Celebrating My Veteran

This year, Veterans' Day fell on a Thursday, but I was undeterred and decided to make it a long weekend celebration regardless.  I planned an outing for us on Thursday, and a staycation for Friday night.  Some friends joined us, and we ended up having a lovely couple of days celebrating Jeff.

Veterans' Day is one of those holidays that we get where Jeff is off work, and the girls are at school.  Since this year they were both actually AT school, we decided to celebrate by exploring Pavilion Mall and going out to lunch.  Pavilion Mall is one of those malls full of designer shops where you're probably not going to buy anything, but window shopping is a lot of fun.  Since it was his day, we spent a lot of time looking at ludicrously expensive watches.  We also enjoyed trying to interpret the under-construction Christmas decorations.

We are definitely going back to see the finished product.  All the walking gave us a good appetite for lunch, which we decided to eat at La Boca, a "Latino" restaurant.  They had a combination of Spanish tapas and Mexican dishes, plus all kinds of interesting drinks.  The service was great, so we had a leisurely lunch exploring both the food and drinks sides of the menu.

The next morning, after we put the girls on their respective buses, we very responsibly went to the grocery store to make sure we had food for the weekend.  We tried the Jaya Grocer at Intermark mall, which is a really nice supermarket.  Jeff also found a good barber, and a place that sells golf clubs.  Even though we saw hints of transitioning to Christmas decorations, they still had up some lovely Diwali, or as they say it here Deepavali, decorations.

We hung around the house until the girls got home, so that we could give them hugs and remind them to be good for Noby, and then we headed off for our staycation.  I had booked us a package at The Majestic, one of the oldest hotels in KL that has been acquired by the Marriott Bonvoy group.  I'm not sure what condition it was in when they acquired it, but the facilities and service were all top of the line.  The lobby was great.

Our check in process was smooth, and we quickly made it up to our suite.  The package, called "Celebrate Romance", included a suite, a bottle of wine, dinner and breakfast, and a 50 minute couple's massage, all at a very reasonable price.  Plus, we discovered chocolates waiting for us with our wine.

The room had some strange angles, but it was large and comfortable.

And we had a good view.

It's near the Botanic Gardens and Chinatown, so we saw a lot of the same sights from our last staycation, just from different angles.

The dinner was a five course tasting menu, accompanied by a live singer and piano player.  The set up was very elegant, and we got to use all the cutlery, even though I didn't get pictures of all the food.

The food was fine, but the presentation was great, and we enjoyed our fancy dining experience.  The next morning, we got to check out their breakfast buffet, which was quite extensive and spread out over a large dining area.  We found plenty of good food.

We had some time after breakfast to digest, and then we headed over to the spa area for our massages.  On the way over, we walked past the Orchid Room where you can have afternoon tea.

We actually had to walk out of the main building to get to the spa building which was separate.

The spa was really lovely, but the massages were too short! We've gotten so used to 90 minute massages that 50 minutes just didn't feel like enough.  Still, as part of the package deal, we definitely got our money's worth.  The most important part is that Jeff had a good weekend, and we can't wait to explore our new home more the next time he has some time off.

Back to School, Finally!

The last time the girls went to in-person school was March 2020.  When we were back in the States this past year, it started with online only, and then the in-person options were not worth the exposure risk, since my parents are such a big part of our lives when we live five minutes from them.  When we got here to Malaysia, school was only online, and going back to in-person kept getting postponed by the government.  It was supposed to be September 1st, then October 1st, so you can imagine that when November 1st rolled around there was a combination of elation and some disbelief that school was REALLY open.  

The opening was gradual, only certain grades went back the first week, and then more came the next week.  Elena got to go on November 1st, and she was beyond excited.

I was excited to not be constantly wrangling her and setting alarms for her to sign into Zoom classes.  Vivian had mixed feelings about being home for that week, but she's pretty independent, so I celebrated Elena's first day at in person school by getting a pedicure at the mall next door.

Elena's teacher sent a copy of their new in-person schedule, so I made a "Goerss" version with pictures for specials like I've been doing since Viv was in Kindergarten.  Elena has PE every other day, so she alternates between her PE uniform and her regular one.  She also has library a couple times during the 8 day cycle.  Having it up on the fridge with a magnet she can move along for each day helps us all keep on track.

Her regular uniform is super cute too.  Each level has a distinctive polo.  For elementary it's bright blue with white and yellow trim.  She opted for the skort bottom, so she looks "fancy", but she can still run and play at recess.

Masks are required unless it's snack or lunch time.  She hasn't complained about that at all, which is a relief.  The trickiest part is adding it to the list of things to have before leaving the house, and we've had to run back more than once because we walked out the door without masks on.

