Trip to heaven

With a heavy heart we have received the news that a dear aunt of us has made her way to an afterlife.

The ugly 'disease' struck her without remorse and it's a shame that she has to leave this earthly place so soon leaving my uncle behind. Coincidentally, my uncle suffered from the 'disease' himself a few years ago but his lust for life made him rebounce.....sadly it has claimed my aunty's life now.

A softspoken, hardworking lady......never raising her voice, putting her family first,......she was the type of woman who did no harm to anyone, living a simple life and providing us with only positive impressions of her. It's cruel that she has departed us so soon,..... her grandchildren barely big enough to register her 'presence'.

Enjoy your afterlife dear aunt, and say 'hi' to my dad and grandma, will ya?

Charity drive in the clouds

United Hearts Foundation and Yayasan Bandar Tun Razak are both charity foundations, a shared purpose of them is providing sponsored tuition and education to underprivileged Malaysian children amongst many other charitable purposes.

As it happens to be, Jessica is involved with this United Hearts , as education is her business and dare I say it also her 'love' for children.

Thus United Hearts and Yayasan were organizing a concert at Genting Highland last weekend, profits of which were destined to the needy.

A concert? Yups, a concert.....but hold your horses first. It wasn't a rock concert, or something contemporary..........nopers..........the 2 performing stars on stage were local oldtime crooners.

Nonoo....I'm not implying anything negative........not at all.......hats off to these 'oldtimers'..........they still have the 'voice' and stamina to deliver the goods, but in retrospect, the goal of this concert was to reap in the necessary funds for distribution to the needy. And in hindsight, putting two 'crooners' on the billboard is not exactly going to attract the crowds, isn't it?

On top of that, the timing couldn't be worser.....scheduled on a Sunday evening, knowing that people have to work on Monday, kids need to wake early up to attend school. Maybe it's a Feng Shui thing.....who knows.

The adults in their 'golden' years thoroughly enjoyed the show, no question about that,......as for the younger and youngest amongst us........let's say we expected a bit more oooomphh.....

As for Jess and me, we were too busy helping out, but at least we didn't need a VVIP pass to go backstage and mingle with the performers. And for Laetitia?......she had the honour to be a flower girl that evening....:)

Was it a success then?.......Thanks to some generous donors, the projected revenue target was achieved and there is some talk of repeating another charity drive in a few month's time.

Hopefully by then, the organizers have wisened up a bit and give the 'people' true value for their cash.

Growing up

It's a fact, our little girl is growing slowly but surely into a little woman. There's no denying that fact.

Few days ago, she tried on her very first bra (a gift by granny) and despite our good-humoured laughs and her subsequent shyness, our gal felt remarkable comfortable with the bra on her body.

Admittedly, it was just a one-off session as she has chucked aside the bra since then, but blimey....it won't be too long anymore that the section of bra's will take up a significant part of her wardrobe.

We are forewarned.

Underwater world

Lately the theme of the blog tended to be involving water-related subjects.

Heck, why not continue with it........:p

Aquaria.....smack in the heart of KL, a grand aquarium exhibit encompassing nearly 60.000 square feet (almost 5600 square meters) of prime downtown area.

Since that our little gal was so keen on water based activities, heck, why not bring her over to see some of the creatures that inhabit that blue world of ours.

She devoured all the info, eyes wide-open looking at the huge aquariums displaying countless sort of different fish species. There was even an exhibit where we were able to grab, touch some sea creatures like starfish and shoecrabs,........talking 'bout true interactivity.

And we managed to witness a feeding session which actually turned out to be the best bit of all. Our little gal being so engrossed by it that she was practically glued to the separating glass window during the process.

Well, I do wonder now, knowing that she is such a fond lover of seafood....was she in awe of the feeding process itself or was she hunkering to get a bite herself of all those fish? Or rather, did she find the diver a hunk of a guy?..........

The answer is still out there..........amongst the fish.

Eye catching

This is already old news, but yes, it's recession time on a global scale.

Personally we are not really affected by it, and from what we hear and read, it affects less than 10% of the active population....but granted, in some areas that percentage might be way higher and I can imagine that people who are hit hard by the recession really have to endure hard times.......where's the welfare society? Or is it an utopia?

Despite the gloom and doom....and whatever that our government leaders are telling us like : "spend wisely, recovery is just 'round the corner".....one can't get rid of the feeling that this is a bit more serious and the current economic system needs some major overhaul...

Oh well, let's see how this all develops in the next few months.

To counter all the negative headlines clobbering our mindset, some marketing dudes try to twist a positive note into this issue.

"Bankers flee mortgages"

Good point.....it's the bankers bloody fault of making this a big mess after all......I guess bankers are not such a hot 'commodity' anymore during these times.

In Line skating............?

In Line skating.................

What a misnomer.............in our daughter's case....should be named as In Line paddling.

But she deserves some merit though. She has the courage to try it out, of which we were pleasantly surprised of her.

Never thought she would try something like this out, knowing that she's always been afraid to fall and become injured with activities that requires her to use her sense of balancing. (e.g. bicycling)

She does take it very gingerly, this in line skating thing, step by step, skate by skate.....

This was her second outing and she's eager to tackle some more in the near future.....but ermmm....we don't see her blowing the socks off of other kids during her skating sessions.....no way muchacho,...

At the moment even a turtle on an overdose of sleeping pills is faster than her, catch my drift?

A walk in the park

Once in a blue moon, we venture out into the 'open'.......

Translation = we go out into 'non-airconditioned' places........like....the park!

Malaysia being Malaysia, it's not so evident to go out.....in a year round +30 degrees centigrade environment.....but this particular park, KLCC park, has something positive up its sleeves beside the obligatory playground....= a water splashing area for kiddo's.

The 'waterpark' comes together with a man-made waterfall, providing a nice backdrop and ofcourse more splashing fun for the children.

Did I say children? Yups, we...adults....are prohibited of playing there....save for the odd photo shoot....what's the logic in that?

Looks like our girl had the time of her life.........wish I was a kiddo again....

An unwelcome 'tan'

Kids + water = lots of splashing fun

That's a sure axiom..........

Datin Seri Maggie C. ('datin seri' is like an honorary title bestowed upon successfull people...something alike Lord and Lady title), was kind enough to invite us over to her weekend retreat high up in the cooling hills far away from the bustling and hot city (remember....we live in tropical, humid Malaysia with a year-round 32 degrees C temperature).

And it's also a convenience that the Datin's 2 kiddo's are about the same age as our 'dragon' girl. We, adults, did our own thing, destressing ourselves from city-life in our own manner whilst the kids do what kids normally do.....play, play, play and play. Conveniently there was a swimming pool at the premises and hupsakee.....Laetitia spend a few hours in the pool under the glaring, hot sun.

We asked her to come out of the pool, but to no avail, she was having such a great time that she stubbornly refused our request......ow, ok.....like that?

Anyway, we did manage to pull her out of the pool...her eyes all red from the chlorine, skin on her hands resembling an old granny's hands.

But, oh my G@#!,....... the sun was merciless on her.......her uncovered parts of her upperbody were all red like a lobster....SUNBURN!!!

Ofcourse after a few hours she squeeled like a piglet about to meet her fate in the abattoir....nothing much we can do about it expect to put some soothing lotion on it and let it cool down the burning sensation. Her skin will be tender for the next few days though...like a roasted suckling piglet. On the plus side though, dead skin will peel off and she'll get a new coat of skin.

That should teach her a lesson for disregarding her parents' wisdom !!!