My babies

During Spring Break 2006, I participated in the ASB program and went to Southern Pines, North Carolina to plant the Long Leave Pines. If I remember correctly, we planted about 1000 trees during the trip...knowing that not all of them are going to survive.

The size of the seedling in Spring 2006 (almost the size of a carrot)

Recently, one of our group member went back to Southern Pines to check out the trees and I can't believe how fast they have grown.

The relative size of the tree in 2009 (photo taken from facebook).

I am really glad that my babies are growing well and I really hope that one day, I can go back to Southern Pines for a visit...haha...and I am sure that by the time I go, they will definitely be taller than me :P

A glimpse of my new apartment

Can you put the puzzle together?

Homesick?

Here's a very special water globe:

Do you recognize these buildings?

I love it.

Love the water globe.

Love the fight song that it plays.

Love the sweet memories that it reminds me of.

July 4th weekend and 7 Eleven

July 4th Weekend

July 4th falls on a saturday this year, I got a day off on Friday and this happend to be my first day off after I started working. Initially, I wanted to take this opportunity to visit some places. My first plan was to go to Boston but unfortunately, I had to cancel it because someone (ahem...) bailed out. After that, I found out that I couldn't proceed with my second plan to visit YC in Champagne, IL either since he decided to come over to AA during the weekend. So, I ended up in AA...which did not turn out to be such a bad idea after all.

Wei Ping invited us to his church group barbeque. Since I was in a good mood (after SOA released MFE result on 7/2) and I feel bad to go empty-handed, I decided to make some egg tarts (recipe).

The most important things: ingredients plus good mood :)

Fluffy mixture of eggs, butter and sugar

The dough

flattening the dough

using a muffin pan as a substitute of the pastry tin

egg tart filling

ready to bake

done!

ready to go!

Later, I realized that Wei Ping made the same dessert to bring over to the barbeque, what a coincident! It seems like he used triple the amount of eggs than I did for the filling, which gives a nicer color and taste to his tart....I guess I'll try out his recipe the next time I bake :P

The barbeque was good, I didn't expect to see so many people that I know. As for the rest of the weekend, I had a good time chilling out with friends. The only painful part of the week was packing!!!


7 Eleven

After a good break during the July 4th weekend, I pretty much had no life the week after because I was either working or packing at home. I realized how much of stuff I had accumulated over the year... Mas's comments about my online shopping was justified...haha...luckily, I managed to pack most of the stuff that I wanted to move to my new apartment at Dearborn.

And finally, on 7/11, I moved to Dearborn.

Boxes

Coffee table and some furniture that I disassemble...and you can see the tv at the back (which Wei Chieh tries every year to pusuade me to throw away)

More furniture

The move to Dearborn went on smoothly. It took us about 3.5 hours to get PY and my stuff to our new apartment. I would like to thank Jason, Wei Chieh and Billy for helping us to move...thank you very much!!!

Next thing on the list is to decorate the house and give it a more cozy feeling...hopefully I am not too lazy later to organize a little house warming party...also, need to catch up with my study as I am behind of the schedule.

My lunch sac is here!

After eating in my company's cafe for two weeks, I finally got kind of bored with the food choices and wanna bring my own lunch...so I decided to get myself a lunch bag.

I remember seeing a cute lunch bag from LeSportsac a while ago and luckily it was still on sale. I took advantage of the free shipping and 3 days after I submitted my order, it was finally here.

Meet my lunch bag :)

Now that I have my lunch sac, I need to think about what to put in. Any idea?

Fun with Photoshop

I wanted to add some colors to my blog to welcome spring, so I started looking through some of the photos that I took and did a little bit of editing with Photoshop.

However, the final result doesn't really reminds me of spring so I decided not to use this as a picture for my blog header.

I shall keep this for fall instead :)

What a "Surprise"

I had been thinking hard about what's the best birthday present for Mas...

A watch? No

A purse? Noo

A handbag? Nooo

I wanted to get something that is more...special. Since I had lots of free time, I went online to search for gift ideas but nothing really stood out.

Two days ago, I suddenly had a craving for cheesecake and at that moment, I decided to make tiramisu because both of us enjoy this dessert a lot. Since Mas would be going to Mackinac Island during this weekend, it would be the prefect time for me to make the tiramisu at home and give her a surprise when she comes back.

I googled the recipe and finally decided on one that seemed pretty easy and good. I don't have a lot of experience in baking and since tiramisu doesn't require any baking, I thought it was a safe choice.

The next day, I went off to Krogers to get the ingredients. I found everything except for the most important Mascarpone Cheese. At first, I thought of substituting it with cream cheese (as some of the websites suggested) but didn't wanna spoil the taste. Again, I googled and discovered that I could get the cheese from Whole Foods Market. Without any delay, I went there and found what I was looking for.

Finally, everything was ready and I was excited to make my first tiramisu.

Can't wait to transform all these into a heavenly dessert

The ladyfingers were carefully arranged at the bottom of the pan

Another view of the bottom layer

It was only when I tried to pour a layer of the cheese mixture on top of the ladyfingers that I realized that something was wrong with the mixture. The mixture was too watery!!! One of the ladyfingers was even floating on the mixture (They were supposed to stay at the bottom). I tried to fix the mixture by adding more cheese but it was still too...liquid. I was busy fixing it I didn't take a picture of the mixture. At the end, I decided to just finish up with the layering and hopefully, after refrigerating it, the mixture would harden...

=(

Unfortunately, after 2 hours of refrigerating, the mixture was still watery...and you can see 2nd layer of floating ladyfingers from the picture above.

Honestly, I didn't expect this to turn out to be such a disaster. I am really disappointed. I guess now I need to think of a Plan B for Mas and also I need to decide on what to do with this "tiramisu". Should I stick it into the freezer and try to turn it into ice cream instead?