The nausea has started and I do feel queasy on some days especially when I am in the kitchen. The biggest culprit is the dish washing liquid… and the stale smell when I open the kitchen door. It get worst if my neighbor is cooking some really oily stuff. I try to not stay around the area as much as I could.

Since we have to make lots of preparations before the big move, we have to list down all the stuff we need to bring along with us as buying there could be expensive. However, shipping our stuff over is not going to be cheap either. We are contacting some movers to come over to make an assessment on the cost of moving our belongings.

Besides that, we have a long list of stuff to buy as it will be more convenient to have them ready then to buy there due to availability. There are definitely lots of small items which we would never thought of having until we are listing them down!!! However, we will not be getting any fiberglass storm shelter here since it is not something easily available in a country where no great storm has strike! Probably we will find one in DownUnder if we really required one!

We were extremely lucky as that day was a pretty crowded day (they just opened recently) and we got a parking lot without having to drive around. After we parked our car, I went to the trolley station to get a trolley to put the kids in and was surprise to found a branded walking stick (unfortunately not Leki Poles!) We waited for a while and looked around but no one seems to come to claim it so we pushed the trolley in.

So, finder keeper??

Darrius and Glennedine is exactly 4 years apart so there will definitely be a little gap between them thus they can’t really play together all the time. On most time, Darrius will complains that his sister is disturbing him and refused to share toys with her. On the other hand, Glennedine is extremely playful and believe me, she is more active and mischievous than her kor-kor! She just wants to play and dislike being alone (though she can sit quietly watching her favorite VCDs at times) for too long. She likes to be in action and around people!

As days goes by, she is getting more and more independent and is able to do a lot of things on her own too… at time, better than her kor-kor. She is able to communicate better (can understand more words) and is able to give her reactions too.

Last Sunday while in Sunday school waiting for Darrius, I let her play with some stickers and I sat there watching her. Her actions (peeling the stickers and pasting them in various places) made me realized that indeed she has grew a lot more in the past weeks!

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For a moment, there was sadness in my heart. I can’t believe my little girl is already turning 20 months in a week time! She has started to have a mind of her own too. She knows when she needs to say ‘YES’ or ‘NO’ when we asked her questions. However, she seems to have this vivid personality which made her so fun and lovable.

I so wished that I could freeze this moment! I am feeling so heavyhearted to see her grow up right before my eyes.

My little darling, how mama wished you could stay this age forever!

PiggyBeng had gathered that, those rice packs on sale in most supermarkets/hypermarkets are usually neared their expiry dates and thus bugs will grow when we are still in the midst of consuming them. However, these AAA rice are not cheap either. Normally we paid at least RM40 and above for a 10kg pack.

Just a week before we left for our US trip, I was forced to open another 10kg pack as we have ran out and we are still eating the same pack till today. We have been eating out a lot too and was away a few times during this period.

To my horror, the amount of bugs growing in my pack of rice almost doubled or tripled than normal! Eeeks!

Remembered I saw something being sold in Daiso which helps to remove these bugs, I went to get a pack…

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I bought the red pepper scent as the others were not available on that day. They have garlic and horseradish scent in the line.

When I got home, I quickly put it into my rice keeper and the effect was almost immediate!

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Those buggies kept crawling out from under the rice pile and in within 5 minutes I have caught about 10 on top of the pile of rice.

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I waited for another 10 minutes and many of the buggies has started to crawl out of the bag too… which is really amazing! I caught most of them and killed them by flushing them out at the sink!

It has been a week now and I hardly see these buggies crawling about in my packet of rice and I found a few were dead under the plastic too.

Too bad this packet of thing can only last 3 months and that means, I’ll have to get a packet each time I open up a new pack of rice!

About 2 weeks back, I received an email invite for a FREE Durian Buffet from my webhost so I decided to jump on the chance. PiggyBeng was of course filled with excitement and can’t wait for the day to arrives though he has been having durian buffet almost every weekend ever since we returned from the US! It will definitely be different since he don’t have to pay a cent and yet can enjoy to the max!

On that day (25th of June), we decided to go early (the event starts at 2pm) so we can get a good parking. It was a hot day and there were no sheltered parking unless we park across the road which we did not. We just make do with the parking lots available.

