Thoughts on Pets by Jasmin
My history of pet's is not the best (like in numbers) My first pets was somewhere, we had a fish called Jace ('Ja' for Jasmin and 'ce' for Grace). Second pets was Turtles, we had Fauna and Emerald. I had the girl and Grace had the boy, thats all really that I remember of them, since it was so long ago. The third pet were Fancy rats. Before you go ew, didn't they gave us the black plague? well no. Blame the fleas, rats did nothing. and other weird reasons like that, they were the best pets I had. Smart and Athy. lovely little things. but they are gone now......=;( moving on.. after they passed away, we got my fourth pet. ("pets" to be specific ) Fish. Bo, Do, Mo, So, Fo, No, Go, Co and Quo the water snail ( the clean up guy (or girl idk which one ) ). We first got Mo for my birthday soon after that we got Bo, a powder blue dwarf gourami (yep!) Do, Fo, No All neon tetras. then the very sad legacy of why do all our neons dye? Fo and No died first. =( then we got new ones Go and Co to keep Do company but then she died and we got So, a sunshine molly of some kind of fish any way then we went a way for a while and when we came back we found Mo died =;( Bo amazingly surveyed the saga of why do all our neons die? then we got Quo. he lived and all the other fish lived on. my fifth pet. well more like fifth and sixth pet but I'm off the point. the point is we got three pet turtles and a Suger Glider. let's talk bout the turtles first. we got three of them. Seashell, Dimond and Kibby. Kibby is the only boy, in the group. a little bit of there personalty, Kibby is the runner. Dimond is the lap turtle. and Seashell is the mountain climber weirdly. Good climber for a turtle, But.....not so good on our standers. For example, a ledge the we can just step over easy peasy lemon squeezy. It's not so easy for a turtle - she usually ends up turned over on her back.
My seventh pet (actually just one this time) - Zedda, a sugar glider. She is so cute and soft, but is a master at escaping. This makes taming her rather harder. She eats fruit and veggies, likes yogurt. In the wild she would eat insects and bugs, but I have to give her protein pellets instead. So far I can massage her in her sleeping pouch, pet her, and she will climb on my head. She likes to be high up so she can glide. She is a marsupial, and is like a flying squirrel - she has "wings" between her front and back legs. She is greyish black on the back and white creamy underbelly, and has black stripes. Her tail looks like she dipped it in ink. She has a very long tail. She can curl it around things, but doesn't hang on it like a monkey. She 'crabs' and squeaks and I have read that they can bark. She is the most difficult pet to tame, but I think she will be worth it. When she is tame, she won't need to be in the cage much hopefully.
Family Fun Day
At the beginning of July was our church's family fun day. It certainly was fun! It was the best organized fun day we've ever seen. The Young Adults group prepared 8 game stations, 3 riddles, and 3 scavenger hunts all aver the church building for different teams to cycle through. Each game gave your team points. At the end of the morning the score cards were handed in and the winners announced over lunch. There were 10 teams - we were given different coloured wrist bands to mark the teams. There about 10 people per team, so our family was half a team!
The first thing was all together in the sanctuary where we did Zoomba altogether. We weren't all that impressed to start with this as we had gotten up early on a Saturday and biked the 9 km to church so we didn't need warming or loosening up! But it got fun by the end - more like doing actions to VBS songs.
Then the teams split up to different stations to start the games. We did "beer bowling" first which was bouncing pingpong balls into half filled cups of water on the table top. This was the only game we didn't get full points for. Other games were: telephone charades, knocking stacked cups down with elastic bands and paper, bottle fishing, card ninja, guiding your team blindfolded around the auditorium picking up stuffed toys, balloon juggling... The scavenger hunts and riddles were finding things around the church and taking group pictures with them (like something red, a mural, a certain symbol). Some of them were not easy to find, but we found them all.
Swimming
The kids are doing a lot of swimming. Today they stayed down at the pool for 3 hours or so! First they played alone, then some friends came and another kid joined in later, and when they left the new friend stayed to play...
