Allie's 24 Month (aka Second) Birthday
It happened! Allie's big day arrived - she turned 2 (years!!) on July 22nd! We were home from Maryland by then. Here she is, the birthday girl!
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The one with the surprise birthday cake
We had a crazy busy month of July! I know it is way into August now, and I haven't even done any entries on Allie's big day. That's because we have been running around like crazy people! First we had an active 4th of July weekend in La Porte (Vin's hometown) and then to Becky's at Elkhart. And then off to New Jersey for work for a week. Then back home, and Vin's sister Jo came to visit!
Yaya got to meet her Auntie Jo for the first time! It was the funnest time! So we hung out at home for a few days before driving everyone out to the Baltimore area for a family gathering. Unbeknownst to us, Vin's Aunt Joan and his cousins had organized a surprise early birthday party for Allie. So on Sunday July 18th, we went to cousin Kathy's place for a cookout and had an awesome time hanging out. Plus, there was cake and presents for Allie!
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Avian Visitor at Night
And so it came to pass that as I was relaxing in the living room as the last glow of the setting sun disappeared, a bird flew into the house. At first it just rested on the carpet looking forlornly at me, perhaps wondering into what parallel universe it had travelled to. I called Irfan to approach slowly, but as I edged for a closer look, it flew.
Visit to Putrajaya
A few weeks ago before the school break ended, Irfan followed his tuition centre group on a visit to Putrajaya where they visited the botanical gardens, among other places. This was the first time he went on a trip with the group. Although he came back tired, he said he had fun.
Irfan recently obtained the photos they took during the excursion.
Rainy Day at the Mines
The day after the bird park visit, there was another thing that Irfan wanted to do with his grandparents - which was to bowl. Actually the previous day we did attempt to travel to the bowling alley at Midvalley but the arcology was jam-packed with cars, so we instead went birdwatching.
However, on this day we decided to see if the bowling alley at the mall known as the Mines Shopping Fair was good for a game. It was, so there we bowled.
Allie's 23 Month Birthday
And Allie is now another month older. She was 23 months old last Tuesday, and now is not even a month away from her second birthday! How crazy is that? It feels just like yesterday when Allie was born and now, look at her:
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Happy Father's Day! (Backdated)
This is a backdated entry in honor of Father's Day. I managed to pick out some gifts for Vin (seen below) and Allie and Lily got together and sent Vin an e-card. In keeping with last year's theme, Allie models Vin's presents:
Vin got to play in his Father's Day baseball game, but Allie, Lily and I stayed home since Allie had slept in.
An Exploration of the Aviary
Atok and Opah came a-visiting for the school holidays, and one of the places Irfan wanted to go with them was the Kuala Lumpur Bird Park. It was quite huge and housed many species of birds, most of which are free to fly about under the park's netting enclosure. Sure, there were a number of cages which housed lots of the wilder birds, but the amount of birds walking, flying, perching and eating among the visitors were just astounding.
Because it rained earlier in the morning, Irfan wore his Atok's hat just in case it rained again. The hat stood by constantly in Atok's car for emergency usage.
Irfan later became a perch for a couple of colourful birds. He was happy the birds didn't poop on him.
Subang Airport Pickup
After 10 days back in Pasir Mas, Irfan's Cik Ma returned to KL by way of the old Subang Airport, which is now the new "Subang Skypark". It seemed to have transformed from a musty warehouse airport into a 21st century shopping mall airport. Doors opened automatically for us and stuff! There were two banks in the building accessible from the inside! (Not that we had any cash in them.) One of those new-fangled Starbucks coffee shop too, which probably has coffee!
Irfan posed before the Skypark's big screen computer display of the inbound and outbound flights. His Cik Ma's flight is on there, speeding closer to the airport.
Allie's 22 Month Birthday
So Allie turned 22 months old on the 22nd (yesterday)! Since it fell on a Saturday and I didn't have to work, Vin and I had a fun day planned out for the girl. And I apologize way in advance for the sheer number of pictures in this entry.
(Allie wanted to try her old entertainment center again - she was much too tall for it but she had fun pretending to be half her age!)
Five Years Already?
Exactly five years ago Vin and Sila got married.
Happy fifth anniversary, you guys! May you guys be blessed with another hundred thousand centuries of happiness, and then some.
Irfan's Player Character Saves The Day
Irfan played his first complete Star Wars Role-Playing Game adventure today, as everyone's favourite intrepid astromech droid Artoo-Detoo. He was awesome at figuring out solutions to simple problems that were presented in the scenario that I cooked up. He even role-played Artoo well by having in-character conversations in regular robotic beeps.
