The 1st weekend of June 2010 presented us with an opportunity to go for a short 1-night holiday. Braedyn and Shayanne both wanted to go to the beach so it was a toss between Port Dickson or Kuantan. After checking out the room rates at both places, we decided to go to a beach close to Kuantan that we’ve not visited before – Balok Beach where the Swiss-Garden Resort & Spa Kuantan is located.

We left late morning and arrived late afternoon after a lazy drive up the East Coast Expressway. The plan was just to enjoy the beach and the pool without venturing too far away from the hotel (we’ve covered the local tourist spots during our last visit to Kuantan).

The kids enjoyed themselves thoroughly and we’re happy to see that Braedyn is no longer afraid of the waves.

Aerynn a bit hesitant initially but warmed up to the sand very quickly

Shayanne has always liked beaches and she had a great time

Daddykhong not wanting to have Aerynn turn out like Braedyn – taking her out to sea for a good soak

Braedyn finally getting his feet wet after so many failed attempts in the past

More water time in the swimming pool for Aerynn. She’s the water baby in the family.

Practising their leg kicking

Aerynn commencing her climb out of the baby pool

Aerynn climbing out of the baby pool. She never gives up!

We ended up having buffet seafood dinner in the hotel before retiring early.

The next morning, after buffet breakfast (which, surprisingly, was very good for hotel standards – their freshly-baked croissants are to-die-for), we hit the beach and swimming pool again before checking out.

For a change, daddykhong decided to take the trunk road from Kuantan all the way down to Karak, stopping at Temerloh and Mentakab for snacks. We passed the Kuala Gandah Elephant Sanctuary as well and that will be our next destination

Shayanne jie-jie loves doing this to her little sister….

The 2 older kids wanted to ka-ka-cau-cau, therefore I asked them to pose monkey faces for me!

We visited Genting Highlands (again!) but this time, we decided to bunk at Awana Genting since neither daddykhong nor myself have visited Awana Genting.

We booked one of their refurbished rooms in their tower block but no amount of refurbishing was going to save a tired-looking room with stains and cigarette burns on the carpet, main door with the main lock bolt replaced with a flimsy temporary bolt, NO towels in the room, and a host of other small issues. We might as well have booked a room at the Chin Swee Temple instead

Genting Theme Park – 10 April 2010

As always, kids love Genting for its theme park even though daddykhong could walk around the theme park blindfolded, having been there too many times. Fortunately for him, he came armed with his latest toy which kept him entertained as he provided live updates on our visit.

Braedyn and Shayanne with their big smiles and beanies

Myself with my 4 babies

It’s much easier (compared to our last trip) when kids are grown up because they can walk on their own and they choose the rides they want to go on. They are even brave enough to go on some rides on their own.

On the Astro Fighter

Lots of fun on the Rodeo Rider

Both Braedyn and Shayanne still need some work on their bumper car skills. They were both either driving around in circles or stuck in the corner of the bumper car floor area. We are happy to see that Braedyn has some basic sense of steering on the other rides as he turns his steering wheel in the same direction that the ride is headed (he thinks he’s actually doing the steering!). Shayanne is still cluelessly steering in any direction she fancies.

More photos HERE.

Chin Swee Temple – 11 April 2010

Since we were staying at a never-stayed-before hotel, we decided to visit a long-time-never-seen place – the Chin Swee Temple complex.

Naturally, since this is Genting we are talking about, the temple has grown a lot and even comes with a hotel of questionable standard – Chin Swee Temple rooms (lower standard than First World Hotel apparently but I cannot see how anything can be of lower standard than First World Hotel!)  with its own vegetarian (can’t be feeding the deities meat, can we?) restaurant.

The temple was lovely with lots of things to see.

The ever-peaceful Lord Buddha

A pagoda

There is also a gory display of 10 Courts or something (sorry, memory fails me nowadays) which is “guaranteed to ensure that your offspring will be good souls on this planet” (or something to that effect as stated on the main entrance signboard).

 They forgot to request for the Censorship Board to slap on an R-rating. Nude women, blood everywhere, judges throwing sinners on spikes, cutting off their privates, torturing everyone else, etc.

Kids loved the gory scenes though Baby Aerynn seemed a bit apprehensive

Daddykhong and his 3 “good souled” kids (I think they should be since they made it out alive!)

More photos HERE.

Strawberry-picking @ Gohtong Jaya – 11 April 2010

This strawberry farm is more fun than all the farms in Cameron Highlands combined. We picked lovely strawberries. Just inform the minders that you want to self-pick and they will pass you a basket and some pairs of scissors.

NO! – those big ones are not meant to be picked

Our final count

More photos HERE.

Photos above were taken when Aerynn was 9 months old.

Our little baby is growing up fast. Aerynn will turn into a little toddler in 2 months. Time really flies fast, especially when you have 3 kids!!!

