Amri's Concert Day - Part II

So we went to the concert, Adam included. Now I realised what I should do. I should have invested in a kindy and have concert every month. Those cute little angels were amazing. Even Amri looked kinda cute. I took my hat (or tudung) off to the teachers. It sure was a hard work to train those hyper kids. Amazing how Amri's teacher managed to get him to follow the instruction.

Amri's concert day

Goodness.....Amri was supposed to be at his kindy by 7.15am for his concert. Adooiii....we really are a family of non morning person. Our day started at 9.00am the earliest. Why did the teachers need the kids to be there at this ungodly hour. Kelana Jaya was only 15 minutes away. Even bibik has not cooked any breakfast yet. Not that Amri could stomach anything that early anyway.

Well.....we did manage to send him by 7.10am and the gate was not even opened yet. But a handful of kids and two teachers were already there so we left Amri under their care and proceeded to eat breakfast at mamak's place.

This is Amri inside the car, dressed in his concert costume but only half awake.

Hi Haziq

We managed to reach Kuantan safely amids the very heavy rain all the way. Reached Pantai Balok allright but got a bit lost looking for Adik's house. It all looked the same in the heavy rain. Turned out, Ummi, Gie and his family were there as well. Ummi must have either missed her latest cucu terribly or simply doing her spotcheck on Adik. Amri was happy to see his cousin Ikhwan whom he seemed to occasionally called Irfan. Irfan was Intan's son whom we planned to see in Kemaman but unfortunately has to be cancelled. Amri was forever getting these two fellas mixed up.

Well...finally managed to meet my latest handsome nephew, Haziq Mikhail.
Adam was ecstatic, which prompted others to hint at me. Sorry guys....I definitely had no plan to bake any cute little muffin this year. Or next year. Hint to me again the year after, coz I may have second thought.

Thought that the two boys would love a dip at Pantai Balok, which is practically just behind Adik's place. Unfortunately, it was a time of low tide so the beach looked very ugly and very far away. Luckily none of the boys were too gung ho about going swimming this time.

Out of town

After weeks of mundane work and school, day in day out, finally the boys and I managed to squeeze in a break. This afternoon, we'll be going to visit my newborn nephew at Kuantan. Well.....truth is the nephew is already two months old. Somehow, we did not manage to visit him during the first two months of his life. *sigh* guilty as charged, your honour...

However, this will be a short trip because Amri will be having his annual school concert on Sunday morning. So, we have to be back before that. And speaking of concert.....teacher Rosma said this morning that Amri's costume is not yet ready. Gee.....then when an I supposed to collect the costume?

Sorry to Intan of Kemaman because the boys and i will not be able to drop by at your place. We are already cutting it fine as it is. And hubby reasoned that he and your hubby (Arip) already met a few days ago so they already did their catching up. Duh! Lotsa hugs to Irfan and the girls okay and hope you all enjoyed Irfan's school concert. I promise to drop by during raya trip, Insyaallah and bring as many books as possible to make up for this.

Now...what do you buy as present for a two months old baby? The one I have look more suited to a two days old infant. And to the new mom.....breastpump? Parenting mags?
Hahahaha...spoken like I really have a few hours to shop.

Full house till Sunday

I have a full house again. Cheers!!!! Its been quite sometime since I had guests. Except Kak Cik, Ajoe and Nan of course, but they did not count as house guests. They are....hmmmm...sort of permanent resident. Except that, they did not take up full time residence. Whatever lah...point is, they come and go as they like.

Well.....back to the full house. We have Che' Non, Hisham and Nazri (plus a friend) all the way from Terengganu. Che' Non is Ummi's sister. She lost her only daughter due to a road accident sometime in 2002 and her husband two months later, due to post kidney surgery complication. She was devastated but the whole family rallied up to her, giving strong support. Che' Non is pretty strong herself, putting up brave front for the sake of her other kids, learning to be a breadwinner after being a housewife all her married life. For that, I respected her.

It's good to have Che' Non back to our house again. This time for a merry cause. It's Nazri's convocation day this coming Saturday. Che' Non must have been very proud and a wee bit nostalgic. Afterall, the time we sent Nazri off to UiTM, the late Ayah Ngah was still around, teasing me to no end about my temperamental red Satria. This time, only Che' Non is around to see Nazri receiving his much deserved scroll, though duly escorted by Hisham.

Che' Non has been through a lot. She deserves to be happy now.

Lata Bayu

Just imagine the ice cold water, the lovely big green trees, the sound of waterfall and birds chirping away merrily.....

Warming up. The boys, who were more familiar with swimming pool, were rather overwhelmed by the big river.


Let us go together...




The floaty was abandoned

Ibu....fish!!!!!!!!

Having fun!

