Sunday, December 30, 2012

Highlight of my life for the 1st half year of 2012

Hello! How are you doing? I'm so sorry that I have not been able to post stories here more often. I've been super duper busy for the whole year I didn't even realize that in 2 days the year 2012 is about to end and we'll welcome the new year 2013. I can't believe how fast time flies! It's 1 year already! I'm 1 year older and hopefully I'm 1 year wiser too... :)

Honestly, I don't want this year to end as 2012 has been a fantastic year for me. It's like God wanted to make up for  2011 which was not a good year for me. There are so many good things happening in my life since the start of the year. For the whole year, I was able to sharpen my art skill to create the happiness in my life. It was the year that I learned more and more about the art of decorating cake with fondant. It was also the year that I learned the art of photography and the art of business and direct selling. For the first half year, my lucky star always shone on me. In what ever competition I joined, I won the prize and this helped me to shine even more. This fantastic year has taught me that if I could channel the good energy to do what I can do best, I am a happy person and I will be able to end this year on a high note.

Without doubt, I would like to share with you all why this year is such a wonderful year for me complete with the photographs.


The highlight of the year for me started with this:


You remember reading this? It's here: Dragon year fondant cake
Since October 2011, I have been learning to make fondant decoration because I wanted to make my son a special birthday cake on his 7th birthday. I got addicted to making fondant decoration since the result of my son's birthday cake was great. So I continued practicing decorating with fondant for whatever occasion and I'm glad I made this to welcome the Dragon year for the Dragon year has become a nice year for me... :)

Next is this:


I made this for my good friend's birthday. I also made the basket from old newspaper:


Those were January and February 2012. 

For March 2012:
My good friend took me and my daughter to visit the floating library The Logos Hope which visited Manila Port:


Then she also took us to visit Museo Pambata (Children Museum) in Manila:

You can read my story here: Visit to Museo Pambata

In March I upgraded my iPhone 4 to iPhone 4S... :)
With my iPhone 4S, my photography and post production skill expanded. I have many photos to share with you:



Look! I found Australia on the sky... :) The cloud shaped like Australia continent formed above my house.

I took photo of my son who joined swimming class for the first time using my iPhone 4S. This was his first day of swimming lesson:


In April, 
for the first time, I joined The International food festival in which I showcased the dishes from countries I wanted to represent. In the event, I represented Indonesia (my beloved country for sure), Malaysia (as my other half is Malaysian), and also Vietnam. I know many visitors would love to eat Vietnamese food as well. Since there's no other people wanted to showcase Vietnam dishes (which was so unfortunate as Vietnamese food is super yummy), so I represented Vietnam because I love the Vietnamese fresh spring roll which I happen to know how to make it well... :) During that event, I was also requested to do cooking demo. And so I presented how to cook Beef Rendang as I sold beef Rendang on my stall to represent Indonesian food. Visit this post to get my:  special beef Rendang recipe.

I served the Beef Rendang with mini cone-shaped Javanese yellow rice (mini nasi tumpeng), with fresh Vietnamese spring roll, boiled quail egg, fried sausage, and scrambled egg. This dish was a hit! I sold all of my stock even more as people even were willing to buy my Beef Rendang dish without the beef Rendang... :D
As for Malaysia, I presented the Penang Prawn Noodle soup complete with the spicy chilly on request. I also introduced cold lemon Barley drink to represent Malaysia. Too bad I can't do Teh Tarik (pulled tea), as this will be even more authentic Malaysian drink... :)

The Beef Rendang dish and the Vietnamese Spring roll sold out first as here in Philippines, people like to eat rice more than noodle. But my Prawn Noodle soup also nearly sold out. 


End of April to early May 2012, I went back to Malaysia for summer vacation. I invited my parents to join us in Malaysia. These are the photographs of our summer vacation:




End of May 2012, still in vacation mode, we went to Anilao Beach in Batangas:

Then, on the 1st day of June 2012, I was invited to attend a violin and cello summer concert at Adventist University of Philippines. My son played his solo piece on violin: 'Etude'. He made me proud! He was only 7 years old and this was his 2nd recital. If you can understand Bahasa Indonesia, you can read my article at BatikIndonesia.com here: Batik dan pemain biola cilik
Here is his photograph:
Isn't he gorgeous? My son looks so cool in his batik shirt while playing his solo piece.

It's getting dark outside and I have to prepare dinner for my husband and my kids. So far these are the highlight of my life for the 1st half year in 2012. I will try my best to continue writing the next post for the 2nd half year in 2012. Stay tune!












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