the life & travels of the littleton family: Goodbye to some friends and hello to family time

I don't think I mentioned this before, but our family here was so gracious and gave up our first week in Malaysia so we could visit with our fabulous friends. That was really great of them. John's mom made us all fresh-baked bread, and sorted out a guest apartment for them to stay in in our apartment complex. They changed their schedule around so that they could be home after Sam's bedtime so that we could go and spend our evenings with Phil and Julie. It was so wonderful. But after a week of us away, they're glad to have us to themselves. We've sort of been easing into family time with a Christmas celebration one morning, and now we're leaving for three days at a hotel on the mainland where we can all be together. I'm really looking forward to that time with them and it is so nice that our visit has lined up with Easter, the school's spring break, and, later, Mom's birthday (though we have missed Easter and my mom's bday- can't win them all I guess). I'm really hoping that our hotel time works fine for Sam's naps and nighttime sleep so that we can enjoy ourselves with the other adults while he is sleeping. We're going to try to get three rooms in a row to facilitate that sort of thing.

And now for a few pics:

This is from an outing we made to the Butterfly Farm with our nieces and Phil, Julie and Maddie. Unfortunately, we got there 10 minutes after closing and only got to sneak a peak, so we made plans to come back another day and visited this park nearby instead. The girls were oblivious to our mishap. I like this pictures because it shows all of my wonderful companions on that day (and their diverse hair colors)

The next day we went to Bukit Merah which is a fabulous waterpark and mini zoo combo. I don't have many pictures from the day unfortunately, but there are some in Dec 06 archives of the same place. Anyway, we had a great time. Maddie had a bad start at the ecopark when a squirrel monkey jumped on her and took her cracker just as we'd entered, but enjoyed the rest thoroughly. And Sam was pretty tired for the animals, but loved the waterpark (except for the buckets that gradually fill up and then tip over and make a big noise and a huge splash- that scared him). But his favorite part of the day was riding this little truck. He loves getting to be in the front seat in real cars too- a habit that my dad enforces by letting him park the car behind their gate at night often.

On the way home from the park, Maddie passed out on Phil- such a little angel.

Sat morning- we celebrated Christmas with our family. Sam loves this toy- it makes a squeeking noise when you hammer something and the other end is a whistle. He hasn't figured out how to blow but he likes breathing through it.