The Bumblebeez

It's Saturday!

2012-01-14T14:40:00.006-10:00

I'm so craving for this.

And these.

Instead we had this.

I am pining for this just because it's winter and I love the white stuff and winter just doesn’t seem right without it.

But we have this. That's ok, revelling in the joys of greenery is not so bad either. Of course minus the cold and wet weather.

Daniel is gone all day today. He had a gig in Seattle this morning with the Navy Band and then later in the evening a gig with a local group called Rude & Unprofessional in Bainbridge Island. So it's just me and the boys today. They woke up pretty early, had breakfast and did everything they need to do first before they are allowed to play. It started with reading, then some math exercises on their school website called IXL, then on to math flash cards, and finishing whatever homework that they haven't finished last night. They already used up their computer/game time today and right now they're watching some TV while eating popcorn after we had lunch.

Woke up to see them in their choice of clothing for today. Grammy got these for them last Christmas.

Apparently I missed blogging the actual first day Grammy was here. It was on Dec 20th. A very cloudy day that day so we decided to just chill at home, which was actually pretty nice despite being cooped up in the house all day. Grammy did some cute craft projects with the boys.

Ezzat's octopus, with different eye sizes.

I was busy making a bed skirt for the baby crib for 2 straight days. I bought a pattern for it thinking that it's going to be a quick easy project. The problem was it's for a full size crib and the one we have is a mini crib. My sewing teacher helped me adjusting the pattern size and showed me how to do the dust ruffles. I am pretty slow when it comes to sewing, especially when I really want to have a super neat work in the end. So I spent 3 hours in the class (the actual class time is 90 minutes but Tammy, my teacher was nice enough to let me stay for another 90 minutes) just sewing all the parts together and serged everything that needs to be serged and still I wasn't able to finish the whole thing. It looks simple enough for a beginner like me but seriously it's a nightmare. I took it home, tried to sew it by myself and thank god it's finished now! I almost gave up considering how much seam ripping I had to endure.

The end product. I laid the bed skirt on our bed to see how it looks like. I haven't put it on the crib since there are still some parts that need to be serged and I have to wait for the next class to do that.

Next project, a baby quilt!

Grammy's Visit - Part 1

2012-01-06T22:57:00.001-10:00

We really had a fabulous time with Grammy. We're so glad that she was able to visit us for a few days and the boys loved having her around and wished that she could stay longer. I wish we didn't live so far away from our families, from both sides. And yet, I think that's what makes each and every visit so special. We don't get to see each other that often and it makes those short moments that we spend with our loved ones more memorable.

Day 2 - Dec 21 2011

We were lucky to have a few sunny days while Grammy was here, especially since right after she flew back home to Oklahoma, we had one whole week of non- stop rainy days. This is Island Lake Park which is only a few minutes away from our house. Grammy and the boys decided to walk to the park while enjoying the sun. Daniel and I drove there instead and met with them a few minutes later.

Grammy was having fun riding the scooter.

After the park, we went to downtown Poulsbo to walk in the park and around the quaint little town.

The boardwalk that you see in the pictures connects two parks: American Legion Park and Liberty Bay Park, which leads us to the downtown and the marina.

'Nice to meet you sir'. This bronze statue was created to honour former Poulsbo Mayor, Maurice Lindvig that served the town from 1969 - 1976.

Hanging out at the park before heading towards the town.

Our last stop, the Sluys' Bakery for some sweet treats.

Almost there and Happy New Year!

2012-01-05T21:59:00.001-10:00

I am 36 weeks pregnant and that explains the tummy, in case some of you don't know. Not that we made a big announcement about it either! Time flies. I'm not sure I am emotionally ready for the baby but she's coming out anyways, soon!

Ezzat read a book about Egypt and pharaohs and asked me to take some pictures of him in action pretending to be one. Silly boy! I love that sometimes he still looks babyish.

Btw, Happy New Year! Our new year's eve night was pretty quiet. We didn't even watch any TV about the new year celebration. The kids popped their poppers and then went to bed. They were kind of scared to pop them, but they had fun.

You can tell from their faces, their were not very convinced about how much fun the poppers were.

Aftermath of the party poppers. Our living room was covered with rainbows of confetti. Pretty, yes. Cleaning up, not so much. Especially when our dear old vacuum decided to retire from service on the last day of 2011.

New Look for A New Year!

2011-12-29T23:08:00.002-10:00

I've been playing around with my new blog template that actually took a lot of my time. I don't know how to read or use either CSS or HTML but I wanted to make some changes to the template and it drove me nuts trying to figure things out. I did go through line by line of the template' s HTML to see if I could make any changes and I did actually manage to make some adjustments to it. Although I am still not satisfied with the whole look, there is nothing much I can do and I am done with it for the moment.

Daniel said the layout is a bit confusing. So I figured perhaps I could give you guys some tips on how to browse the blog.

This is how the full post looks like. I like the one-column idea. It gives me ample space to post larger pictures.

On to the backdated posts, I have quite a few to share with you guys. Daniel's mom flew from Oklahoma to spend some days with us until Christmas. And we had a really great time with her. The boys loved having her around. That will be in a few separate entries though. But check this one out first.

Daniel had to wear some kind of Halloween costume for one of his gigs so he decided to make one on his own. Here's Ezzat wearing the costume.I think it looks like Felix the Cat.

Enjoying Fall

2011-11-08T20:47:00.024-10:00

This year's fall season is so much better compared to last year. Last year, most trees stayed green and just lost their leaves during winter. But this year, autumn seems to be more alive and colorful. It still rains once in a while, but not as much as last year. I love waking up to a sunny, cool weather, enjoying colorful foliage outside my windows.

These were taken 2 weeks ago, after Emir's soccer game. We stopped by at Poulsbo old town to have lunch and then took a short walk at a nearby trail. This place is only 10 minutes away from home.

On a sunny day like this, the view can be pretty amazing.

The boys were busy looking for rocks that look like crystals. I don't know why but sometimes they just like to pick up random stuff along the trail and bring them home.

Rose hips from wild rose bushes. Bushes and bushes full of hips can be found along the short trail. Rose hips are the fruit of the rose bush that forms after the blossom dies away. They are edible, but I haven't tried one yet so far.

I don't know what this is but it's pretty so I had to take a picture of it.

There were even some blackberries left. They were pretty good too although most of them have dried out.

Apples! We found an apple tree along the trail and I picked one and tried it later at home. It had a pretty mild taste and crunchier compared to store bought apples, but it was still pretty good.

Ezzat is enjoying the view

Do we look the alike? And yes, I am getting bigger!

Are you enjoying your fall?

Soccer

2011-11-01T21:49:00.002-10:00

Last Saturday was the second last soccer game for the season. It's a challenge for us, well for me at least to take Emir to his practices, twice a week and then to his games on weekends, one game each on Saturday and Sunday. I love going to the games, cheering for him and for his team. The practices though, not so much. They have had great games and Emir scored two goals so far. He has a wonderful coach and he gets along very well with his teammates.

Emir, in jersey number 75. He is one of the smallest kids in the team.

Kids in action

Emir in action

The siblings

Lining up to high five the other team

Great job guys!

Parents lined up to make a tunnel after the game. Daniel couldn't make it last week since he had to work.

Emir with his teammate, William

B & W

2011-10-25T10:51:00.004-10:00

I took this picture last year from the ferry on the way back home. It was our first time to Seattle.

Happy Birthday Ezzat!

2011-10-20T13:58:00.005-10:00

Daniel came up with a sweet idea in making the present giving fun and awesome! He made it like some sort of a treasure hunt with clues so Ezzat had to hunt for his presents.

It's hard to get the boys to smile sometimes. They've grown so much and I think it's just too fast.

He specifically asked for salad, cheese pizza and chocolate cupcakes.

Dad lighting up 8 candles

For Ezzat to blow. And based on his face, you can tell that he had to try pretty hard to blow out all of them.

Ezzat is 8

2011-10-19T10:39:00.000-10:00

Today is Ezzat's birthday and he's 8. We didn't really plan for anything special since the boys said they wanted to have a combined party. Well, I actually gave them the idea since I am really not up to having 3 birthday parties 2 weeks apart from each other. With my condition at the moment, preparing for one already sounds pretty daunting. As a matter of fact, we've never thrown one before. Not even once. It was always a small family affair. But the boys have been going to their friends' birthday parties and now they really want one for themselves, especially Emir. He's been talking about it for quite awhile. But the birthday boy is getting his present today and he is getting his chocolate cupcakes and cheese pizza. I'd say that's a pretty good deal.

I've been looking at his pictures since last night since he first came to the States. He actually changed quite a bit. I really miss his chubbiness. He is also more talkative now. He used to be the quiet one. I thought I'd share some of them with you guys.

