Malaysia Trip Part 1

After almost 4 years, we finally made it! We FINALLY went back to Malaysia. The bonus part was Daniel's mom was able to go back with us and that made it so much better. 

It was a quick trip. Two weeks was a really short period of time. But we did manage to see most of our relatives, thanks to my parents. They held a family gathering a day after we went back to my hometown, Alor Setar. And that was awesome, just to be able to meet (almost) everybody. Plus having everybody together at one place was really a time saver as we had quite a busy itinerary. 

July 30th 2013

We had a 4 hour layover in Taipei. I was so glad when we landed. I'm not a fan of flying, especially a super long one. It took us 12 hours to get Taipei from Seattle. The boys did really well. Sarah cried quite a bit on the plane and just wanted to nurse all the time. She did however sleep for a few hours.

Morning

Picnic with kids & friends

July 3rd, 2013

My friends and I had been planning to have this picnic for a long time but there was always something going on that we kept postponing it until today. I was glad we made it because it was such a beautiful day out there. 

We decided to go to Scenic Beach State Park in Seabeck. It took us 30 minutes to get there.

 These were some of the views that we saw along the way.

I guess I was busy eating that I didn't even remember to take any pictures of our picnic table so I went to search for old pictures of this place. This one was taken way back in Aug 2010. I still remember it was our first time here and we were fasting in Ramadan. 

 I was eating (again) when I saw this sail boat passing by and quickly grabbed my camera and took a few shots of it.   

It was low tide while we were there. The boys had a great time in the water.

Amazing view of the Olympic mountains.

Sarah loves the water. 

I had to take Sarah out of the water after awhile because she started to shiver a little bit. Her brothers follow suit not long after that. The two ladies in the picture are the only Malay friends that I have in this area. 

Meanwhile Ezzat kept swimming for a long time. The water was just nice but once you get out of it, you could feel pretty cold due to the breeze.

Sarah is easy to warm up to new people. She had a short stranger anxiety moment when she was younger but now she can be pretty friendly.

Finally Ezzat decided that he had enough swimming for the day and Sarah gave him a hug.

My sweet little girl. Thanks Grammy for the swimming suit. Finally she's able to wear it.

Fourth of July and Fireworks

I think this was our first time watching fireworks on first of July. We were planning to watch the one in Poulsbo just because it was only a few minutes away from our house but we found out that the show was already held the night before. We googled our options and luckily there were a few around the area. We decided to go to the one in Kingston.  

The venue was already packed with people when we got there. Luckily there was a small grassy spot that was empty. You can see the boys's heads in the picture. The show started at 10.30pm, way past Sarah's bedtime. She fell asleep in the car on the way and woke up right after we parked the car. She did really well throughout the entire show despite the noise, plus we weren't that close to the fireworks. I should have searched for basic setting to photograph them. Most of the pictures I took were all blurry with no definite shape of the main attraction. The show itself, however, was breathtaking. 

Our Saturday at the park

Although living in Washington means that we have to endure grey weather pretty much 80% for most of the time (I am not even exaggerating here), but whenever the sun decides to come out, it can be really pretty out here. This weekend has been exactly that. Sunny and breezy. 

We spent half of our Saturday at the Silverdale waterfront park. I got them some donuts and milk and they were pretty much happy campers. 

Emir didn't look too good with his mouth full of donuts and it was hard to get Sarah to look at the camera.

She was still holding the same piece of donut that I gave to her earlier. She is not exactly a good eater. But she loves swings now. And don't be fooled by her serious face. For some reason whenever she's on the swing, she always have that serious business like look. 

How much fun will it be to learn how to sail?

Watching her brothers climbing up a tree.

Time to go home

Mmm...no, not quite