Friday, December 18, 2009

Mrs. Fullerton's Birthday!

We were thrilled to have Brent and Cheryl Fullerton in town with their kids. And to make things even more fun, it was Cheryl's birthday! So it was a day of shopping, seeing a movie (The Princess and the Frog), eating out, and birthday cake. Happy Birthday, Cheryl.

An Early Christmas

We had a wonderful early Christmas celebration. Grandma Julie wanted the kids to open presents from her a week early, so we had a fun celebration with the kids getting to open their presents! They love another chance to open presents and thrilled to get presents from Grandma Julie!

Run Jump Throw Day

As part of the end of the semester celebrations, the students had Run, Jump, Throw Day at Melawati! Mom and Dad got to escape from our duties for a quite glimpse in at all the fun. They had the ring toss, softball throw, long jump, ball toss, a mission impossible obstacle course, hurdles, and lots of fun events! What a great event for the kids -- and how gratifying as parents to see the kids having so much fun and enjoying themselves so much!

Gabi just clears the hurdles en route to a world record.

Gabi makes a record toss.


Gabi navigates the mission impossible course.


Reeve concentrates on his ring toss.

Satay

Last Saturday night, we weren't quite sure what we were going to do for dinner -- so it was a 3 minute ride down to a nearby stall -- for some fresh food. At the time we decided it would be fun to take a picture of the yummy satay. Not sure if it quite has the same yummy taste when translated into a photograph for visual consumption.

We are thrilled to have so much delicious local food easily accessible. That is one of the many benefits of living in Malaysia!

The Birthday Girl


It was fun to have a low key birthday celebration. Gabi loved opening more presents, of course, and was delighted with presents from her grandparents -- including a wonderful gift from Grandma Julie!

Happy Birthday Gabsters!


Sunday, December 13, 2009

Gabi's Christmas Presentation

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2009

One of the highlights of elementary school is certainly the Kindergarten (prep senior in ISKL lingo) Christmas performance. Gabi had several speaking lines and did a great job as all the classes rotated through showing how Christmas is celebrated around the world. Gabi's class focused on Mexico. Feliz Navidad!

Family Christmas

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2009

How ridiculously fortunate we are to be able to have such a wonderful Christmas celebration in Malaysia. With Doug's parents heading out of town next weekend, we celebrated our family Christmas a bit early. After church, we had a nice morning swim (notice the kids wet hair), and then we got to have a delicious ham, twice-baked potatoes, fruit salad, green beans, Swedish tea rings, and grandma's oreo cookie desert! What a ridiculous treat to have all these things as part of a Christmas celebrated half a world away from what we think of as "home."

And what a great reminder of the power of the incarnation -- we even got to hear Doug's dad preach this morning at St. Andrews!

We even were mildly successful in getting a family picture that didn't have too many grumpy components.

Gabi said that she wanted a dog and a stuffed animal. We'll the Woodward house isn't quite ready for the dog, but. . .combine the two and Grandma came up with a great idea!


Reeve was absolutely thrilled to get some Match-Attax cards, which warmly reminded his daddy of the many years of Christmas when the highlight was a set of baseball cards, and I could spend hours sorting the cards and looking at them. Topps sure knows what to do.

Gabi's Birthday Party!

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2009

We had a fun party for Gabi to celebrate her birthday -- a few days before the actual day, but better to celebrate on the weekend before. Gabi had her class and some other friends over, and it was a haul of presents, lots of fun, and good times!

It was nice to have the large patio area for cake, games, play, and the kids also had fun running around the house, and eating pizza.





Monkey Invasion

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2009

Unfortunately this weekend was the first time we were invaded by monkeys (at least that we saw) during this time in our new house. While monkeys can seem quite cute from a distance, when they invade your trash, they become the obnoxious equivalent of raccoons.

"Here are monkeys walking on our wall. You can see them with your own eyes." -- Gabi.

Putting up the Christmas Tree

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2009

It is always fun to put up the Christmas tree. Reeve and the girls were a huge help as we put together our tree. Throw in ornaments, Christmas music, and it's lots of fun to have our tree in the corner of our living room!

