Summer Visiting Vacation 2012 - Part 1

It has been almost three weeks since we came back from visiting Daniel's family down south. It was great to finally met and spent time with a few more of his family members. We flew to Dallas from Seattle in an almost 4 hour flight. We were pretty worried about how Sarah was going to react in the flight but she did great the first round. She was quiet and slept for most of the time. On the flight back however, it was totally a different story. Let me just say that there was a lot of shushing involved. We were thinking of going back to Malaysia at the end of this year but after this trip, we think it's best to wait until she's a little bit older, say somewhere next year hopefully.  I'm so glad that my parents are going to visit us in less than a week from today. That at least helps me with the homesickness that I'm feeling, the boys too for sure. It's been too long! 

July 6 2012

    Sarah's first flight!

Sarah: What? Are we supposed to be in the air?

The flight to Dallas took 3 hours and 45 minutes. After getting off the plane and claimed our baggage, we went straight to the car rental place using the free shuttle. The first thing I noticed when we were out of the building was the temperature. It reminded me of home. It was hot, completely different from the weather in Seattle but not so humid as I thought it would be. We already made our reservation a month earlier. Unfortunately when we got there, the van that we booked wasn't ready. Since we were all tired and didn't want to wait, we ended up having a SUV instead, which to me was not the best vehicle to use for a long drive. It hardly has any trunk space. Luckily we only had 2 luggage bags. We also requested for an infant car seat but what we got instead was this outdated toddler seat that took hours to install.  All of us were already feeling edgy at this point and just wanted to move on. I didn't remember how long it took us to get to Durant, Oklahoma but I knew it was more than 3 hours since it took us awhile to get out of the car rental place. When we arrived at Daniel's dad's house, it was already late in the evening. Daniel's dad and his wife, Gayla whom we got to meet for the first time, greeted us. All of us hanged out for a little bit, chatting and eating,  before called it a day. 
  
July 7 2012

We went to this really  pretty ranch in Caddo with Daniel's mom and her friend and colleague Uncle John, and spent a night there. This is a family owned ranch and it's huge, about 2500 acres! We had a blast and  are so grateful for the experience. 

 Caddo's old little town

This was what the boys love to do the most at the ranch, riding and driving ATVs

Grammy and Sarah stayed behind and enjoyed each others' company

Uncle John and Farhan, stopping at one of the lakes around the ranch

Our ride around the ranch

The boys couldn't decide what this is, a cricket or a baby grasshopper? 

Wild flowers

At one point, in an attempt to drive on a steep slope ,our 4 seater ATV got stuck in soft soils and had to be pushed. It was pretty nerve-wrecking.

One of the few stops that we made around the ranch. So pretty!

We spent a few minutes here, enjoying the great view. The boys got to meet Pushy, the 'not so stray' cat and Uncle John gave it some cat food and the boys played with it for a little bit before we headed back for dinner.

 The ranch during dusk

We had a campfire after dinner

A funny picture of Sarah looking as if she's a conductor in this picture

And she thinks leaves are funny. She really laughed when Emir shook this tree branch.

This was the boys' first campfire and they really had fun with it.

Their sister felt the same way!

Until she started to feel sleepy...

Sarah at 6 months

Hi! Can you see me?

I'm here!

Please excuse my messy bed. I just woke up. But I want to tell you that I'm almost a big girl now! I'm 6 months and 1 week today :-)! 

 Mama LOVES to dress me up. I guess that's one of the reasons she always wanted to have a girl. I don't mind at all :-)! This is a new dress from my Aunt Dottie. My cute head band is from GB. Thank you so much!

Meet my new friend, Betty Beaver. She used to be my daddy's friend but she's my friend now.

Hmmm what else?

Ohh I know!

How about some milk?

It's almost summer!

The boys will be having their summer break in 2 weeks time. Can't wait to find out what exciting adventures await us this summer. Plus Ramadan is just around the corner and my parents are coming in August to celebrate Eid-ul Fitr with us. Fun! How is it going to be for you guys? 

Oh Hi!

***This was actually a post from a few weeks ago. I didn't get to finish it until today. A lot has been going on lately, keeping me pretty busy and I haven't posted in awhile. My sister was pestering me to update the blog so here I am! Sometimes I just need someone to give me a good hard push to do something that I know I need to do. So do feel free to drop by to remind me :-). 

May 12 2012

Sarah is 14 weeks old now. She has been sleeping through the night since a couple weeks ago! She sucks her right thumb to sooth herself to sleep most of the time. And she's pretty consistent about her daily schedule. I think she's about to flip over soon since she's been rolling from her back to her side. Tonight I tried to play "peek-a-boo" with her. It startled her a little bit at first, her eyes were so wide opened and she paused for a few seconds that I thought she was going to cry. But then she started to laugh that I kept doing it for a few more times. FUN!

We have a stretch of pleasant, dry weather this week with mostly sunny skies in the low 70s. It sure is nice to be able to enjoy some spring weather as opposed to jumping straight into summer-like weather. Daniel had to work today so I took the kids out to this tiny town called Port Gamble, which is around 20 minutes drive from our house. It's a touristy kind of place which used to be a bustling logging town back in the 1850s. It has these well preserved original New England Victorian style houses which I love. 

These are views of the backyard of some of the buildings here, which is a huge field with a playground at the side of it. Some of these buildings which used to be houses have been turned into shops and a restaurant. 

I was actually craving for some scones (which I can just buy instead of making them myself as I normally do) and there is a little tea room place here that serves delicious scones and some other stuff that are pretty good too. But once we arrived there the boys wanted to play some soccer in that big field instead of heading straight to the tea room so Sarah and I hanged out on the side of the field near this wooden playground area. The boys made some new friends and they played kick ball for a little while before I got hungry and decided that it was time to indulge myself with some sweet stuff. 

The first time we were here was when Grammy visited us last December. I didn't post any pictures from that time since I lost all the pictures when the hard drive crashed. Since this is actually a house converted into a business place, it doesn't have much space. I'm so glad that we were seated in this room instead of the main room (which was full btw). There was nobody else in this room so it was perfect, especially when it involved a baby with three sweat smelling boys.

There are only two types of scones serve there, cranberry pecan and lemon. I ordered two of each. Unfortunately the scones were pretty dry that day. The tea was great though. Ezzat and I drank almost the whole pot. 

While waiting for me to feed Sarah, the boys went back to the field to play for a little bit more. 

The kids wanted to go to the beach and since we are living in Puget Sound, there's never a shortage of finding one within a short distance. We went to Shine Tidelands State Park which is just a few minutes away from the tea house.

Hood Canal Floating Bridge

Digging for some clams