Panaga Crocs

This past weekend Evan's rugby team had a game across the border in Miri. Rugby usually consists of practice and playing a game with his team mates. So the chance to play a game with another team was great fun. I still am unsure about the rules, but it was fun to watch. What a difference from watching our boys games in the hockey arena! After the game we headed to the boat club for a team lunch. Good food and good fun was had by all!

Ripstick Racing

Today was a holiday in Brunei. The holiday was National Brunei Day. We woke up with torrential rain coming down. Not the best weather for a day off. But within about an hour, the rain stopped and the sun was again shining. Some of our plans for the day was to attend the first ever ripstick competition. Evan was eager to sign up for it, but when we pulled up and he saw his competiton he wanted to climb back in the car. I told him. "You are at least as good as the other kids, and I even think you might even win!" The event was put on by the Dutch community here in Brunei. I think there were about 30 kids who were competing, but mostly it was all about having fun. In the end my prediction was right. Evan brought home the gold trophy! He was so excited and had a great time!

Kuala Lumpur...Day Four & Five

Day four, all four of us were together at least for a short time. Saturday was the day I had all to myself to spend some money shopping. Rob took the boys to the KL tower and then they swam at the hotel. I headed to the Pavillion Mall. I shopped until I dropped! It was so fun to get some retail therapy as the shopping in Brunei is almost non-existant. At around 6pm I met up with Rob and the boys. After giving my feet a quick reprieve we took a taxi to Chinatown. Next to Chinatown is another area called Little India. There was a great market that we strolled around. Rob and the boys went for foot rubs, which was what I should have done. Instead, I felt the need to punish my sore feet a little longer and do some more shopping.

After Little India, we crossed back over into Chinatown. Chinatown is an area that has stall after stall of knockoff purses, clothes, shoes, and whatever you can think of. Evan bought a watch and Kieran got a wallet, belt, and sunglasses. Around 9pm we headed back to the Petrona Towers to see it lit up at night and then grab a quick dinner before falling into our beds!

Day Five was the day we were flying back home. Our flight didn't leave until 4pm so we were able to fit in some final sightseeing. As I said earlier we had tickets to ascend the Petrona towers. I have a huge fear of heights, but this was one place that I didn't want to miss. I had purchased tickets for all of us to go to the top of the towers. My thought initially was to go to the skybridge and let the boys go with Rob to the top. To my horror, this was not possible. I had to go all the way to the 86th floor as part of the tour. I had an initial panic moment and wanted to bolt, but I did manage the ascend! And I'm glad I did! The view although hazy was magnificent. Our first stop was the skybrige on floor 46 that links the two towers together. After about 15 minutes we took another elevator to the 86th floor. Scary to say the least knowing we are at the peak of this giant building. At the ground floor there is a machine that mimicks the sway of the building. I'm not sure if it was my nerves, but I swear I felt the sway and wanted immediately to return to the safety of ground floor. We stayed on the observation deck for about a half an hour and took in the sights. This is one of those moments I will never forget, but how relieved I felt when the elevator arrived safely on the bottom floor!

Kuala Lumpur...Day Three

Day three was the day we headed to Sunway Lagoon. Sunway Lagoon is another theme park. Within the park they have 5 different themes, an Extreme Park, a Scream Park, an Amusement park, a Wildlife park, and where we started our day at the waterpark. We spent the first couple of hours at the waterpark. Unfortunately, the surf beach was closed so the boys weren't able to try out their surfing skills. One of the rides was so fun as you rode a crazy carpet down a super long slide. While we were there a huge rainstorm started. But being at a waterpark it didn't make any difference. After lunch we dried off and headed to the amusement park. We spent about 7 hours in this theme park and were totally exhausted or at least I was. We ate at an Italian restaurant just beside our hotel. The food was delicious and not a scrap was left on any plate! Rob arrived at around 11pm that night. So he was able to join in the fun for the rest of the trip!

Kuala Lumpur...Day Two

Day two of our trip started with a trip to the Kuala Lumpur bird park. The bird park is the largest walk in aviary in the world. You literally walked around the park with birds flying around and even on you. There is 300 different species that live within the park. The highlight of the park was feeding the lories. Several of the birds would land in you hand or hair for that matter if you had any food for them. It was a little unnerving at first, but believe it or not, not one of us left with any white wash in our eye!! We watched a bird show and Evan was a volunteer as you can see in the above picture. The boys who at first didn't want to visit the bird park, in the end thought it was better than Disneyland (That is a bit of a stretch I must say)

Next we headed to Times Square. Times Square is another massive mall. This mall had 11 floors and an amusement park in it. We spent a couple of hours on the rides, with the bumper cars being the boys favorite. We wandered around a few of the stores, but to be honest 11 floors of shopping is a little overwhelming. We had Subway for dinner. This was the first time we have found a Subway restaurant and the familiarity was great. In KL one of the trends is the fish spa pedicures. So this was one of the things we were aiming to try. So as you can see in the above pictures you literally sit with your feet in the fish tanks and the fish nibble away at the dead skin on your feet. At first the sensation was so strange I didn't think we'd be able to keep our feet in for the entire half an hour. It was so tickleish! But after you got over the thought of fish suctioned on to you it was actually not bad. We managed to keep our feet in for the entire time and they really were quite soft when we were done!