Bukit Merah Laketown

I went through the photos in my camera and noticed that I did not have much. Hmmph! It sort of difficult to remember without the photos with my limited memory capacity. And not that easy to retell the holiday as bedtime stories to Amri (and Adam if he can sit still). Amri did not fancy the usual bedtime stories or books. He insist on real life story, with him as the hero. So naturally, photos serve as story book with the story teller reliving the story of trips, cousins, grandparents, aunties and uncles. And sometimes the kindy story, which are fully made up since hubby and I are not quite sure the going ons there.

Wellll....have to make do with what I managed to capture

On the boat ride to visit Orang Utan Island. Managed to wrestle Adam into the life jacket for a few minutes then off it went. Amri meanwhile was fascinated with the safety wistle.

The oldest urang utan at the island. Amri was convinced that this particular orang utan was actually one of his friend

Fish feeding at orang utan island



Back from orang utan island and landed at Ecopark. Lotsa animals to see but Adam was dead tired. So we skip the walk and went to skycycle instead.

Adam feasting on ice cream beside the duck pond

The boys crashed out. Amri loved the sofabed and wanted one in his bedroom.

No pictures at all for our time at waterpark. The cameraman, i.e yours truly were too busy enjoying and splashing herself silly to bother with camera. If fact, I did not even bring the camera to the waterpark. Which i kind of regret a bit now. No photos of our paddleboat trip too...that one was fun!

The waterpark was the first that we hit shortly after we checked in and remained there for the rest of the afternoon. The kids loved the place. I enjoyed it too though the scatterbrain me forgot to bring towels. Don't ask how we managed :)

A mind well rested

I'm back!!!

It was a good trip. We were back at Kedah visiting my parents and grandmother. Felt like being away for years. Mak was recovering well and has resumed most of her usual activities. She is still under 'pantang' though and has to stay away from seafood, chicken and lamb. But it did not stop her from cooking Abah's fav - sambal tumis udang plus petai, almost everyday.

Tok however was a different story. She was getting from bad to worse and lately, became bedridden. It was sad to see the once very active person being confined to her bed and needed help to even get to the bathroom. Knowing her, being immobile was the most difficult thing in the world. She is the kind of person who prepared her coffee from scratch, i.e from picking the coffee beans from their trees to the steaming hot cuppa.
I wished we could do something, like looking for another doctor, specialist or even traditional medicine. But then, like Abah said, every way I could think of, and more, were already tried or at least been considered by Abah and PakCik Tajol. Her age, being 80++ was no help, the risk were high.

We managed to squeeze in a short stay at Bukit Merah Laketown and the kids were really thrilled. Days of chasing after two excited boys really did me good, physically and mentally.

Thanks a million to dear hubby for the trip :)

Independence - another definition

Is being able to be happy when things didn't go exactly as you plan them, the weekend gateaway you so much look forward to do not materialise, the people you were counting on to spend some time together has better things to do, the shop does not have the shoes in the colour you want, the hotel can't hold your booking until midnight and worse still, you can't get a good night sleep.

Do the next best thing in the world.....buy a new book!

When I grow up....

Amri and I always played this game, I would ask him what he wanted to be when he grow up and he would give me answers ranging from a pilot to a lawn mower. It depended on what's 'in' for that day. Some day it could be 'Amri want to be Mr Incredible and fight all the bad guys'. Or some other day 'Amri want to work like Ayah, then buy a car like Ayah and drive myself to school'. Ni kes merajuk dengan Ibu.

A few days ago, I asked him again, expecting a Spiderman or Power Ranger wannabe (after days of staying indoor and watching tv round the clock). Was I wrong. He said instead, he did not want to grow up. So I asked why. Amri said he wanted to stay with Ibu and Ayah. He did not want to move to his own house. He didn't even want his own car. He just wanted to go to kindy in the morning then played all afternoon. And wait for Ibu to drive him around in the evening.

Oh my.... I dunno whether to laugh or to cry

To stay or to flee

As at 11.00 am today, the API for Shah Alam was 412...the highest in the country and I wanna flee right now. Preferably to Kedah or Terengganu. Only that I could not....

Despite the official circular , eMBA6 class is still on. Great! Just great!!!!!!!!! We'll just hang around and breath smoke for a couple more days. And buy more toys for the boys. I think I'll need new toys myself, or books.

Alhamdulillah.... I am healthy

Despite the thick haze, that is. As if Allah is allowing me to compensate my long sick leave last month. The rest of the staff are either on sick leave or have gone somewhere else to escape the haze. One go as far as China....gee :)

Very well, I am manning the office alone, accompanied by a bunch of loyal YM friends. Thanks gals!

Pray to Allah that I'll continue as healthy as can be to see my family and office through the next few hazy days. Also for abundance of ideas to keep two agitated boys indoor.

It's raining

Thank God for the heavy rain. I can now make out the outline of Proton COE from my window. It will need more rain to wash out the thick haze but this is good enough for now. Too much of rain then I'll have to swim home.

