time.   Keke...this wasn't done proper camping style though. There's actually a nice bungalow next to our campsite.  So we had nice hot showers and the kids watched cartoons for a while  :-)   Hey, can't shock us city slickers too much!!!  Haha.

Roasting marshmallows after dinner

It rained rather heavily so all activities were moved indoors

Gooey marshmallows with chocolate and cream crackers  :-)

Yes, there was even a projector tv that night  :-)

Look at Erin! Had to keep prying her away from the big screen!

 

After everyone was done with dinner, it was time for games

 

                                    I think this was the Duck, Duck, Duck, Goose Game  :-)

Erin didn't understand the game at all but that didn't stop her from having fun. The selected "goose" had to chase the "duck" round the circle. Every time Elyssa became the "duck", Erin also ran around.  It was absolutely hilarious!

Blur photo, but I just love the way Elyssa took care of Erin during the games :)

After games, we washed up at the bungalow then it was time to sleep in the tents. Will continue in next post...

Wheatgrass Planting Project

I started my Wheatgrass Planting Project last weekend -

Step 1 - Buy Wheat Berries

Got mine from BMS Organics for RM 11.90

Step 2 - Soak Wheat Berries overnight. 
Err.... forgot to take photo.


Step 3 - Sprout Wheat Berries
After soaking overnight, I rinsed the wheat berries and wrapped them in a moist towel.  Rinsed again that evening and twice more the following day. Nothing happened after the first 3 rinses, but when I opened the towel after the 4th rinse, I was thrilled when I saw the berries have sprouted. Yay!

Step 4 - Sowing
I got a bag of black soil from Ace Hardware for RM 2.50. Then sowed and watered my sprouts. Covered with newspaper for the next 2 days.

1 day after sowing - Green shoots.  Yay!!!!!

2 days later (no need to cover with newspaper already)

Need to water twice daily.  Elyssa was more than happy to help.
--actually, when I picked her up from my parent's place one day, she told me that she was looking forward to go home to check on the wheatgrass progress. Haha.

Today's pic -  4 or izzit 5 days after sowing. Lost track a bit. hehe.
So nice and green!

Erin with the water spray. (the watering process is a source of entertainment for them!)

Little Miss Poser  :-)

Probably need another 4 days before I can harvest them for my wheatgrass juice. But super happy with the project already. Every morning, we happily go downstairs to check on the progress. (with Elyssa exclaming : "Mummy, it has grown TALLER"). First thing when we come home is to again check on the progress (yes, with Elyssa saying : "Mummy, look...it has grown even TALLER")

I don't think I've ever planted anything by myself before, so I am thrilled!!  Good nature lesson for the girls too. Gonna plant choy sam next :-)

Elyssa's 2nd Kindy Concert

Elyssa just had her 2nd Kindy Concert last weekend. Just like last year, she didn't want me to show her dance steps before the concert.  Kept on telling me....."Mummy, you see on the actual day!"  Suspense only!! 

She brought home her concert costume on the Friday before the concert. I absolutely loved it!  Much, much better than the green shiny bling-bling costume last year. (which is still hanging untouched in the cupboard) 

Chinese or Korean Costume?

Looks Korean to me! She insisted it was a "Mandarin Costume"

Back View

 Actual Performance

She was right - it was a Chinese dance afterall.  See... there's even a "Chinese Emperor" (she later said that's her swimming teacher) 

I couldn't help grinning throughout the whole performance. She did so well! She remembered all her dance steps but unlike last year, she looked like she was enjoying it  :-)

Looking so demure with the orange scarf

When the performance ended, my SIL and I shouted "ELYSSA!!!" on top of our lungs.  Hee hee.... so super proud of her!  :)

4 of us

Sisters

I love they way they are holding hands in this photo :-)

With Ku Jie

Elyssa's fan club!

Imagine this - NINE people in FOUR cars came to see this little princess perform. What a lucky girl indeed!

Ah Kong, Ah Mah, Daddy, Mummy, Ku Jie (who took this photo), Erin, Cousin Justin, Cousin Jensen and kakak (not in photo)

Compared to last year, I felt the overall concert performance for the kindy was not as good. There were some unnecessary draggy narrations this year.
But in terms of Elyssa's class performance, I liked this year's wayyy better - loved the costume, theme, music score and choreography. I'm a happy mummy!

Can't wait for the official photos and video  :-)