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Kids, Sports and Maturity

By on November 16, 2018

I think I have mentioned this again n again, when I enrolled my kids for sports activities, it was not with the primary intention of turning them into a great athelete but more than that. It is about development of personal self-esteem and confidence, decision making, time management, discipline to name a few.

A number of times, kids schedule clashes and I gave them the full liberty to make their choice, they would weigh between the two and come out with their decision. Previously Harith had to choose between rugby tournament and school camping, in which he chose the later. Putting into the consideration it is not often school organize such camping trip. There were a few other decisions they had to do. Can’t recall exactly what it was though. I find some joy in it..haha, seeing how they are going back n forth thinking which one should they choose.

This weekend, they have to choose between their School Exhibition and their home ground rugby tournament. Harith had a hard time thinking, secondary boys are much more involved for the exhibition and of coz he loves the hands-on projects and such. He came out with his plan, he will help teachers n friends for all the preparation of the exhibition n booth, including staying back after schools, and will rush to the venue immediately after game over. He was even considering to tell the coach, can he play the early games, then later get the sub to play if the tournament finishes late and he wants to take off for the school event.

Uwais, no brainer. He immediately gave his answer “I’m going for rugby”. Well, of coz u might say…he is 7 years, obviously he would choose play over the exhibition. But yesterday he surprised me. Their after-school football club which was supposed to be on Friday got carried forward to Thursday (to give room for exhibition preparation next day…but it clashes with his extra Mandarin class. Without me saying anything..he knew he had to choose between the two, while Harith chose football (and I expected the same from him), without hesitation, he said: “I’m going for my mandarin class”. I did not expect that from him, not the slightest bit…its mandarin class over football. “lots of other time I can play football, during play time, free time…but Mandarin class is scheduled. just twice a week. I’ll go for Mandarin. and I also think I have more than enough play. I’ll have my rugby over the weekend too”

Oh boy, mashaa Allah..how far you have grown. You will never know how interesting it gets by giving them the power over their life. Having to weight their decision. Try it parents, don’t make every single decision for them…

Can I get everyone to visualise Uwais and his teammate will be going home with Champion Cup tomorrow, Thanks! 🙂

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Perdana Builders EPE Malaysia nternational duathlon 2018

By on October 18, 2018

It was a day full of emotion and love. Kids had International Duathlon organized by Triathlon TRI-AMateur Club . Thumbs up to the organizer, superb, superb event. Volunteers were everywhere, helpful and very accommodative. All this while only Uwais n Harith get to participate, was very happy we could enrol Uzair too. They had Mighty Star category, for Special Needs kids age 5-70yo. We had a mix of Autistics, Cerebral Palsy and Down Syndrome. MC called up each n every name to cheer on them before the race began.

I had tears seeing how the Cerebral Palsy kids smiling away when their parents pushed their stroller/wheelchairs. You could see some were trying to lift up their hand, just so they could feel the wind as the dad run n pushed their strollers. And volunteers were running alongside, with such sincere look. The young athletes from the club made all the Mighty Star kids felt belong. None had that sort of giving a second look whenever a Special Need kid pass by them, u know what i mean…the public, common for them to look at our kids like as though an alien just landed.

 

The adults Down Syndrome were seen going all out pushing their limit. Very determined to finish the race. Happy to see them given this opportunity.

Organizers and volunteers are all people with big heart!

 

Uzair did 500m run – 2.5km bike – 500m run
He was upset he had to run, all he wanted was to go straight to his bike. Syauqi had to hold his hand to get him to run. He was close to the 2nd half during the first run.

Got his bike, and catch up and maintain 2nd placing. I continued running with him for the 2nd leg, Uwais gave his support too 

No words to describe my feeling. I felt like going up to each and every committee & volunteers of the event and give them a hug. A big Thank You for doing this, a platform for them. An opportunity they often being left behind, just because they are different…

A BIG THANK YOU to Team M3X

#autismawareness

photo credit : AKU, WONG  & Kah Wai

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Essential Oils | Holiday | Uncategorized

Gold Coast with Children | Part 1

By on August 23, 2018

I wanted to do a post to share some travel tips we had last year to Gold Coast…but procrastination happen huhu. and we ended up with another trip this year. This time around I have to make sure I share the lovely part of the trip. The accommodation. It was perfect, the unit, the location and everything about it.

We wanted to book this place last year; O Residence, but it was all fully booked. Thus we settled with Chevron Renaissance. The unit is perfect, lovely place and bigger than O Residence, but the location of O Residence deserves the Trophy over Chevron.

O Residence is actually same building as Hilton, but they have few floors taken up as Residence units. It is only bout 30mtres walk to the Esplanade, or maybe 2o metres, just 2 minutes walk. Plenty of Halal food around. Nearest was Oporto. It was very convenient, most of the nights we cook rice and bought whole chicken from Oporto and add on few other simple dishes…omelette and our trusted Sup Kambing Adabi hihi. Halal Chinese (Malaysian) restaurant is just bout 200metres away. The beach is also 200mtres away.

     took this photo from our balcony. the stretch of walk to the beach

Here are photos of our unit. It is a 3 bedroom apartment with a complete kitchenette, washing machine n dryer facilities. Sofa bed in the sitting room. Basically, it sleeps 8 comfortably.

All rooms with a superb view of the sea

 

For the master bedroom, what harith was pointing…is the view  in next photo below

After dinner..we would go down walk along Esplanade and spent time at the beach. The weather was perfect for me, it was around 16-18C at night. Kids go crazy on the beach.