All of these pictures were taken in Dec 2009 when the kids first got to Hawaii. Ezzat just turned six in October that year.

Jan 2010 - Jul 2010 in Hawaii.

Learning to ride a bike without training wheels for the first time

Montana, Jul 13 2010

Fishing with Grammy and Poppy - Montana, Jul 16 2010

Fort Ward State Park, Bainbridge Island WA - May 14 2011

One Morning in Autumn

2011-10-11T12:57:00.001-10:00

Relaxing

2011-09-18T21:06:00.000-10:00

Daniel Plays Jazz

2011-09-18T20:46:00.001-10:00

Sept 4 2011

We went to Seattle to watch Daniel perform at Tula's Restaurant and Jazz Club with Jim Cutler Jazz Orchestra. They sounded awesome! I love their selection of songs.

Goodies from Farmer Gregory

2011-09-17T22:03:00.002-10:00

After a full week of glorious sunny weather, the temperature just dropped drastically this week to the low 50s F! Even the leaves on some trees started turning brown! Last year, the leaves weren't turning until October. What a weird weather! I wonder if I should just harvest all the leaves from our herb planters. Speaking of harvesting, we got a lot of produce this week from our local farmer, Paul Gregory. I wasn't sure if we were going to renew our CSA for next year, but after all the goodies we got this week, I'm thinking we should renew after all :-)

Green beans, nectarines and red plums that are to die for (they are super sweet and juicy!), tomatoes, pears, mixed greens (kale & swiss chards) and peaches

Red and green apples, blueberries, italian prunes, zucchinis and cucumbers (not in the picture)

The Unfinished Hike...Dungeness Spit, Sequim WA

2011-09-16T23:12:00.002-10:00

Jul 2 2011

Photo: http://photoblog.seandaniel.com

Aerial view of Dungeness Spit

Photo: http://markwhitesell.blogspot.com/2010/06/wild-washington-chapter-18-dungeness.html

We decided to go to Dungeness Spit in Sequim right after Poppy left for Montana. The weather was great that day and it would be such a shame if we were to just stay at home. It was about an hour plus to drive there so it wasn't that far considering it was an impromptu decision.

The spit is a 5.5 miles very narrow long sand pit (eleven miles round trip). It is the longest natural sand pit in the world.

At the end of the spit is a lighthouse. But since it's quite a hike to walk the 11 miles round trip to the lighthouse, there's certainly a need for some kind of planning especially if children were to be involved. There are no restroom facilities or drinking water. Plus everybody needs to be off the spit by dusk. We didn't finish our hike. The kids were tired after the 2nd mile. I personally would like to go back to finish the hike and to visit the lighthouse.

Taking turns to use binoculars to see the view of the spit

Oh look a squirrel!

On the way back, we stopped at one of the few scenic view stops and saw this breathtaking sight.

These are views taken from the car somewhere in Sequim

Photo: http://markwhitesell.blogspot.com/2010/06/wild-washington-chapter-18-dungeness.html

Hopefully we will be back for this!

Backdated Entries

2011-09-16T23:11:00.001-10:00

School has started for the boys and life resumes as usual as if summer never happened. We did have some great time, did some fun stuff as a family. Not to mention we went through Ramadan without a hitch, especially for the boys. I was glad that they were home throughout the whole fasting month. It just made things a little bit easier. We had a nice quiet Eid at home and then we took Emir later that day to his first soccer practice. Still the greatest summer so far was when we spent some time with Poppy and Grammy in Montana. I love the road trip we took and the view was amazing. And I haven't shared any of those experiences with you guys, especially my family. I will, eventually. That's the whole reason for this blog existence anyway. Being a platform for me to share our life here, with family and friends since we're far far away from each other.

Fun Time with Poppy - Day 4, Jul 1 2011

We went to Kitsap Memorial State Park on the 4th morning Poppy was here. As with most beaches around Puget Sound, the beach is a mix of sand and pebbles. Shellfish harvesting used to be the highlight of the park until recent surveys by Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife show declination of clams and oysters, and the fishing season is temporarily closed since May 2011 until further notice. Crabbing is still allowed though but one can catch only up to 6 crabs if I am not mistaken. We found a couple of crabs under some rocks and they were pretty big! We stopped to chat with a guy who happened to fish for the crustacean creatures and he was short of one crab and we pointed out to him to one of the crabs we found.

Moon snail. Interesting creature. When we first saw its shell, we thought that was all to it. Who would have thought that underneath the sand, after some considerable digging, poking and prodding, there was a lot more to be discovered.

Photo: http://www.eyefetch.com

We were intrigued by this thing that looks like a piece of rubber. There were many of them scattered around the beach. Poppy later informed me that this is actually a moon snail egg case! "Moon snails use sand and mucus to make pliable cases. The eggs hang out in the case for a couple of months, then break free and become free-swimming larvae for a while before they settle down and become fully-realized moon snails."(http://hamahamaoysters.com/blog)

Giant star fish!

Oyster heaven! Despite the fact that there are insufficient oysters for harvest, we saw tons of oysters on the beach during the low tide.

The beach

Poppy with the goofy kids

On the way back, we stopped to pick some wild blackberries although they were not quite ripe yet. But it was all fun!

Later in the afternoon we all went to Point Defiance, Tacoma to meet Poppy's sisters, Aunt Dottie and Aunt Susan, Daniel's cousin, Sam and his girlfriend, Robin. Sam is Aunt Susan's son.

Aunt Dottie

Aunt Susan

The kids

The food

Fun Time With Poppy - Day 3

2011-07-25T19:39:00.060-10:00

I didn't have any pictures the second day Poppy was here. The guys spent a few hours at a state park nearby but I decided to stay at home and do something else. On the third day, Poppy and the boys went to a park nearby our house called Island Lake and they had fun trying to find a Bigfoot. The boys truly believe the creature exists. We had satay on our grill later that day. I have been wanting to have a grill for quite awhile and since there was really not much space in the backyard, the idea was never materialized until we found this cute grill that fits our needs. BBQ time is fun!

Satay sticks on the grill

Our planter boxes filled with all sorts of herbs. Daniel built them.

Our backyard garden in early summer.

Click on the enlarge button on the bottom left to view a larger size of the pictures.

Fun time with Poppy - Day 1

2011-07-18T18:25:00.000-10:00

Daniel's dad visited us a few weeks ago. He came all the way from Oklahoma and stayed with us for 4 days and we got to do quite a few fun things with him. The boys especially were so happy to have Poppy around to play with them. I took tons of pictures - as usual, and that's the easiest part. The hardest part is to post them in here and there are tons of excuses for that. I'm not proud. But I will certainly be if I could post all of the pictures until the last day Poppy was here. Keep your fingers crossed!

Day 1 - June 28th, 2011

We took Poppy to Point No Point beach in Hansville. We were worried if it was going to be raining the entire time he was here, especially when the weather forecast looked ominous. Luckily there was not a single drop of rain except for some gloomy mornings.

I went overboard with the birds. But I love them and seeing them flocking away never fail to amaze me.

It took me a few takes before I got the picture right. It's getting harder to get the boys to pose and smile at the same time.

Helping Farmer Gregory

2011-07-06T19:09:00.000-10:00

The Bonnin family were FARMERS on one Wednesday afternoon! Daniel arranged with our c.s.a.(community supported agriculture) farmer Paul Gregory to let us come and see how the farm works. We planted tomatoes, picked some weeds, covered some beet beds and even harvested a bag of Swiss chard to take home! Farmer Gregory was really informative with the kids and his 84 year old mother even made us some lemonade during our break time!

Different views of the farm

The boys really enjoyed the opportunity given by Mr Gregory to plant some tomato plants.

Potatoes and tomatoes are in the same family so both of these plants are always planted next to each other at the Gregory's farm.

Moving on to weeding and eating Swiss chard fresh from the ground. I wasn't sure whether the boys were either really hungry or they actually love the chard. But they kept asking for more.

Emir took weeding seriously.

And enjoying his time at the farm.

Compost pile, some from kitchen scraps from restaurants nearby.

Last thing we did was to plant beet seeds.

Munie, ni untuk hang!

2011-05-26T09:48:00.002-10:00

My friend Munie texted me early this morning while I was in the middle of baking some cupcakes. I woke up at 4.30am, showered, did my Subuh and then off to the kitchen. Subuh is starting to get so much earlier now that Summer is closer. Isyak pulak punya la lambat. Nak pukul 11 malam baru la masuk Isyak. Pasang alarm pepagi nak bangun, asyik dok tekan snooze sentiasa. Anyway, I volunteered to make some dessert for the Dessert day in conjunction with Staff Appreciation week at the boys' school this week. Yesterday I made some pasta for the Staff Luncheon since they had an Italian theme. Whether it had an authentic Italian taste, I had no idea. But I'm glad to make some for you. Just come over! Nak volunteer duduk kat sekolah lama2 malas, so kira masak pun boleh lah asaikan nampak muka kat sekolah tu once in awhile ye dak. Cek Munie, hang tengok gambaq dulu, bila aku balik Kedah, aku masak untuk hang no. Miss u!