Updates on Aerynn in her 10th month:-

Weight: 8.3 kg

Teeth: Top:4, Bottom:4

Food:

• She’s having 2 portions of the same food for lunch and dinner.
• Porridge (read this on how porridge is cooked) with vegetable puree/cod fish/chicken.
• For vegetable puree, she particularly loves carrots! There was this one time when I gave her too much carrot that even her paediatrician commented she was turning a bit yellow!
• Some days, I just give her vegetable puree on its own
• Mee suah with homemade chicken stock soup (she loves this!)
• Macaroni (she doesn’t seem to like this)
• Mummykhong’s lazy day – I feed her ready-made baby jar food.
• Breakfast – brown rice cereal with blended prunes + apricot + raisins, rusks/white bread with milk, fruit puree (avocado, banana & mango (her favourite) and apple)

Milk feed:

• 4-5 times of 4 oz Enfalac A+ daily. She will wake up once at night around 4-ish am for a milk feed.

Aerynn’s development:

• She’s a late crawler.  She started her combat crawling style (just like her kor-kor) recently.
• She can wave bye and give us a flying kiss.
• Her latest trick – push her tongue out together with any food in her mouth!
• She is very stingy in giving kisses.
• Very good at throwing her water bottle away when you are not looking!
• Using two hands to hold onto the bottle while drinking milk lying down.

After a while, we overheard this conversation:

Shayanne (blowing on her piece of Twisties): “This Twisties is hot!!!”

Braedyn: “Don’t blow, it’s hot inside. You can’t blow it.”

Shayanne stops blowing and continues to eat her Twisties and the next thing you see is her holding on to a half-piece of the same Twisties…..blowing on the insides!! LOL hilarious.

Braedyn meant to say that the entire Twisties is spicy and Shayanne thought it was just the insides

So, in a record quick time of 2 weeks, we confimed our guest list, party venue and everything else.

FB invitation card. Hard copies were printed for the seniors

Shayanne standing in front of the main counter. Banner and decor was provided by Marmalade

Shayanne’s Photobook on display for guests

With Sara, her best girlfriend from kindie

Superboy Dong Yao, Bryan Schumacher, Wondergirl Jesslyn and Bookworm Jolene

Sean – our photographers’ favourite subject

Jaylen – Shayanne’s favourite cousin – choosing which red party hat to wear

Balloonist being most obliging. Starting work even before the party started.

Facepainting sessions

With classmates from kindie

Braedyn’s buddies: Carrie, Caleb, Ian (bottom photo), Yeu Joe (middle photo), and Dong Yao (top photo)

Shayanne smiling at her birthday cake from Cake Sense. Strawberries feature prominently in the cake as they are her favourite.

The mad rush for candle-blowing and cake-cutting

Family shot. No, I’m not hinting to daddykhong for #4 – Jolene insisted on being in the photo.

Baby Aerynn. Looks like we will have to organise a party for her too

3 causes of hair loss

With ma-ma and Aunt Su Chin

A special gift from the balloonist to the birthday girl. A balloon basket filled with all sorts of balloons.

Special thanks to our photographers – Yao Han and Su Chin, and our camera sponsors – Nikon. They do lots of work for dirt-cheap prices! Our appreciation to Alicia and Marmalade Cafe for the great food, decor and organisation.

Additional note: Daddykhong bought a new bike for Braedyn on the same day.

Lots of peacocks around with their tails fanned out

This is what happens when a big bird gets too close to the kids Braedyn and Shayanne are keeping an eye on the offending bird while Aerynn has no clue as to what is going on.

Aerynn fell asleep 3/4 way through the visit and had to continue sleeping in the carrier

Taking an ice cream break

Bird feeding

At the kid’s playground

Overall the KL Bird Park is worth the entry fee but make sure you are paying the reduced MyKad prices and not the tourist prices.

Festivities started off with our reunion dinner which was held at Overseas Restaurant Jaya 1. It was a terrible dinner. Our booking was for 8pm and fortunately for us, our table was ready at 8pm but 60% of those who booked for 8pm had to wait for at least 1/2 an hour before their tables were ready.

Why didn’t the restaurant shoo away those who started at 6:30pm? Because they know that the reason everyone is late is because the food was late! Oh yes, the Tiger Year starts off on a heated note.

Our food came fast and all of our surrounding tables gave us knife-edged stares as we tossed our yee sang while they drank away their hunger with some lukewarm Chinese tea. Most of them only started on their yee sang when we were already on the 4th course It was until our dessert that we had a taste of what our neighbours went through. We waited for more than an hour for our dessert to arrive. In the end, we did not bother and we left without ever seeing our dessert!

Incompetent restaurant manager. Must call the HQ to complain

Daddykhong & Aerynn trying very hard to smile

1st day of the New Year – visiting the relatives

Our 2 girls at their Ma-Ma’s (paternal grandmother) house

Do you like my pink shoes? They are softer than Crocs!

Sam Suk (daddykhong’s youngest brother) trying very hard to pass on his kuaci-loving tastebuds to the older 2 kids. He did a good job. Braedyn can now bite open soft kuaci

On the night of the first day, we left KL at 11:30pm and drove up to Tapah to visit more relatives (both daddykhong and myself have relatives there). We arrived at 1am the next morning and stayed for 4 days.

Singing Chinese karaoke at Gong-Gong’s (maternal grandfather) house. It was so bad, everyone left the room!