The One About Inori

Well, for the very first time in 27 26.5 years, I saw this:

A couple of a couple of years ago (that is, 4 years ago), I went up a mountain in Victoria and saw COMPACT ICE. Which is very different from snow, thankyouverymuch. The biggest difference is when you have snowball fights? It hurts. Real bad. Take my word for it. Don’t try.

It has been precipitating for the past few nights and I was delighted to see snow on the mountain! So of course, we decided to drive up!

(taken on the way up)

The snow on the rocks remind me of frosting on cakes… don’t they look like it?

I’m amazed at how soft the snow was. It felt so good to lie in it. I even did a few face plunges. (No face plonks were attempted at the 2006 compact ice mountain trip, thankyouverymuch.) The snow was knee deep and we had to try very hard not to stay in one spot for too long. Otherwise we would find ourselves sinking in!

I loved how the icicles had formed on the sparse vegetation.

Err………. the kids did not enjoy it very much. *Sigh*

Chubbs cried as soon as we put him on the snow. He only stopped crying when we gave him some clean snow to chew on.

Sunshine was okay at the beginning. We had snowball fights and she helped build part of our snowman. She was also busy ingesting snow bunnies.

But later, snow seeped into her boots and although she had double layer of socks on, she must have felt cold and wet and she too, started to cry. Don’t worry, we brought 3 changes of clothing. Haha. Talk about being prepared!

You can see how GRUMPY Chubbs looked. I can explain the cowl on his head – I left the car with Sunshine first and Nad came later to join us but he couldn’t find Chubb’s hat. So I put my cowl on his head as a temporary measure while I went back to the car for his hat.

And yes, I notice his boot had fallen off. Don’t worry, we picked it up. (He also lost a glove, careless boy… Nad had to get on his fours on the snow to sniff it out. go back to look for it.)

So… yeah!!! This was Nad when the trip just started. All smiles.

Us and Flog. Flog the snowman. Get it? Ha ha. Flog the snowman? Heheheheheheh *Demented laughter*

Ahem.

The wind was blowing mercilessly into our faces so it was a feat to keep our eyes open.

We then decided to walk to Antartica:

It was a long and treacherous and arduous  trek and winds were a-blowing and babies were a-howling and noses were a-dripping and frost bitten.

It was a bleak, desolate landscape with not a soul in sight.

In this strange land, we heard weird whirring noises and felt electric currents through our body. Wonder what caused it?

We stopped at a stupendous rock to have sourdough rye ration. We named the place sourdough-rye-on-the-rocks.

Then we blacked out for a few hours and when we came to, we had weird unexplained rashes on our arms and body.

This is Nad at the end of the trip – tired and sick of the babies’ crying. I think we woke up on a different planet…..?

Disclaimer: Not all of the anecdotal evidence are submissible facts. Use your own judgement.

One last picture of another mountain seen from the ground:

Bai bai.

Hellooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!! It’s been soooo long!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank you everyone for the comments left while I was gone…. I will try to reply them one by one so please be patient! I’m not ignoring anyone!!!

So.. yes… as you can imagine, I have much to say and many pictures to show.

We reached our destination in mid December but because of the Xmas and New Year holidays, it took so long for our furniture to arrive as well as the phone AND internet to be connected. The phone would have been connected earlier but the telephone company made a huge mistake and cut off my neighbour’s line instead of installing ours!!!!!!!! *Duh!*

THEN, our removalists managed to lose A LOT OF items. For example, Sunshine’s wooden table (very sad over this as Ikea doesn’t produce this anymore!), our bed slats (what good is the bed frame without the slats!?!?!?), parts of my armchair (again, from Ikea)… our hot water flask, my lace blocking kit and mats!!!! (ARRGHHH!!!), and many more items.

We are of course, very miffed and will be filing a complaint as well as claiming from insurance.

We had to buy wood boards from a hardware store (I love Bunnings, don’t you?) to use as the bed base, try not to wobble the armchair from side to side and grieve over the other lost items. (T___T)

Alright. I’m going to break our trip into 2 parts. To be honest, I don’t know when I can write part 2 of this post as we still have plenty to do around the house but I try my best.

There are 40 pictures in this post so if you have slow connection, or limited time, consider yourself warned.! Hahaha. Otherwise, click ahead!

(more…)

I’m so sorry, we’ve been busy packing and exams and kids and blah blah blah….

The movers came to take our belongings today and I’m currently sitting on the floor typing this post. The movers were very professional and may I say, over-enthusiastic.

Why?