Thanksgiving (x2)

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 28

We were again blessed to have a double Thanksgiving -- and a long weekend thanks to the Eid (for the hajj) falling on Thanksgiving weekend. On Thursday night we celebrated the huge feast with the Middle School at school. As usual, the kids had a blast running around the school playing hide-and-go-seek and chase games. The adults had some good conversation and had a good time.

Of course, the Thanksgiving feast was delicious -- and Tracy contributed a gluten-free apple pie which was a tasty addition to the Thanksgiving palette.

An added blessing was ASTRO (the local cable company) adding an extra channel, which included the NFL games for the day. Most of them were in the middle of the night, but the tail end of the Dallas game was on after we woke up, and we got to watch the Broncos return from obscurity with a win against the Giants.
On Saturday, Doug's parents hosted a delightful Thanksgiving dinner -- which was a fun, low-key gathering. Many invitees declined due to travel, and another family was out sick, so out kids managed to convince grandpa that a swim would be a good thing -- and we enjoyed some delightful conversation and delicious food.

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Christmas at the Pavilion


We were rather impressed and surprised to see the stunning Christmas display at the Pavilion Mall in downtown Kuala Lumpur. Complete with reindeers flying to the sky and a stage with live music, we had so much fun stumbling across the jaw-dropping display on Saturday -- after a trip to see Astro Boy, the movie -- that we returned on Sunday after church to get a few pictures.




It's fun to hear some Christmas music and begin getting in the Christmas spirit.

Friday, November 20, 2009

Bible Study Dinner

As we have just finished one study on prayer, and are getting ready to dive into the minor prophets, we had a delightful social engagement at a nearby restaurant.

It was fun to enjoy some delicious food and great fellowship.

With a beautiful setting and nice Christmas tree, it certainly added to the ambiance.

Discover Nature - a Professional Conference

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 2009

For two days, Doug had the opportunity to interact with other colleagues from ISKL as well as educators from Singapore and Tokyo as we explored the nearby rainforest and immersed ourselves in nature in an effort to look at ways to incorporate environmental education and garner a love of nature within our students.

The Forestry Reserve Institute of Malaysia (FRIM) is truly an amazing place. We had fun splashing through creeks, listening to the roar of the cicadas, and going for a few little hikes. Malaysia is home to some of the most amazing trees of the world -- including some that exhibit "canopy shyness." Their leaves don't touch each other, creating a beautiful mosaic or jigsaw puzzle. Certainly more impressive in person.

We also explored the incredible activity of insects all around, including parades of ants. From the trees above to the insects below, what a spectacular environment.

Tech Party

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2009

We had a fun gathering at Brian Inskeep's wonderful condo for a celebration of all the hard work in the tech department.
Our amazing boss Charlotte Diller is pictured here with our exceptional tech secretary, Shidah, and her husband.
The kids even got to have some fun swimming by the pool a night before we headed home.

A Tropical Christmas Tree

Gabi is practicing some of her songs for the school Christmas presentation.

AFC South Games

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2009

Friends of ours, new to ISKL, Jamie and Billy Thomas are from Houston. Billy is a big Texans fan; he also has a slingbox connection to get TV shows from Houston, Texas. With all the Texans games on the DVR, he is able to stream them here.

So we agreed that we would host the Colts-Texan replay when they play in Indianapolis, and in a few weeks, the Thomas' will return the favor and host the rematch. Now I just have to hope the Colts good fortunes continue -- or at least they manage sustained postseason push.
It may be an utter travesty to have my firstborn donning a Texans hat for the photo-op -- but at least the Colts eeked out a victory to remain undefeated!

Gabi's Friends & GAP Celebrations.

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2009

On Sunday evening, there was a celebration of the 9th grade GAP (Global Action Program) trip where the 9th graders piloted our HS week-without-walls program. We have also heard about Gabi's friend on the bus who likes to sing Taylor Swift's song, "You Belong to Me" which we deciphered from Gabi singing, "She wears high heels, I wear sneakers. . ." So it was fun for Gabi to play with her friend while we saw mommy on the big screen with all the pictures.

Football in the Pool

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2009
One of the great benefits of the grandparents place is generally having the swimming pool to ourselves. It is lots of fun to play in the swimming pool now that Reeve can throw and catch a ball -- so lots of fun tossing a water football and diving into the water to try and catch the ball.



Of course the girls also have lots of fun at the pool too.