Family Circus- Day 2

...and the fun continues...

The girls went out for manicures and pedicures...
Kaelyn wanted to get a "kid pedicure" (blue polish on her toenails... they say she's a lot like me!)...but in the end her 3-year-oldness thought the playland in the mall with her brother and sister would be more fun:)
After the nail salon we balanced the scales of male/female activities with go-karts...or as we've deemed them "WHOA-karts"...
...but as we were waiting for our turn, jet-lag caught up with the kids...

the guys went first......these karts go SO fast...They thoroughly enjoyed the lack of rules, standard safety measures (like seatbelts), and governor's caps...the guys are now spoiled and won't settle for anything less than racing-level karts.
The girls then handed the kids off and had our turn...
...this helmet reminded us of the line from the movie Cars, "Luigi only follow the Ferrari!"...
Then the kids went. These "slower" adult/child karts still went significantly faster than go-karts in the US... Jeremiah and Kaelyn had a blast!
Zach and Jeremiah only did a couple of 360's...but only one landed them in the grass...
We were getting ready to leave when the managers asked if Adrienne wanted to take a turn! Heather drove her around one lap... she loved it and didn't want to get out!
We ended the day with banana leaf at "The Purple Place." Everyone did great eating the curry vegetables and rice with their hands...
...but by far the most natural of us all at eating with her hands was Adrienne, she dove right in!
more fun being had...stay tuned for Day 3....

Family Circus- Day 1

My (Sharon) family has arrived! All of us are staying at our house...10 people...4 kids under the age of 5- 1 of them a newborn...7 of them experiencing jetlag...it is a CIRCUS! We have had so much fun already! I thought I'd just make blogs about each day's activities...then when they've gone back home we may post some more... right now we're so dead by the end of the day that putting up a post with a lot of thought is near impossible:)
After 18 months the sisters reunite!Everyone getting to just chill together (and try to figure out what the people on TV are saying!)
Grandson looking at his Granddaddy while hanging out at the house.
Our first stop was downtown... we ate at Chili's...and we were going to take pictures outside of the Twin Towers but then, it started raining... so...
We rode Thomas the Train (yeah, nothing like traveling half-way around the world only to ride a quarter machine in a mall)... then we walked underground to the Aquarium...
We had a great time looking at all the fish and other animals...
This frog looked like Jabba the Hut! (not a great picture...but too funny!)
Like Father...
Like Daughter...
The rain had cleared by the time we were out of the Aquarium and the tower lights were on... they looked cool in the pictures!
Grandmama, Granddaddy, and Kaelyn...
Kaelyn, Aunt Sharon, and baby Isaac...
Zach and Jeremiah...

Breakfast with the locals...

On Grandma's last morning here, Abang and Kakak had us over for "Nasi Lemak." (NAH-see Luh-mahk) That means "Fat rice."
I'm sure it falls within the Surgeon General's healthy foods guidelines.
There's no getting around eating nasi lemak for breakfast either. Usually it's sold in little stands on the side of the road for RM1 (about 33cents) and folded up in a banana leaf. Kakak made it just for our Mom. It's white rice, cucumber slices, an egg (either fried, or hard boiled), peanuts, little dried fish, and sambal. Sambal is to the locals as ketchup is to us. It's a spicy concoction of... well, I'm not sure...just some spicy red stuff and they eat it with nasi lemak (and lots of other stuff). We're sitting at a table and we used a fork and spoon to eat, but usually you're on the floor and eat it with your hands:) Sometimes you can pay for the Rm2 version of nasi lemak and it comes with chicken. Kakak made us her amazing friend chicken. It's so good (you can see Grandma eyeing it!)

Nenek Baru Sampai!!!

Grandma is here!!!
She's been here less than 12 hours - 8 of which were sleeping - and has already been spit-up on... and she's having a blast getting to hold her grandchild for the first time. We'll put up pictures of all the Gammalou fun in the days ahead on here and the baby blog, so keep on checking!

When going cross-cultural pays off...

Kakak brought some of her extended family over yesterday to meet Isaac (10 extra people and I promise they're all happy...the "older" generation just doesn't smile in pictures) It's always fun seeing her family and they have all been so great helping us learn so much about our new cultural surroundings.

Yesterday was no different...As Kakak's mom, her Aunt, and her sister were leaving they each tucked a 10-spot under Isaac's arm on the way out. Lily (Kakak's sister) just said, "OUR culture..." as she did it. How awesome is that!?! And now we know what to do if we ever visit a new baby. Woohoo for having babies in other countries!

American Soil...sort of

We walked on a little piece of America...we went to the American Embassy yesterday to get Isaac's passport application turned in.

Here's Anthony and Isaac outside the embassy walls. We had to turn our phones and camera in when we went through security, so there are none from the inside. But it's nicely manicured and the buildings are very neat, air-conditioned, and in true American bureaucratic style, "efficient" (mostly).We got all the paperwork turned in, but when we handed over Isaac's picture, they told us it was no good. He didn't have a shirt on. The thing is, we had already faxed in a photo and they told us his head needed to be smaller in it. So we took new ones. Both he was in a diaper only. So when they said "he needs a shirt" we asked rhetorically, "Why didn't anyone tell us when we faxed in the first one?" When Anthony paid, the lady brought our first photo fax over and there was a big dark streak right over his chest that made him look like he had a shirt on! HA! We wanted to say "Can't our tax dollars not buy a better fax machine?" The TV was also muted and the waiting area was stone-silent. I wanted to turn on the sound and declare to the room, "If I'm paying for this TV and the satellite images we're all watching I want sound too!" Anyway:) We went to a nearby mall and got yet ANOTHER photo taken (I guess it's what we get for not putting clothes on our kid). This time Isaac kept his eyes shut and started crying... so we learned if you REALLY want to get stared at in a foreign country, be white, have a baby (we thought pregnant and white was bad), and then walk around with said baby screaming at the top of his lungs...you're sure to get a crowd!