Today's weather is absolutely gorgeous. And I'm going to do some gardening in a little while. That is after I'm done with updating this poor unattended blog. I feel like it's almost a sin to just stay inside the house and not spending some time outside enjoying the RARE dry breezy sunny weather. Can you picture it now that I give you all the words that I can think of at the moment to describe how great it is outside the house? :-) Perhaps some pictures will help.

Yard Work

2011-05-04T22:22:00.003-10:00

I did some yard work today, mainly weeding and trimming heath bushes, since the weather has been so nice and not too chilly. The temperature has been in the mid 50s F (10 C) during the day. I've also halfway cleared a spot for the boys to plant their flower seeds since they've been asking for it for weeks now. By the way, those seeds have already expired last year - according to the date on the box. So that makes me wonder if they will ever grow? It was not a surprise when right after the boys got down from their school bus and saw me standing with a shovel in my hand, the first thing they asked me was "Can we plant our seeds today?" But we didn't, not today anyway. The boys got sidetracked with their bikes and soccer ball and I still think the spot needs a little bit more TLC before we finally put the seeds in the soil. And hopefully they'll grow. The last time I tried, they didn't.

The kids in their helping mode, which lasted for an hour before their attention span was short lived by bikes and balls.

The trimmed heath bushes. Should have done this in fall instead of spring.

Do you know that the Rhododendron is Washington state flower? I just knew about it a few secs ago while googling for the right spelling for it.

Our front yard with Ezzat in the picture.

Crazy about Cherry

2011-05-03T20:53:00.001-10:00

Apr 2, 2011

It's cherry blossom actually. Unfortunately I think their blooming time is almost over :-(. The ones across the street from our backyard still have flowers but they're falling off fast. And I am craving for some pretty colors instead of just gray, brown and green - which are pretty much the standard colors here. Hence, I took tons of pictures of them - at a parking lot. And I'm going to share them with you so that hopefully when you look at them, they will make you feel cheery too. That's how I feel.

A Rainy Day of Sightseeing

2011-04-26T20:54:00.001-10:00

Apr 2, 2011

My friend Anna told me about this place Point No Point which has a sandy beach. That got me excited since most of the beaches here that we've been to are full of rocks and gravels. Although the weather looked pretty gloomy as if it would rain any minute we decided to go anyway to check out the place.

Point No Point is located in the small town of Hansville, WA. From where we live, it takes about 30 minutes to get there. Go here to see the aerial view of the place and click on each picture at the side. I love it.

On the way to the light house, we saw this old boat which probably has been converted to a house.

The Point No Point beach.

There were light rain and hail right after we stopped at the parking lot. Plus it got really chilly and we weren't prepared for it. It was pretty disappointing but the place is not too far so we would definitely come back sometimes soon.

We were not prepared to call it a day. On the way back, we spotted this place and decided to explore it.

I feel like I'm back at the park when I look at this picture.

The trail was all wet and muddy but the rain stopped and the sunshine peeking through lacy moss made things much better.

I love this part of the trail.

Spring Break

2011-03-31T20:01:00.013-10:00

The boys are having their Spring break for a week. This week's weather has been pretty miserable; it's mostly gloomy and rainy. It makes me want to camp out on the sofa with a blanket and nap all day long. The thought has not materialized so far. I got busy with daily routines and the boys kept themselves busy with story books, math practices, Legos, toys, TV and bikes but we did go to some parks nearby.

Here's the boys' favorite new park, Poulsbo's Fish Park. I used to think that the park was pretty small considering it's just right off the busy Lindvig Way road. It never did catch my attention until Emir mentioned it to us when he went there on a school field trip. He came back from the trip, all excited about the park and told us about how he released his salmon fries into the streams at the park. Emir has been studying salmons since Fall and he has a Spring break challenge in which he has to create a Riparian ecosystem model that is best for salmon development. 'Ripa' means river bank in Latin. I thought going to the park would give us an idea on how to build the model. So we did. Two days in a row.

At nearly 21 acres, the park is certainly larger than it looks from the road. I'm glad I took the kids there. There are a couple streams running toward the Dogfish Creek.

The trail at the park is almost 1000 feet, a combination of wide wooden boardwalks, gravels and dirt. Hundreds of bird houses are scattered throughout the park and we did see a lot of birds.

Can you spot a bird and a seaplane?

Poulsbo's waterfront is just across the street so this plane might landed there because it flew pretty low above us.

Enchanted forest

The boys found their favorite place to play right away.

I found mine. A big cherry blossom tree with white flowers.

The boys declared this place as their secret hideout. This is actually underneath my favorite huge cherry blossom tree. They cleared some of the fallen branches and they got this nice space to play.

This was the view when we looked up

It's Spring!

2011-03-23T18:57:00.002-10:00

My very first Spring and it's finally here! We have gorgeous sunny weather since last weekend. I never thought I would say this, but this is one of the few times in my life that I'm loving the sun. I LOVE it! I love Fall with its crisp air and pretty leaves, and I love Winter for its white snow flakes. Summer - as long as it's below 80F, I'm fine with it. But Spring is all about springing back to life. There is a certain kind of vibrancy and freshness in the air that makes me want to stay outside as much as possible. Plus the the days are getting longer, the produce section looks so much better and I can put on lighter clothes without having to worry about having blue feet and fingers. Spring break is starting this Friday until next week and I can't wait to discover new places with the boys. Hope you guys will enjoy your Spring break too!

Took the kids to school today. Emir joined a club at his school called Pearson Pride Club that started last Fall to improve his Math and reading skills. The club meets every Monday to Thursday from 8am-9am and today was its last day. Parents were invited to the last meeting and the kids were given a special breakfast treat which consisted of waffles with strawberries, milk and juices, plus prizes for being consistent in their attendance. I brought the other 2 boys along instead of letting them wait for the school bus and lucky them, they got to have the treat too. I love the school yard. It's big considering the school building itself is pretty small with less then 400 students.

Wordless Wednesday

2011-03-16T11:33:00.001-10:00

Daryl's House

2011-03-16T11:05:00.005-10:00

I'm really lagging in my blog updates and I feel terrible about it. As much as I want to frequently update my far away families and friends about what we're up to in our lives, I am constantly putting it off to do other stuff. There are a couple of things that have been taking up my time lately. New things that are pretty exciting to me so I basically spend most of my time doing just that. So for those of you who have been constantly following and checking in on the blog, I thank you. I appreciate it very much.

Now back to the post. Daryl is Daniel's friend from work. We were invited to his house for a housewarming party a long time ago (actually a few weeks after we got here from Hawaii). So this is a pretty rusty entry. He bought this house with a huge yard, it's unbelievable! For the great price he paid for it, I think he and his family are extremely lucky to own the place.

The front yard. Wait there's more to it.

How awesome is this yard?

It comes with a miniature windmill.

There's a peacock roaming freely around the area. Daryl told us the peacock is already there when he moved in with his family. The quirky bird would come and go as he please, sometimes venturing into his neighbors' yard, but will always come back at night. We didn't see the peacock that day but we did find a couple of his colorful feathers laying on the ground.

The backyard

The backyard is equally large as the front, if not larger. The previous owner left a few nice raised vegetable garden beds and a shade. There is also a huge man's cave/workshop adjacent to the house with a porch separating the two. The sweet thing about it is that the previous owner left some of his tools in there! I should have taken some pictures of it.

Love how green and thick the mosses are

There were no other children there except Daryl's son who is 2 years old. They played with him and his toys for awhile and then sat down on the couch the whole time, watching Disney's Prince of Egypt.

This is Daryl's son, Nate.

He's one happy boy.

We didn't eat anything since it was Ramadan and we were fasting. But we came anyway because we wanted to meet Daryl and his family and to see his house. We thought of having our Iftar (breaking fast) at the party but unfortunately we had to go back early due to my allergy. I think that's my worst allergy attack in a long time. Daryl has a few cat pets and after spending some time inside the house, I started to sneeze constantly. And then my eyes, throat and skin started to feel itchy. Then coughing spells followed by wheezing. I usually stay away from any furry animals and did not have any supply of allergy pills on hand. But I guess within the enclosed space, the allergen were pretty much everywhere.

