On Saturday, I'm going to throw a birthday party for the twins. See, their birthday was two weeks ago, mine is today and next week will be cik HB's birthday. So we are one happy Gemini family, aren't we?
June also is the month of birthday celebrations for some people in my family. To start with, my brother-in-law, Abe Rosid whose birthday was on last 10 June, my two sisters, Shima and Ana with birthdays of 22 and 25 June respectively. So HAPPY BIRTHDAY everyone!
I had never seen or attended any civil wedding before but recently I went to one. For info, civil wedding is a non-religious wedding act and Wiki has defined it as "An Act respecting certain aspects of legal capacity for marriage for civil purposes"
Kak Liza, a Malaysian lady I have befriended ever since coming to Germany, has actually been married to his husband since 2 years ago by Islamic wedding act (akad nikah). But the problem is, since they were married in Frankfurt, German´s government does not recognize the marriage certificate. When the marriage is not recognized, therefore Kak Liza´s spouse (who is a Malaysian) is not eligible to obtain the visa to live in Germany eventhough Kak Liza is already a permanent resident here. Actually the civil marriage is not the only requirement for the visa things, there are various requirements need to be fulfilled before Cik Dee, the husband can get the visa. For example, he had to pass the Deutsch language test before he can apply for the visa. For the application purposes, there are thousands things to submit, the spouse´s annual income details, the accomodation contract, health insurances and so on. And all these working papers took 2 years before Cik Dee is granted with 3-month visa last month. So the civil marriage is the next step for 1-year visa application.
The ceremony took place at the local Rathaus or townhall and carried out by a female registrar. The act was very simple, the registrar read important articles from the Marriage Act, then she asked each bride and groom on their agreement to be married. To be honest, I didn´t understand a thing. When suddenly the people in the room cried or eyes reddened or some were brushing their eyes, I was confounded. I guess the groom too, was bewildered. Apparently the registrar had read a heart-touching poem about marriage. Too bad I didn´t understand...
The registrar
While the ceremony being held....
This is the moment most of the people cried or emotionally touched...except me and the groom...hehehe
After 2 years, finally it´s official...
We were the ladies of the day....
My girls were the flower girls on the day, along with their new friend, Rachel, a 5-year-old, Philipino-American descendants. At first she was unfriendly to the twins but it just took a while before she started playing with the twins. The spoke different language, she of English and the twins, of course la Malay. But surprisingly, they understood each other. She couldn´t remember the twins´names so she called them the PINK and PURPLE according to the colour of the twins´ dresses. Luckily, after the wedding ceremony at the Rathaus (and afraid they would smear dirty their satin-creamy gowns!) I changed them to another dresses (one pink, another purple), otherwise I wonder how would Rachel address these girls.
Aren´t they cute?
After the wedding, we had a small luncheon at Kak Liza´s house. Though it´s Germany, we were served with authentic Malay foods...of beef rendang, lamb curry, nasi lemak, prawn sambal and so on. Just no nasi minyak and bunga telur!
Sabtu lepas, aku & family and geng2 Siegen menghadiri ceramah agama 'Kesempurnaan Solat' oleh Ustaz Zaharuddin atau lebih dikenali as UZAR di pejabat konsulat Malaysia kat Frankfurt. A day before ceramah, kami diminta bg details, but tup2 on the same day di beritau tempat dah penuh. Dah ler ceramah agama jarang2 diadakan, tempat pon limited? Tp cik HB ckp pergi aje, kalau diorg x bg masuk, kita pegi je la jln2 kat flohmarkt.....ceramah agama vs flohmart? Contradict....
Anyway, xde pon apa2 registration masa kami sampai tu and though ceramah diadakan di bilik yg kecik, tempat kosong byk aje lg. Nasib baik pegi jugak....4 jam ceramah rasa kejap aje cause the way UZAR berceramah sgt interesting. Yg x bestnya kamera aku abis bateri, so langsung la x dpt amik apa2 gambar.
Lepas ceramah abis, kami meronda kat Konstablewache, a very famous shopping area in Frankfurt. But since we didn't bring the twins' stroller and they fell asleep while we travelled in the tram, we had to carry them. Rasa nak patah pinggang dukung Nabihah yg makin berat dan membantut hasrat aku nak survey sandal. Then we decided to search for KFC halal yg telah diwar2kan akan kewujudannya oleh budak2 Melayu di Frankfurt. Yg ini mmg dibuktikan dgn sijil halal yg di tampal kat outlet KFC tu.
