Cameron Highlands

In Malaysia, about a three and a half hours drive up a windy road from Kuala Lumpur, one of the largest cities in the country,  you find verdant, rolling hills of lush teas leafs and cool refreshing air.  My sister and I headed there for a quick get away last week.  We flew 30 minutes to KL and then drove up into the highlands by taxi.  We stayed in a lovely manor, restored into a hotel (although with only 11 rooms it was more like and inn or B&B.)  After resting for a bit, we enjoyed high tea on the terrace of the hotel, drinking strawberry tea and eating biscuits with fresh strawberry jam, as the highlands are also known for growing strawberries as well as tea.  Everything we saw was picturesque.  It was hard to choose which to post.

On the drive up we saw lots of little bamboo huts and things such as these for sale on the side of the road.  The natives in the area, aboriginals they are called here, collect these fruits in the jungle and sell them.

 The drive up to the highest peak in Southern Malaysia was long and windy but worth the ride.  After an amazing view at 6666 feet, we entered the mossy forest.

It is a rain forest that is up so high in the cloud coverage that it remains moist year round, hence all the moss. We had an amazing guide and he called it "Pandora's Box." There are only insects and birds up here, along with a lot of exotic plants.  There really was a sense of another fantasy world about it.  

I wish I remember what these are called, but they are insect eating flowers all throughout the forest.

In the afternoon we drove through miles and miles of the BOH tea plantation, stopping for some tea (peppermint for us,) learning all about the history of tea and how it is harvested, processed, packaged and distributed.  We were surrounded on every side by these rolling patchworks of tea bushes.

 In this picture you can see the blue barracks where all the tea employees live.  They come from other countries and stay for 5 years, cutting tea leaves 6 days a week, all day long.

Cami and I with the old British jeep we toured in.  When the British left, they also left behind a small fleet of Land Rovers.

A local woman harvesting tea.  She will get paid by the kilo after a days work.  

The final stop of the day was at an aboriginal village.  We sat inside a man's longhouse and learned about the customs and way of life of these Malaysians who still live in the jungle and hunt with blow guns, poisoned darts and sling shots.  Cami and I both got talked into trying out one of his blowguns.  He still hunts every morning.  There are no cars here, and it would take about a day to walk to the little town and get food.

 We had a brief shopping excursion at the Central Market in Kuala Lumpur before heading to the airport.

Soccer

Soccer is in full swing now.  Each Saturday starts in a rush to get breakfast, water bottles and all the gear.  Joseph is the assistant couch to Xander's team and assistant couch to Abigail's "dream team" with Uncle Craig as the couch and her cousin Breann on the team.  They are really doing well this season.  I do not have too many pictures yet.  I'll try and get some more action shots.  Both the kids ended up on an orange colored team this year.  

Breann is wearing the blue goalie jersey and Abigail is sitting behind her.  Joseph is giving some halftime advice.

Funny Little Ella

For anyone that has grown up with Dick and Jane, Ella has recently discovered the books I used when I taught Maggie to read years ago.  She wants me to read them to her over and over; only the words are so simple, I find myself making up more complicated stories.  Ella reminds me of funny little Sally in the books with her blond curls.  She is such a lively little girl and always laughing.  I thought I would post some of the funny pictures I have taken of her lately.

Ella coming home from celebrating National Day at school. She has a Singapore flag on her cheek.  After all, she was born here.  And she randomly wore sheep ears to school.

Actually, Ella is supposed to wear a uniform to school.  But she absolutely refuses.  In fact, she insists on dressing herself everyday and this is one of her favorite outfits.  

 More often than not, she is a dog.  She wears a collar around the house and crawls around on all fours, asking me to walk her.  She even attaches a leash to herself. Only, I wish she responded to "no" as well as the dogs do.

 She and Juliet are becoming better friends lately. Juliet will soon have longer and thicker hair than Ella, but definitely not as curly.  I just love how intensely blue these eyes are of my last two. Ella's are really light blue, and Juliet has really dark blue eyes.  Juliet has a very different demeanor though.  She is as serious as Ella is silly.

A Room of One's Own

Well, my room is indeed a sanctuary for me, but I cannot call it my own.  We often gather there for family prayer or scripture study.   The kids hunt me down and find me there.  But I have wanted a place of my very own since I first read Virginia Woolf's essay, A Room of One's Own back in college.  It's not that I'm a feminist or that I mind sharing everything I have, or am not willing to, but before I am a wife and a mother, I have to exist and be comfortable with myself.  I need to make sense of what is around me. That need is fulfilled in writing and reading, recording thoughts and experiences.  In order to do so, I must have a place that is a retreat for me alone where I can "illumine {my} own soul with its profundities and its shallows, and its vanities and its generosities, and say what [my] beauty means to [me] or [my] plainness, and what is [my] relation to the ever changing and turning world . . ."  When I am at my desk thinking or writing, I am clarifying, understanding and growing or merely recording "All these infinitely obscure" but oh so profound "lives." So, I have improvised a little and now have a desk of my own; and it rolls down and locks.  Everything on my desk or around it has specific significance to me and I can as Virginia Woolf asks, "live in the presence of reality . . . to find it and collect it and communicate it to the rest of us."  I guess with all my journals and notebooks, that is what I hope to accomplish someday.