Fay Bainbridge State Park

2011-03-05T23:00:00.001-10:00

We went to this park 2 weeks ago. It was pretty much unplanned. We woke up one weekend morning, saw the 'glorious' weather (Here, great weather does not necessarily has to be bright and sunny. Even if it's gray, gloomy and bone-chilling cold yet DRY, it's still a great day) and decided to explore around the area and we came to this place with some help from our map app on our phone.

The park is a little bit smaller compared to the other state parks we've been to, about 17 acres of land but it's still a great park nonetheless. It's located on the northeast of Bainbridge Island, about 15 - 20 minutes drive from our home. It's actually a marine park with 1,420 feet of saltwater shoreline.

It has a really nice view of the Cascade Mountains in the background with a wide open field for kids to run around. Its beaches are not the typical white sandy beaches that we're used to back home in Malaysia. Almost all beaches here in the northwest are a mixed of sand and gravels but the water is pretty clear with lots of seaweeds.

A short video from our trip

I'm not sure where all these logs came from but they certainly add some character to the place.

This house is occupied.

Mother and son

There are some logs stacked together, creating a playhouse and the boys pretended it was their home

There is a nice size playground to keep the boys busy for awhile

We hope to come here again during summer, probably set a camp and spend a night or two. There are over 30 plus overnight campsites around the park, each with a picnic table and outdoor grill. Most importantly, they have a restroom/bathhouse with hot showers, yay! I've checked that out. So we're good if we were to decide to camp here. I wish our families live nearby so they can join us.

We stopped to have lunch at Bainbridge Island downtown in Winslow. It's a nice small town with rustic charm and I really love the houses around there. It is also near the Bainbridge Island ferry terminal . A ferry ride from here will get you to Seattle only in 30 minutes.

My favorite store

Art time

2011-02-17T20:43:00.002-10:00

Grammy sent these fun paintable wooden 3-D pictures to the boys, and they had a blast painting them!

What is great about this is the kids can paint right away. It is paint-by-numbers, with numbered paints, a brush, and glue included together. There are three panels for each set, and after they are painted, the wooden pieces are glued together, turning them into a great 3D display.This one is Emir's.

The boys spent their whole afternoon on this. That's a really long time considering their attention span can sometimes be pretty short.

Farhan chose the dinosaurs. He was the first one to finish, although towards the end he got a little bit impatient and started to get a bit sloppy with his work. Emir, on the other hand, took his time working on his.

The final look! I put some finishing touches on the shadowboxes by tracing the lines with a thin black marker, just to make them look neater.

Their work got hung in their very own room!

The boys' room with their art work hanging on the wall. They're very proud of it.

Blast from the past #1

2011-02-09T22:36:00.000-10:00

Get the flash player here: http://www.adobe.com/flashplayer

These were taken at a hotel in Honolulu where we stayed at for a couple of days before we flew to Seattle last July. The kids were having a great time at the pool.

Wordless Wednesday

2011-02-09T14:15:00.001-10:00

Wordless Wednesday

2011-02-02T20:14:00.003-10:00

Skating and Birthday

2011-02-01T21:06:00.004-10:00

Last Saturday Farhan got an invitation to his friend's birthday party at a skating rink in Bremerton, so we decided to go there as a whole family. All of us except Daniel had never skated before so we were excited

about it.

This place is so vintage looking! They rent old fashioned quad skates and also roller blades.

Some other kids at the party.

Love love love the lights.

The face of a frustrated skater.

Daniel took turns helping the kids around the rink.

Presents, cake and pizza time.

Close up of Adrian. He is so much bigger and taller than Farhan.

I was waiting for this little girl to turn around so I could take some pictures of her. She was so engrossed watching the other kids skate, I only got to take her picture from the back. I love her curly hair!

Farhan is making a smooth face while waiting for his drink.

Another cute girl. I think she loves cake because she was eating her piece of cake with great enthusiasm.

Getting ready to go back.

Enjoying his orange juice.

Randomness

Despite all the frustration at the beginning, the kids really want to go back asap!

Clear Creek Trail

2011-01-28T15:47:00.004-10:00

We've passed this sign countless times on our way to town (which is only like 5 minutes away from our house btw) but we never stop to check out this place until two weeks ago. We had a 3 day weekend in conjunction with Martin Luther King Day but we were pretty much cooped up in the house for the first 2 days since it rained. I really hope we could get more snow before winter is over. We only got it twice so far. Monday was better though it was cloudy for most part of the day with light showers towards the end of the afternoon but we just had to get out of the house for awhile to get some fresh air. So we went to this place that turns out to be a pretty nice place for a walk. Actually where we went is only part of the trail called Silverdale Rotary Gateway Park. Based on the map, I think it's a 5-6 mile trail but we only did probably around 2 miles or less.

The trail is wide and easy to walk. As you can see in the pictures, part of the trail is a well constructed boardwalk that continues to a wetland area.

We didn't spot any salmon

Despite the gloominess, it was a nice day for a walk.

The boardwalk is wide enough for kids to run

Apart from these ducks, we spotted a couple great blue herons took off in flight but unfortunately I was not prepared with my camera to take their pictures.

I wanted to check out this place since it looks pretty old but it's on a private property land and this is the closest I could get.

After the boardwalk we came to this paved trail.

Part of the creek

Different views of the trail

Toothless boys

Emir took this picture

Water running through the creek

At first glance, I thought it was a real giraffe but it turns out to be a sculpture.

On the way back.

This is a funny old dog. She kept whining and begging us to play fetch with her. She even went to search for a stick and put the stick in front of us hoping that we would throw the stick somewhere so she could run and fetch it We obliged. I mean look at her eyes. Those hopeful eyes. Of course kenalah berhati-hati takut tersentuh bahagian yang basah, kalau tak kenalah samak dulu sebelum sembahyang. Ada pernah dengar sabun taharah. Sabun tu buatnya dari tanah liat. So sebelum datang sini dulu, ada beli a few just in case kalau ada situasi yang memerlukan kita bersamak, at least boleh terus ja samak tak payah nak kutip tanah dulu.

For Grammy

2011-01-22T15:36:00.001-10:00

Dear Grammy,

We got them today and they fit perfectly. Thank you so much!

Small is good, messy is not

2011-01-20T15:31:00.001-10:00

Chocolate petit fours. Midgets of the cake world but aren't they cute? I made them yesterday. But it's messy. I tell you that.

2010 Highlights - Part 3

2011-01-12T22:06:00.007-10:00

Still about Christmas at the Millers. They have a really nice house with an amazing view of Mount Hood. If you were to stand in front of the big windows at the living room you would be able to see a clear sight of the mountain.

Front view. I love the big pine trees around the area. This place reminds me of Cameron Highlands in Malaysia.

The side view going down hill. Simply breathtaking.

See those holes? They were made by moles and they're all over the place.

The backyard. I can imagine what summer would be like. FUN!

These are the babies of the house. Look at how healthy they are! So chubby! I think there are four of them in total if I'm not mistaken. The first one in the picture is Noel, a pretty shy cat and she is Uncle Don's baby. I'm not so sure if the next one is Shamu or another cat that looks pretty much the same with black and white fur. I know one of them has seven toes on his front paws instead of five. And then there's this white persian cat named Snowflake. Didn't get any picture of her though. I love cats but unfortunately since I left college god knows how many years that has been, I've developed some kind of allergy towards all hairy animals so I can't play with them anymore :-(.

I love the interior part of the house. The big windows, the fire place, the wood floor, the soothing green wall, the sofas, just to name a few.

The love of randomness

At one point before noon all of us gathered together in the living room to open our presents. The Millers with their children - Kristi and her husband Kevin, Staci and her beau, and the youngest daughter Briana and the five of us. Here's Uncle Don unwrapping his.

Me with Aunt Dottie and the boys

Aunt Dottie looked so cheerful!

Three pretty sisters - Kristi, Staci and Briana.

Apart from some books, the boys got a rubber animal each from Aunt Dottie. Thank you so much! A spider for Emir which he really loves, a realistic looking bat for Farhan and a scorpion for Ezzat. They all end up in Emir's toy box now because he's really into animals nowadays and he plays with them more than his brothers. He is currently the 'zookeeper' for his classroom, helping his teacher feeding their class pets and he even requested for a real Tarantula as a pet which unfortunately would never be approved by his mother.

A feast on the eyes and stomach - appetizers and desserts. I am pretty sure I was busy helping myself with food that I had totally forgotten to take pictures of the main stuff.

This is Miss Chloe. She is three (if I'm not mistaken) and she is one very smart girl. She is the daughter of Uncle Don's niece, Jessica.

I hope to meet you again Miss Chloe.

This is Carter. He is Miss Chloe's brother. And I fell in love with his chubby cheeks.

I had a great time snapping these pictures of Carter but it was hard to choose which ones to put on here. So I decided to put up them all!

