Outing At FRIM

This is our secong trip to FRIM - Forest Reserve in Kepong. I remember our last trip there it rained. The weather was kinder this time around. It was cool , just right for a picnic. This time we manage to go to the waterfall.It was a pretty easy hike up to the Air Keroh fall.

The stairway leadingto the waterfall

Cool dip !

Did somebody leave this behind?

I found this very interesting fern while hiking up the waterfall. It's a blue fern. The colour is literally blue.

Our Picnic menu - Salad, Nasi lemak and KFC!

Rachel's 8th Birthday Party

Rachel celebrated her 8th birthday on 29/8/2010 at pizza hut. We had about 35 guests, who are mainly

friends and relatives. The kids of course were a noisy lot , laughing and screaming on top of their lungs! This is just coming from a group of 5 girls, all of course her friends from school. Well, I did not expect any less from a kid's party. I had prepared lots of games for the kids to play but unfortunately, there wasn't enough time. We only manage to play passing the flag and treasure hunt. Before you know it, it was time to cut the birthday cake. For this year, I suprised Rachel with a "pony" cake. She did tell me that she didin't want any more cartoon cakes like the previous years ( a sign that little girl is growing up), so I decided something less kiddish and went with the carnival pony which turned out really nice and delicious.

Happy Birthday To you....Happpy Birthday To Rachel, Happy Birthday to YOU!

Holiday - Bukit Gambang Water Park.

It's the school holidays and we recently went to Bukit Gambang Water Park. Gambang is a small town situated 28km from Kuantan. It's less than 3 hours drive from Kuala Lumpur. On the way to Kuantan, we decided to drop by Batu Caves. Rachel is studying about rock formation in her Geograpgy lesson so I thought it would be nice for her to visit Batu Caves and take a look at some limestone formations. Besides, the last time I went to Batu Caves was nearly 30 years ago. The place is still the same except that now they have  errected a beautiful  golden statue of Lord Muruga which stands 130 feet tall. The climb to the top of the hill is no easy feat. It took me almost 20 minutes to reach the top with plenty of stops along the way. You can see other people and tourist all strugling to catch their breath. In the end I made it. Yes! all 272 steps!

For somebody with a bad knee I am quite proud of my self. Coming down the steps was a diffrent story all together, it was very scary. I had to hold on to the railings for fear of falling and tried not to look all the way down. I would not recommend it for those who are afraid of heights. By the time I came down to the last step I felt as though I have completed a 5km marathon. Drench in sweat! Just goes to show how unfit my body is.

After our adventures climb at Batu Caves, we proceeded to Gambang. Arrived at 3pm in the afternoon.

Our home in Gambang for the next 4 days would be The Carribean Bay resorts.  It is a cluster of apartment style accomodations. Just five minutes away is the Gambang Water Park. The acomodations are very basic, no fancy decor and simple  furniture. However, the beds are comfy and clean and so are the toilets!

                                           It's nice to know who the owns the building!!

Besides the water park which is situated just 5 minutes away, there are alot of activities for the kids within the resort. There is a game's room where the kids can enjoy video games & karaoke singing. Just across the block is a mini amusement park. In the evenings you can catch the magic show and animal show. Almost every night after dinner, we would be at the amusement park going for rides and doing fun activities such as sand art and batik painting.

Rachel doing batik painting.

The food however at the resort is lousy, so most of the time we either drove to Gambang town or Kuantan for food and headed for Teluk Cempedak, for some R & R by the sea.

Highlight of our holiday, Gambang water park!! Splish, splash and slosh!! The water park itself is not very big. Slighly smaller than Sunway lagoon, but there's plenty of activities for the kids and even for the adults.  Wave pool, pengiun Island is the favourite with the kids. But the all time screamer would be the family raft slide! VERY FUN. A must for everybody to try if you are there.

Simon and Rachel at the wave pool.

The Penguin Island.

                                                                                 

Downside of our holiday - getting a summon for parking!! Worse thing that can happen when you're on holiday! We didin't know that you have to purchase parking tickets for parking (you know the "scratch tickets") So the hefty fine ....only RM5.00!!

Mother's day

Mother's day dinner was at 'Ishin' Japanese restaurant somewhere along Old Klang road.
Pass it everyday on our way home and it always seemd to have a full house, so we decided
to dine in on Mother's day. The food was great but service was abit slow and we had some uninvited guest ready to suck our blood , mosquitoes! Other than it was a good dinner.

