Kids' Indoor Activity In Auckland (5 - 24 December 2014)

My girls had never played this many board games in their lives as they did when they were in Auckland.  When we arrived in Auckland, it rained quite a bit.  Everyone was saying that we brought the rain from Malaysia to Auckland!  And after we left Auckland, it was hot and dry!  Can you believe it? haha!

So on rainy days, we had to shelf our plans to do outdoor visiting. Due to the wet weather, we did not manage to visit Rotorua, the farm to see farm animals and to the strawberry plantation to pick strawberries. The girls would play board games like UNO, Monopoly, etc with their cousins on wet days.

One of the indoor activity that they did was decorating their own gingerbread house.  The girls' aunt Sarah from Hawaii bought a few packs of gingerbread house from Hawaii for the kids to work on.  And here they are at work, a few days before Christmas...





Cass decorating her gingerbread house with colorful candies. Well, I think the house structure was made of ginger biscuits and they smelled really good too!




Sherilyn and Cass applying edible cement (made of really gooey and sticky icing) to the gingerbread house.









The final product - 7 colorful ginger biscuit houses. The inviting aroma of ginger biscuits wafted in the air in the living room...  so inviting that I was so tempted to pinch out a part of the roof or the walls to pop into my mouth!

A Japanese Guilty Pleasure Lunch

Today we indulged in a little guilty pleasure for lunch... an occasional indulgence of instant noodles! :D

Actually, I had planned to make grilled sandwiches for lunch again today. But a miscommunication with Alycia's guitar teacher made us all waiting until 2pm. In the end, he did not turn up. And since it was already so late and the girls were famished, I had to whip up something really really fast. They were all digging out chocolates and ice creams to satiate their tummies already, so I had to dish up something sustaining for them right away!

The only thing that I could think of was instant noodles.  So I rummaged through the kitchen cabinet and fished out an inviting looking packet of instant ramen noodles that the MIL bought from Japan recently.  She had told me before that this ramen noodles taste really good.  So yep, instant noodles look good and I quickly cranked up the stove. I also found the last can of spam meat that the MIL bought from Japan to go with the instant noodles!

As the pot of noodles looked too 'spammy', I threw in some fresh button mushrooms and chopped up some scallions to minify the spammy-ness, ha!





Our toothsome morsel.  Unhealthy foods do taste good!



My consolation was that the seasoning supposedly contain no MSG and I think it's quite true as I did not have to gulp down cups after cups of water to quench my thirst after whacking the noodles.

Homecooked Dinner - 7 January 2015

With the holiday and celebrations all behind us now, my 'leave' from the kitchen has ended.  As usual, it took me a few days to get the momentum to cook again.  Today, I whipped up my signature grilled chicken drummets for dinner.  My girls commended that they are the yummiest grilled chicken drummets ever!  And I think so too! :D

I also made a big bowl of mashed potato, using Nigella Lawson's recipe (I omitted the grated nutmeg though).








Happy Wednesday peeps!  I am counting down to the day that school reopens. Exactly 4 days from today and I am having a fusion of emotions - happy, excited, worried (it will be Cass' first time in a primary school) and anxious all rolled into one!

Blueberry Picking In New Zealand

After our Hobbiton tour, we stopped by at the blueberry plantation to pick our own blueberries.  We were all super excited as it was our first!

Before we started registering our names for the PYO blueberries, the kids were already licking on blueberry ice creams.  What a cooling and delightful way to cool ourselves down after being roasted by the scorching fiery sun for over 2 hours at the Hobbiton tour!

Can you see Cass' sun burnt arms?




I think I was more excited than the kids as it was my first time picking blueberries!





















Every registered blueberry picker will be given a pail to place the blueberries, which will be weighed after our session.  I popped some blueberries into our mouths as we plucked them!   Just could not resist the temptation!









Most of the blueberries were not really ripe yet. When we saw bright blue ones like the ones shown below, we were all excited and quickly pluck them off from the branches!






















These were not 100% ripened yet but we still plucked them anyway!










Our loot after an hour...





A whopping 2.77kg blueberries and that only cost us NZD27.70.  So cheap eh?  That would have cost us over a hundred Ringgit back home.





With so much blueberries, we made blueberry jam for pancakes and I lugged 2 punnets back to KL.  As the blueberries were a tad sour, I tossed a handful into my Blendtec blender and made multi-fruit smoothies for everyone everyday for over a week :)

Hike Up and Down Rangitoto Summit @ Rangitoto Island

This was yet another outdoor adventure for the girls, including the adults, during our stay in Auckland - a grueling  2-hour 45 minute hike up and down Rangitoto Island!

Sitting majestically just off the Auckland coast, Rangitoto Island is a 600-year old volcano. It boasts a unique landscape of rugged lava crops, lush native bush and sandy coves. We hiked to the summit for some spectacular 360 degree views of Auckland.

From the car park, we walked to the jetty to board a ferry.  We saw an animal activist volunteer and the kids pleaded with us to donate some money to help save animals from cruelty...

