November Fun

November was a fun, but busy, month for us. It started off with juggling International Day and the Marine Ball on the same day. Vivian was working the haunted house for International Day, so we didn't really see her, but Elena wanted to do EVERYTHING and try all the food, so Jeff and I were kept busy chasing around after her.

At first, she had a little trouble figuring out how to leverage herself through the inflated circles.

But once she figured it out, she made full use of her bouncy house time to bounce herself around as much as possible.

She learned some cultural games and tried food from different parts of the world, but, as always, Jeff found the best food in the whole place, Korean barbecue chicken.

We couldn't stay very long though, because I had to go and get my hair done for the Marine Ball that night. It was at the Mandarin Oriental, so we decided to stay there overnight to make things simpler.  We got a nice room with a park view, and we ordered some appetizers to share with friends, so that we could pre-party a bit.

We ended up having a fun night. There was the usual pomp and circumstance at the beginning.

The food was good overall, and we got some pictures of us all dressed up and with our friends before we all started dancing.

One of my favorite parts of the weekend though, was room service breakfast. Even though it was rainy, we still had our big window and a great breakfast spread.

Our busy weekend wasn't done yet though. It was also opening weekend of the new Black Panther movie, and we had promised the girls we would take them, so after fueling up on breakfast, we headed home to retrieve the girls. Then, we all went to Pavilion to watch the movie.

It definitely wasn't as good as the first one, but it's fun that Elena is now old enough to come to the movies with us.

We finished off a fun November with my favorite holiday, Thanksgiving. Since the school is international, we don't get U.S. Thanksgiving off, but I do have two personal days a year I can use, so I took one for Thanksgiving, and the girls took the day off too.

Noby and I started the day off with stuffing and turkey prep.

We had a bit of drama in the turkey acquisition. There was a turkey shortage this year, and so Noby had put in a special order, but we were worried it wouldn't come in time. Then, she got a WhatsApp message that one was available at Hock Choon, right then, so we scrambled to get some money, she got in a Grab, and returned triumphantly with a turkey. This year I was very thankful for Noby, who is the reason our household hasn't completely fallen apart in the chaos of me going back to work full time at a really intense job.

For our Thanksgiving dinner, we had seven adults and four kids, which I think is just about the right number for Thanksgiving dinner, not too big, not too small. We had plenty of food for everyone with leftovers to enjoy for the next few days, and Vivian was thrilled to be offered a space at the "adults" table.

We also had a bunch of friends over for our Saturday "Parade Day", but we realized after the fact that we were both so busy hosting that neither of us took pictures.  We tried a bunch of different sausage varieties for the sausage balls this year though, which was fun, and we can't wait for next year's party to repeat the ones that got the best reviews and maybe try a few new ones.  It was a great way to wrap a busy month.

Halloween and Safta Visit

My mom came to visit! Being the intrepid world traveler that she is, she made the 24 hour trip to see us. Although, let's be honest, the main draw was her granddaughters and probably the fresh mango too.

She came just in time for an early Halloween celebration at the embassy and the girls' October break. She gets extra points for following us all over the embassy as the girls collected candy from the various offices.

It was probably the most high energy outing we did, and it was on her first day. The rest of the time, we tried to take it easy. Elena introduced her to our Seri Hening fish pond.

And, of course, we showed off the mall lifestyle in KL.  We started with Suria KLCC which is directly under the Petronas Towers.  All the malls had beautiful flower displays for Diwali. 

I got a selfie with me and mom outside the mall, with the towers.

Since Mom is afraid of heights, that eliminates at least 50% of the top sight seeing activities in KL, so instead, we took her to the KLCC park and let her admire the towers from afar.

She also really liked the big trees in the park.

Our final destination for the day was the Mandarin Oriental hotel where I had booked us a fancy buffet lunch. The hotel also had a lovely Diwali display.

Even though the reservation was for 12, the hostess at the restaurant informed us that the restaurant didn't open until 12:30, typical, but frustrating. Luckily, everyone in our family is used to these kinds of hiccups, so we went to the coffee area next to the restaurant and had some drinks while we waited.  There was a lovely view of the park, so we tried to make the best of things.

Once the restaurant opened, they escorted us to a very nice, curved booth that was out of the way of the main food stations and had a view of the park. 

I had tried very hard to find out what kinds of food stations there would be, but all I got was "international". It turned out that since it was Diwali weekend, several of the other nationalities had been pushed out to make room for several Indian food stations. The problem was that most of those foods were spicy, which eliminated most of our dining party. Luckily, the Chinese soup and noodle station came to the rescue!

After that outing, we were all full, so we spent the afternoon relaxing at home and Elena and Safta finished a puzzle.

The next day, we kept it simple and went to our next door mall. We found more pretty Diwali decorations, but also did some shopping. Vivian was getting ready to start voice lessons, so I wanted to price check electric keyboards.

Even though the girls and I had the week off, Jeff still had to work, so we kept Mom busy by taking her to the fanciest mall in KL, Pavilion.  They also had up their Diwali display. They usually go over the top for holidays, and this was no exception.

While it's a fun mall for pictures, it's not really the most practical for shopping, so we mostly looked around and then got some lunch.

We walked off our lunch with a quick trip around Tokyo Street, and then we headed back home to rest and change for our evening outing. 

Even though Mom doesn't like heights, I knew she would like the towers all lit up at night, so we took her to the WET Bar which is at The W. From there, you can see the KL Tower lit up (it's behind her and Vivi),

and you get a great view of the Petronas Towers.

The next day I had Mom all to myself for a trip to the Islamic Arts Museum. The girls didn't want to go again, so they hung out with Noby. Mom and I wandered around and enjoyed the displays.

Then, we had a nice lunch in the restaurant.

For the next day's adventure, we included the girls. I still hadn't taken them to the aquarium over in KLCC, so with Mom along, we set off early, hoping it wouldn't be ridiculously crowded like it was the last time we tried. We were lucky this time, and we had the place pretty much to ourselves.

One of the main selling features of this aquarium is its "underwater" tunnel, and it did not disappoint. It has a moving sidewalk you can stand on, so we alternated being carried along and hopping off to look at things more closely.

It was definitely a successful outing.

But the fun didn't stop there. Jeff took time off of work, so that he could leave early and meet us for lunch. We decided to try out a relatively new place called Souled Out. We had quite the adventure trying to figure out how to get in, since we couldn't find a door from the mall to the main seating area, but eventually we figured it out and settled down for some fancy drinks and yummy food. The menu was ridiculously extensive, so we got a sampling of things to try.

The time went too fast, and before we knew it, it was the Sunday before school started again and Mom went back to the States. She watched the girls' swim lessons, and then we took her to Alexis for a send off meal.

We wished she could have stayed longer, but we're so glad she made the trip and got to experience Goerss life, KL style.