Outdoors

We've been outdoors a lot, mainly for our survival project...(mentioned two posts before), scouts, and archery.

But for relaxation...we've only done two this year.

1) Our favourite picnic spot with Uncle W!  Honestly nothing better than BBQ by a stream...soo relaxing! Need to do  this more often.

2) Camping- Genting with friends/scouts.
Lots of fun for kids, followed by a heavy rain at night! I tell you, nothing like trying to cook over campfire under light rain....followed by heavy rain that drenched most of the kids' tents!!

Not camping related....a Bulbul nest on our tree again. Precious!! :)

@poundthegarlic.blogspot.com 2015

Some random art from this year so far

Most art here...will be mine and Jo's. Nel doesn't really do art, although she will occasionally doodle and design.

Hand painted an old brown chair. Scraped and polished and painted it. Good as new now. :)

 A wooden bench made by Jo with a little help from her dad and Nel. Mostly done by Jo.

I dreamt a strange dream. Bout old friends...sharing conversation..laughing at their wrinkles, allowing their white hair and wrinkles to blend in with a checkered quilt. Let's hope I age as gracefully as the ladies in my dream did. :)

At the request of Prof Chan, we met up with her and did a few pieces of Batik Collage to help raise funds for the Turtle Conservation Society.

Nel made a card....picture of work in progress.

Jo's of course, always has a mermaid in it.

On a tired day...I decided to try painting a 3D garlic for fun...with watercolour. Not bad for a first try??

Nel tried placing a real garlic on my pencil sketch. Cool effect. :)

Couldn't resist a bit more fun.

@poundthegarlic.blogspot.com 2016

Volunteering so far 2016

We've been volunteering...because volunteering is rewarding and a nice change from our schedule.

1)We helped out recently at the Turtle Conservation Society Booth during the Raptor Watch. Girls made a little Turtle and Ladder game for the public, in hopes that those who played it would realize how hard it is for a turtle hatchling to survive, thus we all have to help in conservation.

                             Quite a lot of children came by and took the challenge. :)

2) Twice a month we travel about an hour and a half to go teach English to a group of children who can barely understand English. Nel especially is really into it and looks forward to each trip. Jo is more of my assistant, helping when I require additional help with kids who are weak in pronunciation, and she also helps out with conversational English. It's an awesome experience that we plan to continue with faithfully.

Part of our journey, by boat.

@poundthegarlic.blogspot.com 2016

Some highlights from 2016

With the girls in preteen and teen years now, there seems to be so much more activities, and so little time left to blog. Whatever free time I've left, is spent vegetating doing nothing, resting, reading, or perhaps doing a little art.

Trying to catch up on blogging is tough. Just some highlights from this year so far:

1) Girls have been baking a lot, sometimes having little challenges with each other or a friend.

Sweet Potato Kuih which girls made for Chinese New Year. Turned out great!! :)

2) Together with two good friends, they're doing a cool but slow going survival project. All self learnt... with a little help from Mr. Google. We learn it is hard going experimenting with survival stuff. Easy when someone shows how it is done. Hopefully we get somewhere with this.
Stuff girls and friends have tried so far:

• Starting lots of fires of course.
• Whittling to shape a fish hook
• Making pancakes from nuts with nothing but rocks to pound
• Smoking fish to preserve
• Making an axe
• Boiling water with nothing but mud and hot stones

Girls built a tripod, and attached rope to dry fish which they cut cleaned and fillet. With lots of patience, it turned
out quite tasty! (though we burnt one or two.)

Yup...it is tough going as they've realised. NOthing is easy without practice.

3) Jo after bugging me for years about archery began lessons this year and has finished her first cycle. After three months of classes and still lovin it, she decided to part with her Chinese New YEar angpow money to get herself a brand new bow!! Oooh yeah!


4) Girls participated in Science fair...and won one of the Best Booth Award. The other award went to their good friend K. In all fairness, I think all the kids at the fair were fantastic! Homeschool rocks!!
Girls worked hard on their project, The Science of Fragrance. Since it is a project that takes time, patience and persistence...it wasn't always easy going. Lots of mistakes, redoing, and stuff that went wrong. Lots of learning and going into related information. Perhaps, I'll let them write a post on this another day.

to be continued.......

@poundthegarlic.blogspot.com 2016