The school is less than a 10 minute walk away, but the embassy pays for bus service, and the girls like to be on the bus with their friends.  The bus pulls up at the main gate of the apartment complex, which is luckily pretty close to us.  There's one bus for elementary and another for middle school and high school.  Vivi's bus comes a few minutes before Elena's, so the following Monday, we all got up a few minutes earlier to give Viv our full support on her first day back at school.  She was a bit nervous, but mostly excited to see all the friends she'd made online in person.

The middle school uniform is a lighter blue polo with navy blue lining.  Students can wear any navy blue bottom they want, so long as it's dress code appropriate.  I got Viv some cute navy blue skirts, but she's stubbornly sticking to shorts.  The most important part is that she's happy.  She takes her PE clothes to school to change into.  Luckily, she and Elena are on the same PE rotation, so she's being doing well with remembering her clothes.  Watching both of them get ready to go to school in the mornings brings me so much joy.

They're also both very happy to be back home in the afternoons.  The bean bags we ordered for Viv finally showed up, and she kindly allowed Elena a little post-school day lounge in them.

To celebrate Viv's successful completion of her first week of school, I agreed to take her to the movies.  She really wanted to see the new Marvel movie, Eternals.

She also wanted to try out the Beanie theater, which was described as giant bean bag seats for two.  I had my doubts, but it turned out to be pretty comfortable.  It was just a little tricky to get in and out of.

We had talked about going to a restaurant for dinner afterwards, but the mall was packed, and the restaurants all had a wait, so we went for our favorite default, Auntie Anne's.  We found a place to sit outside, just as some of the lights came on.

The Christmas decorations were still a work in progress at the mall, but I got a fun shot of the tree with the towers.  

We will definitely need to do a full tour of all the malls' decorations, because they go all out here, but I've already gotten the best holiday present of all.  The girls are at school in person, and they're happy and thriving.

First Halloween in KL

Obviously, Halloween this year was affected by covid.  School was still online, and the embassy did its best to create an outdoors, socially distanced celebration for the kids.  Thankfully, Vivian and Elena were both sure about what they wanted their costumes to be early on, which gave us plenty of time to get everything purchased and ready.  Vivian wanted to be classic Rogue, and Elena wanted to be Arrietty from The Borrowers and the more recent The Secret World of Arrietty.  Jeff has new glasses, which Vivian says make him look like Tony Stark, so he decided to go for it.

He received many compliments, and put a lot of effort into his look.  Vivian also spent time getting her hair JUST right.  While the color was already there, her curls tend to have a mind of their own, but we spent some time at the hair salon taming them, and the results were great.

My friend with sewing skills helped with a bag for Elena and detaching the gloves for Viv, and I used Etsy for the other props.  Both girls were thrilled with their costumes.

Once they were home from school and costumed up, it was off to the embassy.  The different offices had set up great displays in the parking lot around the embassy.  One of the best was an Alice in Wonderland themed display.

There were also Avengers,

Hawaii (where you had to "fish" for your candy),

Pirates of the Caribbean, with games, 

and a creepy doll's house.  Elena had no problem taking her picture with the doll.

Vivian is not in any of the pictures, because she spotted some of her teenage friends and immediately wandered off, while I stayed with Elena and her friend.  When we got to the "kidnapper van" with the free candy sign and the bloody hand prints, Elena was understandably hesitant.  Jeff and I were very proud of her instincts, but told her that in this particular case, it was okay to approach the van.

In the upstairs restaurant area, there was a "haunted house" which was not too scary for the younger ones.  There was also "blood" (aka red wine) for the parents who had made it that far.

Next, we went downstairs where there was a farm themed area, complete with a rabbit that felt the need to pee on Elena.  Luckily, there was a bathroom nearby where she could wash up.  She still loves the fuzzy animals, no matter what.

We finally found Vivian again.  She had been looping through the actually scary Marine haunted house with her friends.  We took her over to the Sweeney Todd themed area our friend had helped set up, and she got in the barber's seat.

Elena went for the touch and feel boxes.

There were some other areas we didn't get photos of, but the most important part is that the girls had a great time.  We were chatting with some of our friends about it, and one demanded to see a picture of what I had worn, so Jeff took this photo.

It's a t-shirt from the Loki show which has timeline variants, but honestly, at this point, the scariest thing we can think of is another covid variant, so it seemed like an appropriate Halloween costume.  

Elena continued to party the night away in the Hawaiian lei she got from one of the office areas. 

Seri Hening also had its own trick or treat event that people could sign up for.  Vivian went out with her friends, but I kept Elena home, half because she hasn't been vaccinated yet and half because she already had plenty of candy.  She loves Spirited Away though, so we had to get a photo with her and one of Vivi's friends who dressed up as a character from the movie.

We're not quite back to a fully "normal" Halloween yet, but it's definitely progress from last year.