It was a long and tiring half day for me. It started at 7:30am. I told Emily to sleep early because she is not a morning person. She woke up with a happy face, a good start. She was all excited wearing her new uniform and dragging her new power puff girls roller bag. The orientation was supposed to start at 8:30am but I was surprised that many of the parents were early.

I had to send Emily to the class for a diagnostic test. Poor thing, first day she has to take exam for class streaming. 95% of the students were already seated and the teacher started to brief them on the test. It was only 8:15am. They started the test before 8:30am.

I stood outside the class to peep at the question paper. I saw Maths and BM questions. The BM section had making simple sentences with words provided. Last section I heard from Emily was Maths in BM, translating the BM words into Maths equation and solving the problem. Guess who was sweating? Not the students but the parents standing outside. One of the parents who were also the teacher of the school told me, she was shocked to see the tough questions too. Anyway, I am glad Emily did well, she gotten into the class she wanted. There were more than 300 students in Std 1 and only 2 Chinese gals, no Chinese boys.

It was a long day because we had to wait for the teachers to mark the paper and stream the students in the class accordingly. I wonder why they don’t do this on the 1st week of school. It was kind of ambitious for the school to do it all in 1 day. 2nd part was for parents to submit the forms, pay the school fees, get the new books and measure the child for sportswear.

By the way, I have to say kudos to the headmaster, he gave a 2 hour speech in the hall, while the students were having the test. Fortunately for me, there was wifi in the school to keep me company.

If you notice in the picture, she will be the first batch who will do Maths & Science in BM. I was hoping that she will escape from the change because it was suppose to implement in year 2012. It is kind of sad but I guess I have to teach her Maths & Science in English.

Penang Turf Club having an open day from 17th – 19th 10am – 6pm, lots of activities for the kids. I was afraid of the crowd, so we decided to go early. However there was not a big crowd, maybe due to gloomy weather.

First stop, we went for the carriage ride, RM 4 per person for 2 rounds. Emily was dying for a pony ride, so it was next on the list. She did ride on the pony for RM3 and it was just 1 small round. Tim was not interested.

Then, Emily wanted face painting, actually hand painting. First I paid RM 2 for a small butterfly, then I saw one girl who draws very well. Later Emily wanted a big butterfly with her. Other activities were clown show, puppet show, sand art, clay art and of course visiting the horses or ponies. It was a great family day and a tiring one too.

Queensbay Mall is having a Barbie Fashion Event till 26th Dec 2010. There was also a photo shoot for girls who would like to dress themselves as Barbie. Emily liked it very much when she saw it and I let her be Barbie for 30 minutes. :giggles: A dream come true for her. I can see her grinning ear to ear.

The makeup, photo shoot, rental for princess dress, fake hair, fake lashes, stocking and shoes are free. If you want to participate in the contest, you need to pay RM20. You get 1 photo and 1 Barbie T-shirt. If you like the photos, you can sign up for the package at RM 199, RM 399 or RM 599 respectively.

I find that the photo shooting was professional as they have a choreographer to help with the pose. It was like my bridal shooting.

I managed to select 10 photos from the collection and 1 for the contest. I believed there were over 50 shoots made. The album will be done in Jan and I cannot wait to see it. Second time we visit, Emily wants to do it all over again. *rolleyes*

Before Makeup:

During Makeup:

After Makeup & Fake Hair – Yeap doesn’t look like her

Photoshoot

I am sure you are anxious about my Langkawi vacation. I am sorting out the pictures that is why it took some time.

First to share is the Mangrove Tour. We woke up early for this because we want to avoid the sun but the weather was cooling, not so hot. We started at 8am, drove 30 minutes from our hotel to Kilim Jetty. My poor kids had to have breakfast in the car.

Mangrove Tour is a must to see if you are in Langkawi. You can go to Kilim Jetty and book a boat for 1,2 or 3 hours. I would say 2 hours is just nice. If you want to go for a swim which I don’t recommend, you can go for 3 hours. The rate for 1,2 and 3 hours are RM200,RM300 and RM400 respectively for a boat. I managed to get 3 hours for RM330.00.

What is inside the tour?
– Mangrove Sightseeing
– Fish Farm with fish feeding, kids would love this.
– Crocodile Cave which has no crocodile
– Eagles Feeding, lots of eagle flying. Great sight!
– Bat Cave, lots of bats…..sleeping
– Andaman Sea, nothing there…
– Icon Kilim Geoforest Park, nothing there…

Look at the pictures for yourselves…don’t you feel like going too?

