Kayla Going Gladian 2008

I'm not sure what Gladian is. But, Gladian is surely one of Pramuka (scout) activities that involve camping overnight and several outdoor activities. And in this case, Gladian is part of annual student activities for grade 3 students. The school combines this activities with what the students learn in their classes. This year, the school chooses Pesantren Ar-Ridho in Sentul, Bogor, as the location. The pesantren has quite large area that covers several acres, including some rice field, vegetable garden, outbound area, and fish pond.

Kayla seems to like the experience very much, and she just couldn't stop talking about it, even after several days.

Kindy Kids Going City Tour

Last Tuesday, on 4 November 2008, Shayna and her friends were going city tour with their teachers. They were planning to go to Planetarium at Taman Ismail Marzuki, and to Masjid Istiqlal afterward. They started at around 7.30 am and were expected to be back at around 3 pm the latest. Talking about how serious this school teaching independence to their students, no parents or mbaks were allowed to go along with them, or even to follow with their own cars. If some parents insisted on monitoring and supervising their kids, they would be encouraged to monitor them from afar :)

Anyway, since this was the first time for me to send Shayna off for some outing, just for the sake of taking her pictures :), I was quite amazed by the view of some frantic mothers. Some mothers asked the teachers to take eyes of theie kids' additional "baggage", which I couldn't think of what were in those additional big baggage. Some other mothers were busy saying good bye to their kids, while there were mothers who just insisted on following along with the tour. The most important thing was that all was well, the kids were back as scheduled, and they all enjoyed the trip so much.

Times Bookstore in Karawaci

Last week we went to that famous Times Bookstore that is located inside the Universitas Pelita Harapan complex, in Karawaci Tangerang. This bookstore is advertised to be very big and cozy with its comprehensive collection. However, since I love reading and go to bookstores a lot, I can say that this bookstore is not as grand as it is promised. Well, if you are familiar with Kinokuniya at Plasa Senayan, you'd find this bookstore rather ... let's say it doesn't have everything for everyone. For one major topic, they only provide the maximum of two or three bookshelves, while at Kinokuniya we can find three bookshelves just for one favorite sub topic.

Anyway, the bookstore is not to our satisfactory. As for the surrounding, since the UPH itself is quite impressive, not to mention the Benton place with its row of cafes, we can say that it is different and worth our long journey.

Relaxing at Grand Hyatt

It is just our annual family program. After the hectic days of Lebaran, we usually go and stay at some nice hotels. This year, we stayed at Grand Hyatt for free by using our Citibank credit card's point rewards. There was nothing to exciting about the hotel, since we've already stayed here several times. So, we just relaxed and took a long nap after checking in and having our lunch.

The more exciting experience this year was that now there is Grand Indonesia just across the hotel. Grand Indonesia has a new playground called Fun World. In the afternoon we went to that Fun World, and at least the girls had fun.

Happy 8th Birthday, Kayla!

I just cannot believe that my girl is already 8 years old, now. We all wake up early in the morning, and then we together celebrate Kayla's birthday by singing, blowing the only one candle, praying for our health, and opening the presents. Nothing extravagant. Since she is a big girl now, already in 3rd Grade, we don't have any big party plan for her. She is just going to give away some cute cookies to her classmates.

Happy birthday, Kayla! We all hope for a happy and good life.

Celebrating Our Independence Day

Shayna with her Indian Dance

On 21 June 2008, Shayna's school held graduation ceremony for Kindy 2 and art performance for the whole kindergarten students. The theme was Global Warming, with several dances from around the world. Shayna and her other 19 friends got the Indian dance part. The dance was quite dynamic and exciting. And Shayna did her dance very well. We, as her parents, were really proud of her independence and self confidence during her dance performance and during her year of Shayna at Kindy 1.

Kayla's Last Day @ 2nd Grade

This was Kayla's last day at 2nd Grade. Look at their happy faces. By the time they meet again, they will be at 3rd Grade, and get separated in different classes. As for her achievement, we haven't got the report until next week. But, hopefully, her grades are better than during her 1st grade. I am quite sure about that, since it looks like she master her lessons better this past one year.

Kayla is Having Her 2nd Grade Final Tests

During this two weeks, Kayla is having her 2nd grade final tests. This week, she's having some practice tests in Islamic Education, Sports, Computer, and Al-Qur'an. Next week, she's having written tests for three days, with two tests in a day. So, it's been serious weeks at home these past few days.

Unlike her younger sister Shayna, Kayla is not a very keen learner. She's more for art stuff. So, what's her motivation so that she'll be studying hard for her tests? Since her digital camera cannot somehow work properly, I promise her that if she's doing great in her tests, she will be getting new camera. What a price!

Kayla's Own Blog

This is Kayla's own blog. She designed the blog header and background by herself, using Paint application and Paint Artist.

