Munie, ni untuk hang!

My friend Munie texted me early this morning while I was in the middle of baking some cupcakes. I woke up at 4.30am, showered, did my Subuh and then off to the kitchen. Subuh is starting to get so much earlier  now that Summer is closer. Isyak pulak punya la lambat. Nak pukul 11 malam baru la masuk Isyak. Pasang alarm pepagi nak bangun, asyik dok tekan snooze sentiasa. Anyway, I volunteered to make some dessert for the Dessert day in conjunction with Staff Appreciation week at the boys' school this week. Yesterday I made some pasta for the Staff Luncheon since they had an Italian theme. Whether it had an authentic Italian taste, I had no idea. But I'm glad to make some for you. Just come over! Nak volunteer duduk kat sekolah lama2 malas, so kira masak pun boleh lah asaikan nampak muka kat sekolah tu once in awhile ye dak. Cek Munie, hang tengok gambaq dulu, bila aku balik Kedah, aku masak untuk hang no. Miss u!

Today's weather is absolutely gorgeous. And I'm going to do some gardening in a little while. That is after I'm done with updating this poor unattended blog. I feel like it's almost a sin to just stay inside the house and not spending some time outside enjoying the RARE dry breezy sunny weather. Can you picture it now that I give you all the words that I can think of at the moment to describe how great it is outside the house? :-)  Perhaps some pictures will help.

Yard Work

I did some yard work today, mainly weeding and trimming heath bushes, since the weather has been so nice and not too chilly. The temperature has been in the mid 50s F (10 C) during the day. I've also halfway cleared a spot for the boys to plant their flower seeds since they've been asking for it for weeks now. By the way, those seeds have already expired  last year - according to the date on the box. So that makes me wonder if they will ever grow?  It was not a surprise when right after the boys got down from their school bus and saw me standing with a shovel in my hand, the first thing they asked me was "Can we plant our seeds today?" But we didn't, not today anyway. The boys got sidetracked with their bikes and soccer ball and I still think the spot needs a little bit more TLC before we finally put the seeds in the soil. And hopefully they'll grow. The last time I tried, they didn't.

The kids in their helping mode, which lasted for an hour before their attention span was short lived by bikes and balls.

The trimmed heath bushes. Should have done this in fall instead of spring. 

Do you know that the Rhododendron is Washington state flower? I just knew about it a few secs ago while googling for the right spelling for it.

 Our front yard with Ezzat in the picture.

Crazy about Cherry

Apr 2, 2011

It's cherry blossom actually. Unfortunately I think their blooming time is almost over :-(. The ones across the street from our backyard still have flowers but they're falling off fast. And I am craving for some pretty colors instead of just gray, brown and green - which are pretty much the standard colors here. Hence, I took tons of pictures of them - at a parking lot. And I'm going to share them with you so that hopefully when you look at them, they will make you feel cheery too. That's how I feel.

A Rainy Day of Sightseeing

Apr 2, 2011

My friend Anna told me about this place Point No Point which has a sandy beach. That got me excited since most of the beaches here that we've been to are full of rocks and gravels. Although the weather looked pretty gloomy as if it would rain any minute we decided to go anyway to check out the place.

Point No Point is located in the small town of Hansville, WA. From  where we live, it takes about 30 minutes to get there. Go here to see the aerial view of the place and click on each picture at the side. I love it.

On the way to the light house, we saw this old boat which probably has been converted to a house. 

 The Point No Point beach. 

There were light rain and hail right after we stopped at the parking lot. Plus it got really chilly and we weren't prepared for it. It was pretty disappointing but the place is not too far so we would definitely come back sometimes soon.

We were not prepared to call it a day. On the way back, we spotted this place and decided to explore it.

 I feel like I'm back at the park when I look at this picture.

The trail was all wet and muddy but the rain stopped and the sunshine peeking through lacy moss made things much better.

I love this part of the trail.

Spring Break

The boys are having their Spring break for a week.  This week's weather has been pretty miserable; it's mostly gloomy and rainy.  It makes me want to camp out on the sofa with a blanket and nap all day long. The thought has not materialized so far. I got busy with daily routines and the boys kept themselves busy with story books, math practices, Legos, toys, TV and bikes but we did go to some parks nearby.

Here's the boys' favorite new park, Poulsbo's Fish Park. I used to think that the park was pretty small considering it's just right off the busy Lindvig Way road. It never did catch my attention until Emir mentioned it to us when he went there on a school field trip. He came back from the trip, all excited about the park and  told us about how he released his salmon fries into the streams at the park. Emir has been studying salmons since Fall and he has a Spring break challenge in which he has to create a Riparian ecosystem model that is best for salmon development. 'Ripa' means river bank in Latin.  I thought going to the park would give us an idea on how to build the model. So we did. Two days in a row.

At nearly 21 acres, the park is certainly larger than it looks from the road. I'm glad I took the kids there. There are a couple streams running toward the Dogfish Creek. 

The trail at the park is almost 1000 feet, a combination of wide wooden boardwalks, gravels and dirt. Hundreds of bird houses are scattered throughout the park and we did see a lot of birds.

 Can you spot a bird and a seaplane?

Poulsbo's waterfront is just across the street so this plane might landed there because it flew pretty low above us.

Enchanted forest

The boys found their favorite place to play right away.

I found mine. A big cherry blossom tree with white flowers.

The boys declared this place as their secret hideout. This is actually underneath my favorite huge cherry blossom tree. They cleared some of the fallen branches and they got this nice space to play. 

This was the view when we looked up