Milkshake

This is Milkshake. 

Milkshake is the recent new addition into our house. It belongs to Eric's sis, and she shall have the full responsibility of milkshake. Aka, cleaning and feeding it. 

This is roughly taken a week ago when Milkshakw is about one week old at home. It's a roughly two month old kitten by then. 

We are trying to train him to respond to its name and teaches him the don'ts around the house. Such as chewing on boxes and everything other than food, rough play with biting and scratches, sit before food, no jumping onto the dinning table. 

We have been playing the fluffy stick to help stimulate Milkshake. Oh how he loves them. (Think we will need to get a new stick soon). He's now able to jump and stand on his hind legs (still wobbly) and has very fast reaction to moving objects. He loved to climb to higher grounds but we discourage him. So instead, he now loves to hide behind tight corners and play peekaboo with us.  

He got a 'bed' made of the cardboard tray and a fleece blanket that Eric's sis bought. I love wrapping him in there and made him nice and cozy. It loves scratching and jumping in and out of the tray, catching invisible 'mouse'. 

That's Milkshake getting ready to pounce.

We can see Milkshake is growing up fast during this two weeks. Hope his cute little self won't grow up so quickly!

Kcan

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all readers! 

May the peace of Jesus and the joy He brings keep you all content and well in the new year!

So, how do we celebrate Christmas Eve?

I went to get my Christmas shopping at 10.45 am. Omg, the shops are sooo crowded! People grab things which are sold at ridiculous prices and quality. We are having Christmas dinner at friends place, so I'm not after too much stuff. 

At 4.30pm, Eric and I go out to our usual Christmas discount shopping! Well, the shops will be close for the next two days. So they put every thing on discount at the last few hours. And yes, they are very very cheap!

We bought mainly fruits. Usual price of $3-$4 for a pack of peaches/nectarine, are now $1!!!  You can see me grabbing peaches, nectarines, cherries, and even half price seafood!

Our simple dinner last night:

Spaghetti with tomato basil sauce, roast chicken (oh, another half price item at the shops) and loads of veges. 

Have a good holiday everyone and stay safe!

Kcan

Sad ending to the sydney hostage

The siege from yesterday had ended. All but two hostage did not come out alive. 

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/nsw/sydney-siege-over-as-police-storm-lindt-cafe-20141215-127t9p.html

It's a sad day for Australia. Especially in this festive season, where people go about doing their Christmas shopping and offices finishes their last two week of work, children finishes school, looking forward to the summer holiday, and family planning for a vacation. 

Prayers to the family who's mom had died. Prayers also to the family of the man who lost a son. 

Prayers to all the survivors, the injured and the police force.  Thank God that we know that in times like this, we can seek comfort in you, who cares and protects and in control of the situation. 

Please be safe everyone.

Kcan

Sydney hostage!!!

**Update: There's two other hostage that manage to escape!! Praise the Lord!**

kcan


Omg, this is so shocking!
Catch it live as it unfolds here: http://www.canberratimes.com.au/nsw/lindt-chocolat-cafe-hostage-drama-in-martin-place-sydney-20141215-1278cx.html

At 9.44am, one or even two person enter the Lindt cafe in the middle of Martin place, Sydney, and held the people in the cafe hostage. Just five mins ago, three hostage had escape, but many are still in the cafe. The number are unknown, but they estimate as many as 50 people are in there. 

The three person who escape are two customers and a cafe worker. 

It was such shocking news when I realised it was the Lindt cafe. We quickly txt our friend whom gave us free Lindt cakes to see if that was where she worked or she knows anyone in the situation. The answer was no, it was not her shop, and thankfully, two of her friends who worked there in that Lindt cafe under attacked was not on duty today. 

Please pray that the situation will come to no violence peacefully and that every hostage will be free safely. Also please pray for wisdom for the police force. Pray also that God will continue to soften the hearts of the gunman involved. 

The whole city CBD is under lock down and people evacuated from the city. 

Stay tune and pray!

Kcan

Thunderstorm

Sydney is currently having severe thunderstorm for the last week. And when the thunderstorm hits, it causes flash flooding, strong damaging winds and even hailstones. 

We were out yesterday shopping for our friend's baby shower, and saw this 'Doom day' looking sky...

