U.S. Week One

It's been a year since we did the trip from one side of the planet to the other, and I have not missed it one bit.  Our flight left KL at 2:45am, so I was hoping we would get some sleep, but the flight to Doha was seven hours long, and they managed to wake us up three times to feed us, so no one got much sleep.  That meant that by the time we landed in Doha, we were all loopy, tired, and hungry.  Luckily, one of the first things we saw when we got into the main terminal was a Harrods Tea Room.  The girls were intrigued by the giant teddy bear outside, but I was going in no matter what because I saw comfortable seats and tea pots.

The girls studied the menu a bit skeptically, but once we got settled, they agreed that it was a lovely place.

Vivian has officially become a tea drinker, so we split several pots of tea.  I teased her that she's so fancy, she puts BOTH pinkies up.

It was about 6am local time, and breakfast seemed in order.  I got myself eggs benedict, which was delicious.

I wasn't sure what to get the girls, so I ordered something called a braffle.  There was no description, but I figured it would be waffles.  I was a bit worried when it showed up, and I realized that there was one plain waffle, but the other one had egg, cheese, and turkey on it.

The girls were brave enough to try it, and they both decided it was absolutely delicious.  Vivian even ate the whole thing!  She was so enamored with it, that she took several photos of it as she went.

Elena was also enthusiastic about it, but her stomach is not quite as big, so while she ate most of it, she couldn't quite finish the whole thing.  It was a really nice way to spend our layover though, and hopefully we'll be able to go there again on our way back home.  The one stressful part was that the departures screens were not showing gates more than an hour ahead of time, and so we didn't know where our next flight was leaving from.  We finally had to go and ask at the information desk.  For an airport that is competing to be the best in the world, that seems like a pretty major oversight.

Despite the slight bump, we made it to our flight just fine, and then proceeded to be on that plane for 14 hours.  It was rough.  Vivian's nose started running and didn't stop the whole time, and Elena hit that point of exhaustion where she refused to fall asleep, and then she had a meltdown that she wanted to get off the plane.  The flight attendant came to the rescue on that one, and asked if Elena wanted to come to the back to help her set up snacks.  That was enough of a diversion to get her back on track, thank goodness.  She did fall asleep, finally, for the last couple hours of the flight, and then she was bright and chirpy for our arrival in Virginia.

Vivian and I were not quite as bright and chirpy, but we were excited to be off the plane, and the first thing we got to do when we arrived at my parents' house was hold my sister's new babies, which made it all worth it.

Viv and I crashed pretty early, but Elena kept going, solving puzzles with my mom and talking nonstop, until my mom finally put her to bed.  We were all up bright and early the next morning though, thank you jet lag.

My sister had taken the day off and brought the babies back to my parents' house for more admiration.  Elena insisted on holding both her new cousins.

I had a lot of fun trying to get tummy time pictures of the babies.

But Elena made sure that I understood that as cute as the babies are, I still belong to her.

We did dinner the next few nights at my sister's house, which let the babies be in their element, while we gave them lots of love.

The girls have also been enjoying the great weather here, which has been warm, but not too hot.

Elena and my dad even worked on a gardening project.  They planted some apple seeds.  We'll see how that goes . . .

For most of our summers in the States, I make really detailed plans, but this summer, I left things pretty open to figure out as we go along.  Vivian had a pressing item though, she really wanted to go to IHOP and get pancakes with strawberry syrup, so that was one of our first outings.  She was not disappointed.

Viv and I also went to Barnes and Nobles.  Elena didn't come with us for that trip, but we picked out El Deafo for her, and she has read it several times already.

We also got to Guapo's for lunch, which was delicious, and my dad took the girls to see the new Lightyear movie.  When Viv and I were out shopping, we couldn't resist getting happy meals for her and Elena.  The toys were from the Lightyear movie, and they were both very pleased.

After lunch, we drove to Maryland to visit some of our D&D friends.  They have a lovely house on a big piece of land, and Elena especially was thrilled to play with their two big dogs.

They took us to a gaming and comic books store, which the girls really liked, and then to a nearby state park to walk both the kids and the dogs.