Aiden:
We played Leeches and Sharks. The island is Pelican Palace. The waterslide is the Shark Shaft. The leeches live on the blue stripe - Leech Lane. Sharks chase the pelicans, the pelicans chase the leeches, and the leeches chase the sharks. You win by a predator catching hold of its prey and holding on for 10 seconds. For example, the shark catches a pelican and holds onto it for 10 seconds without the pelican escaping. Then the shark lets it go and get 1 point. You need to get 5 points. Always running for your life.
Sounds like fun mayhem :o) They are hungry and happy for supper for sure.
Visa Run
Now this Friday we leave for Bangkok to do a visa run. We didn't want to have to, but we don't have our long term visa yet and our social visa is running out so we must renew it. Apart from the disruption of already having to travel out of the country, the trip is good: the kids all enjoy the train trip, we will be busy with friends in Bangkok, and we'll get to check out the free museum and butterfly park we just learned about.
Monday, July 16, 2018
Friday, July 13, 2018
A tumble through the last month part 1
Youth Camp
Mom: June started with Grace and Jasmin going to Youth Camp with the church youth group. It was an odd experience to have them both gone for most of the week, although Aiden enjoyed having mom and dad to himself.
Grace: It was GREAT! At each meal/makan time we had one spicy dish, which wasn't really spicy.
We were separated into 3 groups: Faith (Jasmin's), Hope (me!), and Love. We had 6 dorms, two for each team, divided into boys and girls. We get up at 6:30 and go to bed at 11! The last night they even persuaded the pastor to let them go to bed at 1!!
On the first day, we played a ten-layer cake game with ten activities to get information. When you got all the information, you had to find Allison, who could be anywhere(!) and show it to her to win. Hope divided into pairs who would do two or more activities (some were left over) and then meet together again. I was with Ashling and we did word scramble and calligraphy.
Calligraphy was writing the theme verses with your foot! That took us ages (Ashling did the writing). Then we had to do word scramble - take our names and make them into five five-letter words! We did this very fast - our words were Grace, Ashes, Lines, Chain, and Chair.
The other game was a water fight! Your king/queen got sugar paper as your armour/life and everyone else got newspaper. If your paper ripped half or more, you're dead, and if your ruler dies, the kingdom falls. We did icebreakers to earn points to buy guns and balloons.
Icebreakers
The first one was to get two coins out of two cups of ice without using your hands, throwing it, or using hot water. Hope did it first by using friction and physics! Then we had to answer questions about the 'sermons' - hope you remember! Also some boys did something but I don't know what it was because we had to go away so that they could concentrate.
The water fight was good - but the other teams ganged up on us! After the water fight we played a fun game called cannonball - like a mix between European handball and Idiot ball. It was in matches - Love vs Faith, Love vs Hope, Faith vs Hope. Love had a very good team, but still lost both matches. Faith won one and lost the other, but Hope won both! That was a hot day.
We also had to come up with a group cheer - Love had a crazy silly one - it started with one guy going 'lo lo lo lo, lo lo lo lo lo...', and then progressed into a cheer I couldn't understand (a room with really bad echo so you can't hear it well), and had seemingly random "King king! King king!" interspersed, and ended with people going "Hello Hello Hello?"
Faith I think had the best cheer - I'll let Jasmin tell it.
Hope - we had a goodish cheer, but we thought it had to be short.
We also had to make skits, centred around the theme of giving your life to God 100% in about 8 minutes- I'll just tell Hope's skit.
Scene 1
Sunday at Church
The preacher reads Romans 12:1-2
Allison listens, as she listens, she has a flashback of the past events of that week
Scene 2
Monday(?)
Allison walks along the street, and sees a beggar, who asks for money. Allison gives her some money, and gets a white paper (white represents a good deed, black represents bad).
Scene 3
Later that week, at school
Allison and her friends come into the classroom - It's test day. Allison's friend begs her to cheat and show the answers to them - Allison's sitting beside the top guy in class.
Before Allison can answer, the teacher comes in and the test starts. Allison decides to cheat, and gets caught. Her friends betray her and blame her. The teacher calls Allison's parents and Allison gets a black paper.