Such a happy and very inquisitive baby

We had a Bingo blast. The last time I played the game was a long time ago when I was in primary school. It was fun especially when it's with families and the boys, especially Emir and Ezzat enjoyed the game very much. Ezzat even got Bingo twice! Farhan on the other hand had a hard time focusing. He got pretty edgy towards the end of the day so he went to take a short nap until it was time for us to go home.

Emir was practicing his new job as a Bingo caller and Uncle Don was supervising him.

These adorable children are Aunt Dottie's and Uncle Don's grandchildren.

2010 Highlights - Part 2

2011-01-08T22:22:00.002-10:00

Christmas is over. But our story about it has not been told. So Part 2 of 2010 highlights is all about Christmas. Lots of pictures, less words as usual. I'm a not a great story teller.

We opened up some of the presents that we got on the morning of Christmas Eve as we didn't want to carry all of them with us to Gresham, Portland where we spent a night at Aunt Dottie's house. Remember her from my Thanksgiving post? She's one of the two aunts that Daniel has and both live in Portland. Another one is Aunt Barbara. I'm so glad that we have some relatives nearby to spend the holidays with. Anyway, this is Ezzat with his new robe. This is from Grammy! And he loves it. All of them love their robes actually (including me!). Mine is in cream and it's so soft. If you guys were to hug me while I'm in my robe, it would feel like hugging a soft fuzzy teddy bear.

And the PJs! I LOVE PJs... I mean the boys love them :-). Thanks Grammy.

Some more awesome stuff from Grammy except the tweety bird slippers. Those are ours. I just used the picture to complete the collage.

Later that day we went to Aunt Dottie's house and we arrived there around 7pm. Had some light dinner and I helped Aunt's Dottie's daughter Briana made some cookies.We had a great time that night just chatting and hanging out in the kitchen.

These were some good cookies. Daniel shaped that one burned cookie. Can you spot it among the good ones?

The boys probably woke up before the crack of dawn waiting anxiously to open their presents.

Emir got this awesome Snap Circuits Pro with 500 different projects to do and he started to put them together right away.

Ezzat checking amazing outside view using Uncle Don's binoculars while Daniel was being silly.

Uncle Don made yummy waffles with strawberries and whipped cream for breakfast and Ezzat was very pleased with it.

The weather forecast the night before said it was going to rain. But it turned out to be a great beautiful day. The boys had a blast playing in the backyard. I had a great time taking photos around the house. Daniel doesn't usually go around in pajamas but he ripped his jeans before this picture was taken :p

This boy needs to push his glasses up.

Farhan lost his tooth the night before. Now, he only has 2 middle top teeth and no teeth on the sides; hence the beaver face in the top picture.

Always the baby

Still have a lot of pictures to post on here. But it's getting late so I'll just wrap this up (for now). Happy weekend everyone!

Just because...

2011-01-07T09:13:00.001-10:00

I have to post this because I think it's super cute! My little sister is now an English teacher at an all-girl school back in our hometown after graduating with a TESL degree from one of the universities in Auckland, New Zealand. And this year she is assigned to be one of the form one class teachers. Form one is for students age 13 that just finished with their primary school. One of the things that she's excited about being a class teacher is to decorate her classroom and the first thing she did was this mural.

Adik, I reblogged your stuff - hope you don't mind :p

2010 Highlights - Part 1

2011-01-06T22:02:00.013-10:00

Happy New Year! Is it too late to wish? I know we're already in the fifth day of 2011 but then again, I'm always overdue on almost every post that I put on here. It's like time flies so fast from day to day that sometimes I make myself stop for awhile to think about whether or not I have had a productive day. The kids are back in school, husband is back to work, house is quiet again for half of the day, and I'm back to the pre-holiday routines. New year resolutions? I don't really have any. Well, I sort of have them at the back of my mind, but let's just keep it that way :-).

We have a new addition to the Mukthi family - Nadyn Shahnaz! She was born on Dec 15, 2010 and she's the first daughter to my brother Nasfi and his wife Sherina Shahnaz. And she's also the first granddaughter in our family. Mother and daughter both share the same middle name, CUTE! I can't wait to meet you Nadyn - probably sometime this year? I don't know for sure but all I can say now is Insyallah. Living far away from our family can be pretty trying sometimes. We have missed quite a few important occasions since we left Malaysia. But to all my family and friends, please know that we are always thinking of all of you.

Nicked these pictures from my sister's blog and FB.

My brother, Nasfi and his wife, Shahnaz and their baby, Nadyn Shahnaz.

My dad and Shahnaz

My sister, Nabila took this video when my family when to Shahnaz's house to visit the new grandchild. In this video, my father let Nadyn tasted a little bit pureed date (following the Sunnah of the Prophet PBUH).

A slide show of Nasfi's wedding back in Mar 2009 which I've never put up on the blog. Feeling a bit nostalgic today after seeing all these pictures.

Speaking of weddings, my youngest brother Najmi got engaged on Dec 26 2010 to Dhiya Izwin. The wedding would probably be somewhere in July this year. Congratulations to you both!

Fun at the Wickhams - Part 2

2010-12-13T12:44:00.006-10:00

The lovely chefs. They are the sisters of Daniel's dad.

Goat meat on the grill

I'm in love with this huge industrial like kitchen with wood floors, stainless steel appliances and over sized windows that let brilliant sunshine in.

Pumpkin, walnut, coconut and cranberry casserole waiting to be baked.

This would be deep-fried. Yum!

Saw these two gentlemen practicing

Can't help myself from taking random pictures since the lighting was great

The deep fried turkey in progress!

Cute Aunt Dottie was out for some fresh air

Another random pictures

View of the living room cum dining place for Thanksgiving from upstairs

Aunt Dottie preparing white rice topped with wild rice

I'm not sure who brought the green bean casserole. I'm never a huge fan of green beans and never had this kind of casserole before but this is pretty good. Excuse the poor lighting. It doesn't do justice to the dish.

The turkey came out perfect. Aunt Dottie made some sweet walnut dressing that went well with the bird, I'm not sure what else went in there but to me, it's great. Here Aunt Barbara was pouring cranberry sauce out from the cans into the bowls and cutting cranberry jelly into small pieces. The only time I've ever had cranberry sauce was at Ikea in KL and that was with Swedish meatballs. The jelly reminds me of agar-agar and now I feel like having rose flavored agar-agar with evaporated milk and canned tropical mixed fruit. Sedapnya.

The glorious deep fried turkey

We all said what we are thankful for

The Wickham's neighbors, Asif and Annie. Thanks to Asif, Aunt Barbara, Uncle John and another neighbor Tomas, we're able to enjoy some good turkey and goat. Most importantly for us, they're halal. Uncle John also asked Asif to say some short prayer before we started devouring all the great stuff.

These make me want to fast forward the time to next year and help myself with another full plate goodness.

Attempting to make all these in one day was madness. Just because I've never bake as much. I did plan to spread the work over several days but this time I'm blaming it on the blackout.

Andy the dog got excited to see an ilama and started chasing it. I think it's too much for the ilama and the poor guy had to go home

They didn't look so thrill when I asked them to stop playing to take some pictures

Lovely couple - Sam and his girlfriend, Robin. Sam is Daniel's cousin.

Aunt Dottie with her daughter, Briana

And then the whole family picture - Uncle Don, Briana and Aunt Dottie

Aunt Barbara busy putting the leftovers away. I just realized that I did not have any picture of the Wickhams as a whole family. I'm so sorry!

More random pictures. The cheese and cracker platter was really good.

Everybody helped to put the living room back to it's original cozy state.

What started as a simple 'jamming' session between Daniel and Uncle John turned out to a full blast where almost everybody started grabbing something to play with. Fun! Thank you Aunt Barbara and Uncle John for inviting us. It was great to have the opportunity to meet with the other Bonnin families and we all look forward to meet you guys again soon.

Fun at the Wickhams - Part 1

2010-12-10T05:43:00.002-10:00

We went to Aunt Barbara's house somewhere in Portland for Thanksgiving which was the next day after the snow storm and power outage. Aunt Barbara is Daniel's auntie from his dad's side. We spent 2 nights there but the first night didn't really count that much since we arrived very late at night. I'll tell you why later. But it was all so much fun! They have this nice big place called Blueberry Hollow, which is to me is like a small farm with some chickens that lay organic eggs, goats that provide fresh goat milk and meat, a cute little horse which has a name but I forgot, 2 funny geese, and a dog named Andy and oh some 60 something blueberry trees! Or is it 100 trees? I'm not sure but anyway the blueberries are available for u-pick in summer. Thanks to Aunt Barbara and Uncle John and Asif, their Muslim neighbor, we're able to enjoy some halal turkey and goat meat. I love their house especially the yard, the spacious living room and the huge kitchen. There'll be some photo overload just because I took zillions of pictures and had a hard time to choose which one to put on here. Probably I'll divide this entry to 2 parts so you guys won't get bored, we'll see how it goes.

