Kuya's birthday

June 18, it was Kyle's birthday. He was asking me to invite some of his friends, but i told him not this time. It falls on weekdays and in addition to my 4 kids would be too much to handle. Saturday just cannot as well since it is usually a very busy day for us. We just had dinner at the Casuarina Hotel though. The kids just love having dinner outside, no matter where the place is, but a fancy restaurant/hotel will be a plus. They love the variety of choices for the dessert, can't wait to finish their meal to have a taste of everything on the dessert table. After the dinner Kuya insisted of buying a cake, he said it couldn't be called a birthday without blowing candles from his cake. So we did, we bought a small one from Strawberry bakeshop, the cake here is not so sweet, some comes with 2 flavours, hindi nakakasawa.

9 years old na si Kuya, matagal yata talagang mag mature ang boys. Haaaay, seems like yesterday when we celebrated his 1st birthday.

Cheers!

kuya may bago ng friend

Kuya cried when we transferred here in SkyHomes, though he loves the place so much. He said he will miss his friends from Sunway. I prayed so hard that he will be able to find someone here that he can spend his time with. At last, salamat po. Our new neighbor Joy from 2nd flr. wife of Richie from Finissar, they have a son named Jeru. An only child, turning 11 this year. Kyle is taller than him so ok na rin lang yung age difference nila. They sometimes go for a swim together, and just this morning Jeru asked him to join him for a picnic at the park. They were supposed to go there with their bikes, but sorry Kuya sira ang bike hindi pa naayos ni Daddy. They just decided to walk. They spent more than an hour at the park. When he got home he asked me if he can play with him again at their house. Hmmmm, i think they had some fun at the park. I love seeing him with his friends, specially pinoy. There are things now that he doesn't want to talk about with me and his Daddy. A friend will be a great help.

new-found chef

We usually eat outside every weekend. Our favorite is the Wooly at Canning Garden. It's not a typical restaurant with their own specialty, but a variety of everything. Here in Malaysia they call it hawker... in Pinas we call it turo2, but all food here are freshly cooked. Since the kids got their PS2 they kinda feeling "tamad" to go out . Much as I want to just rest over the weekend from cooking, i have no choice. Last weekend I was not feeling well, my husband volunteered to cook for dinner. It's fried "liyempo" and stir fry vegie (i still don't know what its called, but i will ask my suki on my next visit to bercham). Well, the kids and I liked it. I guessed he got inspired on cooking with all the praises we gave him so he cooked again last night, his own version of the famous filipino food sinigang. I requested the sinigang since i am having trouble with my stomach and i am craving for something sour. I only want the soup, but when i tasted his sinigang, in fairness it was really good! Can't help but to eat it with rice. Kiana got 2 serving of rice, so was Kuya, Kei requested for an additional serving for her usual 2. Ethan almost finished the soup. My husband got nearly nothing left for him. I am so proud of our new-found chef @ home. He said next time he wants to try some grilling, of course i will post it here. The kids and I are looking forward to have a taste of his next menu......

busy morning

Just finished my ironing. It took me 4 hours only the kids clothes alone. My husband's clothes and mine i bring it to "dobi", ironing/washing services here. I used to have someone, a filipina married to a chinese guy here, also my friend, who comes here once a week to do the ironing. I cannot keep up with the schedule though because i need to take her back home in the afternoon. The kids just got back from school at that time and they just want to rest and don't want to go out anymore, i just cannot leave them on their own at home. So here i am, need to sacrifice for the kids. My ever reliable Philips flat iron have been serving me for 4 years now. Though Ate Alice felt differently about it, I still keep it. It is lightweight and it automatically turns off when it's too hot already and turns on when it cools down a bit. Just resting for a while, and will do the cooking afterwards. I will cook tinola for lunch, though this is not one of their favorite dish, nothing much to cook, nothing much in the fridge. It's Friday, one week supply is almost finished. Gotta get going..........

Resort living

We just transferred to our new home last January. It is like a resort if there would only be a room service here. The name is Sky Homes. I fell in love with the place the first time i saw it, and so were the kids. I resent the thought of living in a condominium before with only 1 particular reason, as to where will i hang my clothes for drying. Then i saw this place, that reason has already set aside as i have my dryer machine already which i have only used not more than 5x since we bought it. The place is so calm, well except for the noise around here because of the other units' renovations. Our unit is on the 1/F overlooking the luscious one of the mountains here in ipoh. The pool we can see from our bedroom and living room, and the sound of the fountain awakes us in the morning together with the humming birds around the place. We rarely use our AC now as it is cold at night. Coffee is at its best while sitting in our veranda listening to the sound of the water and the piped-in music downstairs. Usually at night, my husband will visit the gym for an hour or so trying to build some muscles. I, if time permits uses the sauna at night. The kids love water, its water water water. This is the main reason why we ended up here, they are so crazy in love with swimming.

Mothers Day @ Penang

We rarely went out for a weekend for outstation. This time we did by celebrating Mother's day in Penang. We stayed in Lone Pine Hotel. It is a low-rise hotel, number of rooms you can check at lonepinehotel.com. The ambiance is very relaxing. It is not too crowded as what a big and popular hotel nearby. The hotel visitors are mostly europeans and other asian foreigners like us. Not too much to do for the kids, only the pool and the beach. There are some sports activities along the beach though which my kids really enjoyed. My son, who is turning 9 this coming June tried the parasailing not with his Dad though, he was not even scared. There are a lot of things he wants to do, others he is not allowed yet because of his age. He is being adventurous now. He wants to try everything. They enjoyed the pool and for the first time, they had a time of their lives in the beach. My husband and I had our time of our lives here as well. One reason we do not often go out of town is because we cannot handle the kids, it is just useless as at the end of the day we are just so stressed out taking care of our 4 active kids. But here at lone pine, we were able to relax. We were just at side of the pool watching them, while reading or having snacks, talking. Best part of it, we were able to visit their bar at night as our room is just overlooking the hotel bar. After we had our drink, we leisurely walk at the hotel garden talking, laughing until very late at night. The kids are safely sleeping to our huge room, which by the way got it a very low rate @ cuti.com.my. At night you can visit the pasar malam just outside the hotel. it is a long stretch of different item at a very low price. If you don't want to eat at the hotel there are variety of choices of restaurant and even hawkers outside as well. We will definitely be coming back here, not too far, from ipoh to penang and very relaxing. I think that is what an idea of a great out-of-town weekend, to relax....