Scene 4
At home
Allison's parents are waiting for her, and Allison sneaks in. Her father calls her, and starts to scold her. Her mother asks if she really did it, and Allison lies. Her mother apologizes for wrongly accusing her. She gets a black paper.
Scene 5
Back to present
The preacher wraps up his sermon, telling them to live their lives 100%. (Allison recommits her life 100%, but this is implied and isn't actually in the play.)
Starting Chinese classes
Aiden: We have multiple teachers and 4 other students in our classroom. I have 2 books now that I can read pinyin. I haven't learned many words to say because they want me to learn to read first.
Grace: I don't mind other kids in the same room, but it means that sometimes (rarely) I have to wait while my is trying to teach me and one or two other kids at the same time! It's pretty much a different teacher every time, but over the weeks you get the same kids again. They us SO MANY materials! I currently have one finished storybook with flashcards (I'm going to get another), a sentence workbook, a word writing book, two 'Mei Ri Hua Wen' books, a '1a' book, a folder for papers, AND a test paper! Phew!
We almost always get there 5-20 minutes early, which is a good time to talk with the receptionist, review Chinese, or just cool down from biking in the heat. When in class, we have to talk as much as possible in Chinese, but I don't think they really stick to that. Sometimes I have to write so much that my hand hurts - every new word I learn I write down in my word book!
Mom: It took awhile to settle on a time that would work for all of us, but we found it and got started. I bike them there 2 times a week. As with most Asian schools we know about, the focus is heavy on reading and writing first, but Aiden is coming home with a new phrase or two. After about 2 weeks, Grace is already hitting more new material than review, so they are moving pretty fast! Unfortunately I wasn't able to find a class for myself at the same time as theirs, so I go out yet again on Saturday for my own class. The pace is impressive, so I'm glad for the two times a week I can devote to review while I'm waiting for Grace and Aiden. The other student in my class has already dropped out, so I have a private tutor!
Day of Praise
June 29-30 was a 24hour worship service with teams from all over Malaysia leading an hour of worship and prayer for Malaysia each. Our church's slot was 7am.
Grace: My favourite team was a Tamil team! They were pretty much all wearing colourful traditional clothes. They managed to go into their songs one after the other without stopping - eventually you just realize that they're in another song! Once they finished the 'song' and moved into another very different set. I think they might've had the most singers, and they had an all-girl traditionally dressed Tamil dance team with tambourines dancing in front (there were two girls dancing in there too).
We sang in English, Chinese, Malay, tribal Malay, Tamil, and Swahili! Swahili - Siahu--mba kukanyanwenkoh...
I had to eat breakfast there - granola, an apple, and some yoghurt I poured over the granola. I probably ate breakfast at 10 maybe.
Mom:
I almost gave up on this and didn't go as it came after a busy week and I really didn't want to get up to be there at 7 am, but it was well worth the effort. We ended up staying for 5 ½ hours and not wanting to come home! Our attention broke about 1pm, as yet another group sang song after song in Malay. By then we had already enjoyed singing in 6 different languages, but song after song not knowing what you're singing looses its appeal and tummies call for lunch. If it happens in Penang again, I think I'd try and arrange to be there the whole time.
Pets
Grace: We have the most pets we've ever had! A friend gave us three turtles, and Jasmin got a sugar glider for her birthday! She's called Zeda, or Zedda, but you say it Ze-da. She (yes, it's a she) lives in two cages on top of each other with furry slippers for pouches and a little house and some balls to play with. She's nocturnal and makes quite a few crashes and bangs in the night. Jasmin's currently taming her.
Zeda isn't afraid of Jasmin (or me, I don't think), so when Jasmin takes her out - like the master escape artists sugar gliders are - she escapes. So far she's only gotten out of our room once - and not very far at that. So we Zeda-proofed the room and let her run around yesterday - she definitely liked, if not loved it! She loves yoghurt! We bought some treats called yoghurt drops, but at first she didn't like them. Then she found out about... YOGHURT! Now she loves them and even steals them from Jasmin.
As for our three turtles...
