Fun at the Wickhams - Part 1

We went to Aunt Barbara's house somewhere in Portland for Thanksgiving which was the next day after the snow storm and power outage. Aunt Barbara is Daniel's auntie from his dad's side. We spent 2 nights there but the first night didn't really count that much since we arrived very late at night. I'll tell you why later. But it was all so much fun! They have this nice big place called  Blueberry Hollow, which is to me is like a small farm with some chickens that lay organic eggs, goats that provide fresh goat milk and meat, a cute little horse which has a name but I forgot, 2 funny geese, and a dog named Andy and oh some 60 something blueberry trees! Or is it 100 trees?  I'm not sure but anyway the blueberries are available for u-pick in summer. Thanks to Aunt Barbara and Uncle John and Asif, their Muslim neighbor, we're able to enjoy some halal turkey and goat meat. I love their house especially the yard, the spacious living room and the huge kitchen. There'll be some photo overload just because I took zillions of pictures and had a hard time to choose which one to put on here. Probably I'll divide this entry to 2 parts so you guys won't get bored, we'll see how it goes.

Front view. Inside the little barn opposite the cars is where you can find fresh goat milk and organic eggs for  sale and it's based on honor system so you can just leave money or checks in the jar provided. Next to the barn is the chicken house.

Look at that handsome couple! They're sure know how to pose for a picture

These two are pretty eccentric and funny, especially the brown one. Just look at how he walks.  Actually I'm not sure if it's really a 'he', nobody really knows for sure. As for now, I assume it is just because he likes to show off and acts as if he wants to chase you. But when you start flapping your arms and stare at him to show dominance over him, he turns around. Silly goose :-)

How awesome is the backyard?!

This is like giving you guys a tour right? Imagine how much fun it would be during summer, having BBQ outside etc

Aren't they cute?

The goat shed. I say they have pretty cool place to live :-) The boy in yellow snow hat is John, Aunt Barbara's son

The horse! Now I remember -his name is Rusty...I think

I'm pretty sure in summer this plot here would be full of fresh veggies. Look at that parsley and that's in winter people!

Blueberry bushes in their dormant state in winter

Does anybody know what kind of fruit is this? It looks like persimmon to me.

Let's go inside the house. It's pretty chilly out here.

First stop, upstairs to check what the boys were doing. They had fun for sure with the big boys. I think there were 10 boys in total.

Farhan decided he needed some time alone to play with the nerf gun. That was the most popular toy that day.

The adults meanwhile chose to simply chill before the other guests arrived.

Somewhere in between, I went to Aunt Barbara to this place to find some holly for table decorations. It was a nice short walk.

The holly that we picked, well Aunt Barbara actually. I just watched.

 Yellow and red, love the contrast.

Let It Snow!

We were excited to get our first snow here last week. But with that, came the unexpected - snow storm and power outage... for 40 HOURS (power outage that is)! The temperature inside the house was around 40 something F (8-10C). We even saw our own breath, which was actually fun for the first few minutes before we started to feel extremely cold and grumpy. By we, I mean me in particular. Took some pictures as usual so here you go :-)

Having fun in the snow while waiting for the school bus

Happily off to school. Little did they know the school would be closed for the rest of the week

Stark contrast between winter and fall. Love the colors.

Our backyard. I haven't mulch my garden yet :-(

Rake and my flip flops were still outside. Random pics but I personally think they gave a nice contrast against the white snow.

Playing snowball anyone? This was taken the next day after the storm. The sky was super clear, and the sun was out and the snow started to melt a bit but the power was still out. Darn.

Our neighbors next door are super nice people. I woke up  the next morning and saw them shoveling the snow off our driveway and walkways. They also spread salt over the cleared area to avoid icing. How nice is that?!  They said that since we just moved from Hawaii, they figured that we didn't have proper tools to do the job so they helped. In return I gave them some curry puffs and cupcakes to say thank you.

Fun time outside using socks as gloves to throw snowballs at each other.

