Duo @ the mall

It so happen that one week Mama found a hole on Kecil's school shoes. That must had been the work of the mouse we had in the house that week (a loooong story, but not to worry, no more mouse now, thanks to the Dog. She's my hero, I tell you).
Well... Kecil can't possibly be jumping around in a holey sneakers now, can't she? And so we went out during the weekend to get her a new pair.
With her friend in tow.

The girls followed me crossing the bridge to town, going up the escalator. Why, they even posed for Mama at the mall. And they were generally quite well-behaved although there were a few times when they got fixated on a shoe or toy or two. Still... this Mama stuck to the objective, and we managed to come out the mall only with our objective and nothing else.
Except that we did not head straight home.

Since they were generally well-behaved, this Mama thought the girls deserved a treat. Ahem... there might, of course, another factor involved, such as Mama feeling lazy to cook for lunch...ahem. Still, Mama was not the only one operating under more than one objective then.

You see those two things in front of Kecil's food?
Yeah.... I think the girls were not as hungry for food as they were 'hungry' for the toys.

Can you believe that we even had to check into another branch of the chain just because the first branch did not have stock of the toys? Yeah, unbelievable!
Still, things worked out for the best, since Mama still had to feed Daddy (who stayed at home that weekend). *see above on the note about Mama feeling lazy to cook.

We picked up some food for Daddy next door, with the girls, apparently too tired to walk, riding in the shopping cart.

The outing was not quite the last outing of the duo together, however.

Last weekend, we already bought tickets for the movie "Frozen" when we went home to wait for the later show to start (the earlier one was already full!). Then Jessica dropped by, and the evil tired Daddy suggested that Jessica used his ticket to watch the movie. She can't refuse, obviously, and so I had two excited little girls to accompany me watching the latest Disney cartoon.

Pssttt.... don't tell the girls, but I think they grow each one antler for this picture!

Going out with 2 girls is definitely different with just 1, but it's kind of fun in its own way. We'll see if  we'll have more repeat episodes. In the mean time, here's a superhero cheers from the girls:

The girls and Mama love "Frozen". The graphics are breathtaking and the music beautiful. Even adults can enjoy the humour. If you haven't watched them, you should really check them out. It's good with or even without kiddos in tow.

Back to the big pool

With the ever increasing regularity of clear blue skies and the accompanying soaring temperatures, the other weekend found us back at this big pool, where Mama & Daddy can cool down while still maintaining the appearance of 'doing some exercise'.

Kecil? She may not look too happy to be swimming, but once Mama took out the red camera, she immediately got busy modelling.

We do seem to love our underwater camera very much, don't we? Well... there is that. But we also love the fact that Kecil seem to enjoy swimming. Why, this Mama is happy to report that, on our last trip to the big pool yesterday, Kecil managed to do a total of 2 (TWO!) laps! Plus one more assisted with the board.  Two complete laps in what looks like an almost olympic sized pool, I am one proud Mama, all right.
And to think that this Mama was still close to being dragged to get into the deep water pool (first day of swimming lesson then) when she was 7 years old? Shame on Mama. Haha....

This water baby, in comparison, was already jumping into the pool without any dragging involved at all. Haha...  Why, some other time, she even asked to be thrown around.

In a way it was good to repeat our activities, since we usually learn from experience. Like the fact that the water is pretty cold despite the sunny weather. Kecil couldn't last that long swimming because her body temperature dropped after a while. So.. yesterday we actually brought a thermos of hot chocolate along. She loved it.

And of course, there was the sun-block, something which we did not bring a long on our first trip. Look at the completely slathered little girl:

Kudos for your great efforts, Little One! We do look forward to having your doing laps with Mama and Daddy (and maybe even Eyangs!) the next time. Cheers!

Ocean Adventure

Most weekends would see us lazing around at home, enjoying takeaway food and the peace and quiet in general. After all, isn't that the beauty of living in a tourist destination? But there are times when we do feel 'obligated' to visit one of those touristy trap spots just so we do not miss out that much. We've been to the zoo before, we've been to the mall MANY times, even if we mostly do not record those trips here. This time round, it was visiting the beach, or to be precise, the Ocean Adventure.

Set up right next to the sea, the 'park' offers a couple of shows through the day: one focused on the wild animals of the forest surrounding the area and the people of the forest, another on this acrobatic group from Kenya, and the two main ones on the gentler creatures of the sea: the sea lion and the dolphins.