My turtle is called Seashell, is a female, and she is the biggest. She is a fighter, and loves climbing!
Jasmin's turtle is called Kibby, who is the only male, and he's the smallest. Kibby loves racing, eating, and is the energetic runner. We sometimes call him Clean-Up Kibby.
Aiden's turtle is called Diamond for the shape on her back, is a female, and is in the middle. Aiden has dropped her before, which might be why she is the lap turtle who likes hiding and almost never wins races - to Aiden's disappointment.
I guess I should leave something others to tell, so I'll stop here.
Mom: June started with Grace and Jasmin going to Youth Camp with the church youth group. It was an odd experience to have them both gone for most of the week, although Aiden enjoyed having mom and dad to himself.
Grace: It was GREAT! At each meal/makan time we had one spicy dish, which wasn't really spicy.
We were separated into 3 groups: Faith (Jasmin's), Hope (me!), and Love. We had 6 dorms, two for each team, divided into boys and girls. We get up at 6:30 and go to bed at 11! The last night they even persuaded the pastor to let them go to bed at 1!!
On the first day, we played a ten-layer cake game with ten activities to get information. When you got all the information, you had to find Allison, who could be anywhere(!) and show it to her to win. Hope divided into pairs who would do two or more activities (some were left over) and then meet together again. I was with Ashling and we did word scramble and calligraphy.
Calligraphy was writing the theme verses with your foot! That took us ages (Ashling did the writing). Then we had to do word scramble - take our names and make them into five five-letter words! We did this very fast - our words were Grace, Ashes, Lines, Chain, and Chair.
The other game was a water fight! Your king/queen got sugar paper as your armour/life and everyone else got newspaper. If your paper ripped half or more, you're dead, and if your ruler dies, the kingdom falls. We did icebreakers to earn points to buy guns and balloons.
Icebreakers
The first one was to get two coins out of two cups of ice without using your hands, throwing it, or using hot water. Hope did it first by using friction and physics! Then we had to answer questions about the 'sermons' - hope you remember! Also some boys did something but I don't know what it was because we had to go away so that they could concentrate.
The water fight was good - but the other teams ganged up on us! After the water fight we played a fun game called cannonball - like a mix between European handball and Idiot ball. It was in matches - Love vs Faith, Love vs Hope, Faith vs Hope. Love had a very good team, but still lost both matches. Faith won one and lost the other, but Hope won both! That was a hot day.
We also had to come up with a group cheer - Love had a crazy silly one - it started with one guy going 'lo lo lo lo, lo lo lo lo lo...', and then progressed into a cheer I couldn't understand (a room with really bad echo so you can't hear it well), and had seemingly random "King king! King king!" interspersed, and ended with people going "Hello Hello Hello?"
Faith I think had the best cheer - I'll let Jasmin tell it.
Hope - we had a goodish cheer, but we thought it had to be short.
We also had to make skits, centred around the theme of giving your life to God 100% in about 8 minutes- I'll just tell Hope's skit.
Scene 1
Sunday at Church
The preacher reads Romans 12:1-2
Allison listens, as she listens, she has a flashback of the past events of that week
Scene 2
Monday(?)
Allison walks along the street, and sees a beggar, who asks for money. Allison gives her some money, and gets a white paper (white represents a good deed, black represents bad).
Scene 3
Later that week, at school
Allison and her friends come into the classroom - It's test day. Allison's friend begs her to cheat and show the answers to them - Allison's sitting beside the top guy in class.
Before Allison can answer, the teacher comes in and the test starts. Allison decides to cheat, and gets caught. Her friends betray her and blame her. The teacher calls Allison's parents and Allison gets a black paper.
Scene 4
At home
Allison's parents are waiting for her, and Allison sneaks in. Her father calls her, and starts to scold her. Her mother asks if she really did it, and Allison lies. Her mother apologizes for wrongly accusing her. She gets a black paper.
Scene 5
Back to present
The preacher wraps up his sermon, telling them to live their lives 100%. (Allison recommits her life 100%, but this is implied and isn't actually in the play.)