Fish Farm Feeding:

I got this fun craft from US. It is a few pieces of wood with a picture of a girl and her clothes. In the set, they provide color pens to color the girl and clothes. I got it for US$2.99 and Emily love coloring it. After that she can play pretend with her other dolls. I bought a few packs. Another set has small picture frames where you can insert your photo after completing it. I love coloring it with her too.

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I believed New York Times Square has the biggest Toys R US store. I stepped in and I saw this huge Ferris wheel in front of me. I wanted to ride but I need a kid to get on, I presumed. Too bad my children were not with me. After I showed them the picture, they are persuading me to take them to New York.

Besides that, there were staffs giving demo to the toys sold there. Lots of activities inside the store. I like the Lego section because they have a lot of big Lego displayed. Two famous attractions were there, the Empire State Building and Statue of Liberty.

If I bring my kids there, I can assure you that they will spend the whole day there. One thing lacking, they should have a cafeteria in there too. I am sure this Christimas, lots of people will be contributing to the store.

View Larger Map

We went back to Teluk Bahang Penang National Park on Hari Raya Haji public holiday for hiking again. This time, we picked another destination called Sungai Tukun. I picked this place because it has most of the facilities and the hike is about 15minutes. It is not so taxing for the children. The place has both river and sea.

At first when my kids heard about hiking, they were not keen after the last trip of 90 minutes hike. Emily gave me a sad face. I encouraged her by saying, it will be a very short hike and you can play with water and sand. Both my kids love playing with water.

Yes, I would recommend this place for anyone who wants to hike with children. The place is beautiful. The river water is clean. In the middle of the stream, someone build a pool and my children had a good swim there.

The annoying part is the monkey. They are eying on our food and definitely cannot eat there. It will attract a bunch of them and they will start to surround you. Imagine, I threw some rubbish into the bin. Next minute, my hubby told me that the monkey just grabbed it from the bin and ran.

My children gave thumbs up and they want me to bring them back again! Definitely will go again.

Up The Track & Down The Track

After that, we headed for a delicious seafood lunch with sea view.

Attacking The CLAW!

Today was the Deepavali Holiday and my family went hiking. We hiked to Pantai Kerachut, one of Penang National Park in Teluk Bahang. I have heard so much about it and finally I can see it for myself.

My hubby and Tim went there before and told us it will be at least a 90 minutes hike. I am all prepared for it but not sure if Emily can do it. However we made it. Tim wanted to ride the boat instead of hiking there but it was too costly. A boat rental is RM200 per boat, round trip.

Entrance & Trail Map

We decided to hike there and come back by boat. It was not a difficult trail. Most of the trail has steps. One or two that was difficult to cross but there was rope tied by the side to help us.

First stop was a stream of water, my children decided to go for a feet dip. Well, they just like to play with water. Emily asked why no fish to come and eat off her dirt. As we journey along, we looked at the plants, the trees and listen to the sound of the jungle. Emily & I sang some Sunday School songs as we hike, just to distract her from asking me when it will all end.

After more than 90 minutes, I believed it was longer than that, they finally saw the bridge that leads to a beautiful beach. By the way, the place here has full facilities such as toilets, a place for shower, camping site and the beautiful beach.

My children just cannot wait to get themselves wet and they had a good swim with papa. We took the boat back that cost RM50 for my family. You can negotiate with the boat driver. It was really an experience and prepared to get wet. The waves were very rough and it went up & down. Thank God we arrived safely. Here are some pictures of the place…

Once I was in a little argument with Emily. She was at the table playing Lego or her toys, the fan was on. I was at the study room working. Papa was fetching Tim from school. She was the only one in the living room.

Later after dinner, I saw the fan still switched on. I asked her and she insisted she didn’t switch it on. I asked her who did it. She said, “Not her”. I asked her to go switch it off. I guess her stubborn gens kicked in and insisted she didn’t switch it on. She refused to switch it off. I was all steam up and she was crying.

Guess who saves the day? Tim came walking from his dinner table and went to the remote to switch it off. He said, “Simple”. And it resolved the matter.

Clank, Jump, Shake, Twist…you name it, they have it. Yes, today is my girl’s graduation and concert day.

Yippy!! Emily graduated from kindy and moving into primary school. Today she has a grand concert. I feel for the teachers who spent more than half a year preparing all the children to give a good performance. I like the last part where they did the Sound of Music. Remarkable piece!

Emily performed in 3 categories, Percussion to the song of Waka Waka (This Time For Africa), Rock ’n’ Roll Dance and acted in a small part of Beauty & Beast.

This Gal Can Dance & I vote her the best dancer in the concert: