Yellowstone & Grand Teton National Park Summer Road Trip 4-6 July Day 1

We've been puzzling what to do for the long weekend on US independence day 4July..a shopping spree at Las Vegas? or stay at home? or the Yellowstone..Ppl who has just got back from Las Vegas told us that summer in Salt Lake is nothing compared to the one at LV. Its over 100F/ 40+ degree there now. We couldn't even tahan LA's summer what about LV..Then I figured out that driving 6hrs+petrol US100+accomodation US100...is not worth while for a shopping spree..But I do want to bring Jared to see the Bellagio's water fountain and Fremont Street Experience..that's why headache for so long hehe..

Anyway, finally we decided to go Yellowstone NP last min, few days before the big day..hehe..When I did a research on the accomodation it was almost full, and most ppl do a 4 day trip at YNP..while us only had 3D2N to spare..After 2 day intensive research, found our accomodation..it's the most ex throughout so many trips here...

This trip is quite special as it covers travelling through 3 states, Utah, Idaho and Wyoming. No shopping though, more on wild animals searching and sight seeing..




Beautiful scenary on the way to West Yellowstone, the yellow patch is formed by wildflowers



After lunch at Running Bear pancake house, we entered the Yellowstone National Park..






1st animals that greeted us..the Elk..






After that we saw a big traffic jam, and decided to join in the crowd....there's 2 bison by the river..






More elk






Drive in to nobody spot..






Forgot the place name..something related to painter pod..






Another painter pod with different colour






Geiser





Old Faithful Geiser, not the highest water fountain but most accurately predicted. It splashed water every 50min+/-10min..We were so lucky that when we reached <5mins>

Another Elk, this one has beautiful "headpiece" ...dunno what's the actual name.

River drive

After dinner, while waiting for 4July West Yellowstone's fireworks..I must said it's a boring firework after we watched the Disney one..Jared at first was looking forward so much to the fireworks..but cannot tahan the boringness and dragged us back to hotel.

The new car..Chevolet Cobalt

It's a lauyar car loh!..So small size, but daddy couldn't tahan with the fuel consumption of the previous SUV..so we change to this car just before our Yellowstone National Park road trip.



Jared since the road trip realised the area on top of booth is a nice place to rest, always like to climb up there..

Lor Mai Kai

In good mood today, cos daddy said my lor mai kai taste like those in office type!..hehe. Jared took quite a bit too!

Our place here have abundance of glutinous rice(they brought wrongly thinking its normal rice), mushroom, and chicken...Other than steam glutinous rice which required hei bi(we have very litle remaining), and complicated steps involved, I'm so glad that I found a 10min recipe for lor mai kai with minimum ingredients.

Definitely don't have the motivation to make this in Sg...since lor mai kai can get at any coffeeshop..but over here, I think there's only 2 yum char restaurant but their food doesn't taste nice..and worst need to travel at least 45mins to go there...So many many motivation to make this at home..

It's a nice change from the normal breakfast cereal w milk, oat, bread for a Sunday morning!


Recipe extracted from Kitchen Caper Forum

Serves 2 persons
Ingredients
1 cup of glutinous rice
1 pc of boneless chicken thigh with skin(diced)
4 pcs preserved chinese mushrooms(soften in water, cut into quarters)
3 tbsp onion oil(or corn oil)

seasoning to be mixed together
3 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tsp sugar
1 tbsp sesame oil
120 ml water

Method
1. Soak rice in tap water for at least 4 hours. Wash and drain, set aside.
2. Heat up wok with onion oil and add mushrooms to fry.
3. Add chicken and seasonings to fry over high heat for 1 min.
4. Remove mushroom and semi cooked chicken leaving the sauce behind.
5. Add rice and fry till the sauce dries up.
6. Arrange chicken and mushrooms on a small bowl, piled up with rice.
7. Spray the top of the rice with water 8. Microwave on HIGH (100%) for 5 mins.
9. Over turn bowl on a plate and serve warm.

