Saturday, December 13, 2008

A Woodward Christmas

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2008


It was very nice that the Sultan's birthday fell on a day when we could have a family Christmas celebration. Grandma made her amazing Christmas dinner -- delicious ham, twice-baked potatoes, frozen fruit salad, and the 4-layered dessert. Yum, Yum, Yum!



The kids were very excited to open their presents, though Rania was more excited about her brother's Ben-10 gifts. Can't quite get used to a 2 year old girl talking about "Dark Vader" and "Upgrade" and "Me like Yoda."

Gabi's Birthday!

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2008



Even though we are still a bit displaced, we had a fabulous time celebrating Gabi's birthday. With Juvy's fantastic help and grandpa's amazing assistance, we came home from work, and a cake had already been baked. And Gabi got to open lots of her presents.

We could tell the difficulties of having the tree -- with all the presents underneath it, and then Gabi's presents piled on the side. Her older brother definitely wanted to open some of HIS presents too. Especially if we end up celebrating Christmas for one side of the family early -- due to vacation plans, it will be a challenge to reserve a special time for Gabi.

Gabi even got an additional little surprise, when two days later, we retrieved her special present from Auntie Carrie from our house. (Access to our house is still a bit limited due to one way traffic.) How exciting to have a HORSEY music box that is also a jewelry box. Now Gabi only has to protect the great gift from her younger sister -- who also loves playing with it.


(In the background of the picture of Gabi blowing out the candles you can see the amazing water color that Kathy Haney, a friend of Doug's mom, painted when she visited last June.)

Sunday, December 7, 2008

4 Wheel Drive Access to Bukit Antarabangsa

On Monday morning, Doug and his dad went to see if it was possible to get to our house. Fortunately we left pretty early -- and we were very thankful that we had our 4 wheel drive Jeep Cherokee.

After registering with the police below the incident site (on Jalan Wangsa 13, across from the mosque), we were able to turn left on Jalan Mulia 1/1. The short bridge over the drainage site was easy for any car to pass. There was walking access over the rubble and very muddy at that point (see photo left) on Jln Bk Mewah 1. From there, you could see quite the damage still.



We then departed on the jungle track from Jalan Bukit Mewah 2. That was where we needed 4 wheel drive.

The police told us to drive carefully since they had just finished a few hours earlier (Monday morning). With all the morning rain, it was definitely a mess. We temporarily got stuck, but then got out after shifting into 4 wheel drive mode.

After collecting some thing from our house, we went down the hill, taking pictures of the road to show its status. By 9:30 am, they had already made significant progress on improving the road in the past hour. If there is dry weather, it could be passable for all vehicles soon.

(The top of the track, looking down.)



(The start of the track from J Bk Mewah 2. You can see a bit of a two track bridge across a stream.)

As you can see, there were cranes and bulldozers working to clear and level the road. It was encouraging to see how hard they were working and how much progress was being made. We were told, though, that the situation was still quite unstable, and it may be quite a while until regular road access and electricity are restored.

Best to continue to monitor the situation via the news reports, we were told.

A Christmas Pageant: From Sweet Angels to Wandering Sheep

Despite the craziness and trauma of the previous day, we made it to the Christmas Pageant at our church. We had missed the previous day's rehearsal, so weren't sure what roles our kids might have. So here is a progression of the pageant, a fitting metaphor of our sinful nature.

Gabi and Rania first wanted to be angels.

Then Rania said, "Me, angry." The angry angels then wanted to be non-participants.

By the time that the angels were appearing to shepherds, Gabi agreed to be a sheep -- but would only wear the hat, not the itchy shirt with cotton balls. And this was only after the encouragement of our amazing Sunday School teacher.



Once Rania saw that her sister was surviving as a sheep, she decided to be a sheep. . . for a while. It was a rough job for the shepherds, because in addition to hearing the proclamation from the angels, one sheep kept wandering all around the stage -- and back to mommy in the pews -- and then back to the stage.

By the end, the sheep were part of the Nativity scene, with one sheep (Gabi) especially interested in the baby Jesus (doll) in the crib.

My, oh my.

We are so grateful to be celebrating the Incarnation during this season. We are also anxious and curious when our lives will be "more normal" when we can return to our house. It's a fitting reminder of how fortunate we truly are.

Party Canceled Due to Landslide

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2008



Gabi was all set to celebrate her birthday party on Saturday morning, when we had to frantically call those who were planning to come and tell them to stay away from the area since the road had been destroyed.



