Weird Mother's Day...

You see, I AM one season late! This was in the end of spring and now it's autumn! But better late then never! (Maybe nobody is reading my blog anymore, then it doesn't really matter, does it?)

Beautiful spring where flowers are blooming but the air is still a little bit chilly.

We found 4-leaf clovers and 2 of them! We're gonna be double lucky!

Jovan and Angel planned a surprise picnic for me on Mother's Day.  They (well, mostly Angel) even prepared a picnic basket!

Not sure what she was drinking, but she sure didn't look too please....

It was super windy! 头发有没有乱？

Kiddos digging into the dip that Angel made for the biscuits.

Yup, it was SO good....

"Maybe some for me now?" "Now?" "Now?" 

Trying to act cute for the pictures....

but obviously the kiddos had a different opinion about "cute" nowadays...

I think they must have taken something strange.... maybe it's the dips that Angel made....

Look! She even walked funny....

I decided to just let them get the "weirdness" out of their system and spent some quality time with Polly. "Hello! Why are you taking a picture of my behind?" Ok, even my dog is strange....

This is my life, surrounded by strange kids and weird dog and a husband who likes to talk to me about technology and stuff....

Or maybe, I am the source of all these "weirdness"???

Happy (super-belated-but-better-late-then-never) Mother's Day, y'all!

Söderköping and Göta Canal

I really need to catch up on my blogging.... feels like I'm almost one season late now! Anyway, we made a trip to Söderköping in August to eat ice cream and to go on the train ride, which is what we'll do almost every summer.

Visiting the Göta canal is a must for every tourist, click on the link to find out more about the history behind it.

The canal passes through our city as well and occasionally we will go there to eat ice cream and play mini golf.

  

We wanted to eat at this famous ice cream place.  Their variety of ice cream is mind-boggling! However....

 

The queue is equally mind-boggling.... and this is just a part of it.... so we decided to have take away instead, which was just as good.

Taking the boat around Sweden through the canal requires teamwork!

There're a row of small shop houses selling this and that.

I really like this town because I think it's charming in a country sort of way.

Small stream passing through the bridge... 

Beautifully tended backyard, which shows how house proud the owner is.

 

Even the small white gate looks beautiful to me! How can you not be inspired and have the urge to live in such a place?

I mean, just look at this place! It oozes tranquility and country charm!

Laksa! (I apologize for the random-ness.... but I am random!) From the laksa paste which mom recommended me to buy from Singapore.  It was quite good, should have taken a picture of the paste, now I forgot which one it is...

Since it was summer,  of course we had most of our meals out on the balcony! (Actually, we seldom do that since we don't feel like "fighting" and being chased around by the tons of bees buzzing outside....)

Working on a project with daddy!

Lars is helping a friend to set up the sound system for his indoor volleyball and activities place.  To cut cost let the kids gain different experience, he decided to bring Jovan and Angel to help out.  Since I was home, looking after the small ones, I'm not really sure what they were doing and can only guess from these pictures....

Opening the boxes filled with cables and taking time to pose like a pro...

and munching on candies.... hmmm... doesn't seem like it's such hard work after all.

That was a BIG box!

Going through the inventory list to make sure that everything has arrived.

Screwing something.... ok, I'm not good with anything technical, not to mention sound system! I have no idea what that is... (Lars pointed out to me later that they actually built this thing by themselves! I'm impressed....)

Cables snaking around on the floor....

Jovan,"What exactly am I looking at?"

"Shhh.....I don't have a clue! But I'm gonna pretend that I know something anyway!"

Software girl is busy doing some last minute programming...

and started to look VERY sheepish....

"Let's take a break from the hard work to take a selfie...or is it welfie?"

"Should I adjust it a little bit more?"

"I know, I'm goooooood...... don't need for applaud please."

"This is our boss and now I'm just gonna do some voodoo magic on him by poking his little head there...."

Photobombed! Success!

Photobombed! Fail!

My girl!

That's my boy, in case you don't know....

Not exactly sure what they have learned from this installation, but I know now, that they're quite good at entertaining themselves!

Tropicarium and Motala beach

Tropicarium is located in Norrköping just opposite the zoo at Kolmården. It is a place where they re-created the rain forest (well, a very small one) with aquarium. The place is quite small, took us about 40 minutes to finish with a lot of stopping to look at animals, fishes, standing underneath the air condition vent, coz it was so HOT! I would recommend to make this trip together with the zoo, otherwise, it is too short a trip to make, coming all the way from Linköping.

Some sort of monkey.... I don't like monkeys but this one is so tiny, it is a little bit cute. (Just a tiny bit....)

Super cool, glow in the dark blue scorpion!

 

Looks like the boys found their tree house.

A nest of snakes.... ewwwww......

These piranhas looked so pretty with the golden spots on their bodies.

This guy was just swimming around with his mouth open all the time and looking creepy...

On the way home, we stopped at a resting place just outside the zoo for something to drink and munched on cookies.  The view was good!

This summer has been really really hot, with temperature soaring to around 32 degrees! It is the hottest summer we have ever experienced since I moved here 8 years ago.  It felt a little like Singapore but less humid.

Since the weather was crazy hot, guess where we went again? Motala beach this time!

This little guy loves water!

Mom catching up with her "business" on the iPad like a big boss.

These boys were digging a tunnel to Singapore....

 

It is so hot even Polly is lazy to go out, she prefers to chill out at home.  Sitting like a diva and watching tv....

"Mommy, I just watched a horror show, it's call "The Dog Whisperer"!"