Notes on steaming using wok or steamer
1. Steam over high heat for 25 mins.

Happy ROM anniversary! 28Jun 2008

I remembered last yr, daddy and me went for a nice dinner on that day..This yr, we had a family day with Jared..hehe..no road trip, no holidays..just typical way of spending the day..

Brunch at Ihop






Movie: Kungfu Panda at one of the mall


The movie ticket here is really cheap..US5.50 per ticket on a Saturday afternoon..somemore it's free seating, so it also means with 1 ticket you can do a movie marathon. For us, it's difficult.hehe...We will be thankful if we can finish 1 movie with Jared.

He didn't like the initial part of movie when it was showing fighting in darkness...so he keep asking if the movie finishing soon?..after a while as usual, as to go pee pee..then daddy had to bring him walking around outside till he is willing to come back to theathre again. Then daddy carry him stand by the side watch for a long time..til I decide to forgo the movie and search for them..hehe...Finally, he willing to sit at quite in front on daddy's lap to finish the movie...Quite a sweat for us! hehe...


Dinner: Red lobster


This is a chain restaurant..the food is soo good!..The salmon was so nicely done. But we order too much, so had to tau pah. Over here, is very common to get a box from the staff to ta pao home if cannot finish..no pai seh at all.

Swimming after long & The lost Shoe!

We used to go swimming very often at Yishun swimming pool before daddy left in Jan, ever since then we've not been to the pool yet.

It's summer now, and our apartment here has a pool..so finally we found some time to dip dip...hehe..p/s we can be quite bz till we hardly watch tv at night unlike back in Sg loh. But dunno what we do lah, everynight just pass so fast.

It took Jared quite a while to get used to the pool again and able to smile in pool..

The lost shoe: I forgot to take it back with me after the swim..when we went back the next day it's gone!..and pai seh to say Jared only have 1 shoe here. Cos he always refuse to try on shoes, so we can never get to buy him. He wore my slippers, while I wear a bigger slipper to go back to swimming pool the next morning to find it..so can imagine how funny the sight was..hehe

We went to get him a new pair of shoe fr University Mall nearby after daddy got off from work. He was sitting in his stroller, and luckily he knew his shoe lost, and willing to try new ones...lagi pai seh is daddy told the shopkeeper his shoe lost!..hehe.

Finally after a long search we found a pair from Gap, cost US16.50, so sim tiah, 2 wk ago when we were outlet it was only selling at 9.90..couldn't buy at that time cos Jared refused to try out.

The lost shoe..i must talk about it again..hehe..It's a fake crocs at $3+...but its really difficult to find so cheap and good quality fake crocs in town, we had to go all the way to the shops opp Bugis to get it loh. The ang moh here seemed to quite like his shoe, the moment we got off the flight, the airport staff was complimenting how cute his shoe was..and from time to time we can hear ppl talking about his shoe..hehe. Although i pai seh it's fake 1...hehe..Then again, over here, there are a lot of imitations selling openly at Walmart..ex somemore US10+

Got Jared to model in his new shoe..look much cool yeah! hee.

LA trip 21-24Jun Day 4

Today is a short day, we have a flight to catch at 5.30pm at LAX airport. Driving time from anaheim to LAX is approximately 1hr, that's provided no traffic jam/didn't get lost. So we left around 2pm..

Told myself today no more spending time for queing for rides, and concentrate fully on taking pictures..hehe

The moment we step into disneyland, we saw Donald Duck!!..So happy..Usually famous character's queue is much much longer than those not so famous 1. Plus most kids actually had a signature book to get them to sign, this made longer waiting time.

Jared looking at donald duck again!

Main Street USA, look at the crowd..it's a Monday!

Finally managed to catch a shot with Pluto at California Adventure.

