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.