Saichi Turned 1

Saichi just turned 1 today, we haven't done much exciting thing for his first birthday but we've received lovely gift from his grandparents from Japan... And shiori enjoyed some gift for her own also.

He received several toys and considering that he doesn't have much.. he was soo excited to see them. He particularly loves this little talking and rolling and flashing toy ball. It actually talk to him in Japanese and if he doesn't play with it for awhile.. it'll say, hey what's going on in Japanese.

Here is the video of him playing, it's bit long but you can see excited Shiori at the end as well.

Shiori really loved this large Ampan man thing and also she got little doll that she calls her baby.
And here are some of photos of Saichi enjoying his day.

LIttle stroll down by the lake...

On one Sunday afternoon, we decided to go for a little stroll down by the lake... Shiori wanted to bring her little baby and push her little stroller while we pushed Saichi on ours. It was a lovely day for a stroll, nice cool breeze, lovely afternoon.

Like mother like daughter.. pushing the stroller together.

At one point.. Shiori had to take a little break because her baby was hungry.. so she is nursing the baby.. while we waited.
Still nursing..

Oh, now she is trying to make baby burp

With such a content smile.. looking into the water.. holding her little happy baby.

Wedding of Nathalie and Chris

Last weekend I attended the wedding of my good friend at work Nathalie and Chris. It was held at the park by the lake, and it was a gorgeous day outside. The whole ceremony was a small and simple and very beautiful one. She looked amazing in her wedding dress and just perfect setting for the wedding.

Here is Nat and her father walking down along the pass

The reception was held at this lovely place by the lake, just short walking distance from where wedding took place. It had lovely large deck and nice view of the lake.

Nat chatting with guests.


The view from the deck.
Another friend from work, Tenille and Hayden.. (here Tenille, you made it onto our blog :).. )

And another good friend Stephanie and her fiancee Michael

Just enjoying the cool breeze before the formal part of the reception .

And group photo with the people from work.. Everyone is just getting ready for the photo..

And nice one with everyone..

It was a very very touching and lovely reception, and the whole thing was just a relaxed and happy gathering. Congratulations Nat!!

Introducing.... Adoretea

Just this past weekend, we decided to go for a little drive. Sometimes it feels so cramped to be in the same place, go to the same places all the time, so we hit the open road (which is pretty easy to do in Canberra since pretty much as soon as you leave your area it's a open road... according to Amelia, my definition of open road is road with the view of mountain in the front which is basically accurate spot on :). Anyway so we hit the road, and after about 20 min drive, we got to this little area north of Canberra called Gold Creek.. it is an interesting area, full of little gift shops, craft shop, and shop for kids. Probably being very close to the miniature gardens, there are lot of shops that sold miniature items and doll houses as well which Shiori was very excited to find.

In this area though was a place called adoretea shop.. the destination for real tea lovers. So we had to go and visit considering that the whole purpose of the trip was to finally find this place.

This place is pretty amazing, apparently it just moved to the new and bigger location, and it has nice clean and relaxing feel.. it has over 300 teas in their menu as well as some interesting creation such as Tea based milk shakes... There are few munchies like typical scones, apple pies etc.

Here is the amazing selection of teas and tea pots.
Amelia and Shiori enjoying the comfy couch
Me and Saichi.. Saichi was pretty happy to be out of the house finally.
Shops has many seats, selection of teas and tea cups and pots, comfy couch and relaxing fire place, friendly staff... And only after we left we found out that this place had a baby seat.. which would have been very handy during our stay.. Oh well next time, we can just imagin sitting there enjoying many teas and relaxing a little bit.

Apparently you can order the teas online and they even do a catering etc. You can click the link here

Some random pictures of our kids.

Here are some recent random photos of Shiori and Saichi...

Here is Shiori enjoying the afternoon sun with the view of Lake.. I think she is holding one of her baby doll. She has pretty content and satisfied look.. wonder what baby doll is telling her.
And here is Shiori with her fried Sana.. petting our little Muji.
Meanwhile Saichi was learning alphabet with this toy.

Shiori and Saichi sailing away!!

Just the other day, Shiori constructed this sail boat on our living room.. equipped with two sails, baby seat for Saichi, steering wheel... And packed bag full of.. i'm not too sure but I think she packed some changes. And they were ready to sail away..
Shiori taking the charge of the steering wheel and saichi just looking on.
Saichi is now looking through his plastic bucket and shiori is still trhying to steer the boat.
I don't remember where exactly they sailed to, or how they came back but I think it ended when Saichi broke free from his seat.

Shiori dancing at Landspeed

Just the other day, I took Shiori out to town for some fun.. while Amelia and Saichi stayed home.

We went to few different shops but the one that she enjoyed the most was at this music store where she could listen to the music on the big headphone.. She kept bringing different CD she wanted to listen, but unfortunately it was the type that I couldn't change the CD... anyhow she listened to some songs and did some nice dance..

When music changed she stopped dancing and said she doesn't like this music and put the head phone down.

She liked this adventure with her papa so much that she kept on saying we had so much fun, but mami and Saichi didn't have any fun at home.. well I'm sure they had their own fun time.

Anyway here is the video.. enjoy!!

Shiori and her green thumb

Now that Spring time is here, we've been enjoying doing some gardening work around the house, we bought some fruit trees to plant in our new house as well as planting some flowers and greens.

Shiori recently got beach toys from our friend Nika, and she is using them to plant some flowers of her own.

Shiori planting nice big Iris... actually she just cut off some flowers from our yard and planted into her bucket.
And here it is.. it was so cute, we left it as it was, and Shiori remembered to water it every day. Amazingly it survived for couple of days.

Amelia on the Lawn Mower

Amelia tried the ride on mower for the first time today, she is quite comfortable riding it on the flat area, and we do have plenty of flat areas here.. so I think she might be doing some more stuff.

She really enjoyed it and she looked really cool too.

My Hoya Tree

I've been slowly growing a little Hoya tree for a while now since we've moved to Canberra.. trying to see if I can recreate the Hoya garden we had in Haifa.. ofcourse we had much advanced start in Haifa with our Hoya trees mostly grown by lovely and knowledgeable Andrew and Malinda Blake. So with this one I had to start with small pot.. but looks like it's finally growing nicely. It is sitting in the entrance where we it is protected from the frost and wind during winter. During warmer month it is really taking off and hopefully it'll give us lovely flower soon.
Only thing now we need to do is to put some strings so that it can grow upwards with some support.

Our house

Recently we bought a home. For the time being we're happy to continue living at the centre and maintaining the property here, but it's been wonderful to go and enjoy the gardens before the tenants move in at the end of the week. It's also a lot of fun to imagine moving in and all the extra space that we'll have! Today we're going to go and plant a few trees so they can start growing and getting big for us to enjoy in a couple of years. We are planting a pomegranate, a lovely creeping rose and some wisteria.

A quilt is born