Because they packed our shoes as well. We were left with only our flip flops, only because they weren’t in the house but in the backyard!! If they were in the house, we would have to go out barefooted to get new shoes. Hahhahaha.

We did a quick shopping trip to get us both new pairs of shoes (Nad said I looked good in a pair of dress shoes and bought it for me as well as a pair of pink sneakers. Hehehe) and we also got Sunshine a new pair of sandals even though her shoes were not accidentally packed away (her shoes were in the car).

In a few days, we say goodbye to our home for slightly more than 2 years. And we say goodbye to the state we’ve lived in for about 3 years.

We close a chapter of our lives and open a new one. We view this change with slight trepidation. It’s a little of a deja vu as well. Deja vu because we’ve moved from Singapore to here with only Faith on our backs and now we’re doing the exact same thing.

Now if we had tons of money, moving like this won’t be a problem. Hire people to pack and move for us and get plane tickets, get a nice house and have it ready for us etc… but we are not. So unfortunately, we have to bear with some inconvenience that comes with the move. I’m hoping it will be our 2nd last move (and our last interstate/international move).

I am going to miss my new found friends here in WA. Both the knitterly ones and the non-knitterly ones. I know we won’t be missing the summer here though!

Funny I thought I would be more stressed out about the move than I actually am right now. Maybe because I have Nad who is very supportive and responsible around to take care of the family. And even though it seems like it’s taking a stab in the dark where the future seems so uncertain, I know he is with me. BUT most importantly, God is here with all of us. Always. And I know we’ll be fine.

Tomorrow I go to school for my graduation. My results for the entire year are:

*clears throat*

Maths – 93% (1st in class!)

Physics – 94.4% (2nd in class!)

Chemistry – 91% (2nd in class, sharing the spot with another very clever lady! Who thinks she beats me anyway because she got half a mark more than I did in our final exam… Lol.. )

So next year, I will be doing the entrance exams to Medicine as well as Year 12 (equivalent to A levels). I was doing bridging to Year 12 this year, by the way (Slightly higher than O levels I would reckon – I’ve never done most of the topics we covered before)….

I can’t wait. I hope and pray that I will be able to make it into Med school.

I don’t know how long we’d be offline for. Probably more than a month. I don’t want to rush Nad into anything and being online is one of the least of our least worries for now.  (My current biggest worry is that there is a cockroach loose somewhere in the house and we’re sleeping on the floor tonight…………………..)

I’ve packed quite a few projects to cast on and am excited to unleash my castonitis, just dive in and indulge with all the new projects, baybee!!!!

Alrighty then…. till we meet again, please take care and have fun!

Well, we came back about 4 days ago but are still feeling tired. We need a holiday from our holiday!!!!!!

The truth is, no holiday is really a holiday when you have kids in tow. WHAT were we thinking?? 2 kids under 2?!?!? On holidays?!?!?

3 years (I think) ago, I went to Melbourne to visit Nad who was then my boyfriend. I didn’t like Melbourne.

3 years (or so) later, I STILL HATE MELBOURNE.

The traffic, the crowds, the ARGHHHH!

We didn’t take pictures in Melbourne. I don’t want to talk about it. Except that I got to meet Debra and Alison and Tara and many other people who came up to me to say hi (I’m easily identifiable because I’m asian and have 2 kids in tow… ). I would have enjoyed Bendi better without the kids. Had to stop to change diapers and feed and etc etc etc. Sunshine was VERY tired and cranky as we didn’t have a stroller so she couldn’t sleep while I shopped.

Thank God for Debra… well, her hotel room….. Sunshine and Chubbs got to rest up there and Nad slept in the car for awhile (because our chatting kept him up). We had dinner and then we drove back down to Melbourne.

I also visited Alison in her home up in the hills. Scary drive! I don’t think I’m suited for living in the hills. Alison taught me how to Navajo ply (spinning). Will have to try it soon otherwise she would nag at me! LOL.

As for Tassy.. we loved the place. Scenery was pleasing to the eye. Was a little chilly though. Strong winds at night, howling and Nad couldn’t sleep for the fear of our little cabin being blown away and we’d find ourselves blown to Kansas.

We stayed in a self-contained cabin/ container in a caravan park. It was the most we could afford.

It had a rustic look to it… most pictures taken in the cabin had a sepia tone, especially when the light streamed through the window.

I achieved this soft look not because of my excellent photography skills (although I DO have excellent photography skills, *ahem*) but because I left the camera in the glove compartment in the car overnight and the lens fogged up!!!!!!!! It took so long to defog. That’s how cold it was.

