School's out

So school's out for the year! Here are some photos for the 2011 school year.

Solomon's second school portrait. (His first portrait was taken when he just started school, so he looked like he was about to cry!) This is his second year of playschool. He will be joining Eva for the first year of Kindy in 2012.

 

Claire gets a nice portrait for her 'graduation'. She'll be joining Annie at International school for her Year 2 next year.

Eva didn't get a self portrait shot this year. She'll get one next year when she too 'graduates' from kindy! :)

 

Here's Annie at the year-end prize giving ceremony. This was the only half decent photo I could take cause she was walking so fast! :)

She got second position in her class and is very proud of her achievement, as are mummy and daddy!

 Here are Eva and Claire on the last day of school. They wore their party hats the whole day until bedtime! :)

So here's to another good school year ahead!

shop chopped

So I finally did it; chopped my shop into half. It was a lot of work, putting everything away and then having to put them back into half the space! Arranging the stock back onto half the number of shelves was very challenging, but we managed it, amazingly!

I chose yellow for the new cabinets, because I was sick of the blue and white. I thought a dash of bright colour would help make the small space seem larger. Initially, when it was installed, it seemed a little too bright and looked more like a Digi shop! But now I'm glad that it is a cheery sunshine yellow! Whoever said that pharmacies and clinics have to be in sombre shades?

So here's the shop:

Before

During

After

I love my 'new' little shop. Only problem is, now some people think I have closed down!!! Hahhaha...

Asa's birthday and Logos Hope

I've been super busy of late, because of renovation works being done on the shop. As I mentioned before, we are down-sizing the pharmacy, so the past week has been a hectic week. I will write more on that later.

Anyway, before that, there were a  few events which I didn't have time to blog about. Mainly we celebrated Asa's 3rd birthday at Chicago 7, and also went to visit the largest floating book store, the ship Logos Hope. Here are the photos...

Handsome boy enjoying his french fries!

Pretty young ladies

The small ones

Birthday girl decorating her cake

The loooong queue of people waiting to go on the ship (it was also raining cats and dogs!)

The kids, especially Solomon were very impressed by the huge ship. He's been saying he wants to go back to 'drive' Logos Hope!! :)

I remember when we were small it was Logos and Doulos which used to come around every few years. I think Logos was decommissioned (is that the right word?), because it was really old. I remember them saying it used to be a cargo ship shipping onions, before it became a floating bookstore!

So now it's Logos Hope and it seems quite new. They go around selling books at a very reasonable price and also do community work here and there. The ship is really huge and there are like 200 over toilets! Sis no.2 says you can pay US$20,000 a year (for food and lodging) to live on board and do volunteer work. I think that would be an exciting and meaningful way to see the world don't you?

Having ice-cream at the kids corner after a tiring session of jostling with crowds at the book store.

Anways, the school holidays are officially upon us!! Will have to think of more activities to keep these little packets of pure energy entertained!! :)

On the bright side, no more waking up at 6:30 am!!! Yay!! (well, for 6 weeks at least...)

Happy holidays everyone!

Claire's 'Graduation' and Solomon's concert

Saturday was a busy, busy day! First of all, there was Claire's graduation in the morning, and then Solomon's very first concert in the evening! :)

Claire has finished her three years of kindergarten, and the trend nowadays is for the schools to hold mini graduation ceremonies for the little children. This is so cute and I'm sure it makes the kids feel so proud to have achieved a milestone in their lives!

Claire is the model student; for her, teacher's word is law! :) She is only 6 1/2 years old, but has already been schooling for almost 5 years! 2 years of playschool and 3 years of kindergarten, and this is just the beginning!!!  :) 

Anyway, Solomon had his very first school concert that evening. I was worried that he might cry, but instead he was laughing while performing and thoroughly enjoyed himself! He wasn't afraid at all! He remembered all his steps and danced flawlessly. (They have been practicing the whole year through!)

We're so proud of them! :D

Macarons!

SIL Feli and BIL Dylan came back from a Europe trip last week, and guess what they got us??!! (Besides holy water from Lourdes)

Real, genuine, Laduree macarons!!! *swoon*

Look at them, aren't they just gorgeous?? They looked too perfect to eat!! But we did, of course, eat them...
My favourite was the green, pistachio one... mmmm...

These are no ordinary macarons. These are the benchmark of macarons. They are from Laduree, an old bakery in Paris which claims to have invented macarons! People say that the best macarons in the world are from Laduree and Pierre Herme, both in Paris.

Now that I have tasted what real macarons are supposed to taste like, I am on a quest to make them!! Maybe during the coming school holiday when I have more time. *fingers crossed*. Macarons have a reputation for being the hardest pastry to make, which is why I have never dared try them before this.

However, these gorgeous little things are just so beautiful and taste so amazing, with such delicate flavours. So they will haunt my dreams until I try making them to get them out of my system!! hahaha

Thanks BIL and SIL for the wonderful treat and carrying them all the way back for us!!