Kuala Lumpur ... Day One

After a two hour flight from our home in Brunei, the boys and I arrived in the city of Kuala Lumpur. We took a taxi to our hotel, settled in and then headed to the roof top to check out the pool. The boys were quite impressed with the rooftop infinity pool that was nestled in the heart of the city. Next we walked over to the infamous Petrona towers. What an amazing sight to take in. Only 1640 people are allowed to view the skybridge on the twin towers per day. We were able to get tickets not only to the skybridge but to the top observation deck for Sunday. More on that to come. At the base of the towers is a huge mall that has all the high end names that you can imagine. Once you exit outside is a massive park with fountains, waterparks, running tracks and much more. We wandered around the park and people watched. We grabbed a quick dinner and then headed back to the pool for a swim. The boys had a great time swimming with all the city lights surrounding them. Off to bed for our full day tomorrow!

Today...

I apologize for my lack of inspiration with my blog posts titles, but what more can I call what happens in a day in our life. This week the boys are off school. It is half term I think they call it. Later this week the boys and I are flying to Kuala Lumpur for a few days. More on that to come. So this morning after a lazy start, Kieran and I tackled an assignment for school. He worked quite hard on it, so we took a break and headed to the pool for a quick dip. It was a really hot day here, and unfortunately I forgot the sunscreen. So we stayed for only an hour or so and stayed in the shaded part of the pool. Once we got home we decided to make some Valentine's cards for Rob. The boys were really creative and made the cards with love. Tonight I think it will be a movie night in our house. A quiet and relaxing night is just what I feel like! Tomorrow I am heading to my scrapbooking class to finish up the wedding placecard's for my sister's wedding. The rest of the week is filled with fun, fun, fun! I'll fill you in later...

:: Sunny Days ::

Today was a busy day, but a good kind of busy. After dropping Evan off at school I headed to the beach for my yoga class. It was another lovely yoga class with the wind blowing just enough to keep you cool. It has been a couple of weeks since I've been to yoga, so I'm sure tomorrow I will be a tad sore. After yoga I went straight to the Arts & Crafts room for the scrapbooking class. I have been working on making the place cards for my sister's wedding. After scrapbooking I picked up Kieran and headed home for a quick bite of lunch, only to turn around and head back to the club for an afternoon of sewing. Evan walked over to meet me once he was done school. He played on the skatepark until I finished sewing. Rob dropped Kieran off at the club and we headed to the beach so the boys could try out their new boogie boards.

After an hour or so on the beach we finished the day with a swim and dinner by the pool. Today was filled with all the things I love. Above are some photos of my favorites!!

Jungle Life

Today as I picked Kieran up from his class we spotted a few monkeys. Since we live near town, we don't see monkeys as often as we'd like. They are really neat to watch. We pulled the car up right by them and slowly cracked the window to take some photos. These monkeys are obviously not afraid of us humans. They put up with us watching them for a good 15 minutes. Apparently, or so we were told that between 4 and 5pm this area is full of monkeys. Sometimes around 50 or so. Just thought I'd share some pictures since my blog has been photoless for the last little while :)

Shopping South of the Border

Yesterday we didn't have too much planned. The boys have swimming lessons on Saturday and Evan takes a Math class. So I thought a lazy morning was at hand. Rob suggested I head over to Miri to do a bit of shopping and he would run the boys to their activities. Well, I didn't need to be asked twice. So with my passport in hand I dashed out the door and headed to the border. Brunei has very limited shopping, but in Malaysia there is a bit more to see. I headed first to a Handicraft Market. I am on the hunt for a few things for my sister's upcoming wedding and thought I'd try my luck there. But what I was looking for wasn't there. So next I went to the mall. I wandered in and out of the shops not really needing anything, but enjoying looking. I did come home with a few things, some new flip flops, boogie boards for the boys, and a new pair of swimming goggles. After I had lunch in the mall I left the mall in search for a book store that I had heard lots about. I did manage to find it and spent a little over an hour browsing in the bookstore. I had a lovely day! The only downfall was the hour long wait to cross the border back into Brunei!

Chinese New Year

This past Wednesday was Chinese New Year. The fireworks had been going off from time to time for a couple of previous nights. Rob bought a few fireworks to set off for the boys. The first couple of fireworks went off without any hitches, so we decided to light "The Tazmanian Devil" I should have known by the name that trouble was brewing. The Tazmanian Devil firework contains about 7 blasts of the big ball in the sky fireworks. The first blast fired with such force that it knocked the firework over. As you can guess the remaining 6 blasts fired out of control. It hit the car, the house, the neighbours house, and it took a couple of shots at us. Luckily contact wasn't made. What was left was a car with the alarm screaming as well as Evan in tears. After our firework display we headed up the road to see the display at a local Chinese shrine. We didn't stay till midnight to see the fireworks. But shortly before midnight our neighbourhood sounded like a war was amongst us. Almost all the houses in KB were letting off fireworks at some point in that hour. It was great to see and hear, but not much sleep happened that night!

:: Today ::

Today was a busy day. We are in the process of selecting a school for Kieran next year. So today Kieran had to take an entrance exam to see where he fits academically. Like I told him we all have strengths and weaknesses and this test will make sure he is placed where he should be. But my boy did quite well, and I was a proud momma!

Next, we headed to the local hospital. Kieran has had terrible neck pain for over a year now, so we are getting some tests done to find out the problem. Now this hospital is no ordinary hospital. It is a private hospital and looks more like a five star hotel complete with fitness gym and pool. Also a major difference is the time you have to wait for tests is non-existent. We saw the doctor, had an xray, and had a MRI booked for the following day! Tomorrow will be busy as well. I've joined a ladies book club that meets tomorrow. Followed by another trip to Bandar, and then my weekly swimming lessons. Tomorrow is also Chinese New Year here, so I'm looking forward to the fireworks show we are sure to see!