We have had a really busy past few days. After being told to be prepared to stay in the apartment hotel "indefinitely", we got word on Wednesday that our apartment would be ready to move into on Friday, and Jeff could come pick up the keys Thursday at the end of the day. Since Thursday was his birthday, it made for a perfect birthday present!
Vivian helped me hang the birthday banner after he went to bed Wednesday night, so it was up and ready to welcome him when he came into the kitchen the next morning.
Since KL is still under a movement control order, we can't really go out and do things, so his birthday became a celebration through food. His main birthday present was a new Nespresso machine that works on Malaysian power, so he could start using it right away.
The hotel also left him donuts, just like they did for Vivi.
For dinner, I found a Syrian place that had shawarma. It was delicious, and Jeff loved it.
For the finishing touch, I got him a peach strudel from the fancy bakery down the road.
I asked if he wanted a fork and knife, but he said there was only one way to eat it.
Yum!
He declared it a great birthday. Hopefully next year we can do some traveling, but the most important thing is that we were all together to celebrate.
The next day was a whirlwind. We got all of our suitcases and all of our food and other paraphernalia packed up. One of the hotel staff helped us bring it all down.
Thank goodness the embassy provided a van to get us and all our stuff to our new home. It took a couple trips to get everything upstairs, but it was so wonderful to know that we were done being nomads for a while.
We immediately set out to explore. The entrance leads directly into the living room.
Which shares a big space with the dining room.
This provides plenty of running around space and lots of natural light.
Across from those rooms are a kitchen and a family room with sliding glass doors.
There's a laundry and "maid's" area through the kitchen, and the family room has a Jack and Jill bathroom that leads into Elena's bedroom.
On Saturday our air freight was delivered. So Friday was all about getting the suitcases emptied, and then Saturday was all about washing and putting away our air freight.
We are incredibly lucky to have already hired a helper named Noby who is from the Philippines. She came on Friday and Saturday and was a HUGE help with getting everything organized. A top priority was getting the bedrooms as comfy as possible. The bedrooms are all along the hallway past the dining room.
We are looking forward to getting our pictures and rugs in order to add some color, but the girls have already started decorating. This was the original bedroom set up in Elena's room.
Then we moved around some furniture, and the girls added Disney flair.
We have our comforter, but are waiting on our king size bed. The embassy provided queen is quite comfortable though, and we're happy to be back to double sinks, while also being resigned to having the only bathtub in the house, meaning Elena hangs out in there too.
Vivian has her own full bathroom connected to her room, which is perfect for a teenage girl. We're a bit sad not to have a half bath for guests like we usually do, but it's a small price to pay for such a large, lovely, rent free apartment.
Our favorite part of the whole place though is the outdoors. We have a small balcony that is surrounded by palm trees and overlooks the pool, which is sadly closed for now.
There's also a kids pool, a playground, and a little store that we can see from our balcony in the other direction.
Vivian has already taken advantage of the store.
There is also a walking path around the property with exercise equipment,
and an extended water feature near the entrance with lots of fish in it.
We feel like we're living in a tropical resort, but the best part is that it is a family friendly place FULL of children. After a year of online school and not being able to hang out with friends, the girls are in heaven.
On our first day here, I sent a message to the community WhatsApp group saying I was looking for friends for my 13 year old (sniff!) daughter. A mom almost immediately sent me a message, and it turns out she has a daughter right around Elena's age too. Viv went off on her own with the big girl, and Noby took Elena downstairs to play with the younger kids while I continued to attack the suitcases. Elena didn't last too long outside, but Viv made a bunch of new friends, including one who is from Colombia, but has spent most of her life in Asia. Viv stayed at her new friend's house until the evening playing an intense game of Monopoly, which she eventually won.
Saturday was busy in the morning with air freight, but in the afternoon, Jeff took the girls outside to walk around. The way the apartments are set up, you can see if your friends are outside, so Elena's new friend called down from her balcony to stay there, she was coming to play too! I got to meet the mom who got everything rolling the day before, and Vivian's gang of girls appeared after a bit too. The only problem at this point is that everyone seems to have a scooter or some type of wheeled transport, and they roll around the place on the walking path. The girls have said they need scooters NOW, which of course is difficult with most stores being closed. There is a local delivery service called Lazada that I've tried ordering from. So far nothing has shown up, so we'll see. For Vivian, we picked a scooter out on Amazon, which takes about two weeks to get here. Hopefully, they can survive a couple weeks without wheels.
It's been an incredible first couple days in our new home. We love our apartment, and the girls already have friends. It's also been wonderful to start to wean them off of all the time they've been spending on screens. Last night we celebrated with another round of Din Tai Fung and a leisurely evening on the balcony. Elena and I toasted our baos, since we both love them so.
The girls played three chess games, and Elena won all three. She really is becoming a little chess master, and to Viv's credit, she was mostly just incredibly proud of how well Elena is doing.
We are hopeful that more things will open up soon (the pool looks especially tempting), but for now it's actually kind of nice to have a slower, simpler pace as we get adjusted to our new home.
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