Since we had all the decorations already, and we were sitting around the house waiting for news, we decided to have a low-key party to eat the cake that had been made the night before and to allow Gabi to open her presents. In addition to the great cake, Tracy had also found a cute horse-balloon that looked like it was walking.



Members of our neighborhood kept gathering every two hours or so to pass on updates. By about 1 pm, we realized that the access around the landslide had been closed due to safety concerns. There was another walking exit, but it was apparently quite steep and not recommended for children or the elderly.

It was surprising how difficult it was to get accurate information due to the fast changing situation. With no electricity or land-lines, we were very grateful for cell phones, but realized even relatives in the States probably had better information that we did.

At three o'clock we realized we should try and get out - that the government was recommending an evacuation; without electricity and with water running low, it was time to move. Unfortunately, when we arrived at the exit point, those in charge had closed it, stating that they were bringing relief supplies in, and that there was only room for one-way traffic on the steep jungle trail.

In the meantime, it started to pour, certainly making a treacherous situation even worse -- especially at the incident site.

A little after 4:30 we got a text message from a neighbor saying that the trail had been opened, and we quickly set out. It was very wet and Gabi quickly soured on hiking through a mud-slogged trail. Rania was in a backpack, and Reeve was hiking with some neighbors, the McCutcheons. The trail then got quite steep, but there were steps and LOTS of people on hand to help. After getting to the top (about 10-15 minutes only), there were lots of ambulances and relief personnel available to help, and they gave us ride to the Giant, the supermarket in our area. A few minutes later, we all piled into Doug's dad's car, and we had officially been evacuated.

We arrived at Doug's parents house, and benefited by the generosity of some neighbors to get some spare clothes for kids and for ourselves. We were exhausted, but relieved to be safe.

Hopefully this was the last time we'll ever have to utter the words, "Party canceled due to landslide."

Landslide

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2008

We are currently evacuated due to a quite horrific landslide just over a kilometer from our house.

At about 4 am on Saturday morning, we realized the electricity was out. At 6 am, we heard our neighbor yelling for us. She told us that a terrible landslide had occurred on the only access road out of our neighborhood.

Just before dawn, Doug walked down the hill to where the police had blocked access to the area. What was there, defies the imagination.

Local coverage of the event can be found here at The Star Online as well as at their photo gallery where the older photos show the extent of the damage.

Here are some early dawn pictures of the devastation. You can barely make out the hillside that collapsed in the background.







We are all fine, and exceedingly thankful for God's provision and our safety. We are also praising God that the death toll appears to be much less than fear -- with only four confirmed dead, and only one unaccounted for.

Due to the road being out and no electricity in the area, we had to hike out through a jungle trail with a few belongings on our back. Hopefully we will be able to get access to our house within a few days, but doubt that road access will be restored for a while.

A "heroism in teaching" award goes to Tracy, who instead of bringing an extra change of clothes, lugged out 60 some research papers from her 9th grade English classes.

Saturday, November 29, 2008

Thanksgiving (@ the parents pad)

We had a wonderful time with a large (19) group of ISKL teachers and families at Doug's parents. Doug's dad provided the turkey, and many people pitched in for an amazing meal.



We were incredibly impressed what it was like to have adult conversation. Instead of just talking about work, or being worried about kids, there were so many rich conversations about places to visit, life on the farm, memorable moments, stories from the Great Depression (from parents & grandparents, of course!), the Philippine Diaspora, Kenyan Politics, and so much more. Wow!


Much of the great conversation was because the kids were happily occupied -- largely thanks to their friendship with Rex!

It was also so fun to watch our kids interact with other adults. Rania was quite the magnet -- getting our Superintendent, Paul Chmelik to throw her up in the air a bunch of times. Somehow Paul also got roped into playing Sorry with three kids six and under. He said he was winning -- which may or may not explain why the game disintegrated from limited attention spans.

Rania also managed to rope Jane Niwa into feeding her ice cream.



What a great afternoon of amazing food and fun conversation.

The Rug Guy ( & Cat Reinforcements)

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 2008

We were excited to get a call on Friday that our rugs had been cleaned (see last week's post from the rug guy.) Javed and his brother also brought a few rugs for us to look at. It wasn't quite the show from the previous week, but we were hoping to find a nice fun, rug for the kids room. We ended up quite enamored by a Chobi -- a rug from Afghanistan, but actually made in Pakistan (due to so many Afghanis fleeing their native land.)