The signature food from Disneyland, the turkey leg, US7 each. A bit scary to eat so big leg, guess what we did? brought back the remaining to stir fry with cabbage..hehe. On budget and cannot waste lah..hehe. Most of all, I'm the one who wanted to try it..and when we got back, heard that most ppl in daddy's comp got try it be4. Lucky we tried..heh

There's a lot of staff selling balloons, and everytime they hold a big bunch.

Toontown

It's the display of Mickey, minnie etc 's house. Mickey house is always crowded...so I think we only managed to get into minnie's house.

Jared like these car display, everytime he saw 1, he would auto jump off from his stroller and play a while.

The mickey shape ice cream, very tasty, US4 each..we had 2 during our stay there..hehe.

Overall, despite the hot weather, I think Disneyland is really a fun place to go. If not for disneyland, I would be complaining so much about daddy's decision to bring us to LA knowing it will be so hot.

LA trip 21-24Jun Day 3 Part 2

In Day3 of Disneyland, we just did so many things..

After the parade, we walk around again in Disneyland, then about 4pm+ we cross over to the California Adventure to watch the Pixar Parade. This parade had the latest cartoon movie characters, most important of all, Jared's favourite character- The lighting Mcqueen! He watched Cars in the airplane to US, then by the 2nd wk we here, already start bugging us to get him a lighting mcqueen. (1st wk, he concentrated on bugging us to get him a ah cici, the concrete mixer).



Lighting Mcqueen from Cars



Chef from Ratatouille



Finding Nemo



Lightning Mcqueen's pal-another Jared's fav


Video of the Pixar Parade




In the Insect Kingdom of California Adventure


Insect kingdom, California Adventure

Our dinner after a visit to Bourdin's bakery. This is originated from San Francisco-sour dough bread with the clam chowder soup and chicken salad. I really like the sour taste of the bread, so glad it was found here.



Weather has turned cooling in anaheim, so it was really nice to sit by the river to take our dinner..this is so diff from LA, LA is all the way hot.


When California Adventure turned dark, it looks great..but we didn't have chance to have a good walk..time is running out!..and we had to rush for Electrical Parade..


Electrical Parade, lights are turned off, all the displayed with beautiful lights..its really different.
Jared loves the parade..

Some video of the Electrical Parade...and my camera really cannot make it at this point.and to think that we still need to rush back to Disneyland to watch the fireworks...so didn't manage to take any fireworks...the beauty can only remain in our mind..haha..

LA trip 21-24Jun Day 3

Day 2 started with extending the car with alamo, and then park back car at hotel cos parking at Disneyland required US12 per day. So we had to walk about 10mins under hot sun to Disneyland...

When we reached already about 9-10am+, there was already very big crowd. But we can feel the happy feeling with the music and the excited ppl. This is daddy&mine 2nd trip to disneyland, the previous 1 was Disneyland Paris in a winter 1Jan 2005, but we still think it would be nice to bring Jared to the happy place to enjoy although a lot of ppl advised that 2.5yr old can't do much in Disneyland... The most chek ak ppl say 2.5yr old? 0.5-1 day is enuff there..

In the end we only planned for 1.5 days..if I had knew the crowd, and so many show to catch, I would extend another day..2.5-3days would be perfect..



Disneyland Main Street


Most important character, the Mickey Mouse!..Need to queue for quite long before can take pic with him, and finally its our turn, Jared looking at mickey..not camera..aiyo!



The first ride, queue at least 30mins..


Jared loves this, merry go around..we took twice, once in morning and another time at nite, He would sing 1,2,3,4,5,6,7..when he see this same as his vcd.


This 1 is nice shoot, no other ppl, and both of them looking into camera!, but I'm not in there!..

The parade,I've watched similar parade in Paris before..but cannot be compared to this 1..cos that time we stand far far, need to tip toe to see. For this, so lucky that we stand right in front, and no one block us. Jared loves the parade too. But I realised my camera battery low batt there :( No way we could make a trip back to hotel to charge camera if we plan to cover more rides and show, in fact also no time for dinner outside disneyland...




A video of the parade