I spent days worrying about little Adam, what with his bronchitis problem and runny nose. Amri will be okay, he has grown out of whatever respiratory problems the kids nowadays have. But Adam has to be kept indoor. To keep Adam indoor means that I have to keep Amri indoor as well. So... I finally succumbed to his long standing request of power rangers vcd :) Once this haze episode is over, I'll have to think up of ways to unglue my kids from tv.

Externalzone Cherating Trip

Why Cherating? Been there before and not been able to swim. But it is a pretty place, great seafood and slow pace life. And if it meant meeting good old friends....I'm all for it. So x-zoners, pack up and lets go!

Let me rephrase ...pack up and let's go as soon as you all decided on the date :)

Note for non x-zoners friends : Somebody from my old coursemate at UiTM group badly needed a break but do not feel like going alone for holiday. So here we are, all sympathetic and ready for another holiday in a blink.

Damn hazy, fine day

The day was not even halfway over but I was already RM370 poorer, due to my generous donation to MBSA. Double parked my car illegally beside Bangunan Umno Selangor and by the time the snail pace BCB staff finished processing my paperwork, my car was towed away. Oh dear.... I thought the bad haze would be able to camouflage my dusty old car. It was the same colour by the way.

Called Brian, my partner-in-crime, to give me a ride since hubby was away (again). Only that, being chauffered in flashy S-Class, escorted by Brian who looked more like a rich playboy than a company director, would only guaranteed me one thing....that I'd be denied all form of discount on the fine.

Damn the MBSA! Damn the Bangunan Umno developer, should have built a less creepy underground parking so that I wouldn't shy away from legal parking! The company better reimburse back my fine, otherwise...that was my mega sale carnival-provision-for-new-shoes gone with the wind.

Aiyooooh....this haze was choking me. I looked out of my office window and for a while thought we were engulfed in smoke.

Car for sale

TD2000, Auto, Yr2000, Mileage 7100++
Price RM100,000 ono

*Sigh*...parent teacher meeting again..

It was report card signing day again. But there was a lot of difference today because my knight in shining armour (or shining buckle)aka dear hubby was with me.*grin*

Teacher Rosma showed us Amri's school works, which of course were graded a variation of Cs throughout. Not that I cared too much about it. Amri can stay another half year being illiterate and as silly as he wants to. But come next year, both Amri and I would have to be more academic oriented or else he would not survive in government school.

Then we spent another few minutes listening to teacher Rosma narration of Amri being too talkative and playful for his own good and more often than not ended up doing his work at teacher's table. Fortunately for him, teacher Rosma did not have the heart to reprimand him, due to his innocent (?) look.

Nothing was mentioned about the undone homework. And teacher Rosma assured us that Amri was happy, was not pressured and enjoyed playing with his classmates.
Very well then, maybe I managed to get my point across...that my 4 1/2 year old is too young for homework...after preaching about it every single chance I had. Or maybe it was the intimidating presence of my bodyguard...heheheh

p/s: my apologise to the parents of Amri's classmates whom he may have become, err..'negative influence' :)

Amri, Adam & Cousins

With their all time favourite person - Tok Ki


Adam with Nadia, whom is 2 months older


The kids with one of their many games - shooting the 'boh-boh'


Adam attempting to 'panjat tiang'


My fav niece, Syawani and her bro, Alif


My cutie pie little niece, Nadia, who can still wear her last year baju raya


Adam, the little explorer who wants to try everything, especially with Ibu too sick to argue


Still can't get the hang of it


Jalan jalan cari makan

School donation

This morning at a shop near my house, I came across a neighbour who was busy soliciting donation from the shop owner. Turned out, she was collecting donation on behalf of her daughter. The daughter (and all of her schoolmates) was given a booklet whereby generous hearts would sign and donate any appropriate sum. The purpose was to give the school walls a new coat of paint.

Well...I'm all for a good looking school walls. But I'd like to differ on the method of sourcing for fund. How would the school principal expect a little girl to go around soliciting fund? From whom? Knocking neighbours door? Can't there be a better way to raise the needed 40k fund other than begging from people? What sort of value we're teaching our young ones. To beg? Or subsidy mentality revisited.
What about having a jumble sale or school concert for a change. Put the price of the ticket ridiculously high by all means. Just make sure to state clearly where the proceed will go

I gave my donation to the mother, more so to spare her the trouble of going around asking for donation while she should be in her office doing more productive things. The time will come when Amri would be in school and been instructed to raise money for school project. I think I'll just sign all the column in the donation booklet myself and pretend to donate RM2 each. Ha!

Now I need to have a word with Kak Cik the school teacher

Harry Porter and Half Blood Prince

Oh my........why did Dumbledore has to die :(
Now I will have to wait for book 7 to find out whether Dumbledore really was dead or somehow he managed to conjure up a phoenix trick to get out of the situation.