The shows were good and engaging. They were, however, not enough to get this Mama clicking the camera. Until we got to the dolphins, that was.
Of course, this was not our first time seeing a dolphin show. We saw one when we went to the zoo in Indonesia as well (no dolphin picture in the post, you've got to take my word for it). However, this one was different. Not only the dolphins were at sea, the handlers actually went into the water to 'play' as well!

And of course, there was the other factor of us waiting for quite a bit before the show started as well. The dolphins were really the star of the park, you see, so the seats for their show filled up fast. We got front seats, only because it was not under the shade and nobody wanted to get tanned. Bahahhaha.... Still... the view was gorgeous. And the show? Simply awesome. I think Kecil redoubled her resolve to really learn to swim well just so she can swim with the dolphins next time.

There were the obligatory photo boards, which Kecil was glad to use, dragging Daddy along. All in all, it was a good weekend, a deal sweetened by the fact that as residents of the area, we were entitled to 50% discount off the entrance fee. Hehe... Discount or not, it was fun, and we were glad that we left our hermitage of a house for the weekend to check out the spot. We'll see what else we can do next weekend in this part of the globe we call home. Cheers!

Summer 2013

This weekend found us trying out a new spot (for us) in town, for a spot of swimming, of course.
Clear blue skies, soaring temperatures, they all conspired to bring us to this quiet spot....

... where Kecil can practice some swimming (or piggy-backing on Daddy's back!) ...

... some levitation exercises ...

... or even the run-of-the-mill underwater photograph with Mama (who just got herself a new set of swimming suit, yes).

Oh yeah, on this side of the ocean, summer has indeed arrived. Happy summer!

Baseball Girl

Being a large breed, the Dog needs daily exercise. Nowadays, juggling between summer heat, Daddy pick up schedule, not to mention the Little Girl's ever expanding social network, it can get a bit hard to schedule a proper work out aka walkies for the Dog. It so does not help that on days when Mama was motivated enough to go for morning walks, the Dog simply refused to budge from her spot at the bed, sleeping soundly. Grrrrr.....

So... what to do when the heat is too much and Mama gets lazy? Why... we drove to the baseball field!

The field was used earlier in the year for ... well... baseball practice. Not that people really play baseball here, but given the country's location, it proved to be a convenient spot for South Korean teams to have their 'winter camp'. Winter, because seriously, January in South Korea is definitely in the depth of winter.
Now that they've gone back to South Korea, the field stays empty, perfect for Doggie's running around.
Not to mention a spot of baseball for Kecil as well. Eh?

Indeed, why not? We found a set of plastic bat and ball while we were out browsing the other day. Just perfect for the Little Girl. It was a bit hard at first, but with Daddy patiently coaching (and even using stray wild grass as prop), she managed to hit the ball eventually, and so proud of the fact!

Not lacking in style department either, I'd say. All pink??????

And of course, there's the Dog once she's expended her excess energy running and chasing the birds around the field.
Ah.. the things we do during lazy weekends around here. Haha.... Cheers!

Riding. Solo edition

Anyone remember the site above?
Some time, more than a year back, this Mama also took a similar picture, with slight differences.
Prizes for those who can tell me ONE BIG difference!

Well, you can find the picture here and here.
So... if you had guessed correctly (or clicked on the links above), you might be able to tell that ....
Kecil went horse-riding again!!!

Indeed, Kecil had wanted to ride for a while, but somehow we just kept on forgetting until last weekend. Unfortunately, Daddy had to work then, so it was just Mama and Kecil.
All dressed in pink and wearing her own pink bicycle helmet, Kecil was rearing to go when we got to the equestrian field.

Well, a horse was soon brought in and readied, and after just a wee bit of hesitation, Kecil went off.
On her own!

Well, I mean, of course, that she rode the horse alone, but there was someone leading the horse.

They went off into the woods, and past the pastures...

... near the stables and finally back...

My own little jockey, I am one very proud Mama (Daddy was very proud too, I'd say!),
Of course, Kecil still needed a little help getting down:

Once the ride was over, Kecil still took time to thank the horse:

She's very proud about touching the horse, especially since she still remembered how she was afraid to do so the last time we came here.

So... we took the car home. That was the big difference in the first picture, by the way. Last year, a similar picture was taking from horseback. This time, it was from inside the car.

T'was a good weekend. We so looking forward to more good weekends spent in picturesque places such as these, hopefully as a whole family.
How about you? Any plans for the weekend yet?