Salmon sashimi - very fresh!

Mushroom tempura

Dessert ! Strawberry pafairt & green tea ice cream.

My mother's day gift from Rachel who bought and paid for it herself.

Look Mum no training wheels!

It was time to remove the traning wheels from Rachel's bicycle so she could learn to ride it on two wheels.
After struggling for two afternoons and with a little encouragement from mummy and daddy, she manage to do it. Wow.....way to go Rachel! Looks like it will be a new  bike for birthday.

Watch out for the wall..!

Mum giving a push

Handy Family

The old 'medicine' cabinet which we normally use to store vitamins and medicine(and other junk) was looking pretty sick, so we decided that it was time to get a new one. Where else to look ..Ikea of course! I am not a  big fan of DIY. If i had my way, I'd rather pay some one to do the job. But in this case, it's kinda embarassing having to ask the Ikea guys to fix 2 small miserable cabinet when we could easily assemble it ourselves.So we brave the idea and bought the flatpacks, not one BUT TWO!
When we arrived home, we got to work immediately, everyone chipped in including Rachel. After a few painful hours of banging, knocking and screwing we managed to put together our new medicine cabinet.

Of course Muffin wasn't much of a help, he just wanted to blend in..!

Wah..lah  Our new cabinet with all drawers and legs intact!

Phew!..that was a tough job.

Earth Hour 2010

In support of the Earth Hour on 27/3/2010. Lights out at 8.30pm!

Hey! Who turned out the lights. Good thing I have cat's eye.

Port Dickson

A sunday afternoon at Port Dickson. It was the end of school holidays, so we decided to take a drive down
to PD to ger some R&R. Great weather, not too hot just nice for a picnic and a swim in the sea.

Our picnic spot wich cost us RM20.00 in rental

sand art by Rachel

Yummy..nothing like a cool ice cream cone after a swim

Cherry Blossoms for real

Cherry blossoms for real. These ones are from Sunway Pyramid. The management must have flown it  all the way from China for the CNY decor. Haven't seen the real one before so I decided to take a picture of it. The flowers are much smaller in real life! Really pretty

Hokien New Year

Its the 9th day of CNY. Happy Garden area temporary turned into fairy land at the stroke of midnight.

Hokiens celebrating the new year with a loud bang!  Lots and lots of fireworks display.This is the view from our balcony.

No Gas and a sick child

The worse things that can happen during the chinese new year period is when you run out of gas to cook and  your child falls sick. Yes, we have been 'gasless' since the eve of chinese new year and have to resort to using a portable stove . It is the 6th day of CNY and the gas man is still on leave. Sigh...looks like we will have to rely on the mini stove until next week. As for Rachel....caught a really bad flu bug from somebody. The thing about going to the clinic during this time of the year is  having to pay the exorbitant price on consultation fees. I  cannot understand the need for them to hike up the price when the doctor is not even a chinese!

It is a total rip off. (RM50.00 just on consultation fee.....for normal GP). Worse of all, the medication doesn't even help. So, the best way to clear a congested  nose is nasal cleansing using  a NETI POT. It is very effective and works better than antihistamine.

Nasal cleansing an acient Ayurveda  method to help clear sinusus, flu and congestion.

http://www.neti-pot.com/neti-pots-sinucleanse/the-healing-power-of-neti.html

Seven in birthday suit

I stole a shot of my niece Seven in her birthday suit while taking a bath!! I call it the blackmail shot. Will come in handy in future!! LOL

Sorry Seven but this is too cute to pass!

Hey what are you looking at??

Chinese New Year 2010

It is the 4th day of Chinese New Year and I am totally exausted! We've been cooking, eating, drinking & entertaining guests and not to mention visiting relatives all over the place. Lots of snacks and cookies everywhere we went  and of course the very important part of CNY  is the'Ang Pao' packets which were given and received. Well ,it was good catching up with friends and relatives even though it is only a yearly affair there's always so much to talk and laugh about. Gong Xi Fa Cai!

Gong Xi Fa Cai 'Hoong Pau Na Lai' !

Simon with 'Khai Ma' (Godmother) who is 98yrs old and still going strong.

The 'Si' clan.  

Aunty Alethea with 'GiGi'. Poor Rachel got bitten while trying to pet the dog. Bad Gigi!!