We didn't want to stay inside the house as it's too cold so we went to Island Lake instead. Remember Island Lake from my previous entry? It's cold too but at least we're outside with much nicer view to see and enjoy. Plus I want to take some pictures of the lake in winter. This road that we had to take to the lake was very slippery and had a thin layer of ice on it. Going down the hill was pretty tricky and we had to drive really slow but going up was worse. And on the way back, the car kept sliding down so we had to take a different route. Some people had to leave their cars at the road side the night before as it was too dangerous to drive.

This was totally unplanned. We have this tarp in the car for a long time and once we saw this slope, the idea  to use it to slide down the hill just popped up. Climbing up the slope was pretty tricky for the kids though. The boys had fun before they started complaining about their socks cum gloves got wet and didn't want to play anymore.

Pretty views. The lake was partially frozen and some ducks were still in the water

The snow didn't last. Still freezing cold  but back to the ol' rainy day for most of the days

Awesome gifts and birthday

I promise that this is going to be my final entry about birthdays for this year. And this one is for Mr. Farhan. He turned eight 10 days ago and I didn't really have time to sit down and write and upload all the photos with all  the things that had happened in the past weeks. I can't really say which one took more time, but they're pretty much made me sound like 'Jill of all trades, master of none' kind of person. Poppy sent the kids super cool gifts and they LOVE it. They also got some awesome Legos from Auntie Cheri all the way from Malaysia but I didn't take any photos of them amidst all the chaos of cooking, opening the Lego boxes and putting them together. So thank you so much to Poppy and Auntie Cheri! 

These cute little critters have their own names. The red one is Nino, the one that looks like a grasshopper is Leopold and there's Talullah in purple. These bugs can jump and fly pretty high. We pressed them against a smooth clean surface until the suction cups on the bottom grabbed on to it. After a few seconds waiting, the suction cups were released and the critters jumped off to another place. Fun!

Here are Bonga, Zecar and Pintacuda. These windups and the bugs are all from Kikkerland.

Birthday boy eating dinner which consisted of herbed basmathi rice, steamed green beans, turmeric sticky rice and beef rendang. He loved them especially the sticky rice.

He hated this though

He didn't seem to mind that these were pink. I just used whatever that was left in the fridge so I ended up making vanilla cupcakes with blueberry cream cheese frosting.

Emir is 9!

Another birthday entry! Emir turned 9 last Sunday and we took him and his brothers to the Naval Undersea Museum nearby our house. He also got a dvd that has something to do with Star Wars game which I don't have any clue on how to play, in which he is allowed to play - at certain times on certain days, only when he fulfills a few conditions we have set for him. So don't worry. 

Actually we started our day pretty late that day. I had to go to the commissary to get a few things to make the birthday cake, and Emir had to get a haircut since it started to look messy and made his head looked bigger. And in between that time, Daniel took the birthday boy to Target to get the dvd game that he wanted. So by the time we got home for lunch, it was already 2pm and the museum opens until 4pm so there's no way for us to have lunch first and then go to the museum. So the plan changed, I stayed at home to prepare lunch and the cake and sushi for dinner (requested by Mr Emir) and all the 4 boys went to the museum. And the kitchen was in total mess by the end of the day, with chocolate ganache all over the place. I should have picked a much easier recipe for the cake or at least prepare the filling or the cakes one day earlier. Dinner ended way passed the kids bed time and we did the birthday song in less than 3 seconds that sounded like a fast-forward Alvin & the Chipmunk's recording, in which during that period also covered blowing out candles. Hardly any pictures were taken but whatever that we have, they're here for you to enjoy :-).

Emir with a new hair cut. The only picture that I took of him that night. And we have to get him new glasses too since it's broken.

Ezzat wished Emir Happy Birthday and gave Emir a hug before going to bed. I guess he was very sleepy since he said no to the cake. On the other hand, Mr Farhan happily ate his portion and tried to stay up as long as he could. Of course it was limited, only until he finished his cake, brushed his teeth, and gave each of us a hug. 

I love natural light. It makes so much difference to the pictures I take.