Day to Day

Impromptu ice cream

We grabbed some after school ice cream today.  The kids thought it was a fantastic treat as they're used to fruit and nibbles for afternoon tea. It was fun doing something spontaneous and sure beats cutting fruit and cleaning up afterwards.

Remember the joy of your parents treating you to an ice cream from the local milk bar? My favourite ice cream was a Buffalo Bill (with a bubblegum nose).  It was one of the most expensive ice creams on the market when it came out, rocking in at a neat 40 cents!

I'll be back tomorrow with a super fun giveaway - so be sure to drop by and enter.

Me & my girl

James just snapped this photo of Bella and I a moment ago.  I find photos of me with either of my children fascinating to look at. Sometimes I can see facial similarities between us and other time there's nothing I can find that makes me feel like we're related - excluding our Mama/child bond & quirky personality traits.  Bella has her Dad's olive skin, brown eyes and most of his features, although I do think she has my chin.  When she was a baby, people would stop me in the supermarket or shops and ask me if her Dad was Italian (he's not) and a few times I was asked if she was really my baby.  Of course I'd just smile and say yes, she most definitely is.

What about your children - do they share your facial features?  Do you sometimes find yourself trying to figure out which bits came from which parent?

P.S. Thank you all so much for the lovely comments on yesterday's post. I'm still buzzing from the excitement. xox

{A finalist}

Tonight I received some happy happy happy news. I've been selected as one of the 5 finalists in the Kidspot Top 50 bloggers awards.  Did you hear me squealing with joy as I typed that?

Thank you so very much for all of your votes and kind comments about the awards over the last few weeks.  I seriously do have the best blog readers in the world!

Being selected as a finalist means that I'll have a four week loan of a new Ford Territory to drive around and enjoy.  Of course I'll also be blogging my experiences and I hope you'll enjoy following me along during my journey.  I have some serious road trips planned!

Just excuse me while I come down from my happiness cloud, okay?

P.S. *SQUEAL*

Lazy Sunday

Our Sunday:

Bacon and eggs for breakfast, washing, lawn mowing, school homework, home made pumpkin soup for lunch, a birthday party, a trip into town to purchase a new mattress for our bed and finishing off with an easy dinner of steak sandwiches.

How was your Sunday?

 

School holiday planning

My James is already on school holidays (for 3 weeks) but next week Bella will join him and there will be 2 weeks with both of them at home.  I've mentioned before how much I cherish school holiday time and I truly do! I'm really lucky in that my two have the best relationship. It's rare for there to be bickering, arguing or disagreements, which really does make our holiday time more enjoyable. I imagine I might be pulling my hair out and hoping that our home days would roll on a little quicker if things didn't run so smoothly.

Some school holidays fly by and I don't even have time to blink and think about what we're going to do, but these holidays I won't be working (other than blogging and working on Teapot at home) so our days together will be longer and so, I feel like a bit of planning might be in order.

Here's our agenda so far:

♥ A trip to the movies.

♥ Friends for a sleep over - one sleep over per child.

♥ A road trip to Cradle Mountain.  I'd love to squeeze in a road trip to Bruny Island or somewhere in the north of the state too.  Plus, a day trip to Richmond.

♥ Make another home movie from our trip - like THIS one or THIS one.

♥ Cooking day at home making mini toffees with sprinkles + a holiday cake

♥ Friday family fun night X2 - wood fired pizza, DVD or board game.

♥ Crafting day for the girls, model making/shed day for the boys.

♥ Mother-in-law's 65th birthday party - I'm in charge of cake making, thinking another rainbow cake might be in order.

Throw in a bit of house work, blogging, day to day stuff and that list should pretty much take care of our holidays.

How do you fill in your school holiday time?  Do you have a schedule and stick to it or just wing it?

Hong Kong - A Symphony of Lights + Kowloon Park

{sponsored by Nuffnang}

Our final night in Hong Kong came around far too quickly and we were feeling miserable that home time was near.  We decided on a walk down Nathan Road to watch A Symphony of Lights.  At 8pm every night, both sides of the harbour come alive with a light show.  Something that I would like to mention, is that we were out late quite often in Hong Kong - sometimes until after 10pm and we felt very safe.  The streets are still quite bustling at this time of night and even the subway is busy.

We treated ourselves to a final Starbucks evening snack - cake pops (so, so good), muffins and mochas for the grown ups, while we waited for the light show to start.

