April round-up
months go by without acknowledgment. how rude! let’s fix that, shall we - with another round-up!
we started off with a mum’s group dinner out to a local restaurant that just opened! this one is McKinley eatery’s offspring (although I reckon more of an older sibling, ‘cos you can drink alcohol and it’s only open at night!). just a couple of doors up from the eatery in fact. it’s called maneki teishoku and here is what I ate:
there was only one vegetarian main meal option (tempura vegetables), but that was okay. makes it easy for me to order! it came out like this, with lots of extra yummies around it. I thought it was a fun and delicious way to try something new. I didn’t eat the eggs, because eggs are gross, but I ate everything else. was a lovely night out with the ladies.
there was easter this month. we didn’t do anything to celebrate it. I did buy a few eggs to share with the fam and a 100% dark chocolate egg for mat. the darker the better. we did play monopoly one of the nights - for fun! I know it doesn’t happen very often these days. we played over 2 night, taking a photo after finishing the first night, so we knew what was where on the board. we used to play board games a lot when the kids were younger, but then they went ‘off’ them and we got rid of a few. this monopoly set is vintage! I got it when I was little and it’s looking a bit weathered and stained now, but all the pieces are still there in the sticky taped box! I think i’ll replace it at some stage - once I find a worthy substitute in the gigantic range of monopoly sets now available. mat tag teamed with the youngest kiddo, basically setting her up for success and once he went to bed and she jumped on, she was quick to loose friends and become greedy and rich! of course she won.
my crocus plants flowered for the first time! we got 3 flowers blooming and I promptly harvest the saffron stems from their centres. they’re the long orange stems in the purple flower above. I dried them on the sunny window sill in the kitchen and now they are ready to cook with whenever I need them. it’s so awesome to grow and harvest something so obscure. I have a vanilla plant in the bathroom that i’ve been waiting for it to flower. apparently you have 1 day to pollinate the flower so it can produce a vanilla pod! wowwee!
eldest kiddo and I took a trip to mornington (near the beach) for some autism/adhd testing. we know already she is gifted with both, but apparently we need to spend lots of money to be officially diagnosed and that will lead to future funding etc for her. I think it’s odd that to be ‘officially’ diagnosed, you need to pay. you don’t even get a certificate or a gift bag for having it. come on! anyway, when she was being tested, I was sent off to frolic amongst the shops on the main street. i’ve never been to mornington, but apparently it’s a place to go and shop and drink at sunset…. I wondered around and came across a toy shop (I love looking at toys!) and a book shop (I love books!!) and one clothing store (which I tried on a pair of olive green pants, that were too small for my middle. the assistant said she had larger sizes I could try, but I wasn’t ready to go up a size and besides I was already dressed!) walked back on the other side of the street and looked in a himalayan felt shop, which took me back to when I owned a kids store and stocked these products. I saw a cute bag, but I resisted.
on the way home we stopped at frankston beach and had a stand in the sand and watched the waves. kiddo loves the water, always has. the photo above is a view of where we were standing. gorgeous.
youngest kiddo and I went to the movies one night as they were showing an alien movie. kiddo has been wanting to watch the franchise for awhile and when I saw they were playing this on the big screen, I booked us tickets. you know what’s funny? how a letter in the title makes all the difference! so there’s alien and aliens. they added the s for the second movie, right? well, I didn’t think anything of it when I booked the tickets and even when it said it was celebrating the 40th anniversary of the movie, it still didn’t click. until we were drinking a pre-show drink. I was confused as I knew the first alien movie came out when I was little, so it couldn’t be its 40th anniversary. so I looked it up and that’s when I realised we were about to watch the second movie (alienS). anyone who has experience with autistic people will know how this can be impending doom. I told kiddo that we were about to watch the second movie, instead of the first, as she would have wanted to watch them in order. there was a bit of panic as to whether this was going to ruin her whole alien experience. we looked up some reviews about if it was necessary to watch the first one in order to understand the second and luckily enough people said no, but why would you wanna watch the second one first was mind boggling! um, yeah. so she was okay with it and we watch the movie on the big screen. she thought it was a bit boring.
we have been watching all the other alien movies (including the predator v ones). she got into the movies more as we went along. I think the older movies were a bit slow for her, but she did appreciate the first alien movie. we are now deciding if it’s worth watching the alien earth series. I don’t care anymore, but it’s her ride, so i’ll go on it if she wants to.
lastly, an important discovery was made this month - if you have the right sized cup, you can sit your wrap in it, so it won’t unfold while you sip on your soup! does anyone else know about this?? if not, now YOU do, at least. you’re welcome.