Looks like as if an alien is invading from space. 

Day time turned to night within a span of 10 mins. We got into the carpark, drove out onto the street, and was attacked by strong wind, strong rain with millions of bean like hail stones.  

It was sooo scary. We quickly took a quick detour and drove into the nearby shopping centre car park to hide from the rain. 

The weather is feeling like tropical region, where it was hot n humid in the day and thunderstorm in the afternoon/evening. I hope this crazy weather will end soon as it's making the roof leak and people getting sick from the hot n cold weather.

Take care everyone!

Kcan

School bush dance

Tonight, we helped out with a local Christian school with their year 6 graduation celebration. Many of our church parents send their children there. So our church music team help to provide live music to the event. The theme is Bush Dance. As for us, Eric (& I) help them with the audio sound equipment.

Overall, it went well, but it started very chaotic, as the IT personnel from the school did not leave the keys to the rooms, leave relevant equipment which he has promised to do. So it was a mad panic. Glad that God was watching over the whole event, and our saviour was a high school student from the same school, who knew the insides out of the school audio system. And he knew where to get the keys too! Without him, I think everything won't go according to plan. And in the rehearsal, I also realised some parent was plugging their computer into the system to play a PowerPoint. The IT guy did not mentioned anything regarding the using the projector in the event. So it came as a big surprise for us. 

Here's our 'home' for the 6-7 hours, sitting behind the sound desk. 

Here's the music crew from our church (minus the lady in the middle of the stage).

The set up of the dinning space in the hall. 

The finale dance. 

The dances involves the whole family. 

Good night!

Kcan

Hello hello!

Hi everyone! 

Sorry for the MIA for the past weeks. Since Tomato's health check, we drove up all the way from Sydney to Brisbane, and back to Sydney again! Total of 2087 km over 5 days. 

Since then, praise God that we had been good busy with the patients and working around the long standing house renovation. (Explaining the MIA)

I'll try to post more updates on our road trip very soon! So stay tune!!

Here's some snippets of what we were up to in our road trip. =)

Pack pack pack!

Tomato's shadow.

Car-amping in the caravan park.

Strawberry farm!

Attending wedding in Brisbane.

One of the many beautiful sunsets.

Gold Coast!! We were there!

Good night!

Kcan

Tomato's health check day

My trusty Tomato has his health check at the workshop the other day. We drove to Eric's sister's workplace. 

Here's Tomato on the hoist, ready to get lifted.

Tada! This is the first time I see the underside of Tomato. 

First, Tomato was drained off the old engine oil. Look at how black that is!! *shocked* 

Later on the new engine oil is poured in and it was Golden in colour!! 

Shows that the car had done quite a bit of driving and there are impurities which stains the oil black.

An oil filter was changed too. 

Tomato relaxing up there on the hoist.

Next, they look into the engine section. They pulled out the air filter and it's shockingly black!! During my three years in Canberra, never did I need to change them, as Canberra was less polluted. And this filter was only changed in March this year. Oh my oh my. 

They looked at my car battery and asked when was the last time I changed the battery. Nope I did not. My dear Tomato still has the original manufacture battery!! A normal battery last normally 5 years, while my Tomato is already 8 yo! Even though the battery was still going ok, they did a test and found that it had gradually loss it's charge. So we have it replaced too.

Next, they took off Tomato's shoes and tighten the hand break. They also found the front tyres had finally worn off to the thread line. So we had two of the tyres changed too. Now the driving is much smoother and it does not screech when turning in shopping centres car park. =)

After doing all that, Tomato gets a bubble bath too!

See! Looking nice and clean. 

Now Tomato is all ready for its long drive to Brisbane coming weekend. =) 

And I'm $340 poorer after the health check. >_<

Kcan

Sky message

On my way back from clinic, I saw a plane writing message in the sky. So I stopped at the side of the road to take a pic. Let's see if you know what they want to say? =D

It started with MA.

Then, MARP.

Driving further, it's MARRY.

MARRY (who?)

And finally when I hit home, the aircraft had finally finished the message. 

MARRY ME

(So sweet!!)

By then the wind had blowned the first few letters apart. 

Aww, wonder who's the lucky lady? 

Did she say yes?! 