There are all sorts of things to see along the harbour - boats, Avenue of Stars, small shops and a whole wad of tourists (like us!) taking photos of everything.  The light show was pretty cool and we hopped on the subway around 9pm to make our way back to our accommodation.

Our final stop over was Kowloon Park.  We spent a couple of hours here before catching the plane home.  One word - WOW!  Right in the middle of all the crazy/busy streets, stores and tall buildings is an amazing park, full of turtles, fish, pink flamingos, a huge playground, water features, immaculate gardens, a beautiful bird avery and even  a swimming pool.

We could have spent hours at the park.  It was one of the most peaceful places that I’ve visited and there was a real sense of community there.  Stationed around the park were little groups of people - exercising, dancing, practicing yoga and even singing.

We sat in the park, talking about our trip highlights and wishing the end wasn’t so near.

We’ve been home two months now and still miss Hong Kong.  Our highlights were definitely Hong Kong Disneyland, Inspiration Lake and the Giant Buddha.  I’m especially disappointed that we ran out of time to visit the Tai O fishing village on Lantau Island - I really had my heart set on seeing that!

Here’s a quick round up of things we want to remember:

Swimming in the outdoor pool at the Disney’s Hollywood Hotel when the life guards were in their full winter gear and shivering.

Going on Space Mountain at Disneyland a million times.

Meeting lots of Disney characters at the buffet breakfast (Hong Kong Disneyland Hotel - Enchanted Garden). Oh, and all of us devouring way too many Mickey Mouse waffles - because they were so, so good.

Jasmine tea and the Outback Steakhouse. 

Meeting the delightful Ming in the Buzz Lightyear section at Hong Kong Disneyland.

Our white raincoats that made us all look like giant marshmellows. 

Hearing Bella scream from excitement when she spotted her first Blythe doll in a shop.

Seeing so many people asleep on the trains.

Buying up on fake Lego at the markets and wishing we had of bought more.

Squishing on the trains! 

The girls at the market wanting to touch and play with Bella’s hair.

The crazy/happy little boy we saw two nights in a row on our way home from dinner.

The glass lift at our Kowloon accommodation. 

Having the most wonderful time of our lives.

I hope you've enjoyed following along with my Hong Kong posts!  Here are a few extra links, incase you're planning a trip of your own:

Hong Kong Disneyland, click HERE.

Disneyland Hotel, click HERE.

Disney's Hollywood Hotel, click HERE.

Tickets and reservations for Hong Kong Disneyland, click HERE.

Information on Hong Kong Disneyland's 5th anniversary celebrations, click HERE.

Mother's Day gifts

What did you give your Mum for Mother's Day?  I went with a book and yummy soap each this year - for Mum and my mother-in-law.  They're both big sewers, so Material Obsession and Material Obsession Two seemed like the perfect books to give.

Here's a peek inside Material Obsession:

And Material Obsession Two:

I'm not going to lie - I want both of these books for my ever growing craft collection.  They're beautiful and pure eye candy as you flick through the pages.  

I hope you're all having a good week so far.  I'm feeling weary tonight and about to hop into bed.  I'll be back tomorrow to share my final Hong Kong post.

Hong Kong - Giant Buddha

{sponsored by Nuffnang}

Before we left home for Hong Kong, I spent hours on the internet researching ‘must see’ tourist destinations.  We had a plethora of things to see and do and sadly, didn’t quite get through them all.  *Note to self - must go back to Hong Kong*

One day trip that we did manage to squeeze in, was the Giant Buddha on Lantau Island (also the island where Hong Kong Disneyland is situated).  We caught the train to Central and then took the number 23 bus to the buddha, costing around $50 AUD for the round trip - and that was for four people - so reasonable!  Once we arrived at the buddha, we took a nice stroll around the Ngong Ping village, where we found lots of little touristy treasures - woven hats, tiny umbrellas, pencils, fans, etc.. The surrounding views were amazing, especially from the tippity top of the 200+ steps that we climbed to reach the buddha.

We all really enjoyed the day - it was peaceful, relaxing and super nice family time.  Oh, and have a look at the random visitor that was walking along the streets while we were there:

Today was just a short blog post, but I'll be back soon to share our final night (and day) in Hong Kong.  Thanks for reading and I hope your week is a good one.

A box of apples

I bought a huge box of apples today, for just $10:

I've been a bit naughty over the last couple of months and haven't used our dehydrator at all, but I thought the apples were too good to pass up - so I'm back on the dehydrating band wagon.

I've started today with apple rings, tomorrow I hope to stew up some apples and I'll turn those into apple leather.  The rings and leather make great treats to pop in the school lunches and they're nice and nutritious too.