We played on the living room carpet and I used the gamemaster (GM) screen for the first time ever, with the D6 rules and stats inserts I made. My coterie of white D6 were arrayed on the floor, while the singe red D6 served as a Wild Die.
The scenario was designed to be short and with minimal story twists.
Shortly after the Battle of Hypori that, Artoo-Detoo, the lone player character (PC), was sent by Clone Commander Cody for a mission. Orbiting the planet, say for story's sake, Eiattu 6, Artoo's task was to be flown from the Venator-class Star Destroyer Resolute to the surface of Eiattu.
There, Artoo will need to sneak into a Separatist safehouse containing a redundant tactical computer databank and hack into it to determine the position of Count Dooku and his fleet.
Artoo was supposed to be flown within a short distance of the safehouse in the hills, but the LAAT gunship he was in was shot by a ground-based missile. Before the gunship smashed into the landscape, I thought Irfan was going to get Artoo to attempt a controlled landing, but instead he did something I didn't count on. He jumped.
However, he failed his rocket operations roll and slammed down hard into a sand dune. Thankfully his Strength roll's Wild Die came up 6 twice! So Artoo shrugged off the damage which I attributed to sand absorbing the impact.
Using his sensors, he tried to get a fix on the location of the hill and the safehouse. But this time his Wild Die turned up a 1. I ruled that he knows the direction of the safehouse - which is south - but he doesn't know how far it is. And it's all desert as far as he can see.
Allie's 21 Month Birthday
Yet another month has passed. Allie turned 21 months old on Earth Day (April 22nd). She had an action-packed day, and we all enjoyed it.
Irfan Takes To The Alleys
The bowling alley, to be precise. Thanks to Irfan's Cik Emma, we all went for a round of bowling last Sunday. Irfan was at first hesitant to pick up a bowling ball, but soon found himself having fun throwing the ball at the pins. The pins, I hoped, had fun being knocked down by us.
Allie's 20 Month Birthday
It happened! On March 22nd (last Monday) Allie became a 20-month-old! We have no idea where the time went and suddenly she's such a lively and independent little thing! She had a terrific day, even though Mama had to work. Papa manned the camera and took a ton of pictures. Here she is, smiling with her mouth full of blueberry & oatmeal breakfast:
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Satay Kajang with Jen and Mike
After 10 years of being friends with Sila - and working with her even now - Jen Laaback visits Malaysia for the first time after vacationing for almost two weeks on a boat up in Thailand. Upon arriving at Kuala Lumpur, Jen, Mike and the rest of the company were accosted by Hisham and family who shanghaied them into having dinner at Samuri's Satay Kajang which was located in Kajang, away from the throngs of other vacationeers and tourists, foreign and domestic.
Irfan Meets a Cat
It's not a stray because it seems to be well-fed, not unkempt and has a collar. It's prowling the corridors outside the tenth floor. Naturally, Irfan tries his best to have fun with it, throwing ball and running around the corridors. It sometimes succeeds in bypassing the blockade and zips into the house, causing Irfan to gleefully try to corner it and chase it outside.
At the end of the day, Ain lets Irfan feed it some milk which it lapped up quickly.
If no one claims it, i.e., it doesn't belong to anyone on the tenth floor, then I should stick a notice downstairs.
Wrath Of Diabolical Water Elementals!
While picking up Irfan from school in the very late afternoon, we were hit by a great, big thunderstorm the size of a big thunderstorm. There was a point where there was no delay between lightning and thunder. Driving to school, the windshield, which thankfully did its job keeping the wind out failed to ensure the rain slid off fast enough so we can see through it. Even the wipers were useless.
On the way back, we had to cross Pandan Indah central to get from the school on the south side to our house on the north side.
We discovered that we couldn't because of flash floods. All the primary, secondary and the secret routes had a foot or so of water.So, we drove went to a mamak restaurant for some roti canai and warm drinks.
Below, we can see some water on this side of the main road into Pandan Indah. This side is jammed up. The other side of the road is flooded - with some cars already immobilized in the water.
Irfan Attends Cik Ja's Engagement
It was Irfan's aunt (or "first cousin once removed" to the rest of the English-speaking world) Cik Ja's engagement ceremony in Ipoh last Saturday. We were in attendance for the mirth which usually accompanies such events. However, I had to pull away from the fun, elbow my way through the crowd to take a picture of Cik Ja and her fiancee Roni.
I also stuck around to take a picture of Cik Ja and her retinue of aunts from our side of the family, including Irfan's Opah.
Allie's 19 Month Birthday
Yet another month has gone by! Allie was 19 months old last Monday, February 22nd. It's quite amazing how quickly time flies!