Elena got a little fussy though, so we didn't stay too long.  Back at our friends' house, they taught Vivi how to play magic,

and Elena got to sit in the DM's chair which blew her mind a little.

All the fresh air did the girls good, because they inhaled dinner.  Vivian had two burgers and Elena had a burger and a hot dog.  The hot dog disappeared in under five minutes, which is a record for her.  She's usually a very slow eater.

Since our D&D games tend to go late, we had planned to spend the night, and they set us up with three separate sofa beds, so that the girls wouldn't attack me in the middle of the night.

The next morning they fed us a delicious breakfast, which the girls burned off by playing with the dogs some more.

Eventually, we headed back to Virginia, but hopefully we can go see them one more time before we head back to Malaysia. 

The next day it rained off and on all day, so we didn't do very much.  We did manage to make a trip to the library to renew my library card and check out some books, so then we had rainy day reading supplies.  This morning though, it was sunny and cool.  Vivian is at a friend's house, so Elena and I went for a walk to the playground to enjoy the weather.  We're still getting up pretty early, so we had the playground all to ourselves for quite a while.  She had a blast.

We've been here a week. We seem to mostly be over jet lag, and we've gotten to see friends and do lots of the things on our list.  We miss Jeff a lot, but I'm sure the summer will go fast if we keep busy, which is what we plan to do.

Happy Father's Day!

By the time Father's Day rolled around, we were pretty afternoon tead out, so Jeff switched it up by requesting a Father's Day "brunch".  I use the quotation marks because most of the brunches here don't start until 12, so really, it's a buffet lunch.  There were a few we wanted to try, but we settled on the one at the Four Seasons, since one of my friends had gone and liked it, and we knew we could get an ISKL discount.  The later start time gave us time to play D&D in the morning, and then we got dressed up and headed over to the Four Seasons.

There was a great selection of foods, both savory and sweet.

The girls found the satay section and hit it hard, but they also went for soup and noodles.

For dessert, I went to check out the cheese selection, which was very good.

But I didn't see honey anywhere, so I asked one of the people who worked there, and he directed me to the honeycomb I had overlooked.

It was definitely a cool concept, but there wasn't much honey in the bowl underneath it, so I'm not sure how effective it was.

Regardless, we had a lovely two hours of trying out different foods and enjoying each other's company.  I got a photo of Jeff and the girls leaving together.

I'm so glad we got to have a nice day together, because that night the girls and I headed to the airport for our trip back to the U.S. for the summer.

It was a sad way to end Father's Day, but I'm glad that our last day before our trip was all about Jeff.

Another Great Trip to Club Med

After our trip in December, I had promised the girls we could go back to Club Med when it was turtle egg laying season.  I like to keep my word when I can, so I booked us for five days the week after school finished.  I think it's fair to say that this time was even better than our first trip, so I have a feeling another trip is in our future.  

We got there too late for regular buffet lunch, so we went to the special noodle restaurant which was great, because we got to pick our broth and our noodles, and everyone enjoyed their selection.

Elena did her usual dance about not being sure she wanted to do the kids club, but then she saw the giant slip and slide they had set up on the beach.

"I need my bathing suit." And she was off.

She had dinner with us, but then it was back to the kids club in the evening for a dance party.

The next day, we established our routine.  We started with family breakfast, then dropped Elena off at the kids club.  Vivian hung out with us and read for a bit, and then I took her to trapeze time while Jeff picked Elena up from the kids club for some pool fun before lunch.

We would have family lunch, and then drop Elena back off at the kids club.  For the afternoon, she played, and Jeff, Vivian, and I walked to the other side of the resort where there was an "adults only" pool area.

It's called the Zen Pool, and basically, they didn't want any yelling or screaming youngsters around.  Vivian wasn't a problem.  We all had books we wanted to read, and we made friends with the barkeeper who kept us supplied with libations.

This was our view.

If we got fidgety, we could walk along the beach and through a passage that was only open at low tide to another part of the beach.  We had the whole place to ourselves.

On the second day, our new friend the bartender offered us pancakes and honey.  Vivian was a huge fan.

If we got really hot, we dipped in the infinity pool to cool off.