In the ferry, on our way to Rangitoto Island.  It was chilly in the morning and we were wishful that it would not rain as it rained every day ever since we arrived in Auckland.  Thank God, luck was with us and the day we went to Rangitoto, the weather was pretty kind to us- sunny and hot.  I wished it were cooler as we sweated quite a bit under the hot sun for almost 3 hours.
 

Before the hike...

 


The kids snacking in the ferry...


Our hot, long and gruelling hike up to Rangitoto Summit. Notice the black volcano rocks surrounding us...







The ferry was superbly clean unlike those in our country.  Healthy snacks and juices were sold inside the ferry.



Walking on black lava soil throughout the path up to Rangitoto Summit.  The reddish stuff on the ground are flowers from the New Zealand Christmas trees that grow wildly in the jungle.  It was very hot and the puteri lilin you see here had to use an umbrella *coughs*







Beautiful flowers from the New Zealand Christmas tree...






After an hour of hike, our prize was the breathtaking view of Auckland...











We could see the city of Auckland opposite us...









From the Rangitoto Summit, the kids were ambitious enough to venture out further to the Rangitoto Lava Cave. And we had to take another 20-minute hike down a steep ravine to the cave.  When we were at the entrance of the cave, the kids were raring to crawl inside the cave to check out what's inside!  I stayed outside with Sarah just in case...








After our 2-hour 45 minute hike up and down Rangitoto Summit, we were all exhausted. Alycia had to change into her shorts as her jeans had blood stains from her fall.  Cass had a fall too and had cuts and grazes on her chest, tummy, palm, knees and arms.  But my girls are tough soldiers and they did not shed a drop of tear!  Sherilyn  had to use my umbrella to support her hike down the hill and she broke the umbrella. As expected la, from the Drama Queen.






More snacking on our ferry ride back to Auckland...


Once back in Auckland, we walked to a nearly mall and had sushi for lunch...


Then had Movenpick ice cream to cool ourselves down...

Tooth Fairy Does Exist!!

Today must be Cass' lucky day. Today is the day that she can finally tell all her friends that a tooth fairy indeed exist... in broad daylight!

This morning we went to a coffee shop for breakfast. While waiting for a group of senior citizens to leave the table so that we could have that table, an old man in this coffee shop saw Cass and stroked her cheek and commented that she is cute. I have seen this man several times in the past somewhere in the neighborhood. I was across the table and could not hear the conversation between the old man and Cass. About half a minute later, the old man shoved his hand into his trousers pocket and took out a RM100 note. I saw him happily mumbling something to Cass and Cass looked shy. She looked at me, as if trying to get an approval from me. She knows that she is not supposed to talk to strangers. I walked over to the old man and was shocked to see him put the RM100 note onto Cass' hand. I asked him in Cantonese "why are you giving money to her?!" And his cheery reply in Cantonese was "because she called me "uncle" ma". Before I could say NO to him and pass back the RM100 note to him, he quickly walked away and 'vanished' into the crowded coffee shop! I was just too stunned to even chase after him. Everyone of us was floored.   Just like a fairy godfather who came and slowly faded away in a mist, like in a fairy tale movie!

Some si lai seated at the next table were watching our short drama and I heard them saying in Cantonese "Wah, really 'seng tang loa yan' (Santa Claus) in real life, give away money like that!"

A few minutes later when Cass was eating her bowl of noodles, her shaky tooth came off!  She took out her bloody tooth from the corner of her mouth and said "mummy, that man is a tooth fairy!".  All of us were in disbelief that a real life tooth fairy came to give her RM100 for her tooth!

When I finally came to my senses, I realized that what had just happened is wrong.  The fact that Cass accepted money from a total stranger with me not objecting to it is just so wrong. I am sending the wrong message to her that it is ok to accept money from strangers.  There are too many sick perverts out there who are preying on naive kids like Cass.  I kept telling her over and over again that she should never accept money again from strangers and told her stories of how kids get lured, trapped and never get to see their parents again all because of accepting things from strangers.  I guess a human's instinctive reaction to money (especially if the amount is HUGE!$!) given right in front of us is to accept it first.
 
To Cass, she still thinks that the old man is a real life tooth fairy as he came at such an unbelievable and impeccable timing!

All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth. How very apt this song is for Cass on our Boxing Day!

Holiday In Auckland - 17 December 2014

After dinner at home yesterday, the adults went to Sylvia Park for shopping.  One of my SILs and BIL stayed home to babysit the 5 kiddos.

I managed to grab some tees that were on sale at Pumpkin Patch and T&T for Alycia and Sherilyn.

After shopping for the kids, hubs and I went to Park N Save to get some groceries and a cartful of chocolates!   Whittaker's chocolates are pretty cheap in NZ and this is our third (or was it fourth?) round shopping for Whittakers!

Whittaker's is the biggest chocolate brand in New Zealand, in front of Cadbury.

This is just part of the loot.  Later hubs spotted more chocolates and added them into the cart! I think these chocolates will be perfect gifts for family members and friends from our holiday in NZ.