Oh what happened last year was, it was chilly but since kids were running everywhere, they didn’t feel cold. Unfortunately, athirah ended up vomiting on the last day coz of wind in the tummy. Athirah has always been the sensitive one with wind since young. I thought she outgrew it, dangg i was wrong. During previous trip, lucky thing it was our the last day she unwell.  Can’t imagine if it happens from the beginning of the trip. We learn our lesson this time around. I applied Aroma Ease essential oil on her tummy every morning, so if she’s without layers at least she is a lil more protected. You know, kids refused to wear layers when they are going up n down the rides at the amusement park.

How was Uzair during the flight? Alhamdulillah, no fuss from him. We took the night flight, he slept throughout. Besides the help of Essential Oils, I pretty much feels he knows the drill, where we have to wait for boarding and in flight you have to sit throughout. Tranquil essential oil was a great help during our recent trip for Umrah, it really helped settle him down. For someone who loves jumping for sensory seeking, he waited long hours seated at the airport before boarding, it was about 4 hours wait. And once boarding, we got on the plane and had to wait another 45 minutes on ground. He fell asleep even before the plane took off.

We will never travel without Tranquil. In fact, we pack extras for just in case 🙂

 

 

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Hawaii Race To The Finish 2018 Young Living #Bucketlist

By on August 15, 2018

Yesss, I managed to cross off one of my bucket list, Hawaii!!!

And, it couldn’t get any better than an all paid full board trip. How did I get this lucky? Of coz with work and effort put into it. Young Living was having year-end Race To The Finish contest. I didn’t pay attention to the mechanism until my friend, Jiey pointed to me, my name is in the running on the leaderboard. Started reading the mechanism and strategize some plan.

Gave heads up to the husband, I would like to go. Few previous Young Living trips I passed..but this time around, Hawaii…how can I say No Thanks? Crazy! haha. He managed to work around his leave n off days. He took 6 days leave n another 3 days kids were with my parents. Alhamdulillah for a good support system back home.

Our retreat was at Big Island, Hawaii. Upon arrival, we were to pick up our car rental. Yes, how cool is that! We were given a car each so we can move around the island. And it was my first time driving left-hand seat. The husband told me the mantra LORI (lorry) Left-Out-Right-In. Take the outer lane when u turn left, and inner lane when u turn right. But but, have I mentioned this before… I still get my left n right mixed up, hahaha…but the drive went well 🙂

Young Living is well known for their generosity, lots of free gifts at registration. We were spoiled!

yup a bag full of goodies! We got to choose sunglasses too, there were about 14-16 options to choose from.

 

view from my room balcony

Started the retreat by Welcoming Dinner, we had coconut drink with NXR and infused with essential oil. Oh our coconut got themselves branded by YL too, haha

We had activities in line for our retreat buttttt the one deserves a lil more highlights than the other would be swimming with the dolphins! MasyaaAllah, a dream come through. We had four activities to choose from. Hiking to the waterfall, snorkelling with the manta ray, ATV or swims with the dolphins. I was the only one from Malaysia who chose this option, coz some said you dont really get to swim with the dolphins, you will be on the boat chasing them. and that’s about it. I was contemplating, I have motion sickness thus was worried if we ended up just on the boat the entire trip..may not be a good idea for me. But after weighing the thought  (after all, we have an oil for that – motion sickness) I stick with my option, hoping for the best. It was superbly amazing. As our boat set off, just minutes after we saw a school of dolphins around us. Of coz I was eager to get off the boat but the captain of the boat told us her plan, she will head on to where the dolphins were heading, then we shall jump off the boat and wait for the dolphins to pass us. And that was exactly what happened.

As I jumped in, looked down…submerge myself in the water, I felt exactly like how if I were to watch the movies…that sound echo from the dolphins. Felt so surreal. I heard them, look around…next thing I realised, they swam just below me! SubhanAllah. Im not a fast swimmer, I was breathing so heavily trying to catch up with them, then our tour guide gave signal underwater, another batch is coming, I decided just to stay put and wait for the next batch. No words to describe the feeling. We spent an hour plus open water swimming.

A Young Living trip is not complete without a trip to their farm. But a lil different this time, instead of visiting farm, we went to a reforestation land. The family repurchase the land that was sold by their great great grandmother. When they got the land all trees were cut and grass were planted to breed cows. More then 200 cows were cleared from the land. Them repurchasing, adopting and managing the land is reassuming the stewardship of their ancestor land.
And we learn something new on that day, the sandalwood trees are hemiparasitic plants. It will grow at a very young stage independently but in order to reach maturity and grow nice and healthy, it has to grow roots and tap into other trees for nutrition and water. The surrounding trees fix nitrogen from the ground and produce nitrogen as well while the sandalwood cannot produce its own nitrogen. so it has modified roots connection, haustoria. Sandalwood trees will kill 7 trees in it lifespan. They would plant trees surrounding Sandalwood, not just any trees but either one of these Koa, Aalii, Mamane or Noa to maintain the nature endemic reforestation.

 

Took this photo as a proof for the kids that im away for work 😛 . Hihi

Time passes by fast, we had a good time during the farewell dinner with Hawaiian Culture Performance.

Customize souvenier to bring home 🙂

Oh, after the end of our retreat..we extended 2 nights in Honolulu. And that’s the Hawaii I see on tv screen..haha. Beach was full all day long, all sorts of characters and colours. Plenty of surfers. One thing I was fascinated with, the homeless keep the public area clean. I notice a couple of times where the homeless help to pick up litter on the ground.

#bucketlist checked! yuhuuuuu , Alhamdulillah 🙂

Interested to know more about Young Living Essential oils? Head over here. Would love to get your hands on those lovely bottles? Click here

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