Our lives are full of adventure. The night before we left for Kota Bharu (thursday night), we had a great dinner with Tok-Tok, Nana and the rest of the family till about 10pm then went home to pack. Why pack so last minute? Because I hadn’t had a single free moment all week to pack, that’s why. I kid you not. The Hubs was major pissed that I was dissing my responsibilities but man, he doesn’t have a clue what it’s like to hold 5 jobs all at once.

The kids were tired and so were we but pack we had to and yet we had to put the kids to bed. We couldn’t decide which to do first because putting the kids to bed would take at least an hour and unfortunately, I had to be involved in both tasks!!! Wouldn’t it be simple, if the Hubs and I could just split the chores and each do one? No, because he wouldn’t know what to pack and the kids don’t want him to put them to bed. *big sigh*

Mind you, I had a work deadline. I’d promised my boss that I’d send him some work by the evening but by the time I packed AND put the kids to sleep, all I wanted to do was crash. CRASH. Like just fall deep into my mattress. As much as I mustered up the will to get up and work, my eyelids were shut tight. So I smsed my boss to ask if I could get the work to him the next evening instead and of course, he said yes. And because he is the best boss one could ever have, EVER……..I got second wind and got out of bed to complete the work which saw me finally seeing black at 230am.

At exactly 4am, T1 woke up coughing and then vomited on the bed. Lalalalala…….was this another pre-holiday excitement challenge? Clean sheets and middle of the night stress later, T2 woke up asking for milk at 6am. Instead of getting everyone out of bed, I accidentally fell back to sleep and by the time we all woke up, it was 730am. Still so much to do…….all that last minute packing. Rush-rush-rush, get the kids dressed and out of the way, we forgot to book a taxi. Our flight was at 10.50am. We needed to be at KLIA by 945am latest. With our bad ass luck, we called for a cab from 8am for about 30 minutes but it was raining and there was no taxi. I think nobody wanted to take us to KL Sentral as it was so close to home! Yet, we didn’t think taking a cab straight to KLIA would have cut it because it was Friday and the traffic was very bad. The Hubs and I were both ding-dong-ing about what to do and I must say, in a crisis when the kids are still jabbering on about this that and the other, I have more calm and finally made the decision to drive ourselves to KL Sentral to zoom to KLIA with the train instead. Never mind what parking at KL Sentral cost for a week – RM40 per day, I think. ERL tickets cost RM85 one-way. So instead of potentially paying RM200 for the return KLIA trip, we are now going to pay something like RM500 for our KLIA return journey.

All this time, we were fighting against time…..it was peak hour morning traffic on a rainy Friday. When we finally got to KL Sentral, we took awhile to find parking so finally the hubs asked me to go down with the kids to check-in everything and he’d meet me at the train gates. I rushed down with the kids and told them we were in the Amazing Race as per Aunty PL’s definition and they had a ball of a time not realising the severity of the problem. When we got to the check-in counter, I was made to purchase the ERL tickets first before being allowed to check-in. WTF! By the time I buy the tickets, the check-in counters would be closed!!!

I prayed and prayed and flung out the inhalers, then quickly paid for the ERL tickets and RAN to the check-in counter with my kids. They needed my husband’s IC in order to check him in and they needed all our IC’s. WTF again! I usually don’t carry the kids MyKid Cards with me but it just so happened I did this time. Phew. Got our boarding passes and then phoned the Hubs who was still looking for parking. It’s great, isn’t it? World class facility but yet why do I still feel so inconvenienced?

When he finally came down, what felt like ages, we got him checked in and zoomed to the trains downstairs. And the train was delayed. We finally got onto the train at 950am and arrived at the airport just in time to board the plane at 1040am. See my monkeys’ faces? So cool and calm, right? You should have seen OUR faces.

Last ones onto the plane…….

I swear to God, I’m too old for this kind of excitement even if the kids loved it. It’s like going on a roller coaster – just way too old for such things.

The silver lining in this though was that on the way to the airport, whilst the Hubs and I were still majorly stressed as we didn’t know if we were going to make it and what more, he’d lost his boarding pass from KL Sentral, T1 observed the beautiful sun rays that fell from the sky. She pointed and said, “Isn’t that just beautiful??? The whole sky is clouded up and there is a hole within the clouds where the sun is shining it’s rays down…..”

Let there be light. Gratitude. Check. My girl appreciates real beauty. We have the eyes to be able to appreciate such beauty. Thank you. I was sure then that we would make that plane and we did.

Bless……..

As soon as we arrived, the girls ran out of the baggage place to greet their grandfather and T1 happily told him about our amazing race adventure, and as soon as we parked the car in Kong-Kong’s house, they ran to the garden to hop onto their respective bicycles after saying hello to everybody. Like caged monkeys let loose into the jungle……….

T2 didn’t even want to remove her jeans before she played. They are so deprived of the outdoors, my girls.

T1 getting spoilt and ‘manja-ed’ by her Kong-Kong. Kong-Kong’s big baby!

And here, our wonderful welcome lunch. Nasi Kerabu, with shredded kembung fish and 10 different vegetables (including mint leaves, daun kesum, bean sprouts, lemon grass, and who knows what else) all minced into green rice; topped up with Bubu (I don’t know what that is, fish sauce something?) and sambal belachan. Spicy crunchy Heaven.

Dinner was Assam Fish which I don’t have a photo of because it came out last so we could have it hot and some sausage lobak thing, steamed asparagus, some prawn/pork vegetable soupy dish and deep fried tofu prawn with chillies.

I don’t know why Ama keeps steaming asparagus for the girls. They never eat them!!! She also cooked separately for the girls, they had minced pork and rice with whatever else they wanted on the table. They wanted keropok  -__-

This vegetable dish below was very fragrant. The choy sum vegetables came straight from the garden and it was cooked with mushrooms, garlic, pork, prawns and wine. Superbly delicious.

Deep fried tofu prawns dipped in vinegarette chilli sauce. Yumz.

The evening saw T1 and T2 playing – what else do they do??? And myself working – what else do I do???

But we’re loving it in Kota Bharu……

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Who is Mamapumpkin?
Mamapumpkin is a former Design Architect turned Multi-Million Dollar Digital Entrepreneur. She sets out to prove to all that you can have anything and everything that you want; if you have that fire of desire burning within and the drive to work hard. Even better with much love.

Mamapumpkin has not only grown corporate businesses successfully in the past and doubled her salary 5 times over 5 organisations but has grown THREE BUSINESSES to 7 FIGURES within an 8 year period. She now shows others EXACTLY HOW after retiring her own husband from employment. He is now the official dog walker, family driver, chef and THE BEST FATHER to their two girls and THE BEST HUSBAND to the woman who CHOSE HIM!

Mamapumpkin is the girl who has nothing but fights for everything including YOU. She is idealistic in her desire to put unbelievable amounts of money and extrardinary happiness into the lives of good people so we can change the world together believing in happiness for ALL. She strives to impact lives authentically wanting to reduce poverty cycles and enable quality education for all and always supports the voiceless. She believes we can all have a life of our own desires to enable real contribution into the world. But first, one needs to understand what this all means.

A beautiful life without limits.

If you wish to learn how to propel your life forward guaranteed, be brave to take action. Mamapumpkin's purpose is to build people. Her gift is to help them UNCOVER their HIDDEN GIFTS. She operates fairly and always leaves an impression. You either love her or not and she is alright either way.

She is a living testimony that women really can have a lot. Being financially and time free has enabled her to travel the world anytime, anywhere, doing anything with anyone, as she spends most of her days with her children, having fun, supporting others wherever she can. Also having fun.