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Photo courtesy of Exabytes

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This is actually our first time coming to this location. It is pretty near to the usual durian farm we frequent at Titi Kerawang. This place is of course more spacious and the best is, they also served assam laksa! A bowl of assam laksa after having those creamy durian is a must! *slurp~*

Since we were early, we have to kill time by looking around the place. Discovered that this place also sell a varieties of stuff…

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I also went around snapping photos on what we will be having later as I know I won’t have the time when the makan-makan starts!

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The invites are for 50 pax and each pax is allowed to bring a partner so I estimated about 100+ people attending the event that day with a handful of Exabytes staff attending as well. The durian above were meant to be finished by us!

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I was more than happy to discover that they also includes rambutan, mangosteens and cempedak to the event! Since I don’t really fancy durian, I can eat the rest as I am a huge fancee of rambutan!

After the welcoming speech by one of the Exabytes’s staff, most of us went to queue up for a bowl of laksa…

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It is not the best assam laksa but hey! It is free so no complains!

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Even Darrius wanted a bowl!

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The rest of the people (PiggyBeng included) went to queue for the durian which were opened by the stall’s staff…

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I am not sure which varieties we had that day but I certainly remembered the ‘Ang Hay’ or Red Prawn in Hokkien which has tiny seeds!

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Even our little Miss Samseng was having the time of her life enjoying these creamy stuff together with her daddy!

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Darrius on the other hand was not too keen on the fruits but rather on the cold drinks served. He ate a little of the laksa and complaint that it was a little too spicy and drank lots of nutmeg and preserved plum drink.

Glennedine was of course having more fun than her kor-kor since she enjoyed durian as much as her daddy. I even threw her some rambutan to disturbed her!

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We stayed on till about 4pm before we decided we have had enough. Everyone was full… especially PiggyBeng since he ate the most! He was extremely pleased too! In fact, I even ‘tapau’ (take home) a bag of rambutan since they can’t finish and the boss just want to clear everything off.

Aaaah! What a good ending to a wonderful event!

Thanks again to Exabytes for inviting us!

I was told by a friend that there will be some farms along the way to San Diego which we can pop by and do the picking. Apparently we don’t have to pay what we pick and eat but only pay when we check out with our little buckets. Ain’t that sounds fantastic???? heheheh

After some checks on the internet, I also saw some gourmet fruit arrangements companies in that area and thought that was a fantastic idea to get some for my friend too!

Another sad thing is, the person who is sharing the day with me has to leave for a trip to another continent. Don’t ask me why he chose to go today coz due to all the schedules… so it was unavoidable.

Now, the only consolation is, my parents will be here tomorrow as they need to go to my grandma’s place in Lunas (near Kulim) for the wake and funeral.

What a way to celebrate our 6th year of union!

Coincidentally, it is a Saturday (our wedding day was also on a Saturday)…

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They have quite a good varieties but due to the fact that I wanted certain ingredients in my bowl, I was left with only limited choice and I ended up ordering their smoked black pepper chicken noodles with their original sauce.

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Darrius had their smoked original drumstick noodles since he has to share it with Glennedine. Like what listed in their menu, the noodles are indeed very springy which I really like but taste wise just so-so. Their pricing is considered reasonable. I would like to try their curry noodles if I visit them again.

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And here is Glennedine looking happily while waiting for our food to be served…

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Initially we only went to the lobby to let the kids cycle but after a short tour around the place, we came to the pool and Darrius insisted that he wanted to play in it. I told him to just sit there with Tessa and kick the water but slowly it led to both of them taking off their clothes and jumped into the pool for a good 30 minutes!

I hope the kids won’t regret the photo above 20 years down the road!

However, the malls are not as congested as I thought. Somehow, the malls here are never like those in KL or Singapore… always ‘mountain people, mountain sea’! Here we still have the rooms that we want and queues are not long… more people are walking about rather than buying things.

We had dinner at Chili’s… again! Today Baby G was incredible… she finished 3/4 of the kid pasta and munched on so much fries!!! Yet she was not contented and screamed for my steamed corn! This girl… she has weird appetite!!! One day she eats like a kitten and another she eats like a lion!

We managed to catch the acrobatic show and the lion dance tonight. While Baby G enjoyed the acrobatic show, she was afraid of the loud drum beating from the lion dance. Ended up I have to push her inside while PiggyBeng and Darrius continued. Too bad they do not have the event shown on those samsung lcd screens else I would get to watch from afar.

I think I better not go out this weekend… I am very sure the whole city will be jam up since most people have returned from other states to celebrate CNY here. School holiday start officially tomorrow!