Let It Snow!

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

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!

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

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

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