Before the storm hit

Ah.... good weather. Just like the weather about 10 days back, which allowed us to have our usual evening walkies. It kind of helped that for some of the neighbourhood gang, school had not started yet. Bored kids and good weather simply means long walkies in the evening. Which was fun. Especially considering the fact that the crowd tends to vary:

Well... unfortunately good things such as these do not quite last. Big storm hit us last week. Then school started (which, of course, should be another post altogether), and today, the Dog (having gotten lazy after so many rainy days, I'd say) refused to budge.
We'll see how the future is for our walkie schedule. In the meantime, this Mama needed to think up lunch menu for the school girl. Cheers!

Ballet & family friend

You still remember Kecil's first ballet lesson? The one where she wore her own house clothes rather than so called 'ballet costume'? Well, the clothes were good enough then, when we were still 'trying out' to see if Kecil would really like to do ballet. But since she liked it (and was going to continue taking lessons), it was time for Mama to get her some proper get up.

Finding a proper ballet costume in our back of the woods, short of ordering from the net (and risking the ridiculous custom charges!), was not easy. We did, however, looked it up on the net, and found out that the Philippines Ballet do sell practice stuff at a very reasonable price. Whoa... excited! The only thing was to travel all the way to Manila to their studio to buy those stuff.

As it turned out, around the same time, Daddy had to go for an overnight trip via Manila. In a string of good luck, we found out that a friend had moved back to Manila, and offered us overnight accommodation. Not one to turn down good intentions, we took it up, which brought us to a reunion between two little girls (plus an introduction to a new little girl in the mix). Wooo hooo!!!!

You might remember Nata, Kecil's friend from her smaller, younger days. Her family moved to Cebu shortly after her younger sister was born. We were kind of devastated with the loss of a close friend, both for Kecil and her parents (ha!), so we totally welcome their return (and their offer for the weekend) with joy and enthusiasm.

Babies Nata & Kecil, followed with the current Nata. Don't kids grow up so fast?

Now Daddy's flight that day was an early morning one. So... by the time we arrive at Nata's place (after some round and roundabout driving. Haha... Mama and maps are not best friends), there was still time for the kids to play before we set off ballet-a-hunting.

Later that day, after a swim, and a simple dinner at home, there was also time to show off Kecil's new stuff. Look at the two ballerinas catching up: (Nata's sister was already asleep then)

The following morning, with no plans in mind except for picking Daddy up from the airport later at night, it was a free and easy morning, and the kids stayed in pyjamas well into lunchtime.

.... well... close enough, anyway.

Was that a cool pyjama party, or what?

Well... but soon it was time for a shower and change, because it was lunchtime, and afterwards, we needed to escort Nata to her summer school.

It was nice and bright outside, the perfect weather to walk in-town with cute, little umbrellas.

It was lovely to see the girls playing together (with the added bonus of some mom to mom catching up. ha!) Soon enough, however, it was time to pack up and get ready to pick up Daddy from the airport.  Still.... we are very happy to have our friends 'relatively' closer to us again. I am sure we are going to catch up again soon. (And we did!)

In the mean time, we are also happy to report a 'mission accomplished' via the following pic:

Kecil in her new costume in the ballet studio

Until next time!

17th August

17 August is a special day for us Indonesians, it our independence day. Somehow, this year we are feeling patriotic, so we actually made an appearance at the Indonesian embassy in Manila, all decked in batik clothes. Haha.... well... actually Daddy had a meeting on Friday, and since we did not feel crazy enough to brave the outgoing traffic of Manila on a Friday night.... we decided to stay overnight, which made us 'available' for the 17 Aug celebrations.

On the plus side, we also thought that at four (almost five!) years old, Kecil can already start to appreciate her identity as an Indonesian, and some of the thing that it entails. Like upacara bendera or the flag raising ceremony, something we, as Indonesian students, had to go through on weekly basis in school.

So, Kecil was fascinated enough with the ceremony, although towards the end she did asked quite a few times when we were going to finish with the whole thing. I think she got tired of standing around. But actually I thought the ceremony was quite short, around half an hour in total, and I'm sure it brought back lots of memories for Mama & Daddy.

