HAPPY EASTER

Happy Easter everyone!

Sydney and surrounds is bathed in beautiful autumn sunshine. We are so lucky that after all this rain during the past few weeks the skies cleared up.

The Pagoda of the Nan Tien Temple near Wollongong.

Yesterday, on Easter Saturday, we went to the Nan Tien Temple. We had planned on having a vegetarian lunch in their downstairs Tea Room. The extended car places near the Temple were all taken. It was absolutely amazing how many cars were parked everywhere. We had never seen the place this packed full. It turned out there were celebrations going on for Buddha’s Birthday. However we found out later that the birthday had already been on the 8th of April. Never mind this, more celebrations are planned. The next celebrations are going to be on the Mothers’ Day Weekend.

It was announced on the speaker system that people could register their children between the ages of two and seven. From 12,30 on these children would be given a special birthday celebration party in the courtyard. Everything for free! Later on we saw lots of food- and gift-stalls near the courtyard. We did not get any food there for we had already eaten an excellent lunch in the tea-room.

My choice was first of all some Cappucino.

The coffee arrived well covered in chocolate together with a dish that looked liked minced meat but was vegetarian of course.

I had ordered a curry dish with rice which was delicious. Sorry, I forgot to take a photo of of this rice dish. I took some photos of these interesting glass teapots that contained some exotic teas.

We went for a walk further up the hill towards the Gratitude Bell. Peter took a picture of me near this bell. Martin did give the bell a try chiming it. The sound is very pleasant and carries over large parts of the surrounding area.

This is Martin near the Gratitude Bell looking towards the Pagoda.

Here I caught Peter as he is walking near some tall bamboo plants at Nan Tien Temple.

Port Kembla Beach was deserted on Easter Saturday Morning.

This is our son Martin going for a swim in Port Kembla Pool.

The wind on that morning was very unpleasant. Lauren did not go for a swim. Peter and I decided too that we would not go into the water.

The previous day, on Good Friday, we had Caroline and Matthew staying with us and also Monika and a lot of her family, including little Lucas.

Lucas liked to play again with some toy cars.

Time to have some marzipan covered Nut Cake that Peter made.

Caroline did bring some home baked apple and plum cake along, and Krystal and Monika had also baked some cake!

Our Frangipani bush started flowering just in time for Easter!

Father’s Day, 1st September 2013

Lucas with Aunt Caroline admires the cake — Lucas with Aunt Caroline admiring the cake

Peter spoils us on Father's Day. — Peter spoils us on Father’s Day.

Lucas likes the cake very much and just wants more and more. When there’s no more cake left on Monika’s plate he moves over to his Mum who gives him more cake from her plate. Peter tells Lucas to remember that his Opi baked the cake! Opi is a cake lover too. So Lucas has this in common with his Great-Granddad.

Peter loves baking cakes. This cake was made with almond-meal and semolina and lots of eggs. The filling was fresh cream (with some chocolate spread in the cream) and also some apricot jam. As topping Peter used dark cooking chocolate.

Lucas is now 13 months and a bit and loves to walk. He walked tirelessly round and round in our place, from the dining room to the kitchen, to the hallway and back to the dining room. While he was eating his cake he made noises of pleasure that sounded like singing.

Lucas is visiting

At the beginning of March this year Lucas was visiting.

Black Forest Cake

Finally I am able to show you our lovely Black Forest Cake that we had for Easter Sunday. Peter said this morning something about our router being quite old and the modem being even older. So he went today, bought a new modem/router, all in one, connected it and voila, now we can upload pictures again. What a relief!

So for good measure I include now some more pictures from Easter Sunday.

Little Lucas, our baby great-grandson, was allowed a taste of that delicious Black Forest Cake. He loved it and later on licked the spoon! He also loved to drink out of his bottle.

We all love little Lucas very much.

For breakfast I had hard boiled egg with a garnish of salmon.

Here are a few more of Easter Sunday’s pictures which I only just found in the files when I looked a bit more. There is a picture with Grandma Monika in the background holding little Lucas. In one of the other photos you see Ryan, the dad of Lucas. The brother of Ryan is at the table too but cannot be seen properly. Sorry, Troy, that I didn’t catch you properly.

EASTER

It was great to see the family over Easter. It’s Easter Monday today, another holiday. Today Peter and I are on our own again. We took some pictures yesterday with our lovely eight months old great-grandson Lucas and the whole family while they were at our place. We had Black Forest Cake. Baby Lucas had a taste of it too and liked it! He had his bottle, sitting upright and holding the bottle all by himself. He was keen to finish it right to the last drop!

Peter and I might go for a drive later on. For lunch we are going to have just left-overs from yesterday. We had yesterday a very colourful lunch. Unfortunately I didn’t take a picture of my lunch-plate. However it definitely looked very colourful. There was “Hackbraten” (Meatloaf!) with gravy and champignons, Brussels sprouts, red cabbage and boiled potatoes. Also a glass of beer with it. It’s such a simple meal but everyone liked it. We had Caroline and Matthew for lunch with us. Later on all the others arrived for afternoon coffee and cake and a little welcome drink. We were ten adults plus Baby Lucas. In about two weeks we are going to spend some time with our family in Melbourne.

Our drive to Melbourne in a rented car is going to be a great event for us. We don’t drive straight to Melbourne but have a few overnight stops on the way to see a bit of the country. We are very much looking forward to this.

Peter’s sister Ilse writes this is going to be an unforgettable Easter for them for there’s still snow all over Berlin. The asparagus farmers in the area fear the worst for their crops. It’s just too cold to grow anything. Large parts of Europe are still in the grip of winter. How much they long for warmer days and a bit of sunshine!

We had plenty of chocolate Easter eggs. I helped myself to quite a few and loved them!

Seeing Baby Lucas

The day we saw baby Lucas again was a special day for us. Babies grow a lot when you’ve been absent for ten weeks. We saw our great-grandson in the midst of three aunties and his grandma, while his mum was enjoying all the attention her son got. Our daughter’s dog felt a bit left out, looking for attention by the baby’s mum.