Thursday, July 22, 2010

Another good bye...

July 9, 2010 - AM

We met another good friend of mine, Reena and her daughter, Zaharah to say good bye to each other.

Zaharah playing on her own


 Zaharah and mommy

Awwwww, loving moment :-)

The boys with their gadgets

Hope this is not going to be the last...

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

The Favorite Store

July 7, 2010

The boys were cooped up in the hotel room for a pretty long time so we took them to their favorite store to make it up for them. The store is at Ala Moana Mall, just right next to the hotel.

The Lego Store!

I lllluuvvv the bright colors

One of the new releases

Look: Yes
Touch: Yes
Buy: No

Yes, you can take pictures in the Lego store, phew...I thought the guy would ask me to stop.
             

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Syikin's wedding

My cousin Syikin got married 2 weeks ago. A very simple ceremony, started with the 'akad nikah' (wedding solemnization) at the mosque a few days before the wedding feast.

The groom is the one sitting with off white/cream shirt. And I forgot to take Syikin's picture but don't worry you'll get to see her in the next entry =).

This is the 'sirih junjung', a must gift from the groom. It's comprises of betel nut leaves and accompaniments such as various kind of nice smelling flowers - jasmines & roses etc, star anise, cinnamon sticks just to name a few. I should have labeled my previous entry on this one coz I did write a pretty detail description about it.

Female guests at the other side.

My latest nephew! This one looks like a Japanese isn't it? So cute!

Emir seems a bit lost?

The electricity was out throughout the entire ceremony, but luckily mom brought her fan although she did look slightly irritated when I took this picture. But hey, look at that baby! He sure know how to pose =)


Mr Farhan is always ready for a pose.

Poor Ezzat sweating profusely.

Monday, June 22, 2009

Thank you Grammy!

Terima kasih Grammy for sending us these cool cowboy hats! We got them last Friday =).

Not sure what they're talking about in this picture but Ezzat is pretending he is riding a horse with that box, and his brothers wants to do the same thing.

This boy is the only one who can sit still for a few seconds, enough for me to take this picture.

Also the very same day earlier , we went to Penang to pick up the medical report for my visa interview next week (We already went there the week before for the check up and thank god I only got 2 jabs and the kids none =)). And since we got there pretty early, we decided to go to the beach first. My sister, Nabila and Dad also followed us coz dad wanted to pick up his guitar at the port and Nab still has a few days left before she has to go back to her college.

This is a one happy boy.

This is also another happy boy.

Something is bothering these two. Notice Ezzat's face.

The wave was pretty strong that day.

Cute not so little foot prints.

I think we all had a great time on the beach that day even though we only spent like only an hour there.

Here's something I'm working on right now. Nab thinks the thread color is too pale. Do you think the same?

Thursday, April 16, 2009

The Orchard

The renovation at dad's house at the orchard is completed now and he bought some second hand furnitures to fill it up. It's a simple, no frill sort of house which dad bought from someone and he transferred it all the way from Alor Setar to the orchard by a huge truck probably. I don't exactly like the color scheme but at the end it looks cosy enough for us to hang out whenever we feel like it especially during fruit season which is coming really soon. So looking forward to hand pick mangosteens!

The front view of the house.

The pathway leading to the house. Those trees you see are a mix of fruit trees like Cempedak and Dokong.

Views from various angles from the front porch.

Dad staring at the river from the verandah.

This is the kitchen. I took this picture when we had a small sort of house warming gathering/feast last 2 weeks. Not sure what to call it in English. What we did was to call some relatives, my parents's friends and some nearby villagers and we have a special Quran (Yassin) recitation that evening to show gratitude and ask for blessing and then some simple feast after that. By the way, it's also held because dad and mom were going to Mecca a few days after that to perform minor Haj.

I love these old plates that dad collected.

And this old painting too! See the frame with chipped paint? Dad just want to leave it as it is coz he said it makes it look more authentic.

Some of my aunts who came earlier than the rest of the guests, sitting at the verandah. It's nice and breezy that day since it rained earlier. And we had a really heavy downpour later that night but the guests still came =).

The boys as always love to goof around and that night, they really had their time jumping on the bed and running around the house.

A more subdued Farhan later on. And the guests at the back were having their meal. In villages, most of the time, we just sit on the floor to eat. This is actually an old picture from last year during fruit season. I totally forgotten about it until I browsed my picture folders recently and boy I have so many pictures that I have not put up in here. Anyway, since these pictures are all related to the orchard, I might as well put them up now. So these 4 pictures above, I took them when I got lost on my way to dad's orchard. I got confused between the 2 exits at the highway and I ended being at the end of this one road which lead me to this waterfall. So I took a quick tour to see what it's like.

Always take a mosquito repellent with you. Mosquitoes are just so mean.

Abandoned huts ; 2 extra tanned boys.

A bird eye chili tree.

I love the smell of lime leaves.
Dokong trees and fruits, which is a variety of another fruit called Langsat. I'm always confused between these 2. Anyway, they're abundant! Last year we simply gave away bags and bags of this fruit to simply everybody. The fruit itself is sweet, just be careful not to bite the seed from the bigger pips coz that part is pretty bitter.

How it looks like without the skin.

Here's some rambutan.


These are cempedaks.

I love when they're made into fritters. The seeds are edible too.

And here's one of my favorite fruits!

Mangosteen anyone?

Random

Tired!

A dragon fruit farm nearby. I love the one with red flesh instead of the white as the white flesh fruits just taste pretty bland to me. The red ones are so much sweeter. Anyone has ever tried it before? They also has a restaurant inside there and once mom bought this deep fried garoupa with dragon fruit sauce and it's really nice!

A random picture of Ezzat at the orchard on one of his visits.


And a video of him helping to sweep the floor. When he's in his good mood, he is one really helpful boy.