Starting Chinese classes
Aiden: We have multiple teachers and 4 other students in our classroom. I have 2 books now that I can read pinyin. I haven't learned many words to say because they want me to learn to read first.
Grace: I don't mind other kids in the same room, but it means that sometimes (rarely) I have to wait while my is trying to teach me and one or two other kids at the same time! It's pretty much a different teacher every time, but over the weeks you get the same kids again. They us SO MANY materials! I currently have one finished storybook with flashcards (I'm going to get another), a sentence workbook, a word writing book, two 'Mei Ri Hua Wen' books, a '1a' book, a folder for papers, AND a test paper! Phew!
We almost always get there 5-20 minutes early, which is a good time to talk with the receptionist, review Chinese, or just cool down from biking in the heat. When in class, we have to talk as much as possible in Chinese, but I don't think they really stick to that. Sometimes I have to write so much that my hand hurts - every new word I learn I write down in my word book!
Mom: It took awhile to settle on a time that would work for all of us, but we found it and got started. I bike them there 2 times a week. As with most Asian schools we know about, the focus is heavy on reading and writing first, but Aiden is coming home with a new phrase or two. After about 2 weeks, Grace is already hitting more new material than review, so they are moving pretty fast! Unfortunately I wasn't able to find a class for myself at the same time as theirs, so I go out yet again on Saturday for my own class. The pace is impressive, so I'm glad for the two times a week I can devote to review while I'm waiting for Grace and Aiden. The other student in my class has already dropped out, so I have a private tutor!
Day of Praise
June 29-30 was a 24hour worship service with teams from all over Malaysia leading an hour of worship and prayer for Malaysia each. Our church's slot was 7am.
Grace: My favourite team was a Tamil team! They were pretty much all wearing colourful traditional clothes. They managed to go into their songs one after the other without stopping - eventually you just realize that they're in another song! Once they finished the 'song' and moved into another very different set. I think they might've had the most singers, and they had an all-girl traditionally dressed Tamil dance team with tambourines dancing in front (there were two girls dancing in there too).
We sang in English, Chinese, Malay, tribal Malay, Tamil, and Swahili! Swahili - Siahu--mba kukanyanwenkoh...
I had to eat breakfast there - granola, an apple, and some yoghurt I poured over the granola. I probably ate breakfast at 10 maybe.
Mom:
I almost gave up on this and didn't go as it came after a busy week and I really didn't want to get up to be there at 7 am, but it was well worth the effort. We ended up staying for 5 ½ hours and not wanting to come home! Our attention broke about 1pm, as yet another group sang song after song in Malay. By then we had already enjoyed singing in 6 different languages, but song after song not knowing what you're singing looses its appeal and tummies call for lunch. If it happens in Penang again, I think I'd try and arrange to be there the whole time.
Pets
Grace: We have the most pets we've ever had! A friend gave us three turtles, and Jasmin got a sugar glider for her birthday! She's called Zeda, or Zedda, but you say it Ze-da. She (yes, it's a she) lives in two cages on top of each other with furry slippers for pouches and a little house and some balls to play with. She's nocturnal and makes quite a few crashes and bangs in the night. Jasmin's currently taming her.
| Shh! I'm hiding! |
As for our three turtles...
My turtle is called Seashell, is a female, and she is the biggest. She is a fighter, and loves climbing!
Jasmin's turtle is called Kibby, who is the only male, and he's the smallest. Kibby loves racing, eating, and is the energetic runner. We sometimes call him Clean-Up Kibby.
Aiden's turtle is called Diamond for the shape on her back, is a female, and is in the middle. Aiden has dropped her before, which might be why she is the lap turtle who likes hiding and almost never wins races - to Aiden's disappointment.
I guess I should leave something others to tell, so I'll stop here.
Wednesday, June 13, 2018
Way to Go Jasmin!
A many month project completed all on her own time by her own initiative with no parental input at all. The only incentive/help she had was through JAM.
Way to go, Jasmin!
Wondering what's next to come from her "pen"...