Ingatkan dekat tp mencabar la jugak nak pegi. Naik S-Bahn ke Eschborn for 20 minit, then kena naik bas lg. Dah ler bas 1/2 jam sekali, membuatkan kami kena tunggu dlm 20 minit lg. Dah sampai kat bus stop yg sepatutnya, ingat dah sampai tapi still kena jln kaki lg dlm...rasanya 1 km kot. Hish...penangan KFC punya pasal. Yg peliknya nape KFC ni aje yg ada sijil halal? Nak kata bandar besar, cam kampung aje...mcm x nampak apa2 keistimewaan. Maybe komuniti Islam kat Eschborn besar kot, so demand terhadap makanan halal tinggi. Sib baik la KFC tu still buka lg, and betul ada sijil halalnya and sedaaaaap!!! Didie siap order bucket bawa balik lagi....
Sijil halal...
Dah selamat licin suma, baru ingat nak amik gambar.....
Agak2 kalau kat Mesia, nak ke amik gambar depan KFC camni?
Photos courtesy of Md Nur....tima kasih ye!
So pada warga Islam Malaysia yg tinggal di Germany, kalau kepingin nak KFC tu, x yah la amik risiko lg seludup ayam KFC dr Mesia ok.... (though baru ni Mat bawa balik ayam KFC dr Mesia, aku makan gak...hehehe). Dengar ceritanya selain dari KFC Eschborn ada lagi satu KFC di Germany ada sijil halal jugak tapi I'm not sure where. And khabarnya juga more KFC akan mempunyai sijil halal tak lama lagi. Maybe sebab ramai org Islam Turki and Morocco di Germany, maka KFC mengambil inisiatif mewujudkan makanan halal. Macam di France.....hopefully.
The twins now are 4 years old. How fast they have grown up. It feels like yesterday they were born. I cherish all the moments seeing them growing up.
To celebrate their birthday, I made them a simple chocolate cake, topped it with chocolate ganache and let them decorate it with chocolate rice and lady bird marzipan deco.
I know the cake looks ugly, but it's the first time I baked the cake for their birthday...so who cares, eh?
And since I had appointment with doctor on the day, and I had asked my friend, Kak Liza to help babysitting them, I brought the cake to her house and had their birthday celebrated there. The initial plan was to wait for cik HB back from his school but the twins couldn't wait any longer. They insisted to have the cake the moment we arrived at Kak Liza's house and Kak Liza said 'just do it'.
The happy birthday girls with their birthday cake = priceless moment
The girls with Kak Liza's family
Well, we are planning to throw a proper birthday party for them later on. But we still have yet to decide on the date. Maybe sometime in June, we could celebrate it together with my birthday and cik HB's birthday as well. Mind you, we are the Gemini family!
To Nabihah & Nabilah:
Selamat harijadi sayang...semoga membesar menjadi anak solehah dan umi doakan semoga anak2 umi berjaya hidup dunia dan akhirat.
I know...it's been quite a while since my last post (tp still xde la lama sgt kan?). And lucky I don't get this blog involves with advertising Nuffnang, if not surely a notice already been received.
The thing is, I don't really feel like blogging these days. All the 3 blogs seem to be abandoned now. And with my camera now is not functioning, lagi la malas nak blogging. Am hoping cik HB will consider buying another camera and since cik Mat and Liza are now in Malaysia, better get the opportunity to kirim buying the camera there (kat sini mcm x berbaloi nak beli).
Daytime is longer now but it's not summer yet. With this time change, I am affected by the solat time. Isyak is around 11.31 pm and Subuh is at 3 am with sunrise at 5.36 am. So for someone who always sleep early at night, waiting for Isyak and getting up for Subuh is very challenging to me. And people say, this is not that bad...wait until summer and imagine Subuh ends at 3 am something!
Huh! Sebenarnya x kuat iman, sbb tu la yg payah nak bangun kan?
We were invited by the Siegen clan (Didie, Nazrin, Dhylla, Md Nur, Rusdy and oh, kena sebut gak...si kecil Ainaa) to attend their BBQ party last weekend. Along with us (with Zul and Azrul, we are the Frankfurt clan) , a big party from Aachen clan and a family from Juelich also been invited, so it was quite a huge event.