Is anyone out there keen to share their husband's proposal? =)

My Eric did not do this kind of romantic thing. Lol. Though he proposed infront of the fireplace where we rented as housemates in Canberra. =) 

Have a good Sunday everyone!

Kcan

Updates on Eric

Hi Everyone!!

Thank you everyone for your well-wishes and prayers for Eric. We came back from his follow-up visit to the specialist today. The stool sample from the hospital did not show any abnormality. So that's a praise point! ^_^

However, they still want to do a colonoscopy on him to check his large intestine. We have it scheduled for next year February, right before the CNY.

So what's he up do?

Eric's busy studying and preparing for his upcoming exams. His first exam is next Wednesday!!! >_<

Even though there's 2 exams to study, there's lots of memorization. Please pray that I will be patient and helpful with his study for the coming week. So looking forward to the end of this stressful time! 

kcan

Grand Design Home show.

Last Friday (oh my, it's been a week!), we took a day off work to go to the Grand Design home show in the Sydney Exhibition Centre. We had been big fans of the show as it show case many up to date eco designs with lots of renewable and green energy focus. And since we have a house to renovate, why not go there for a peek to get some good ideas on how we can be environmentally conscious in our renovation. 

Good job on Eric getting this bargain ticket months in advance. =) It's FREE! Ticket at the door were $80/each I think. 

Sorry if you are looking for photos of the exhibits, I didn't take any! =P There are just booths n stands. So nothing much to look at. We sat in at a few short seminars, listening to the speakers on:

Rainwater Harvesting

How can I make sure my new garden is sustainable?

How to incorporate a geoexchange system into a residential project

How lighting can change your interior

Decorating with small places.

The Rain water harvesting was our 'surprise' attendance as we arrived not long into the exhibition centre, and it just so happened that we stumbled upon them where they had it going for the last 10 mins. I would so love to have a few at home, collecting the waters during those stormy weathers and use the waters for the gardens and vege patch. At my current rate of using waste water from my vege and rice washing, my plants would have died already. haha.

I received a good tip from the guy doing the sustainable garden seminar. I am having this white fly outbreak at the moment. I tried 'luring' ladybirds or even a praying mantis, but they don't like to stay and eat up all the white flies. =( 

So his tip is: I need to make a house for them! 0.0

By putting a few sticks in a pile at the corner, they can feel safe n secure and start populating there and be my white fly predator. He says it's no reason why there's food for them but they are not staying. So I shall try building mini houses for ladybirds. hehehe.

The Geoexchange system is an interesting ecofriendly concept that I personally don't think it is possibble for us due to the cost. What it does is to tap into our earth's ground heat exchange, for heating and cooling our house. Because the earth's surface temperature are pretty constant throughout the seasons, so it helps to reduce the energy needed to cool or heat up the houses in winter/summer. Personally, the cost of implementing this system into our small residential house is not as economical as those big buildings like the Sydney opera house, Bukinham palace eg. which uses this technology to save on heating and cooling bills.

We are particularly interested in the new technologies in Solar heating. Currently, we have a government rebate going on for installing solar pannels. My mum n dad had installed some for my Perth's home, and it is awesome. It reduces the energy usage by almost half and they are not worried about turning on air-con/cooler/heater in those extreme temperature days. 

So Eric is also thinking of installing these solar pannels in our future home. Expecially if we are going to be working from our home clinic, it will come in useful. =) However, there is a setback on installing Solar panels. If there are no people at home using those green energy that the panels are producing, it will just be fed back into the electricity grid. And when it comes to night time (where everyone will be home and electricity usage high), we have to use normal electricity, thus not saving much with the electricity bills. 

I had been wondering about using 'batteries' that can harnest and save the charge for night time use for a long time. And each time, Eric will laugh at me and say, it's not possible as the technology is not that advance yet. 

Well, we found someone with the same vision as me at the centre! neeoQube!!!

They are big bulk batteries which can stores your green energy in the day, and use it at night for the times where we use electricity the most, for cooking, lighting, tv etc. How cool is that! 

However, the setback is that this technology is still quite relatively new. Even the sales guy told us to just put the solar panel on first, wait for 5 years, before installing the neeoQube. By then, hopefully the technology would be more advance and can help brings down the cost of each unit. (yes, currently they are quite expensive to own)

We walked around from 10am -4.40pm. 