Front view. Inside the little barn opposite the cars is where you can find fresh goat milk and organic eggs for sale and it's based on honor system so you can just leave money or checks in the jar provided. Next to the barn is the chicken house.

Look at that handsome couple! They're sure know how to pose for a picture

These two are pretty eccentric and funny, especially the brown one. Just look at how he walks. Actually I'm not sure if it's really a 'he', nobody really knows for sure. As for now, I assume it is just because he likes to show off and acts as if he wants to chase you. But when you start flapping your arms and stare at him to show dominance over him, he turns around. Silly goose :-)

How awesome is the backyard?!

This is like giving you guys a tour right? Imagine how much fun it would be during summer, having BBQ outside etc

Aren't they cute?

The goat shed. I say they have pretty cool place to live :-) The boy in yellow snow hat is John, Aunt Barbara's son

The horse! Now I remember -his name is Rusty...I think

I'm pretty sure in summer this plot here would be full of fresh veggies. Look at that parsley and that's in winter people!

Blueberry bushes in their dormant state in winter

Does anybody know what kind of fruit is this? It looks like persimmon to me.

Let's go inside the house. It's pretty chilly out here.

First stop, upstairs to check what the boys were doing. They had fun for sure with the big boys. I think there were 10 boys in total.

Farhan decided he needed some time alone to play with the nerf gun. That was the most popular toy that day.

The adults meanwhile chose to simply chill before the other guests arrived.

Somewhere in between, I went to Aunt Barbara to this place to find some holly for table decorations. It was a nice short walk.

The holly that we picked, well Aunt Barbara actually. I just watched.

Yellow and red, love the contrast.

Let It Snow!

2010-12-02T14:58:00.001-10:00

We were excited to get our first snow here last week. But with that, came the unexpected - snow storm and power outage... for 40 HOURS (power outage that is)! The temperature inside the house was around 40 something F (8-10C). We even saw our own breath, which was actually fun for the first few minutes before we started to feel extremely cold and grumpy. By we, I mean me in particular. Took some pictures as usual so here you go :-)

Having fun in the snow while waiting for the school bus

Happily off to school. Little did they know the school would be closed for the rest of the week

Stark contrast between winter and fall. Love the colors.

Our backyard. I haven't mulch my garden yet :-(

Rake and my flip flops were still outside. Random pics but I personally think they gave a nice contrast against the white snow.

Playing snowball anyone? This was taken the next day after the storm. The sky was super clear, and the sun was out and the snow started to melt a bit but the power was still out. Darn.

Our neighbors next door are super nice people. I woke up the next morning and saw them shoveling the snow off our driveway and walkways. They also spread salt over the cleared area to avoid icing. How nice is that?! They said that since we just moved from Hawaii, they figured that we didn't have proper tools to do the job so they helped. In return I gave them some curry puffs and cupcakes to say thank you.

Fun time outside using socks as gloves to throw snowballs at each other.

We didn't want to stay inside the house as it's too cold so we went to Island Lake instead. Remember Island Lake from my previous entry? It's cold too but at least we're outside with much nicer view to see and enjoy. Plus I want to take some pictures of the lake in winter. This road that we had to take to the lake was very slippery and had a thin layer of ice on it. Going down the hill was pretty tricky and we had to drive really slow but going up was worse. And on the way back, the car kept sliding down so we had to take a different route. Some people had to leave their cars at the road side the night before as it was too dangerous to drive.

This was totally unplanned. We have this tarp in the car for a long time and once we saw this slope, the idea to use it to slide down the hill just popped up. Climbing up the slope was pretty tricky for the kids though. The boys had fun before they started complaining about their socks cum gloves got wet and didn't want to play anymore.

Pretty views. The lake was partially frozen and some ducks were still in the water

The snow didn't last. Still freezing cold but back to the ol' rainy day for most of the days

Awesome gifts and birthday

2010-11-28T20:50:00.001-10:00

I promise that this is going to be my final entry about birthdays for this year. And this one is for Mr. Farhan. He turned eight 10 days ago and I didn't really have time to sit down and write and upload all the photos with all the things that had happened in the past weeks. I can't really say which one took more time, but they're pretty much made me sound like 'Jill of all trades, master of none' kind of person. Poppy sent the kids super cool gifts and they LOVE it. They also got some awesome Legos from Auntie Cheri all the way from Malaysia but I didn't take any photos of them amidst all the chaos of cooking, opening the Lego boxes and putting them together. So thank you so much to Poppy and Auntie Cheri!

These cute little critters have their own names. The red one is Nino, the one that looks like a grasshopper is Leopold and there's Talullah in purple. These bugs can jump and fly pretty high. We pressed them against a smooth clean surface until the suction cups on the bottom grabbed on to it. After a few seconds waiting, the suction cups were released and the critters jumped off to another place. Fun!

Here are Bonga, Zecar and Pintacuda. These windups and the bugs are all from Kikkerland.

Birthday boy eating dinner which consisted of herbed basmathi rice, steamed green beans, turmeric sticky rice and beef rendang. He loved them especially the sticky rice.

He hated this though

He didn't seem to mind that these were pink. I just used whatever that was left in the fridge so I ended up making vanilla cupcakes with blueberry cream cheese frosting.

Emir is 9!

2010-11-09T19:35:00.002-10:00

Another birthday entry! Emir turned 9 last Sunday and we took him and his brothers to the Naval Undersea Museum nearby our house. He also got a dvd that has something to do with Star Wars game which I don't have any clue on how to play, in which he is allowed to play - at certain times on certain days, only when he fulfills a few conditions we have set for him. So don't worry.

Actually we started our day pretty late that day. I had to go to the commissary to get a few things to make the birthday cake, and Emir had to get a haircut since it started to look messy and made his head looked bigger. And in between that time, Daniel took the birthday boy to Target to get the dvd game that he wanted. So by the time we got home for lunch, it was already 2pm and the museum opens until 4pm so there's no way for us to have lunch first and then go to the museum. So the plan changed, I stayed at home to prepare lunch and the cake and sushi for dinner (requested by Mr Emir) and all the 4 boys went to the museum. And the kitchen was in total mess by the end of the day, with chocolate ganache all over the place. I should have picked a much easier recipe for the cake or at least prepare the filling or the cakes one day earlier. Dinner ended way passed the kids bed time and we did the birthday song in less than 3 seconds that sounded like a fast-forward Alvin & the Chipmunk's recording, in which during that period also covered blowing out candles. Hardly any pictures were taken but whatever that we have, they're here for you to enjoy :-).

Emir with a new hair cut. The only picture that I took of him that night. And we have to get him new glasses too since it's broken.

Ezzat wished Emir Happy Birthday and gave Emir a hug before going to bed. I guess he was very sleepy since he said no to the cake. On the other hand, Mr Farhan happily ate his portion and tried to stay up as long as he could. Of course it was limited, only until he finished his cake, brushed his teeth, and gave each of us a hug.

I love natural light. It makes so much difference to the pictures I take.

Ezzat's Birthday

2010-10-28T10:22:00.004-10:00

Birthday - it has always been a low-key event for us. For Ezzat's birthday, apart from taking him on the Boeing tour a few days before his actual birthday, I made him some cupcakes on his birthday and cooked dinner as usual.

Ezzat decorated the cupcakes with tiny chocolate rice balls and whoppers and was pumped about it.

Dinner

This reminded me of a picture I took on Eid

Silly boy

We used a normal candle just for the sake of having a candle for him to blow. Cheapskate? Probably, but it worked =)

This boy looked so grown up

Going Boeing

2010-10-28T08:11:00.006-10:00

Ezzat's birthday present this year - visiting a plane museum. And not just that, (in no particular order) he got to visit a Boeing factory, took ferry rides, spent a night at a hotel, spent some time at the hotel's swimming pool, ate a lot of sushi, watched some TV way passed his bed time and ate some junk food which he normally doesn't get to have. Probably sounds like 'ehhh' to some but for an officially seven year old boy - he thought it's awesome!

This time we took the ferry from Kingston terminal. Took us 30 minutes to cross over to Edmond instead of Seattle. From Edmond we drove to Paine Field, where the hotel is, which is exactly next to the museum!

That's Boeing assembly building right there! This is the view from the hotel's entrance. Ezzat was literally drooling by this time.

