NGLOW Second outing - Ttonatta Farm

Kinder Schule 

NGLOWKids opened up only a few months ago, the third of it's kind, in a building that had had a daycare center/english school that had not worked out. Kinder Schule. I suppose they were using a curriculum that had been made in Germany, otherwise I can't see where the name comes from. Well yesterday I had 2 hours of break at work and I did not like not to do anything so I went in the storage room to do some cleaning up... Thing is, when NGLOW came in, they basically shoved everything the previous school had used in 2 big rooms and a storage place. Everyday I'd been searching through the piles and finding treasures to use in my classroom: either games that were really interesting to adapt to my classes or just material to make crafts and the like with my kids. I went in the small storage room yesterday and did some tidying up. Found nice craft material and put them away in categories. I threw away a lot of random broken decorations and banners of the previous school, filling up 3 100l. trash bags. I found uniforms. Like, never worn still in plastic bags. As in. Damn it, why am I not a kid right now kind of cute old style uniforms. They were not going to keep them so I was told I could take as many as I wanted. I took some for my niece. I actually don't know if she'll ever wear them and love them as much as I do, and wish I could wear them, but I'll send them to her anyways. A lovely white shirt with red threading at the collar, a gray dress with the folded skirt piece, a dark red cardigan/sweater and a pink princess looking summer dress. I think she'll like the pink dress only... whatever ha ha I will still try.

So among those treasures, I found a had to go with the uniforms. A straw hat. We were going to go on a farm the next day so everyone joked around, telling me I should just wear the hat to go, not really expecting I would.

But I did. 

People always think I am kidding.

I seldom am.

Welcome to TTonatta Farm

Our school's vice principal Eileen. Isn't she beautiful?

We were supposed to be making faces... but that picture was an in-between shots. Lovely?
I think so too....

As we got there, the weather - nice and sunny - felt colder than in Dongtan when I walked to work, since there was a lot of wind. We started off making  soft ice cream with milk. I never knew it was so easy. You just need to have a small quantity of milk in a big bowl with ice under and whip the milk until it freezes in a creamy fluffy way. It was really tasty. We tried adding strawberry and chocolate flavour.

Gosh the cows were so cute. We saw cows of all ages. New born ones, young ones, huge mommy cows and old grannies. I loves the not-yet-a-month-old ones. They were all white and clean without the dirt that sticks to their coat as they get older, with huge shiny eyes.

After the ice cream, we went to see the young calves and the kids gave them milk. I found the idea of giving milk to cows weird as we walked in the barn, but realized they were not intending for us to feed cows, but baby ones. That made more sense. As soon as we got inside, the calfs got crazy. Rolling eyes, mooing like crazy and sticking their tongues out: they knew they were getting food. I took a couple of just-at-the-right-moment pictures.

We went to have lunch on mats, sitting in the sun with the kids and eating onigiri (I write onigiri although the Korean term would be gimbab, since they were japanese style riceballs...) and fruits. That was nice to just sit there, with the good energy the kids were giving us. Like a kid lovin's battery recharge to kill all the bad vibes of the day. I love those kids.

We then went on a tractor ride (that had a trailer at the back with seats) with everyone and it was really fun, we rode on the countryside roads and the driver made us go back and forth in hills and bumps, making the ride feel like a weird roller coaster. 

The last thing we did before going back was to have the kids try milking the cows - tho really, the guy was doing the milking and the kids were basically just poking the tip. The guy was cute and I made jokes with the other foreign teacher about how he played with the cow's titties... is that childish? Yup. Should I care? Nope. Why would I write it here otherwise :3

Picture fun and nails

Félixe, my niece, isn't she the most adorable thing you ever saw? <3

Omg I just got a new iPhone app called, wait for it, Princess Cam, which has a fairly similar way to make pictures look like japanese sticker pictures, Purikura (japanese photobooth of which the word consist of the shortening of the words 'print club' - purinto kurabu). I can basically do with my pictures whar the old purikura machines used to do in the late 1990. Still, when the picture quality is good enough (good light and no pixelisation), they can look pretty awesome.

So yesterday, when I was waiting home for my new laptop (next blog will be on that I think), I had fun with pictures of my niece and of myself, that came out quite interestingly...

