Hot Dusty Shep

On the spur of the moment we decided to head inland to Shepparton for the Australia Day weekend. In my mind's eye Shepparton has always been a place that is hot and dusty and it did not disappoint !  

The girls sitting in the dirt ... were quite happy with the dust

Shepparton is in the Goulburn Valley which is reknown for its fruit orchards and is home to SPC Ardmona (as in the cans of peaches and pears etc) and apparently has some pretty sophisticated irrigation systems so it was a little confusing as to why it felt like we had stepped into a dustbowl.  Perhaps they reserve all the water for the fruit trees?!?    Anyway the girls did not mind one bit and in fact seemed happier the dustier and dirtier they got.  

One of the attractions in Shepparton is Kidstown which lays claim to it being Australia's (or was it just Victoria's) largest adventure playground.

And off course, there was no let up on the chicken from Abbey ... at exactly 11am there was the very familiar call for "chikin, chikin, chiiiiiikiiiiin".  

Abbey and her chicken

It was a pretty good adventure playground complete with its own miniature railway and the only way to get the girls to leave was to bribe them with ice-creams.  They have worked out that they should get different ice-creams so that they could have a wider selection to sample ! 

Shepparton is also home to "mooving art" and everywhere you look there are some very artistic looking cows.  Abbey was beyond excited whenever she saw one and you could not get her still long enough to snap a proper photo of her with her beloved cows.

 
 

But the highlight for the girls especially in the 40+ degree heat was Aquamoves ... a fantastic local pool with the best toddler pool we've come across and next to it was a water playground ... heavenly for both kids and adults in the heat.  In fact, it was so nice we literally spent all day there from 10am to 5pm and in all that time, Eloise probably only had 30 minutes out of the water (and that was only after being told she had to come out for lunch and bribed out with an ice-cream). She is very adept at making friends and always managed to find a little friend or friends to buddy up with all day.

Chinese New Year

Gong Xi Fatt Choy !  The girls were very excited about it being Chinese New Year and it seems to have more significance to them because they actually get to 'dress up', receive ang pows and attend what Eloise calls a "Chinese Dinner Party" otherwise known as the Reunion Dinner.  Whereas, with the ordinary New Years celebration that occurs on 31 December for the girls it is just another day because they are fast asleep when the fireworks go off.   

The girls trying on their New Years outfit

Dressed in their "Chinese" outfits they are pretending to be dragons as it is the Year of the Dragon

This year's Reunion Dinner was at Aunty Vicky's place and there was plenty of food including the "Yuu Sahng".  So what is a Reunion Dinner and what is Yuu Sahng?   Well according to Wikipedia:  

Reunion dinner is held on New Year's Eve of the Chinese New Year, during which family members get together to celebrate.  The New Year's Eve dinner is very large and traditionally includes chicken and pork. Fish (魚, yú) is also included, but intentionally not finished, and the remaining fish is stored overnight. The reason for this stems from a pun, as the Chinese phrase 年年有魚/餘; (nián nián yǒu yú, or "every year there is fish/leftover") is a homophone for phrases which mean "be blessed every year" or "have profit every year". Similarly, a type of black hair-like algae, "fat choy"(髮菜, fǎ cài, literally "hair vegetable" in Cantonese), is also featured in many dishes since its name sounds similar to "prosperity"(發財, fā cái). Hakka will serve "kiu nyuk" 扣肉 and "ngiong tiu fu" 釀豆腐.The belief is that having one will lead to the other, as the phrases sound similar to one another.
 
Hmmm, so we had everything that is traditionally on a Reunion Dinner menu including the fish in the form of the salmon that was in  Yuu Sahng but I don't think we had any leftovers to store ?!?

And here is the Wikipedia definition of Yuu Sahng:
Yusheng, yee sang or yuu sahng (Chinese: 鱼生; pinyin: yúshēng; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: hî-seⁿ or hû-siⁿ), or Prosperity Toss, also known as lo hei (Cantonese for 撈起 or 捞起) is a Teochew-style raw fish salad. It usually consists of strips of raw fish (most commonly salmon), mixed with shredded vegetables and a variety of sauces and condiments, among other ingredients. Yusheng literally means "raw fish" but since "fish (鱼)" is commonly conflated with its homophone "abundance (余)", Yúshēng (鱼生) is interpreted as a homophone for Yúshēng (余升) meaning an increase in abundance. Therefore, yusheng is considered a symbol of abundance, prosperity and vigor.
While versions of it is thought to have existed in China, the contemporary version is created and popularised in Singapore^{[citation needed]} in the 1960s amongst the ethnic Chinese community and its consumption has been associated with Chinese New Year festivities in Singapore as well as in neighbouring Malaysia. In Singapore, government, community and business leaders often take the lead in serving the dish as part of official functions during the festive period or in private celebrity dinners. Some have even suggested that it be named a national dish.

The Yuu Sahng

The kids doing the Prosperity Toss

What Wikipedia does not mention is that everybody must toss the Yuu Sahng in order for good luck to come your way.  The older kids thought it was fun but the younger ones, Abbey and Zoey, as you can, see took the tossing very seriously.

The rest of the dinner including chicken, pork and the "Fat Choy"

The kids though were more interested in receiving something or more particularly their 'ang pows'. None of them really have a concept of money yet but they all seemed quite excited to receive them and they all sat patiently waiting .... 

L to R: Eloise, Abbey, Lochie, Dylan and Zoey

 Or maybe they do understand the concept of money ... check out Lochie's face and Abbey's outreached hand

Not quite traditional, but there was also a very Australian touch to the dinner in the form of a Pavlova and Eloise's chocolate mud cake (Eloise had insisted on making something for the dinner and the mud cake recipe was simple enough)   So we put candles on the cake and sang "Happy Chinese New Year" to the tune of Happy Birthday.

 And after all that eating it was time for a play ....

 for both big and small kids ...

Kids in the Kitchen

Eloise has always loved to help in the kitchen and this morning she announced that she wanted to make something herself for our Chinese New Year dinner that evening.  So we donned our aprons to make a chocolate mud cake.  

Tippy toes were required to be able to see into the mixing bowl !

Even with a higher chair, tippy toes were still required to reach over

That's my girl! Multi-tasking and not yet even 2 !

Usually whenever Eloise helps out in the kitchen, it is during Abbey's nap time so that Abbey does not interupt or get in the way !!  However, this time around it was early in the morning and there was no denying Abbey. So we set her up with her own bowl, mixing spoon and some dried pasta and food dye.  As you can seen, Abbey seems to love helping out as much as her sister does. 

The chocolate mud cake turned out really well, it was very moist and chocolatey ...yum !  Well done Eloise for a great effort.  The only things that Eloise needed help with was reading the recipe, melting the chocolate and butter over a double boiler, pouring the mixture into the mixing bowl and putting the cake tin into the oven.  All the rest of the tasks including lining the cake tin,  cracking the eggs, measuring the ingredients and stirring the mixture were all performed by Eloise. 

The girls were also very good with sharing the joys of licking the bowl ! However, this might explain why the kids were subsequently not that keen on their lunch!!

Picnic in the Botanical Gardens

It has been quite a while since we've been to the botanical gardens and I'm not sure that Abbey has ever been.   We met up with Marina and her two kiddlets, Scarlett and Harvey at the Children's Garden and had a lovely day playing in the stream and exploring the garden. As expected the kids were filthy by the end of the day and they were ravenous at dinner time!

Our Abbey is quite forward and wasted no time in giving Harvey a cuddle ...

Can you spot Abbey ? 

L to R: Harvey, Eloise, Scarlett and Abbey

Checking out the vege garden