We had sushi mushi mania that night. I love sushi but only to a certain degree. Raw salmon or tuna is fine with me but that's about it. Anything raw beyond that, no thank you. I used to think that making sushi was a mysterious art form best left in the hands of those skilled sushi chefs, with all the rolling, stuffing, and topping resulting in perfectly balanced sushi. In my case, I would usually rely on the guy behind the commissary sushi counter or any sushi place that won't cost us a giant hole in our wallet. With a family of 5, that's rarely the case. But you know what, after trying to make them, it's not as nerve-wrecking as I thought it would be. Cleaning up however, was a different story - with the aftermath of all the shaping, patting, rolling, cutting - you name it. Do some homework, watch some youtubes, get whatever ingredients you need to make them, and roll!

Fun time at the pool

Resulting in this face

And this

Next morning - walking towards the museum which is just next door.

This place is called Future of Flight Aviation Center. It didn't seem like it was much to look at, very few interactive exhibits. I think it looks like a hangar turned gallery, that was given a bit of makeover, where people can stop by and check out exhibits relating to Boeing and aviation in general before they proceed to the Boeing factory which is the main attraction. But the boys seemed to enjoy themselves. So it's probably just me.

We're not allowed to bring any electronic devices on the tour so no pictures of that. Luckily there's a cheap locker in the main building for rental so we just left everything in there. The tour cost $15 for adult and $8 for kids and the kids have to be more than 4ft tall to be on the tour and Ezzat barely made it. (We purchased our tickets from the website and booked the date and time we wanted.) The whole thing took 90 minutes, starting with a video presentation at an auditorium about Boeing's history, how it all started to it's latest projects. We're not allowed to use the restroom once the video started and that's exactly the time when Farhan told me he wanted to go there! So we waited until the video was over, thinking that we might be able to go after that while waiting for the bus to come to take us to the assembly building but nope. The bus was right on time. And we had no choice but to board the bus and the poor boy had to hold during the entire 90 minutes since there's no potty breaks on the tour as well. By the time it was over, he said that he didn't feel like going to the restroom anymore. I made him go anyway.

So we proceeded to the factory on the bus. Our tour guide is a pretty straight forward lady, knows her facts and figures well. The tour basically showed us the manufacturing line of Boeing airplanes from start to finish. The Everett plant here operates 24 hours 5 days a week from Monday to Friday through 3 shifts. We went there on Saturday and it was pretty quiet so a weekday might have more action. Still it was a pretty cool experience. The scale of the buildings here has to be experienced. It can hold all of Disneyland and still there is plenty of space available for parking. We had two stops to see the 747 assembly area, and then the 777 and newer 787 area. Basically we saw planes, parts of planes, and parts of planes becoming planes from an observation platform probably around 50 feet in the sky (The platform rail is about 4 ft high so I guess that's the reason why kids need to be higher than than). On the tarmac we saw a super huge Dreamlifter, a modified 747 airplane. It's primary use is to transport parts of Boeing 787 Dreamliner from supplier around the world to the 787 final assembly site here in Everett. I wish I have a picture to show you guys. It's crazy huge.

At the observation deck in the main building.

The birthday boy

The hotel where we stayed at. The weather was great that day, clear blue sky all the way. After we're done with the Aviation Center, we just headed back to our car to catch the next available ferry since we've already checked out from the hotel earlier.

We did stop at this restaurant, Claire's Pantry to get some lunch.

They're not that great.

Back on the ferry

Calmness is great

Sleeping is better

Road Trip - Part 1a

2010-10-09T22:34:00.003-10:00

Feeling a bit under the weather today. Didn't feel like cooking or eating. But the three Beez, they're always hungry, which is good actually. Thank god for the leftovers.

So, back to the road trip. Still on the same day, July 12.

I took this a few minutes after we left the rest stop. And the sign says Richland - 25 miles and we're on a mission to find a public shower!

This sleeping in the car thing - it's not planned. We just sort of went for it as the time came to call it a night. None of us were prepared for it but that's part of the fun, errr.. for some :p. Here the boys were still sleepy, it's only around 6am anyway.

I love bridges

Oregon Scenic Highways. We spent a few minutes here to enjoy the splendid view albeit the strong wind.

Only these 2 boys were up. Emir was still asleep in the car.

Back on the road, in search of a place to grab a shower.

Found it!

At Oregon State Park. I would love to go back there for a camping trip. It looks like a great place to explore except that we didn't plan for it at that time. There were many RVs out there, some are super huge and that's a new sight for me. We hardly have that in Malaysia.

Waiting for their turn to clean up.

More to come so stay tuned? :-? Ok, off to bed.

Summer Road Trip Part 1

2010-10-09T10:48:00.004-10:00

I'm still not done yet with the summer pictures. Old stories but the pictures are pretty cool though, the views are aahh-mazing! So enjoy.

July 12, 2010

In the last entry about our summer travel, I mentioned about us flew to Tacoma, a tiny bit about the navy base, and the little town Poulsbo. We also did some house hunting before we started our road trip heading to Montana to see Grammy and Poppy. After traveling for a few hours from Poulsbo, we stopped at this rest area for the night to get some sleep. Not sure where exactly this is but probably somewhere near Portland.

Woke up to this view. Isn't it amazing? I think it was around 4am. Couldn't sleep very well so went around the area taking pictures. The boys, including the big one were still asleep.

I think this looks like some kind of alien spaceship or something. But still great view nevertheless.

One of my favorite architectural structures.

Still on my own at this point.

Sunrise

Remember the alien like-spaceship cloud? It changed into this white normal looking cloud now :-(

You'll see more of these in the rest of our journey. Something about the look of these makes me feel mushy.

Island Lake Park

2010-10-08T14:48:00.002-10:00

This park to me, is awesome (mainly because of the distance from our house to the park is like 2 minutes by car!). It has a playground, a lake with gravel swim beach, paths, a couple BBQ pits with picnic tables, a picnic shelter, fishing dock, lots of parking space and most importantly, restrooms.

These pictures were taken a few weeks ago. Ezzat being silly with the dandelions. As long as it's not at our yard, it's fine. Man those dandelions are such nuisance in the garden.

Wild blackberries! There're tons of them out there. Just bring your gloves or something to protect yourself from being pricked by those nasty thorns all over the bushes.

Found some bugs to play with

Various views of the lake

Some of the permanent residents of the lake

At the playground

Island Lake, Silverdale - Free Slideshow Creator

Is It Fall Yet?

2010-09-17T12:10:00.002-10:00

The idea of experiencing Fall for the first time is intriguing to me. I love fall colors, the nostalgic look of it, the changing color of the leaves, the cooler weather, the crisp crunch sound of leaves under my steps - well basically everything that I've seen or heard on the idiot box. Not that it's not cold here, it is - just that I couldn't tell the difference yet between summer and fall. Everything looks so green, and wet, or wetter or wettest between the days. I'm not complaining, seriously I love it, mainly due to my plants which are still adjusting to their new home. It's just that I'm hoping to see some splash of orange, brown, peach and golden colorings here and there. Just like some icing on a cupcake, that would be nice.

They're all soaked

Sunday at Pike Place Market

2010-09-14T20:25:00.010-10:00

Going to Pike Place Market today was an impromptu idea. But it's the best! I love the market, despite the price of most things would probably leave a dent in your wallet if you're planning on shopping, you know a tourist trap kinda place. There are a lot of pretty nifty little things to see apart from their famous fish market with their fish tossing to the fresh produce, the flowers, the food, the buskers etc etc etc. We got to sample some Alderwood smoked wild king salmon and man, it's good! The price - $29.99/piece. Each piece is at least a pound. We didn't go beyond sampling :-(.

The boys on the ferry. We took the one from Bainbridge Island, which I think is the closest to our place, probably around 15 minutes drive. It can get really chilly there especially when we chose to go up to the sun deck.

View of Seattle from the ferry. It's not as gloomy as it looked in the picture. It was actually a nice cloudy windy day. It takes approximately 30 minutes to get to Seattle from Bainbridge Island.

Street view on the way to the market.

We passed the Seattle art museum, and there's no way to miss it with the towering Hammering Man at sight, hammering diligently 4 times a minute from 7am to 10 pm daily.

We're here at the market! But this is not where the fun starts, at least not to me :-).

At Crepe de France to get some coffee. Here Ezzat played with his Legos while waiting.

The fun starts here!

With everything and anything that involves food :-)

See the greenish building that looks like a warehouse on the left side? That's Seattle Aquarium.

Supposedly one of the best restaurants in Seattle.

Has been here since 1930s

The other side of the market

Some of the buskers or street performers. The banjo guy is pretty awesome and the boys love the guy on the right. They thought he's a real robot.

And they're going to save their money and come back for this.

And they got pretty stoked with the whimsical magic shop. Farhan ended up using his money to buy one of the magic trick kits.

