colinwoon

When Zoe was living with us, she and Faye like to get busy in the kitchen to make some awesome desserts. They are always trying some new recipe or whatever good recipe they could find online.

Since Zoe left, no dessert has came out of our kitchen, not until yesterday. I was so excited when I see Faye and FY got out the mixer and start mixing some dough. It's cookie time! Jumbo cookie that is, with chocolate chips.

The cookies are soft, chewy, and buttery. Warm it up a little with the toaster oven and man, I can't even describe the sensation in my mouth.

2 or 3 of these could substitute a meal, no kidding!

|

I forgot to post these pictures after my last post so here it is, San Antonio's River Walk during the day.

The colorful umbrella of River Walk.


A typical scene on River Walk: restaurants, peoples, ducks, and tour boats(lots of them).


A more quiet stretch.


Shots taken from our room.

|

We made a short trip to San Antonio last weekend as a farewell trip for Zoe. It's also one last trip the three Siow sisters made together before Zoe fly back to Malaysia for good.

It was a fun trip! Even though it's short, it's definitely an interesting one. Good time, good time.

The hotel we stayed in is right on the San Antonio River Walk. While everybody was busy getting ready for bed, I was on the River Walk snapping away. Results weren't very satisfactory, definitely need to improve my night shots. I love night shots, just not mine, I could never get the setting right. Any advice?

Busiest stretch on River Walk. This is around 1am on Friday night. Noticed a girl in the picture is pointing her DSLR at my direction as well, funny. (f/11 for 30s)


This potentially could be a great shot but I didn't have long enough exposure to blur out all the motion. I felt that the motion blop is kind of distracting. You think? (f/2.5 for 2.5s)


Our hotel is on the left side of this photo, across Market St. (f/2.5 for 30s)


Light, what light? I like the reflection of the light from the water. Personal observation, to get the star effect from the light, set aperture to at least f/11. Can somebody confirm that? (f/16 for 30s)

|

Adrien's birthday party was 2 weeks ago but I never got around to post the pictures taken at the party because I was lazy busy.

All the foods are awesome at the party(Min and her mom-in-law spent 2 days preparing all the foods) but most of my shots were "bleh". So I just post 2 of my "OK" shots here because I know my picture capturing skills just don't do justice for those delicious foods.

I was too busy eating so I forgot to ask Min what this is called. I know it's very tasty though.


I think this is a "No Bake Cheesecake". Very delicious!


Birthday boy, Adrien!


Benjamin must be thinking, "Itchy gum! Me need chew!"


The car is mine, it's mine! Muah ha ha...

|

Yes, our first new car! We're still very very excited.

It's a 2008 Toyota Highlander Sport Edition, much bigger than our old Camry, definitely a plus when we need to haul something big.

Amazingly the Highlander is not as much a gas guzzler as I thought it will be. It's rated for 18mpg(miles per gallon) in the city and 24mpg on the highway. When we go to San Antonio over the weekend we observed 24.5mpg on the highway and 21mpg with city and highway combined, not bad for a SUV.

Things we like about our new car:
- 3rd-row seat (7 passengers total)
- backup camera
- power rear door
- automatic climate control
- 2nd-row seat center stow (interchangeable and removable)
- 19 inch wheel
- 7 airbags (holy cow!)

Things we would like to have in our new car:
- navigational system ($2500 option is a bit too much, I'm cheap)
- leather seats (yeah, too much again)
- split 3rd-row seat (Toyota engineer, what were you thinking? Honda has it!)

Look at that new paint shine!


The dealer still owe us a runner board(side step) which will be installed once the parts arrived. I think it will look better with the runner board.


Itty bitty backup camera, can you see where is it?

|