52 Months
52 Months! And backdated entries are a good thing. 
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Jogging at a Park
I have no idea why they named this park Taman Pudu when Pudu proper is some leagues in that direction.
The Deepavali morning was cool and sunny, perfect for a run. The park has multi-jogging tracks built allowing one to run along winding paths around trees, hillocks, fountains and exercise machines, which are thankfully still mostly serviceable.
City Hall maintains a small forest on the southern side of the park. When I say forest, I mean a mini-tropical jungle which you wouldn't want to go exploring in without a machete.
Finally, there are eateries easily accessed from both ends of the park. Which means teh tarik time after the exercise.
Aidiladha 2012 In Pasir Mas
This year for Aidiladha, we travelled to Pasir Mas for the holidays. However, instead of driving with our own car, we hitched a ride with Irfan's aunt Cik Emma's.
We left home at 5am. Despite that, it took us 14 hours to reach Pasir Mas via the Gua Musang route. There were horrible traffic jams in nearly every town en route because of the holiday season. There was even one instance where we didn't move out in the middle of nowhere - well, Bukit Tujuh, - for 30 minutes that other drivers left their cars to stretch their legs.
But it's all good because as you can see above, there was ice cream in Gua Musang.
Rafe's 10 Month Birthday
And so Adik is now 10 months old! (And change, if I were honest - thank goodness for backdated entries!).
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51 Months
And so another month has passed. The numbers are rising! And the girl has definitely come a long way in 51 months
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Ferry Rides To Pulau Pinang
So we went to Kulim to visit Irfan's aunt Cik Su who works there.
Because Kulim was very close to Pulau Pinang, we thought we'd take a drive there. We ended up going there twice in two days, and enjoyed a ferry ride to the island each time.
When Sila and I were small we loved our family trips to Pulau Pinang with our parents, some of them were way before there was a bridge across the strait. Although the ferry rides by cars were special events, they were very old, half-forgotten memories. Many times I've wondered if it was really fun as I remembered them. The last time we were there as a family was 1994, if memory serves.
I'm happy to report that they still are.
These cranes are like sentinels.
Once the car is parked, we all got out to enjoy the ride out at the bow.
Rafe's 9 Month Birthday
Another month has passed and now the boy is 9 months old!
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Yaya's First Dentist Visit
So, now that Yaya is a big girl, it is time to ensure that she has good dental health! Yaya had her first dental checkup ever on 25 September! Wheeee!
According to the dental hygienist, George Washington's teeth were set in lead (!!!!). Poor man probably died of lead poisoning. And can you imagine how heavy that must be in one's jaw? Ouch.
50 Months
50 months! 50 months of Yaya! This month's activities included our first work-related trip (to Chicago), seeing Becky and Phil in Elkhart for Labor Day weekend, Yaya's first ever haircut (given by me!) as well as the usual stuff that we do at home.
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A Decade of Irfan
Once upon a time, this baby thought it'd be a good idea to come live with us.
Ten years later to the day - last night, he's celebrating his birthday with his parents and aunt by having dinner at a restaurant.
He's been wanting spaghetti and meatballs for some time now.
We thought we'd put a candle on a slice of cake. The restaurant provided the cake, but no one had a match or a functioning lighter. To tell you the truth, I could do without lighted candles on cake.
Many thanks to Cik Emma for treating us all at Secret Recipe. I had the chicken salad and Ain had the black pepper chicken with corn by the way.
After reaching home, Irfan opened up his presents. He now has a microscope set - along with prepared and empty slides - because SCIENCE! Thanks to Atok and Opah Irfan for a great educational present.
We love you Irfan Shafiq. The decade has been an odyssey and we wouldn't have it any other way.
Battleship
Recently I've been teaching Irfan how we played Battleship back in school, using a grid paper and pencils. And soon after, in addition to yelling "You sanked my battleship!" his cruise missiles being launched and flying it toward my ships were also being dramatised using hands and voice.
Later, he used his duit raya to purchase Battleship: Hidden Threat card game where the traditional game is ported to cards where you randomly array your battleships with your Missed cards in a grid, and you have a hand of different cards that you can play either to reveal your opponents' cards, attack your opponents' ships, repair your damaged ships, implement shields on your ships and even allow you to play more than one card per round.
It doesn't take a lot of time to play, perhaps 30 minutes at the most, but we can easily bring it about with us anywhere and set it up for a quick game when we have the time to play it.
Rafe's 8 Month Birthday
Another whirlwind month filled with stuff to do, places to go, and people to see has passed. And Adik is 8 months old!
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Ascension: Chronicles of the Balik Kampung
So, just before Eid, Ivan came around and gave us another gaming gift. This time it's the deck-building card game Ascension: Chronicles of the Godslayer by Gary Games. We brought it back with us to Sitiawan for some gaming. Extradimensional demonic monsters are passing through interdimensional barriers into the world of Vigil. And it's up to players to build their decks and employ their cards to kick the monsters in the butt, and win by gaining the most Honor points!
Sometimes, my hand is usually full of the guys in the following photo. They only have Rune points which does me no good when confronted with the bad guy-fulled centre array which looks like the last photo in this blog entry. I keep getting dealt into these situations.
Strangely, when my hand is full of Power cards, the centre array is inexplicably filled with Heroes and Constructs.
Irfan and I love the game. There's short-term strategy involved. We get to banish the Avatar of the Fallen, Earth Tyrants, Tormented Souls back into the netherworld where they came from. Also, the stylized artwork by Eric Sabee for the fantasy heroes, gear and creatures are very beautiful to look at.
Many thanks, Ivan.
49 Months
And so, another month has passed. Time does not march on, it flies faster than a speeding bullet. Four years and a month old. The darling of our lives, la reina del punto azul, the director of our plays and part-time adorable tot, part-time berserker dictator.
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Salam Aidilfitri from Sitiawan
This year we spent Eid-ul-Fitr in Sitiawan. Here's a photo of everyone during Eid morning.
Then later that night, we had guests over the internet in the form of the Renstroms.
Yaya and Adik also joined the fun. Adik wanted to crawl through the computer screen to join us, but Yaya held him back.
EID MUBARAK!
Transforming into a Tiger: An Additional Birthday Story
A short addendum on becoming and being a tiger on one's fourth birthday.
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Rafe's 7 Month Birthday
And so the boy is 7 months old (and a bit, but thank god for backdated entries, right?) 
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48 Months (a.k.a. Fourth Birthday)
The big day arrived! Yaya is four years old, officially! Unbelievable!
It feels like Yaya cannot possibly already be four. Didn't we just bring her home from the hospital last month? I guess time flies when you're having fun.
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The one with the be-earlied pre-Ramadhan party
So since July 22nd fell on the 3rd day of Ramadan, we decided to move up her party to the week before, on Sunday July 15th. We invited our friends and neighbors to what has become our annual cookout / birthday party. We did not have any overnight guests this year as Mandy was busy studying for the Bar exams (go Mandy!). We decided to keep everything indoors, other than Vin grilling burgers and hot dogs outside. Also, this is the first year that Vin did not have baseball in the morning - it's a little hard to play baseball with two kids right now!
And so, the party was on! Happy birthday, Yaya!
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