What is it: A display of some of world's monstrous shoes. Not exactly a real museum, but more of a storefront pedial peep show

How it works: To view the giant shoes, put two quarters into a slot and the curtain will open, and you'll get a glimpse of some biggest footwear

Tried the pressed penny machines. The penny came out super flat with elongated shape with Space Needle picture embossed on it.

Cool street light.

I heart this place! The smells - intoxicating :-). The price is pretty reasonable, between $1.00 - $2.50 an oz, better than some major chain stores. For tea aficionados, this place also carries a great selection of teas. How it works here: You go around the store, sniffing all the wonderful aroma from the display jars of spices. For each of the jars, there is a written information about the specific spice with suggestions on how to use them. While you do this, make sure you have a pencil and pad to write down your order. Both are provided by the store. You then give the order slip to the person at the counter and he or she will fill your order for you. You can choose to either have the spices freshly grounded by the store or you can ground them on your own. During busy days, this could take a while, so you can either leave the store and come back later to pick up the order or you can just wait, which could take somewhere around 10-20 minutes or even more. We chose to stay and that was pretty taxing on the boys. Oh btw, they only take cash or check.

See what I mean?

Ezzat lost his tooth the other night.

Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri

2010-09-11T17:19:00.013-10:00

Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri to all of my family and friends! This is the second year we celebrated Eid away from home and it's not the same as when we're in Malaysia. In fact it's pretty really low key for us since the boys went to school and Daniel went to work as usual. I spent most of the day cooking dinner. My parents, my brother Najib and my sister Nabila are in Mecca celebrating their Eid ul-fitr there and my brother, Nasfi and my sis-in law, Shahnaz went back to Shahnaz's hometown in Johor and my brother, Najmi is somewhere in KL. So we're pretty scattered all over. Being a close-knit family, this is not normal for us. It's kind of sad in a way to have Eid differently from what we used to have. But changes are sometimes inevitable. My wish is to have our families, from both sides nearby. That would be great because we love to have all of you here or we could visit you guys :-)

Mushroom and onion quiche for breakfast, back to normal breakfast time. During Ramadhan, we have to get up super early in the morning to have our Sahur before fasting time starts at dawn. In summer, it could be as early as 3.30am. But towards the end of the fasting month, it is more forgiving, the last morning of Ramadhan we got up at 4.30am.

Dinner was the highlight of the day. We decided to wear our traditional outfit to put us in a more festive mood. Ezzat lost his front tooth later that night. Poor boy already had a hard time eating during dinner.

Our dinner - beriyani rice, tandoori chicken, cucumber raita, cucumber and onion chutney, dhal curry and fruit salad.

Cheesecake as dessert. I accidentally baked this 30 minutes longer than I should. But it turned pretty good fortunately.

Have a great weekend everyone!

First Day of School

2010-09-06T09:07:00.005-10:00

First day of school was great. The boys love their school and their teachers. We went to the 'Back to School Night' the day before to drop off their school supplies and to meet their teachers and to get them familiarize with the school and that helped a lot. We decided to put them back in their previous grades as they only attended 6 months of school in Hawaii and they still have a lot of catching up to do especially with their English. I think it's better that way since I believe having a strong firm foundation is way more important. And they get to ride the bus to school! I was pretty nervous about it since it's their first time but it turned out to be just fine. The bus stops right in front of our place so the boys do not have to cross the road. And I don't have to rush every school morning :-). To a great school year!

Washington, finally...

2010-09-06T07:53:00.010-10:00

We've been pretty busy. School has started 5 days ago, our household goods have finally arrived , lots of unpacking to do and the house is still in a wreck. We decided to just chill out at home today since it's been raining since morning. I'm loving it actually. And right now, I'm going to do a bit of blogging since I've been lagging with it. Enjoy your Labor Day weekend everyone!

July 11, 2010

Pretty flowers greeted us in the morning at the motel we stayed. We arrived in Tacoma really late at night and everybody was super exhausted by the time we hit the bed. But came morning, we're all up and pumped to get on with our summer adventure.

We've arrived at the base! It' so green here. There are a couple of parks and trails and a little lake nearby to fish. The commissary is so so, it doesn't really carry a lot Asian stuff like the one in Hawaii, and we thought the price of groceries would be cheaper here but not so much.

This was taken from the car so it doesn't really do justice to the place. It's a quaint little town called Poulsbo nearby our place. It's known as 'Little Norway' due to it's Norwegian heritage. We've only stopped here twice, once to get some doughnuts (the maple glazed is great by the way) and the other time was to have lunch. I need to explore this place more. By exploring, for me it means to go to every single place and store to check them out and this is one of the items in my to do list that have not been checked yet. It would be great to have friends to go with but I haven't found any. Judging by experience, DH and the boys are really not up to it, but I could be wrong.

Up in the air!

2010-08-19T11:28:00.000-10:00

July 10, 2010

We're flying to Tacoma, Seattle today. The boys are super pumped about riding the plane and all sorts of adventures waiting ahead. Plus we're gonna meet grammy and poppy! How exciting is that?

Cotton candy!

ZZzzzzz...Can't do much right?

Love the colors

Around the island for the last time

2010-08-18T13:58:00.004-10:00

This is long overdue but I've been busy working on our garden. But that would need a different entry. For now, Hawaii is the main story. Caution! It's going to be a super long entry. Enjoy.

July 9, 2010 - PM

We decided to go around the island for the last time before leaving for Seattle the next day. It' was already pretty late when we left the hotel for the trip so we didn't really cover the whole island as what we've planned.

Riding a trolley - is still a wish

First stop - a lookout somewhere in Diamond Head.

Then to a public beach park in Hawaii Kai. No complaint about the weather that day.

Various views from different angles of the park

Some goofy kids

On the way to the other side of the park

Ohh look, there're some fish over there!

This is one of my favorite trees in Hawaii. The flowers come in several colors and bloom throughout summer.

Simply breathtaking. I'm totally glad we took this one last ride. We even rented a car solely for this trip since our car has already been shipped a few days back. Great ride, awesome view.

On the way to Halona Blowhole

It's a great place to stop to take some shots - it's a few miles away from the famous Hanauma Bay, if we were to come from Waikiki (which we sadly didn't get the chance to go).

Why didn't we ever get fish this big?

You really have to be careful to go down the slope. It can get really windy and the waves are pretty strong.

We can see Sandy Beach from here

You can see from the background how far the place stretches.

What? We're leaving already?

We left Halona Blowhole, but I really hope to go back there again in the future. This is our next stop, Sandy Beach Park. It's a super huge park, a great place for kids to run around freely. It's also a great place to fly a kite. We did that one time with our friends.

The beach in front of the park is popular with surfers.

This is after we've passed the Makapu'U Light House. And at this point, the weather did not seem too great.

Not sure where we were. It was drizzling and getting darker and we kept driving. Sad.

But this is our last stop, the Haleiwa Beach Park.

And that's our last taste of Hawaii.

Ramadan

2010-08-12T20:42:00.004-10:00

Today is the 2nd day of Ramadan, the fasting month for the Muslims. The boys did great yesterday, they didn't budge at all about completing their fast. I did tell them that since they're still young and not fully obligated to fast, after a certain time in the afternoon, they could break their fast if they couldn't keep up but they're pretty strong. I think the weather helps a lot. Despite the fasting duration here is much longer compared to Hawaii and Malaysia, it's cooler and we feel less dehydrated. Having Sahur (meal taken shortly before the break of dawn to start a day of fasting) is extremely important. Delaying the meal as far as possible in order to take it just before dawn is recommended as it is beneficial from both the health and practical points of view.

To me, it's always a special month, apart from the religious obligation (abstaining oneself from eating, drinking and several other things from the breaking of dawn till setting of the sun), it's also a month that makes me want to fine-tune my spiritual life better than other months. Setting aside the technical part of this third "pillar" of Islam, I just feel more relax, probably due to lack of preoccupation with the satisfaction of bodily appetites. Family gathering with my parents and siblings during Iftar meal (breaking fast after sunset) is something that I always look forward to. Being so far away now makes me a little bit sad not being able to join the family. Now as a mother, I try my best to help the boys to kindle that special feeling that I always have, the anticipation that comes with the arrival of the holy month. Not forgetting the Ramadan food bazaar, albeit a little bit irony, is nothing like other markets with rows of stalls selling endless array of food and drinks for breaking of fast. I don't really know about other countries, but in Malaysia, it's like having a nation-wide, month-long, food carnival. And then, at night, there's this special prayer, either done alone or at the mosques, called Terawih. The mosques in towns and villages become lively and filled to the brim with congregations during the prayer and to join them is an experience on its own.

Selamat menjalani ibadah puasa bagi semua umat Islam. Ramadan Mubarak.