The blog is basically about whatever she wants to put in the blog, which mostly are pictures taken by her with her own camera. The url: http://happy-kayla.blogspot.com/

Developing Reading Habits

Parents who love to read will want their children to also love reading. So, since I and my husband really love reading, we are very serious in our attempt to develop the girls’ reading habits. It is a serious matter, since most children nowadays prefer watching TV and playing games than reading. And in most of our life, most things will need to be learned through reading. If they don't like reading, where can we go from there? Here are what we do.

First of all, we are collecting books. The girls get to choose the books they are interested in. Our new collection consists of books that just being collected in the last 1 year. The previous collection … all destroyed by last year’s big flood. We also try to maintain the proportion of the book collection into 50% English books and 50% Indonesian books, with some being bi-lingual. Our consideration is that books in our mother tongue are still more important, especially for Shayna, my younger girl; as important the second language is, what’s the point in speaking and reading that language fluently if she cannot do it better with her own language? Two third of the overall is books with Islamic background. We think that early years of life is the perfect period for giving the girls some basics that will guide them throughout their whole life time.

The next thing is developing their love and skills in reading. Kayla, the older girl, has to read at least 3 books (2 books in English and 1 book in Indonesian) every night before sleeping, at her own choosing. Shayna … well, actually we don’t require her to read as many books. But, she is keener in reading (and any other learning, actually) than her big sister, and she often ends up read more books than Kayla does. Some of the times we ask them to read books that are beyond their ages and understanding, although still children books of course. Some people say that it will broaden their horizon and understanding.

It seems working quite well.

Kayla - Being Best Student of the Week for 2 times during 2nd Grade

Good on you, Kayla!

National Geographic for Kids – May Edition

I nearly forgot to buy the latest National Geographic for Kids, the May edition. Lucky for me, the bookstore I went to got one copy left. Otherwise, I’d feel really guilty for forgetting to get this May edition.

What have we got here …? This edition has lots of supersize fun games, from matching, tracing, puzzles, and more. There are fifteen of them which are very exciting for kids of 5 to 12 years old. The kids will surely love the games. Besides the games, there are also reviews of two latest movies.

Now, this is important. Everyone can help preserving this planet, even kids. Some ideas of some small things that even kids can do are not littering, no plastic bag, planting a tree, turning off unnecessary light, and using rechargeables only. What have we done so far?

(Also published at my other blog Insparenting.com)

Big Family Weekend at the Park Lane

These pictures were taken last weekend while we were staying overnight with our big family from my hub side at the Park Lane Hotel.


Hotel Orientation Team

Cousin Akhtar, looked really cheerful

Dinner at Rawon Setan Mbak Endang, Casablanca

Although they were not feeling very well, they seemed to really enjoy the swimming time


Jacuzzi time ...

Disney on Ice

After looking everywhere to get Disney on Ice tickets since the tickets were sold out in most ticket stores, finally I got them, although they were of a bit higher class than what we planned. But, well, for the girls, I would be willing to pay for them. Anyway, it's not that Disney on Ice comes to our city every year.

Al last, last week, on 1 May 2008, we went to see Disney on Ice at Kemayoran. At first glance of the stage, it looked a bit disappointing. The stage looked quite small, compared to the previous shows such as Barney's show and Holiday on Ice. And the decor was not quite impressive. But, as long as the girls were happy, who were we to complain?

The theme was Mickey & Minnie's Amazing Journey. This show included 5 well known Disney's movies and their characters, like The Lion King, 101 Dalmatians, Little Mermaid, Peter Pan, and Lilo & Stitch. My girls, of course, loved Little Mermaid show the most, with their beloved character Ariel looked so pretty. And it turned out that the show itself was quite impressive, with lots of bright colors, great characters and their costumes, and surprising stage accessories to make the shows look like the movies. Some examples were Captain Hook's ship, Lilo's bedroom, and Peter Pan's flying acts. The most disappointing show was the Lion King one. But anyway, since the girls were very happy, so I should also be happy then.

Granny's Birthday at Pizza Marzano

These pictures were taken when we were dining out at Pizza Marzano, celebrating my mom's birthday. Those were my big family, with my mom and dad, my husband and the girls, my two younger brothers (those two men with similar styles :) ), and my sister-in-law and her family. It was not quite so often for all of us to get together, so whenever someone had a birthday, we always tried to eat out together.

The place was great, but the food was ... well, I would say adequate. Even the girls didn't really enjoy the food. Anyway, it was less than I expected. Lucky for me, they had my beloved Caesar Salad, and it tasted quite nice.

Zoo Fun Walk

Last Saturday there was a family gathering, held by my Kayla’s school. The theme was “Zoo Fun Walk”, started early in the morning (6am) with morning exercise together, then proceed with the fun walk around the zoo, and ended with picnic in the zoo. It was quite amazing of how at 6am in the morning there were already so many people, parents, children, and teachers, gathering at the zoo. It was quite fun, especially since we’ve never had a picnic in the zoo before.