I'm going to try and grab another box when I get through this one and really work up a pantry stock, although at the rate we go through the apple rings, I'll have to work fast!

 

I must say that I love the dehydrator (although I need to buy more trays) and also our apple corer - it really does make the peeling and cutting process so much faster.  I find that some appliances sit in my cupboard untouched for months and others are used all the time.  I certainly can't live without our popcorn maker, electric fry pan. omelette maker, Braun blender and my electric beaters.

Do you have a favourite appliance that you can't live without?

Hong Kong - Inspiration Lake + shopping

{sponsored by Nuffnang}

Just several minutes drive from Disney’s Hollywood Hotel (situated on Lantau Island) is a wonderful recreational park called Inspiration Lake.  The lake is located within the Hong Kong Disneyland resort and visitors can actually walk there from the hotel.  We decided it would be a lovely way to fill in our Sunday morning, so we caught a taxi there (just $4 AUD) and walked back (20 minutes) a couple of hours later.

At the lake there are pedal boats and bikes for hire - not just ordinary bikes though - super awesome bikes that seat two or four people.  We went with the four seater bike and oh my,  it was so, so fun.  You can ride the bike around the lake - we did this 3 times! 

Swimming in the lake were the biggest and most beautiful fish, just casually swimming around and super easy to spot.  They were huge and we spent ages watching them. 

There’s a little 7/11 store at the lake - toilets, benches, a playground and pretty gardens to look at as you pedal around.  If you’re in Hong Kong and want to fill in a morning or afternoon, I’d definitely suggest a visit to Inspiration Lake - we would have gone back there again and again, only we moved over to Kowloon in the afternoon and ran out of time to make it back.  If you’re thinking of making a little trip to the lake (or Hong Kong Disneyland), it’s very easy (and fast!) to get there from the city - just pop on the train, bus or take a taxi. 

A few of you have asked about my shopping experiences in Hong Kong.  Well, the shopping in Hong Kong is wonderful and I’m not a shopper at all - rarely do I venture into the city here!!  But, I really enjoyed looking around the stores and markets over there.  We bought a new camera (Olympus E-PL1) while we were away and it was about $400 cheaper than the purchase price in Australia.  

As you know, Bella bought two new Blythe dolls and I bought one.    

We did most of our ‘store’ shopping in Mong Kok - catching the train there was super fast and the public transport system in Hong Kong is amazing, efficient and everything is well translated into English.  The boys spent a lot of time in the UML hobby store, buying models and Star Wars toys, while we shopped for re-ment (Blythe food/furniture) in the lower level.

One thing that I found fascinating were the crazy cute window displays, enticing you into their stores.  We totally fell for the smurf display above and Bella came out with her very own smurf t-shirt.

At Tsim Sha Tsui I stumbled across streets & streets of fabric and notions, often spilling out onto the road - I showed great restraint though!  Also at Tsim Sha Tsui we found a street market full of electronics, lights and yep, giant zip ties!  Can you see Rich taking a photo of  them in the pic above?

All of the markets were fascinating and great places to pick up gifts for family at home.  I found the Jade Market crazy and a bit stressful - I really wanted to browse nicely through the jewellery and I could have spent a full morning there, just pottering.  As soon as I hit the stalls though, the market owners were trying to sell, sell, sell!  Backwards and forwards they pass a calculator with the price on it - even if you’re just browsing.  Looking back now, I’m so pleased that we visited and I wear my jade bracelet every day, but at the time it was a little insane.

Moto Mart was a few minutes away from our accommodation (in a taxi) and it was high on Richard’s ‘must visit’ list - Moto heaven for motor bike/dirt bike fans.  Even for a non-bike lover (myself), I was pretty impressed with their store and service.  Pretty much nothing like we have here in Tasmania.  We had to lug a brand new motor bike helmet home in our carry on luggage (yes, we did) and the owners gave our kids so many free stickers, which was awfully kind.

Oh yes, and although McDonalds isn’t technically a shop, I feel the need to mention it, because there was one on every street - and we certainly ended up there quite a few times for lunch!

I’ve only really skimmed the surface in regards to shopping, there are just so many shops and markets to visit.  If you have a question, please feel free to pop it in the comments section and I’ll reply.  

Sigh.  We miss Hong Kong so much. Have I been typing that on every Hong Kong blog post so far?  It's true though, we do.

P.S. I'll be back soon to share our day at the Giant Buddha.