Here's some photos of what we did AFTER the exhibition. =P

The original Sydney Exhibition centre is now under major renovation. So that's why the temporary marquee area at this little island of Glebe. Even thought it's temporary, the structures are very sturdy, and I love how we can catch a free ferry ride from Circular Quay to the island. Adding to the special-ness of the trip. =)

That's the Anzac bridge.

Hopping onto Captain Cook cruise ship!

We sat on the upper outdoor deck to absorb the nice harbor view. Look, the Sydney harbor bridge!

It's a nice warm evening. The weather is getting too hot for comfort lately.

Coming into Circular Quay. It's a nice 10mins ferry ride.

Passing by the Maritime museum. That's a decommissioned submarine next to the warship. =)

In Circular Quay.

Our dinner that night. We wanted to have the mini bowls again. But the queue was sooo long and there's limited seating. So we head to it's neighbouring stores 100m down the road. This place have mini bowls too, and they are equally yummy!

From left to right:
Salmon with salmon roe rice, beef rice, teriyaki chicken rice. And with the stewed egg. YUMM! The total cost of the rice comes to $3.90x3=$11.70!! Plus $1.50 for the egg.

We were satisfied with the portions. It seems like the hot weather makes us not want to eat too much these days. Does anyone living in the hot weather countries felt the same too?

On the way back, we stop by our friend's place to pick up the free chocolate cheesecake =)

She worked in Lindt cafe. And had been giving us free expired cakes from her cafe. (the shop would ask the employees to bring them back instead of chucking them away, and I think her family had a little too much cakes lately. haha) Sadly, she is now working in a full time office job. So this is our last Lindt cake for a while. Chocolate Cheesecake.

If anyone is interested, the White Chocolat Framboise from Lindt is highly recommended. It's our favorite gourmet cake =) (we thought it was a strawberry cake?) The fruits makes it quite light and not overly sweet like those milk chocolate ones (aka the one above).


kcan

Garden protection

Spring brings lots of life and growth. There were two tomato plant from last season, which surprisingly survived the cold winter. And because of the possum problem around the backyard, I never had any harvest apart from one tiny tomato that survived the possum rampage. 

So when the two surviving tomato plant started blossoming and grew, I was just glad to see that maybe Ic an have a harvest again!

I had a pleasant surprised last weekend when I realised one of the tomato plant is actually a Grape tomato! (Something like a cherry tomato) 

Look! Can you see the little grape tomato there?  Unfortunately one week after this photo is taken,it's been eaten by the possums =(

Moving on to the other tomato plant, there are also many signs of good harvest this year. However....

Look at what happened to the neighboring sweet potato leaves! >_<

I was so looking to harvest them, and it's bulldozed by the possums. 

Even this little lime plant next to my Limey is also not spared.

Oh no oh no... How how...

I need to protect my tomatoes! 

So I found a temporary solution. 

Until Eric comes up with a better solution, hope it will stop them from eating my tomato plant. 

Kcan

Eric's back home

Hi everyone!

Thank you all for your prayers. Eric is now home since yesterday. He stayed in the hospital for two nights for the antibiotics drip. The ct scan showed that there are multiple inflammation in his large intestine. The diagnosis is still not out yet as they are still waiting for his blood results and stool culture for bacteria or done other things. 

So for the two days, he had liquid food for all his meals. 

A bowl of 'glue', orange jelly and a clear soup. That's his first breakfast.

After that, it's soup, orange jelly, orange/apple juice and 'So Good' soy milk (taste like blended cardboard) for the rest of the meals. Poor Eric had to 'beg'/ask the nurse for more food as these are all they gave. 

So now we just need to go back to see the specialist for the results in two weeks, and will go from there. Pray that it is just a simple infection and one that is easily treated.

The damage for his two night stay in the clinic : $50 of parking fee ( which the $39 was from the 12 hour wait in A&E, my highest parking record) 

Stay healthy everyone!

Kcan

Updates in emergency department.

Finally a bed in the emergency department!!!

Waiting for a ct scan, as the ultrasound didn't show much. But they almost rule out appendicitis. 

Hope nothing major will show up in the ct. 

Thank you everyone for your prayers!!

Kcan