It was fun to hear more about the way rugs are made, as well as see two of our "smellier" rugs returned in much better shape!

You can also barely see (in the above picture) the reinforcements on our front door to keep the stray cats from peeing on our nice rug. Not sure if it is making us feel like we are in a cage -- or keeping the cats out -- or both, but we hope it will do the trick.

Thanksgiving (@ school)

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 2008



One of the great middle school traditions is ISKL is the Thanksgiving dinner at outside. The administrators provide the turkeys, and everyone pitches in. The kids have a great time running wild around the campus -- but thankfully some teenage kids (and wonderful teachers) help keep an eye on them.

After School Fun With Friends

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 2008



The last two weeks, Reeve has greatly enjoyed spending an afternoon with a friend. Last week, he went to his friend's house, and this week, Reeve was the host.

It is amazing how much easier it can be when there is a friend to show around. Suddenly, the fun of antagonizing sisters is completely diminished.

After realizing that we don't have very many pictures of Doug on the blog, here is a rare snapshot. (That's the price for taking so many of the pictures!)

O Christmas Tree

It has been fun having our Christmas tree up. Last year we didn't have one at our house here -- so it is especially fun this year. Having picked up a used tree from some ex-pats who were moving back to the States was an extra bonus.

The kids have enjoyed some of the Christmas music that we have been playing, and one of the goals of the season is to get the scratched and abused CDs imported into Tracy's new iPod. Hopefully that will help us with the ever difficult task of changing CDs when you realize the music has stopped.

Tracy also made Gingerbread cookies -- with some "help" from the kids. Obviously, they had more fun eating the cookies, as Rania's frosting-filled face can illustrate.

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Swimming with Friends


After church, Tracy went shopping with some friends, and the kids got to spend some fun swimming at the Inskeep's great pool.



Brian pulled out his surfboard, and Rania might have a future on the ocean waves -- but might have to lose the floaties, first.

The kids were pirates who raided treasures, and overcame enemies hiding on the edges of the rocky shores. It was lots of fun -- and the kids crashed for good naps upon our return.

Christmas Tree & Rug Fun

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2008



It was a hot and humid day. . . and we put up our Christmas tree. The kids were lots of . . . . um . . .help?? But we were excited to get a tree from a family that was leaving -- so now we have some simple decorations on our tree. We'll have to bring back our decorations for next year -- somehow we neglected to ship those.



On Friday night, we had several friends over for a fun evening -- where a Pakistani guy came and showed us some of his rugs. So if we want to drop a few Gs on some gorgeous rugs, we had our opportunity.

Unfortunately, the real reason that had him come is that we've had some stray cats coming into our house (through the open grates) and marking their territory on our nicest rugs. Hence, time to get someone to clean our rugs. (Foolishly, we didn't get any pictures of the rug fun)

Life on the Street



With a bit of a nudge from our neighbors, we got out our kites to play on the street.

It's a bit of a tricky scene. You can't fly the kites too high or they get stuck in the trees on the edge; so running back and forth is the way we fly kites. Great way to get out some energy -- and another reason it's fun to live on a dead end street.

A bit of the birthday party scene

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2008

Reeve (and now Gabi a little bit) are part of the birthday party scene. Unfortunately, we've grown a bit weary of carting around Reeve to many birthday parties, sometimes multiple ones in each weekend.

The frustration is somewhat enhanced by Reeve's inability to stay at parties by himself. After two times of thinking we could drop Reeve off and try to get something done, we've had to bail on our own plans when Reeve was reluctant in new situations.



Any advise on helping our firstborn develop more confidence in new situations -- we're certainly eager to hear advice.

A Sleepover

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2008

We had a fun sleepover with a good friend. The kids finally made it to sleep, but it took daddy to spend some time on the floor until the kids were zonked out.



The kids sure had a lot of fun, though!

And if anyone doubts that Gabi's bed looked like her Auntie Tasha's bed looked like (when Auntie Tasha was a little girl), this picture can put to rest any doubts.

Trick or Treat -- KL Style

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2008



We had a lot of fun trick or treating in one neighborhood. Since Halloween isn't so big in Malaysia, the expats have one area where you can trick or treat if you sign up -- and bring candy.



So as you go up to houses -- there might be seven or eight pots of candies from those freeloaders (like us!) who don't live in the neighborhood.

Some just pull up their cars and pass out candy from the trunk of the car.




But our kids had fun dressing up and going around with some friends. We even got done before the tropical thunderstorm washed out the party.