Isn’t she sweet?

Saying her grace.

Nad tried to tempt Chubbs with some bread. -___-”

This is Chubbs with Sunshine’s favouritest toy. She calls him ‘Mossy’ (because he looks like a mosquito) but I want to find out what his real name is. Typing ‘muppet with blue long nose that looks like a mosquito’ in Google might not yield any results. Can someone let me know who this character is from The Muppets? Please?

By the way, our little boy is now 7kg. He’s 3.5months and is already 7kg. Sunshine is almost 2 years old and only weighs about 11kg. Sigh. He’s gonna grow bigger and bigger and he would soon be bigger than her!

They look alike, don’t they?

Random scenery for you.

This is the bridge in the town we stayed in (Richmond). It was built in the 1800s…. I think. And has a few potholes so every time we drove on it we had to be very very careful.

Rumours were that Richmond is haunted (so says the reception lady at the caravan park)…. But we weren’t afraid at all. Richmond is a very nice, old town.

One day we drove around Richmond and Nad parked the car on the grass on a slope. WE GOT STUCK!!!!!!!!!

It had rained the whole night before and beneath the grass was MUD!!!!!!!!

We were hopelessly stuck and wished that we had rented a 4WD instead. -___-

Nad borrowed the Yellow Pages from a resident nearby and called the tow truck.

Err.. we had $100 less to spend on our trip.

It was funny though, thinking back. I thanked my lucky stars that I brought my knitting along. I sat in the car to knit while waiting to be towed out. Lol.

We also went to church while we were there and made fast friends with a family. They invited us to their home and we got to meet their VERY VERY VERY cute cow, Jenny.

She came RUNNING towards us like a puppy when they called her name!!!! SO CUTE!!!!!!!! Sorry about the picture.. it was sundown by the time we reached their house.

They also had chooks and 2 goats. One of the goats, Bubbles, was pregnant with at least 2 kids! How exciting!

We were really blessed to have met and gained the friendship of this family as they have been checking on us everyday we were there, making sure we were safe and well. Thank God for placing these friends in our lives.

That’s all I have to say. I have a long list of THINGS TO DO in front of me and I’d better do it fast while the kids are asleep.

I’ve also started night classes in preparation to gaining entry into Uni so I am without the kids Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays.

Last night was Maths class and I think I can ace this class easily. I’ve done these in Secondary school and just need to refresh my memory. Tonight and tomorrow night would be Chemistry and Physics and I think I might have problems with these. I was only good in Maths (and Geography) when I was in school.

I missed little Chubbs very very badly when I was in class. 3.5 hrs without him! (And then I came home and decided that it was great without him for awhile. LOL!)

Okay, my house is in a mess and I’m just rattling on to myself and no one is reading this anymore. Catch ya later!

Two days ago we went to the sand dunes with our guests. It was a 2 and half hour drive from home and since we left rather late, we reached there when it was about 5pm when it was almost sun down.
We saw the sign that only four wheel drive (4WD) vehicles were able to enter the area. Since a passing tour guide told us that our guests’ 12 seater van could probably go on the first leg of the dunes and since there were no more tours leaving at this hour, we decided that we would go as far as we could. Nad, the kids and I were in front since we have 4WD and told our guests to signal to us if they feel that they couldn’t go any further.

We saw the sand change to a slightly softer consistency and were wondering if we should stop when ACK! They got stuck!

The back right wheel was just spinning in the loose sand and with every acceleration, it dug a deeper hole and the van was sinking in. It was hopelessly stuck!

A kind passer by came to us and tried to help. We tried pushing but that didn’t work. He said he’ll go get a piece of rope and will be right back. Meanwhile Nad and I (with our kids) drove out to take down the number of the rescue team. They had signs with their numbers on them just outside of the area.

We went back and waited for the man to come back with the rope before calling the rescue team.

Then, we saw these:

There were 4 of the red ones and one white one coming towards us!

They did a parallel park :

Hahahahah we felt like we were in an action movie!

Then men then got to work and they started pushing.

And pushing.

(Note: See Nad wearing his new sweater I knitted?   )

We were finally freed.

We were so thankful for the rangers’ help. We watched them drive into the sunset:

Hahaha. What an experience! It sure made an otherwise boring day into an exciting one!

We got a nearby tour guide to bring us on a tour of the dunes in their big ass bus after all (my friend paid an arm and a leg for that) and we got to sandboard for awhile in the semi-darkness.

Then it was a loooonnngg drive home.

What an adventure!