Lots of credits goes to the Siegens for the great foods, great games and great hospitality. We had lots of fun playing the 'Act and Guess' , 'Broken Telephone' and 'Kick the Ball by the Blind' games. We cheered and screamed to the top of our lungs. Making noise that loud is actually very uncommon here as the Germans normally are quiet. And luckily nobody in their neighbourhood came to complain about the noise.
Here are some photos from the events:
sate....sedap!!!!mmg rasa mcm kat kedai..rupanya tukag buat mmg anak tauke sate...patut pon sedap!
BBQ ayam
Menendang bola oleh si buta...gila kecoh!!! Mak budak, bapak budak semua menjerit2...budak2 pon tak jerit cam kitorg...ish2
Aksi si pembuat gaya (Act & Guess game)
dan lihat lah betapa emotionalnya mak2 budak ni main game ni...
It was an ad-hoc trip actually. We almost did not make it. Many thanks to Dhylla and Rahimah for their effort in organizing this trip. At first we were told that the ticket bus (which comes in a package that covers the bus fare from Aachen to Lisse and Keukenhof's entrance ticket) on the date that we planned to go (and the only date that we could go) were almost sold out, so there were not enough tickets for all of us to go. So I told Dylla that it was ok if we didn't get to go this year because we still have chance to go in next year (Keukenhof is only open to public somewhere between mid-March to mid-May but the best time is in mid-April). Priority should be given to those friends who will be going back to Malaysia this year.
But then, a week before the tentative date of trip, Dylla informed me that there were some tickets still available for my family. So we can go with them....yeay!!!
We travelled to Aachen by Regional Express train. It was a long-5-hour journey and we had to board 2 trains in between. If we had used ICE (Germany's fast train) the travel time is less than 2 hours but it costs us a bomb. Unless we buy tickets much earlier using online system, we probably can get cheap ICE ticket but as I said, it was a last minute thing. Luckily the twin were so good and well behaved during the journey. They were bored of course, but at least they were not cranky.
We stayed the night at Hatta's house and woke up early in the next morning to catch the bus at 7.30 am. There were 3 tour buses waiting at Aachen town. Our own rombongan-cik-kiah group : 13 adults, 4 kids and a baby. So we made up about 1/3 of the double-decker bus.
According to the schedule, we were supposed to arrive at Lisse in 3 hours but the journey wasn't so smooth. The traffic in Holland was heavy and the bus often stucked in a jam. Then somewhere in Lisse town, the bus driver told us to get down and wait for the flower parade to pass through the area. More than half an hour later, the flower parade finally arrived at the place we were waiting. I was not very impressed with the parade. There were only 18 decorative vehicles in the parade and it wasn't as grand as I expected it would be. It was much better if we substitute the time for watching the parade to exploring Keukenhof.
By 1.30 pm, the parade session is done and we boarded the bus again to get to Keukenhof. Unfortunately, the traffic was still heavy, the bus was barely moving, so it took another 1 hour to get there. By this time, we were hungry and tired. And there was such a large crowd at Keukenhof, I felt like I was somewhere in a big concert or something. The first thing we did was to find a suitable spot for having picnic lunch. Lunch was great, we had nasi lemak, bihun goreng, mee goreng, sardin roll, karipap, sausage and bread. But since we had only 3 hours to spend inside Keukenhof, we had to rush.
Keukenhof is such a large park and with so many colourful flowers everywhere, it makes you wanting to keep snapping photos. Subhanaallah...this place is so beautiful and with only 3 hours we had, it was definitely no enough time to cover and enjoy the whole park.
We had to leave the place by 6 pm and arrived at Aachen by 10 pm. Insyaallah, if there's time and money, I would like to go again next year. But definitely will not be going during the flower parade time....so many vehicles, so many people, long queue of toilet users......such a waste of time and energy.
Oh, on our way back to Frankfurt, I videod some of the twins' act in the train, trying to entertain themselves during the long-boring journey.
Just a wife & a mother of 3 kids and currently juggling life between running my household and my professional job. I consider myself very domestic since I love cooking, gardening, home deco etc but very lousy in sewing department...hehehe.I support home-cooked meals, home-gardening, recycling, natural lifesyles and hoping to help to preserve the nature. Hope you enjoy reading what I am sharing :).
Pizza Braid
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Kat FB banyak betul orang share resepi2 yang menarik dan video clips
masakan. Antara yg saya selalu follow adalah dari FB Bright Side dan yang
ini adala...
Photo courtesy of "D Sharon Pruitt"
