Well, “low maintenance” is certainly not what keeping terrapins is. To decorate the tank, we bought some plastic plants.
But certainly looks pretty now. We may need another $8.00 filter to be clean the tank better.
YowCH needed to visit a new earthwork site at Jurong West which is still very wooded, and the children are on school leave for PSLE Listening and Comprehension Exams, so we went to the site for mountain biking. Grace and Joseph went to work/school. We had breakfast at Block 37, then went to TYLin office for a short while as YowCH needed to sign some drawings and give some instructions. We reached the site at about 10.45am and took out the bikes.
The trails are partly metalled, partly dirt path and sometimes very rough.
We crossed a very rusted steel bridge.
We left the site at about 12.15pm, drove round the site boundary and then went to Colbar for lunch at 1.00pm.
After lunch, we reached home at about 2.15pm.
It is mid-autumn. This year we did not buy any mooncakes, spending about $500.oo less! We ate only a little mooncakes from relatives and friends.
Yesterday, Thursday, Joseph joined Esther and David in the Gan Eng Seng Primary School mid-autumn celebrations, and they made some snow-skin mooncakes and lanterns. The children went with Grace, YowCH was at the Association of Consulting Engineers (ACES) Networking Night.
Tonight, we had some standard mid-autumn fare: yam, water caltrop (菱角), pomelo, ‘pig-basket’ cake and of course, mooncakes.
The pomelo was peeled by David, although he doesn’t eat it.
This is the water caltrop top (菱角车) that YowCH made.
We had two weddings in 2 countries on Saturday, 14 Sept.
Lunch at Sheraton from 1:00pm to 4:00pm for Pearly’s wedding (Grace’s ex-colleague and good friend).
At this wedding, we started teaching Joseph chopsticks. And a surprising event happened, David’s glass just cracked on the edge while he was drinking! haha.
After the lunch, we drove to Pontian straight, but was caught in the check-point jam spending 30 mins on Singapore side and 90 mins on Malaysia side. We reached Pontian at 7:15 and had to join the Pontian local jam for another 20 mins, reaching the restaurant at 7:40pm. Thank God, we were safe, and the ‘valet’ gave us the space in front of the restaurant next to the wedding car.
This is the wedding of Grace’s cousin (youngest daughter of her eldest uncle).
The food was fantastic. After dinner, we sat at 4th Aunty’s house for a while, left Pontian at 11:00pm driving in convoy with mum and dad, and reached home at 12:15am.
Here, you can see Joseph having mastered the chopsticks, picking up peas! Now he needs to work on strength.
We went for the growth scan, with David and Joseph (Esther was in school), everything is fine, praise the Lord. 3 images updated in Baby 4′s page
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Last Sunday, the team’s two new coaches started. The coach in red T-shirt is Mr Yasni and the older one in blue cap is Mr Hatta (Yasni’s father). Both are qualified professional coaches, and runs the training very well, with discipline and control.
After 1 hour of training, the children played friendly games where each player must stop the ball and then kick it onwards. They can’t dribble at all. The 4 teams each has big and small children, and Joseph was in the same team as David. Both played actively and well.
Another terrapin died on Friday 6 Sept 2013, so reduced from 2 to 1.
The one that lives is one of the original 2 that we got, the most hardy of the lot.
So we went and bought another 3 more, smaller and lighter green in colour.
While we were at the shop, we also bought a small submerged water filter for $8.00 to help keep the tank clean.
Here’s the new layout, filter with 1 old terrapin and 3 new ones.
Mid-autumn is certainly coming, with mooncakes being sold everywhere!
Here are the children with very authentic piggy baskets from Kei Wah “奇華” from Hong Kong.
David is NOT smiling, he had his tooth plucked this very afternoon at the school dentist.
The baskets are woven from rattan strips!
Big thanks to the Ngs for lending us their car-seat and pram (a very nice Graco Snugride 30), and a bigger thanks for their fantastic arrangement to send it back via Mrs Diana Ang (church friend) who was in San Francisco. We picked Diana and the car-seat/pram from airport on 2 Sept 2013 (01:00).
The seat looks big, we have not tried it in the Isis yet, but it should fit.
This is the seat and the pram-frame (Snugrider Elite). Assembly was quite straight-forward, with some help from Joseph.
YowCH’s cowboy boots has great leather, but the heals wore out (as usual). And cobblers are either charging $60 or not able to do so. So YowCH redid the boots by himself, with a little help from David and Esther.
1. Cut off the rubber heels, and replace with timber heels (nice clicking sounds). Timber was cut out from old left-over pine wood from IKEA Sten shelf-legs.
2. The timber heels are screwed on from inside. Note the washer and countersunk screw to prevent injury.
3. The heels were then ground to shape with the rotary sander (actually the drill with sand-paper mounted on the sander tool).
4. Detailed works with a wood file and further sanding with sand-paper.
Here’s a detailed shot during sanding, David holding the shoe with YowCH grinding the heel.
Next step, the rubber base.
1. Attach hard rubber sheet by rubber-glue. The rubber sheet is cut from ‘fridge base sheet’ from hardware shop.
2. Press to set.
3. Trim down the rubber to shape.
4. The timber heel was painted black using stamp-pad ink, which stains deep and leaves a lasting black.
The final product, feel good (a bit taller than before) and clicks nicely.
Total effective time spent on the heels replacement – 5 hours (but done slowly over 3 weekends). A nice simple and practical project.