Eventually we would have to pack up, head back to the main part of the resort and then retrieve Elena.  As a baseline daily routine, it was pretty fantastic, but Club Med does not lack for things to do.  The most important was seeing baby turtles and helping with the baby turtle release, so one day, after beach and before dinner, we got in a van that took us down the coast a ways to the turtle center.

There were lots of other families there, and the person in charge was great about making sure the kids could come up to the front and see everything.  She started by explaining what they do.  She said the beaches near the resorts are all protected, but the large portions of public beach are not, so when local people find turtle eggs, they can sell them at the market for food.  What this organization does is pay them just enough more for the eggs to incentivize people not to sell them for food.  Then, they replicate the incubation conditions, keep track of when the eggs hatch, and then get volunteers like us to get the turtles from the hatchery to the water.

She showed us some baby turtles that had recently hatched and the reaction to the cuteness was audible.

The little dot on their bellies is leftover from the egg sack, and it's what they live on as they float on the waves.  She went over the turtle life cycle and then how to hold them safely.  It was really interesting.  Next, we walked over to the hatchery where the sand was moving around a bath of eggs that had recently hatched.  Each little nest had a basket over it in case some of the hatchlings got out early.

Our guide carefully scooped away the sand to reveal a baby turtle nest.

She then carefully placed them one by one in a basket.

Some adults were allowed inside with her, but, wisely, the kids were all asked to watch from the other side of the fence.

Then, we walked down to the beach and got in a long line parallel to the water to wait for our turtle.

All the younger kids got coconut shells to hold their turtles in, because the turtles want to MOVE, and they are super wiggly.  This batch was all male, and the guide told us to come up with names while we waited, although Elena said she had to see hers before she could pick a definite name.

Meet Timothy and Shakespeare.

Elena decided on Dennis and said he kept looking back at her as he walked away because he missed her so much.  The fastest by far though was Jeff's Racing Rodrigo who made a beeline for the water.

As if that wasn't enough excitement for one day, Elena had a final rehearsal for the Mini Club Show after dinner.  She told us she was the "main character".  Since we knew from last time that the show consisted of each age group doing a choreographed dance number, we weren't sure what that meant, but we took our seats with great anticipation.

There was no dialogue (too many languages going on to make it simple), but the show opened with Elena walking around the Atlantis scene in full costume, looking for something.

She and her friend discovered that the treasure chest was empty of whatever was supposed to be in it.

So they set off to find the missing objects, which ended up being shiny "pearls" in various colors hidden around the audience.

As they found each pearl, they put it back in the chest and then sat down to enjoy a performance by one of the kids club groups.

My loose interpretation is that these pearls restored the dancing magic of Atlantis.  Luckily, Elena's costume was versatile enough that she could quickly transition to participate in the 8 year old dance with her pom poms.  She was fantastic.

By the end, all was put to rights, and she was celebrated with a flower necklace.  Then she went out to celebrate some more with the tower of treats and some very large friends.

We thought nothing could top that day, but our last day gave it a run for its money.  First of all, Vivian was invited to extra evening trapeze practice to work on her back flip dismount. We teased her that the next challenge is learning the catch, but she said she wasn't quite ready for that yet.

They had announced that dinner that night would be served "in the garden", so we went out back to see what they were setting up.

It looked promising.  Elena, with her eagle eye, saw that most of the prime tables in front of the performance platform had "reserved" signs on them, but there was one four seater with no sign, so she declared it ours and proceeded to stake our claim to it.

As we entered, everyone got a rose, and then Jeff went to the steak station to get me one of those to go with my rose.

We enjoyed dinner and dessert and struck up a conversation with the couple sitting near us, so we had a lot of fun as the sun set and the lights came on.  Then, it was time for the show.

It was especially fun to watch and cheer, because the performers are the ones who run the trapeze lessons during the day, so Vivian knows them all now, and they absolutely know what they're doing.

As things were wrapping up, a full strawberry moon started to rise over the water, so I took the girls down to the beach for a picture.

Elena went back and got another great shot of the moon farther up.

It was a magical evening, and the perfect ending to a wonderful holiday.  I'm not sure when we'll be able to go back next, but it is definitely on our list.