Trip to Sabah: Day 5

The day finally came for the boys to go to the beach.  I had mentioned it to them for a while now - being back in my hometown of Kota Kinabalu and catching little crabs on the beach.  But first, time for some homework for Graham.  You can see his enthusiasm... Ha!

But first, lunch with my uncle and his family:

Finally at the beach and Graham has already found a stick!

Not exactly sure why that dredger is there.  Hmmm....

Here's the local clubhouse that I played at as a kid.  It has changed quite a bit.  It was nice to see a couple of familiar faces though - still the same receptionist in the office and the same lifeguard!

Wish Daddy were here!!!

The boys are investigating the crabs on the sand.  These little crabs make these tiny balls of sand and hide in holes that they dig up in the sand:

Charlie found a hermit crab:

Looks like Graham is going to do some dredging of his own with a piece of driftwood:

No Chinooks here like in Abu Dhabi, but I did spot a couple of V-22 Osprey.  These choppers can land and take-off vertically.  Too cool!

Graham being a little adventurous in the ocean.  Thank goodness he didn't get stung by any jelly fish!

Ok, let's catch some crabs!

Charlie got side-tracked and decided to draw in the sand instead.  Here he is explaining what he has drawn:

He also found some shells:

Charlie and his OCD trait... everything needs some sort of organization!

Graham, on the other hand just likes to dig:

And he's really proud of it!

Time to wash up before going into the pool.  The boys are obviously having too much fun with the water and the hose!

After the pool, we are back at the beach!  Graham and Charlie just can't get enough of the sand:

Graham "holding" a little island :-)

Gosh, I do miss the beach and the sunsets here:

We do need to come back to KK more often for these.  Sure makes me miss "home"!

Golf tourney #3

I managed to sneak away yesterday early morning to play in my 3rd UAE PGA event this summer.  Bob asked me if I was going to post another photo of a time-stamp while in the car when leaving. Answer would be... YES!

Sooooo early!!! It was a 1 1/2 hour drive into Dubai.  Traffic was not bad at all, which was nice.

Unfortunately, I did not play too well this time. I did managed to get myself back into contention after birdieing the 17th hole (just a 1-day event) but ended up in the water on my next tee-shot on the 18th hole.  Oh well, back to the drawing board!  I suppose a practice round would have help :-)

On the drive back, I managed to take a quick snapshot of the Burj Khalifa.  Magnificent!

 I did find out yesterday that there is going to be a new world's tallest tower - also in Dubai.  "The Tower" will be 100 meters taller than the Burj Khalifa!

First week of school

The boys are back in school this week.  And yes, the same school for both boys. Makes drop-off and pick-up a lot easier!

Graham was definitely excited to go back. Charlie on the other hand, I think he was excited until it was actually time to go into his classroom.  He probably did have a lot of fun though because he was completely out when we got home!

And this was an early 1pm finish for Charlie. Hopefully he will survive the 2:30pm finish starting next week!

By the way, some random photos of the past week or so:

The boys have been playing a little bit of badminton - in spirit of the Olympics.  Unfortunately, Malaysia lost out to China in both the men's single and doubles for Gold! It was very exciting - sort of like the games we have at home here :-)  It's so hot outside that we play indoors, in the master bedroom!

Speaking of hot, Graham and Charlie got to spend one more afternoon at the waterpark before school reopened.  The lifeguards were filing up water into these latex gloves.

The boys obviously amused by it!

Trip to Sabah - Day 4: Lots of activities!

We did so much during our time back in Kota Kinabalu (KK).  I took the boys to this street named Gaya street in town.  Every Sunday, the street is lined up with vendors of all sorts. We didn't get there until around 10am. It was so busy!

These vendors sell from fruits and food to souvenirs and live animals. The boys loved the see the live fishes as usual:

Thumbs up from Charlie!

Time for lunch.  Another outdoor restaurant, which we generally just call Kopi Tiam.  Kopi for coffee and Tiam for shop in a Cantonese (a Chinese dialect).

Graham and Charlie discovered that the ice cubes in their milo are shaped with little holes in between them. So once they are almost done with their drink, they stick the straw through the ice cube and let it melt to "make more milo".  I guess it sort of makes sense???

Later that day... playtime at the park!

I think the boys really miss being outdoors.  This park was actually quite nice!

The water feature probably needed a little upgrade. And it's too bad the kids couldn't play in it either:

Thankfully there were lots of other things to keep the boys occupied:

I had to join in on a couple of them too:

Including... BUBBLES!!! 
A friend's sister sells these bubble mixture and wands so we got our personal ones:

These wands make such big bubbles!

The 2-handle rope ones are a little bit more tricky:

Who is SOOOOO sweaty!!!  Thankfully for Charlie's new favorite sports drink!

So great to catch up with old high-school friends:

On the way home (oh yes, I was brave enough to drive again in KK - a manual-transmission truck with the steering wheel on the right side), I spot Mt. Kinabalu in the distance.  It's too bad this was the only time during our entire trip the mountain was in view. At 4,095m or 13,435ft, it's the tallest mountain in Southeast Asia.

As if it wasn't enough for the day, we cleaned up and headed to my uncle's place for dinner.  Looks like someone is not going to make it:

Nope! Charlie was completely passed out from start to finish and he didn't even wake up when I plopped him into bed that night. HA HA!

Homemade noodles. YUMMMY!!!  Here are my cousins taking care of things in the kitchen:

We even got a thumbs up from Graham!

Needless to say, I had more than one bowl ;-)

The adventure continues...