There was a reception shortly after the ceremony, but we did not stay back for that as we had some other plans (another post!) for the day. It was still quite cool to be there, though. Perhaps next time we should try making appearances on different occasion. Idul Fitri, perhaps?

Well... in the meantime, MERDEKA! (Indonesian word for freedom)

The Neighbourhood Gang

A few years back, when Daddy chose this spot of a house at this corner of the world, we kind of knew that it was a good spot.
We never knew how good it was, though, until quite recently.
Because, although the neighbourhood was not quite full of kids then, by the time Kecil is ready for some games outside, we have quite a number of kids living around the house.

There is, of course, Ami, who is our next door neighbour, not to mention Kecil's friend since she was practically a baby!

There's David, the boy from across the street....

There's Jenny & Jacob from further up the street ....

There is even Jessica from beyond the hedges ....

Some of them had played together before, but with a few additional kids (not to mention a boy who went away somewhere else), it was almost like a new gang, with a whole new list of activities for all kinds of weather:

.... live statue exhibition, gardening under the rain, bicycle races on cloudy days ....

... jumping around the coconut tree, watching movies on Mama's computers (and eating pop corn), another cycling contest under the sun, making crown art indoors...

.... making mud gardening during the rain, umbrella (and body building, apparently) parade, all girls tea session, trampoline jumping, picnic with the soft toys, even nightime races! ....

Sometimes, even our walkies got one or two extra participants.

This Mama might be biased, but it kind of appeared as if Kecil was the glue of the gang, because usually, the activities would start with first Kecil being called or calling a kid or two, and somehow the whole activity got in the way. It's cool, though, even if there are times when suddenly the house got overrun by kids, like this:

... on a day when all this Mama wanted was to relax and play some games on the iPad. Then the bunch came in, and some even used my computer (I had to use it to prevent some serious fights, people!).
And please don't ask how many packs of Yakult I had to buy the other day. What's with Yakult and kids, anyway? They drink that stuff like water! In mini bottles. Which, of course, translated to MANY mini bottles.

Still... it's kind of cool to see the Kiddo socialising, playing, having fun, all without Mama needing to step in. Haha.... Not to mention the occasional surprise:

A flowery mud cake! Yummy!

Thank you again, Daddy, for getting us such a good house, complete with a fantastic neighbourhood. Now, I think Mama needs to either go out to buy some more Yakult, or make some tea for the thirsty (puny) crowd. Cheers!

Idul Fitri 2013

As usual, the debate on the precise day of the celebration preceded the Holy Day. Still, at least Daddy got enough notice to go on leave today, and Mama managed to cook while Kecil was still in Skool (Skool holiday is only tomorrow, not today).

We had quite a normal day, just with Daddy at home, and Mama busy with her personal cook-out (which succeed in putting traditional Indonesian Lebaran food on the table for dinner!). As it was, we definitely feel blessed enough to be together, all in great form, this holiday.

So from our small family to yours, we'd like to wish you a blessed Idul Fitri 2013. Cheers!

Quick Craft

A quick craft (which resulted in this quick post) happened one sunny day, when Mama had to tinker with the printer ink. Emerging from the ink-encounter with colourful fingertips as well as a beautiful piece of tissue paper, let's just say we got 'inspired' to make some art.

The aforementioned tissue paper

The first art piece

First we used up the leftover ink to create some abstract piece. This Mama thinks it would have been a lot clearer (and less crowded) had Kecil exercised some restrain in her application. As it was, I think when the kid was obviously very enthusiastic about her art, I should just let her be and leave the art lessons for another day. You know, things such as pattern, colour matching, less-is-more... those kind of thing?

Anyway, since we were already outside, we moved on to other methods as well.

We wanted to use leaves as inverted stencils, but perhaps this Mama remembered the technique wrong or something, it did not quite turn out as Mama expected. Which was still OK. Me thinks Kecil still had fun, anyway. I think we should do this more often, as long as Mama can get someone else to clean up. Ha! Oh well... we'll see, we'll see.

So, have you done any arts and craft lately?