Friday, June 08, 2018
Aiden's Birthday by Aiden
I wake up and reach out to read my Bible
I come out the the living room and I listen to My Side of the Mountain until Mom woke up
I at cereal for breakfast on my own
And did some morning list things
Mom says, "Happy Birthday"
I do some world puzzle and wait on the couches.
Jasmin wakes up. Soon after Grace gets up.
I do some music practice
Then it is time - I call Imma on Skype
We have a talk a bit first, we see Selah do some tricks.
Then we add NiNi and Yea Yea to the call.
Mom gets the cake ready and Dad fixes Skype so we can see everyone.
Birthday cake "breakfast" on Skype with NiNi and YeaYea and Imma.
Imma had her cake too - apple cake with ice-cream "o)
We had Chocolate cake with a layer of cheesecake in it - yum!
Then I open presents and got:
New Lego, 2 puzzles, 2 foam swords, and the promise of a fixed iPad
After we finished on Skype, I did puzzles with Grace, and some Lego building all together
Then lunch time and Mom and the girls had to go out.
Jasmin had a tooth pulled out, and then a trial violin lesson
Grace had a trial voice lesson
While they were gone,
I waited
I worked on the puzzles
Played with Lego
I waited
Had a sword fight with dad
I waited
And then - the beach!
Dad and I took the water in the bike basket
When we got to the beach and helped Grace and Jasmin collect firework
I went down and dug a little hole
Collected things with Grace
We all were digging the hole and we asked Dad to be the fence to stop the water
When Mom came, she and Dad went for a cool down swim
We kept digging and playing and swimming
We had to work hard because the water kept making our hole fall in.
Mom called us to eat supper
It was meat bombs, hot dogs, and s'mores, marshmallows... yum!
By the time we finished supper, our hole was all gone! The waves had washed it all away.
So we began again, making it a game.
We made it so deep we were getting water coming up from inside.
By that time it was getting dark.
Mom had to make us come home even though we wanted to finish
We got home after 9pm, and had to take a shower to get rid of all the sand.
I was so tired but happy.
When Mom put me to bed she said I still had sand in my hair.
What a good birthday day it was!
I come out the the living room and I listen to My Side of the Mountain until Mom woke up
I at cereal for breakfast on my own
And did some morning list things
Mom says, "Happy Birthday"
I do some world puzzle and wait on the couches.
Jasmin wakes up. Soon after Grace gets up.
I do some music practice
Then it is time - I call Imma on Skype
We have a talk a bit first, we see Selah do some tricks.
Then we add NiNi and Yea Yea to the call.
Mom gets the cake ready and Dad fixes Skype so we can see everyone.
Birthday cake "breakfast" on Skype with NiNi and YeaYea and Imma.Imma had her cake too - apple cake with ice-cream "o)
We had Chocolate cake with a layer of cheesecake in it - yum!
Then I open presents and got:
New Lego, 2 puzzles, 2 foam swords, and the promise of a fixed iPad
After we finished on Skype, I did puzzles with Grace, and some Lego building all together
Then lunch time and Mom and the girls had to go out.
Jasmin had a tooth pulled out, and then a trial violin lesson
Grace had a trial voice lesson
While they were gone,
I waited
I worked on the puzzles
Played with Lego
I waited
Had a sword fight with dad
I waited
And then - the beach!
Dad and I took the water in the bike basket
When we got to the beach and helped Grace and Jasmin collect firework
I went down and dug a little hole
Collected things with Grace
We all were digging the hole and we asked Dad to be the fence to stop the water
When Mom came, she and Dad went for a cool down swim
We kept digging and playing and swimmingWe had to work hard because the water kept making our hole fall in.
Mom called us to eat supper
It was meat bombs, hot dogs, and s'mores, marshmallows... yum!
By the time we finished supper, our hole was all gone! The waves had washed it all away.
So we began again, making it a game.
We made it so deep we were getting water coming up from inside.
By that time it was getting dark.
Mom had to make us come home even though we wanted to finish
We got home after 9pm, and had to take a shower to get rid of all the sand.
I was so tired but happy.
When Mom put me to bed she said I still had sand in my hair.What a good birthday day it was!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)