Food about you - Concours Festival d'Annecy 2010

I bumped into my very old beautiful memories of my childhood and my father. He was a very active businessman, actively in organization.
As far as I remember during my childhood, he always traveling, at least 4 times a month, it means he traveled every week. Besides working on his own companies, he also actively in the organization. He has permanent office there for 15 years as general secretary and executive director of this organization.

Now that I see the address on the webpage and the logo, the memories of my childhood came fresh in my mind, I used to be very excited to pick him up at the office, in this organization and had him in the car together, going home, from tanah abang to menteng, it was not a long drive, but I adored my dad, and I enjoyed every minute riding in the car with him.

He traveled so much, checking the docks around the country, from Aceh till Irian Jaya, conferences in Asia and Europe, I used to be so excited when he travels because he would give us a piece of paper, and we all wrote down what we want, and he would make every effort to fulfill our 'orders'.

Pak Dul, the driver, wow, he worked with us since I was a baby until my father passed away, when I was in the second year dental school. He was a good driver.

How could be, the memories, can be so fresh in my mind after 33 years ?

Now, I realized, life is so fragile, we had lost 2 of our family member, my father and my brother. I love you all.

http://insa.or.id/index.php?lang=en

Sunday morning :: busy day.

It's sunday. Ammar has to work, and he is asking me if I could bring Nadia to sunday school, that means I have to tag Aidan along, waiting for Nadia's school for 3 hours.

I did it for him, that's a great decision because Ammar didn't come home until 7 pm.

Aidan and I went to go to Asian grocery store, and he had great time watching the live crabs, fish, and frogs.

Then we went to McDonalds. Just because Nadia was not with him, he had very little interest to climb on the play structure, he just tag along with me on the table, playing with ipod touch.

Before we left to school, Nadia and Aidan played so well together. Just hearing the giggles from Aidan because Nadia plays with him, and hearing Nadia giggles because Aidan goofed up... just made my day.

We went home at 2 pm, I invited Aidan to go sleep with me, he refused, he would rather sleep in his firetruck bed, so Nadia went to bed with me.

I made asian spring rolls, yummy one while Nadia and Aidan play upstairs at their room. I could hear the giggles so loud and clear from the kitchen downstairs. I wonder what they were doing. Ammar called and as Nadia's wish, he came back with pizza.
The kids went down, completely dressed with pajamas... including Aidan. Nadia for the first time, putting Aidan for potty, changed his pajamas, and changed his underwear with diaper for sleep at night.
I was so impressed and Nadia was so proud to be a big sister.

We spent the night together, laughing, on our very last hour of the weekend. Although Ammar had worked so much on the weekend, and looked so exhausted, he still plays with the kids.... Nadia loves being cuddled with him, also with the back rubs.

Ammar worked overnight again on Friday, and didn't come back home until Saturday afternoon, so I have to go by myself to the kids' School Auction and the kids' performing art day. Instead of going at 1.30 pm for silent auction, we went there at 3 pm. Aidan fell asleep in the car because he skipped nap time. I felt bad that I had to wake him up.
The preparation was so nice, and the performance was so good. It's so funny to see how Nadia, the bigger she is, the shier she is. She was so nervous on the stage, while Aidan was doing so well. It was Aidan's first performance.
We came back home, finding Ammar was home, he took nap, but when we were home, he still got lots of phone calls from the hospital.
The kids are so happy today...
Once we put the kids to bed, Ammar prepared really nice dinner with 'fake wine' on the side (apple juice it is, in the wine glass). It was so delicious and romantic.

I crashed to bed, I think Ammar didn't sleep until late night, finishing up his patients note on the computer. As far as it is convenient to be able to work from home, it's the most annoying thing, too. He ends up working more than he supposed to.

Finally, the photos are up on my webpage.
Check them out. The photos with date printed on them are from Nadia's camera. Her shots were pretty amazing for a beginner photographer, Aidan used my leica camera, so they are really mixed between mine and his. I left my 5d Mark II at home while using my fun to play Nikon camera with all in one lens 18-270.
Aidan's shots were pretty good, too. I am amazed to see how great and interesting their perspective of seeing the world with their little cameras.

WOW!!!! We just got back from our cruise vacation to Mexico, West Carribean.
It was just AWESOME! Nadia found her new best friend, Lauren, she lives not to far from our home, about 1 hour away, and we got in the same airplane back home from Miami, FL.
Aidan really enjoyed to be on the cruise, he was just a bit disappointed because he couldn't get on the little floaty boats.. he kept saying the he wanted the boat to hit the iceberg so he could get on the emergency lifesaver boats. (just like titanic, his favorite movie at this time). Other than that, he really enjoyed to be in the boat.

Loved.. loved... loved our vacation!!!

Hmm... This is the most organized and prepared vacation ever! In between my study and juggling the time between study, packing and the kids' spring break, I managed to study at least 4 hours a day and asked the neighbor sitter to babysit the kids while driving them around to swim, hands on museum, and Extreme bounce. In this way the babysitter can also have fun with kids, and the kids wouldn't get bored at home with the sitter.

By 9 pm, we all packed and put our luggages in the car, ready to go for the most exciting vacation ever! CRUISE!!!! Yay...

Nadia had been counting the days and all the teachers and friends knew that she is going to go cruise to carribean....

This is going to be awesome vacation because Ammar will be forced to be away from work (no internet and no signing patients notes, chemo, lab orders over the computer, hah! :) )

I am still up copying the videos to Nadia and AIdan's handheld device for their movie time.

Other than that, I am all set to watch the video lectures on my iTouch.

PS: We hosted the easter egg hunting on Saturday and it was a hit! We are trying to do it every year and promised to stay and not traveling during this time.
I painted beautiful butterfly faces and all kind of kids' requested pictures on their face and they had wonderful time doing craft and gobble up yummy food before the egg hunt started. The weather was so beautiful that we managed to wear summer clothing last Saturday.

See you in a week!

Today, I deactivate my facebook account. I spent more than I supposed to in it.
My exam is on May 26, less than 2 months if I have to count the cruise trip to mexico we are going to do on the kids' spring break.
Hope this is for good, I know it will.

We had a busy day today. Ammar had his first day of the service until Feb 5th, so he had to work on the weekends, too. While he went to work, Nadia, Aidan, Nina (Nadia's sleep over friend) and I went to go swimming so they could have fun before I returned Nina back home. This is Nadia's second time having Nina sleeps at our house.

When we got home, Ammar had already home, and the house which we left upside down, was sparking neat and clean.... he is sooooo sweet!

I put the kids to bed and we sat in the sunroom together, spending our time chatting and joking around while I studied my GRE prep, and he signed his patients note.

At night, I enjoyed the warm jasmine tea in front of the fire place while watching and really enjoying the view of my husband sitting down, cuddling with the kids watching 'the incredibles'. Those are my favorite people in the world, my hearts, and my whole life. I can't imagine living without one of them.... They are so precious, thank you God for them.