(The watercolor that is hard to see clearly on the wall was painted by my grandfather.  And the candlelit lamp is a unique gift Joseph brought to me from Chicago very early on in our marriage.)

Another view of my room.  I recently acquired this ladder to hang shawls and scarfs on.  They are too beautiful to leave in a drawer.  There are shawls from Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia, Malaysia and India on that rack.  I wear them all too, occasionally.  By the way,  I didn't pick the lime green curtains in my room.  Those came with the house and there is no point spending money to change them.  I'm used to them now and so I guess they don't look so bad anymore.

My Herbs and other projects

Herbs are just one of those things that I can never get enough of.  I love the strong aromas, the textures, the usefulness and variety in these beautiful plants.  Just the smell of any herb brings me back to my girlhood and the herb garden I was so passionate about in my yard growing up. After 4 years of trying to grow herbs and failing, I finally came up with a workable plan.  It was definitely not easy, but I dug out 9 inches of red, clay and rocks from my small garden bed.  (Most of our yard is tile with a few grass patches.)  I replaced it with bags and bags of dark topsoil and organic compost.  Then, the fun part.  Shopping for herbs and planting them in the garden.  I am proud to have 14 different herbs growing: aloe vera, fennel, rosemary, dill, lavender, basil, oregano, thyme, parsley, chives, sage, mint, tarragon, and lemon balm.   Keeping them alive is another task that I do lovingly.  Most of these herbs are not naturally tropical so I have had figure out how to shade them and water them as they get a lot of rain from tropical storms.  In any case, it is a fun hobby.  I have used the herbs to make arrangements, soaps, braided bread, lots of different butters, in cooking, oils, vinegars and tea.  Next I am going to try hanging them and drying them for various things.  

There are no stakes here; or Home Depot.  That would make life too easy.  We have bamboo poles and a plastic mesh to help filter the sun.  

Herbs drying in the dining room for potpourri.

 This is the guava tree we planted in the back of the house.  I love looking at the fruit on the vine.  because there are no seasons here, watching the fruit grow outside my kitchen window reminds me that time is passing and life is changing.

During the summer, I started a project for our bed.  We have never had a bed frame and I had this idea to create a canopy with silk and arrange these photos of my ancestors behind.  It was fun collecting the frames this summer in the US (and then trying to get them here without breaking all that glass.)  My brother gets the credit for doing the research and coming up with all these photos and dozens more.  Five generations on both sides are represented on the wall. There are so many genealogical lines to explore, it is impossible to represent them all.  I love looking at the pictures though as I get ready for bed.  They remind me of the great heritage I have, a noble progeny that have gone before me and set good examples of faith and courage.  As I worked on this project, it inspired me to learn more about my ancestors and their lives; and I believe they are angels looking over me and my family now.  This has also led to many conversations with my kids about who these people are and how they relate to them.  I love these types of questions and conversations.  I want to continue the project and learn more about Joseph's family.  I'll need help from Joseph's parents to do that and they are occupied right now on their mission. Oh, and I made the pillows on the bed with my mother's help a couple of summers ago.  I just bought two bedspreads and cut one up for pillows.   

Dogs

A lot of our life lately has revolved around these puppies.  We have been diligently training them and teaching them not to bite, chew on anything but their toys, not to bark, to do their business in the same spot in the yard, walk on a leash properly, only allowed in the family/entry way inside, sit, and so on.  We have to thank the Dog Whisperer for a lot of our ideas and technique.  His shows are amazing and very insightful to dog psychology.  People have asked if the kids are tired of the dogs.  Not at all.  It is a lot of work but also fun to see how attached they are to the children.

 Joseph takes the girls and the dogs for a morning walk almost every morning after the big kids get on the bus.  Because he is into walking barefoot and the whole Born to Run philosophy, he allows the children to be barefoot a lot now.

 Speaking of running, I love this picture for 3 reasons.  Everyone in it, dogs included, have a foot in the air.  I love the movement it captures.  It is on our street and it is the final race to the house we all do with the dogs at the end of a walk: run down Melrose Drive.  I know one day it will bring back memories as we won't live here always.  Notice the bare feet. . .

 This is great.  Maggie and Conrad almost have the same expression.

 Ella and Vinka.  Vinka is by far the sweetest of the pair.

Conrad loves Abigail above everyone else.  He is even devoted to her when she practices cello.  

Some other cute shots.

Universal Studios

 Universal Studios is truly universal.  There is a very small piece of it here in Singapore at a place called resorts world on Sentosa Island, an island just south of Singapore accessible by car.  The kids had 3 days off for student conferences, so we used this chance to visit the theme park and to celebrate their hard work and accomplishments thus far in the school year.

 Abigail and Maggie enjoying the potion ride together.

 Ella in old Hollywood

 Ella's very favorite place was the castle.

It was a hot, hot day, but we all had a good time together.  The park is small enough that you can really see all of it; and go on the rides, multiple times.