Since I hurt my arm quite bacly the other week - got 5 stitches in my right arm, making me unable to do most useful thing properly, washing my hair and myself for one; working, for another, I ended up doing one of the only thing I could still do: paint nails. So I did my niece's, who got completely addicted to nail polishes, being uberly seduced by the idea that she can be a real princess by having nice shiny nails. Cute little thing, she is so demanding though, I can never make normal nails for her... she can stand with a straight back and unmoving hands on the table for over an hour whenI make those however, which is IMO quite amazing for such a lively 3 year old energetic princess....

So thing is, I got jealous of her nails, so I did myself the same. Mine being quite bigger, do not have as much cuteness, but I do what I can :)

This is the material I used:
1. base coat to protect my nails,
2. pink Essie color base
3. Grapefruit smelling pink glitter Revelon polish
4. white dots, and green leaves
5. Transluscent top coat for finish 

Okay this one is a bit over the top... ha ha... but wait, there is worse....

There were make up options on that iPhone app, so I added contact lense colors as well as fake lashes...intense XD

Félixe and her First Nail Polish Session

This week we babysat my little niece for a couple of days, so the house was quite lively and sweet. She had a bad cold and was quite zombie-like the first two days, but the rest she made sure we existed only for her sake. She is adorable though, so I do not resent her attitude - especially since in the end, I was not the one who needed to care for her that much, but just enjoy the good parts. I took the time to do her nails once though, one afternoon: she stayed still for at least 45 minutes, while I made her "princess nails" She was really pretty, even more because she knew she was <3

Félixe's First Princess Nail polish!

I am taking advantage of the fact she is still young to post her picture; later on I will need to ask for her permission...<3

Isn't she adorable? Snow White was never this pretty

My dad and Félixe, reading "Bambi, lost and found" with much interest...

Fall Wonders and D's backyard

Yesterday my dad had to go to D's place to repair something in her backyard so my mother, daddy, Félixe that we are babysitting for the next few days, and I went along. I really like her place, it's a little haven in the forest and she has a lot of little spots she decorated, small surprises surrounded by nature. She went to India a couple of times and a lot of stuff in her surrounding tells of her tale. 

Happy Buddha head near the lake D'Alembert

Félixe who found shining blue stones under an arch of greens

Reading spot and swimming spot by the lake...

Pot arrangements, with glass painting frames shining in the sun

One of my favorite, the Gnome house in the tree <3

Swimming spot in another angle <3

I liked what I wore that day. It was another warm day - around 30 degrees, but very cloudy, so it was not suffocating, while it was quite humid... I wore my new wollen shirt with Simons flower print leggings

Flower Print Leggings
$20

woolen onepiece and flower leggings

My mommy taught me how to do crochet yesterday night, and I'll soon start working on clovers to add to my woolen socks <3 Cant wait to be done so I can start something new again!

Crochet rope... so long XD

Félixe & Cupcakes

This weekend my parents are on a 3 day bicycle trip around the region so I am alone with my brother and Guri home~~ This morning I got woken up by a baby girl's cry of despair. After a while I realised that it was my niece, and my brother who had come say hi to my parents, and had realized too late that they were not there. They were about to leave when I got downstairs. Poor Félixe, she was crying, so sad to have come to gpa gma's place without them. We ended up making this a happy little productive morning the three of us before they left around 12h15.

Isn't she a sweetheart?????

Today was a really warm Fall day, it was around 29 degrees and it was sunny. This afternoon, after making some of my university homework I made cupcakes with Guri and we had a lot of fun, even though we both feel fat and gross for eating too much (mind you, we did not even really eat the cupcakes themselves, we just ate too much of the pizza we made for supper...). 

Anyways, we ended up making sweet things, and I am happy we decided to do that. On the first pictures I took we did not have the fruits, but later on we had a run to the grocery - literally in the hopes of clearing our full stomacs - and bought strawberries and raspberries to put on top, which enhanced the look of the most ugly ones...

Guri took this picture with her ipad, and her 'I love G' lol

Yummy yummy cupcakes...

That one is the happy 'with strawberry' first one I modified...