Impromptu Beach Evening

"We have to go for a walk in the evening." she mentioned with feeling. I nodded, thinking of all the extra off-diet goodies we've been eating for the last week or so. Coupled with the many late nights and lack of schedule, none of us have been looking after our health much.

That casual remark led to far more than either of us were thinking. 

Since it was such a nice day, we decided to walk to the beach for sunset, rather than walk up and down the hill behind our place. 

Since lunch happened at 3pm, and sunset is about 7, no one was interested in making or eating supper before we went. 

Since it was Tuesday  the night market was happening.

Since the market is on the way to be beach we decided to go there to get some food to take to the beach.

An hour later we got to the beach. Not in time for sunset really, but in time to watch a gorgeous full moon rise.

Crocodile eye moon

Candle light moon

We ate, fooled around with taking photos of the moon, read aloud till my voice gave in, and walked home. Sandy, full, content - and not quite late for bed again.

trying to take photos of the moon through a straw

 

blowing moon bubbles

 

Time to go home when it's this dark...

Christmas Break!

    After an intense slog to get enough household and school things cleared off our plate for an extended Christmas break, the first bit of break was simply filled with sleep and puttering about - Except for Aiden, who quickly scooped up the opportunity to spend longer times with his friend! 

 

   

    Still, we kept Advent with a look at verses from John, and this wall of Christmas carol phrases about Christ's second coming. As it took a lot of tedious tracing and cutting of foil sticker paper, this will likely stick around much longer than Christmas! As it is quite appropriate to be remembering and longing for His coming, why not?

    What kind of things did we get into our break so far? How did we celebrate Christmas? Well....

We took night time cool walks in our neighbourhood - and found this odd attempt at Christmas decor... A santa hat on a wooden pterodactyl mobile. Ok....

 

 

We did our own attempts at decorating: folded sun catchers and a 1/2 curtain of crochet snowflakes...

Despite having spent a lot of computer
time to finish school, free time for Grace and Jasmin meant time to work on their own stories....

... and songs - their latest one can be seen here.   ...and finishing up art projects. There was also a family transnational family concert, and a few other calls and greetings that kept us up much later than usual so mornings were pretty quiet here!

And then, we celebrated Christmas in a two day stint: first on this side of the world with a morning church service which was made extra special with Grace and Jasmin being on stage for worship leading and Aiden being allowed to come for the first time since March! Unfortunately, we didn't get there in time to sit on the main floor, but at least we were on the balcony and not in the overflow room.

      Then, in the afternoon, we headed to the beach for our Penang-style Christmas feast. Despite rather wet wood we managed to have a decent fire and cook all our yummies of dough sticks, special hot dogs, s'mores, roast veggies, roast apples, etc. We went to a different beach than usual, so that we could swim as well. Grace and Mom got to see surfacing fish almost with arm's reach, but Aiden unfortunately got stung on his heel by some unknown critter. The bus home took a lot time in coming so it ended up being another rather late night - but a fantastic day.

    Boxing Day we celebrated Christmas on the other side of the world through Zoom calls with both sides of the family and open gifts. Aiden got two lego kits - a castle and a car model, so he was soon lost to the rest of us!

The double Christmas was just too much for Aiden - an after supper family devotion didn't reach him as he was all too soon fast asleep! We didn't want to wake him, so just pulled the beanbag into his bedroom. He was so asleep he didn't wake even with us squeezing him through the doorway!

   Since then, we have slowed down so much yesterday's lunch was at 3, good mornings are said oftener after 10 than before, and all the outings we thought of doing remain on the list and our main pastime seems to be reading (other than Aiden who spends his days with friends in Lego, soccer, rubix cubes, and sword fights as usual!).

Life as Usual

 Grace didn't mind 

her week-long exile 

kept short by a negative result

But getting the pink band cut off

nearly took all day!

We're glad that adventure is done

Even more so that the one positive

in the classroom resulted in no new positives at all

No harm done

but let's not have another scare please.

Mom was sick instead

but strangely so

two weeks of dead tiredness

and a tickle in the throat 

that never grew into cough or cold

But now we're back to normal

school work in the mornings

soccer and song writing in the afternoons

longing for some beach time

waiting for lack of rain

Advent preparations

Christmas ideas bandied about

An added dose of inventiveness needed

under an expectation of lockdown extension

until the new year

Up Close and Personal

 So, this month is for us an experience of our country's pandemic response up close and personal...

Tuesday Grace and Aiden attend their usual Chinese classes.

Thursday we were told by Grace and Aiden's Chinese school a parent had tested positive for Covid-19 so classes going forward would be online for a while.

Friday we hear rumors of a nation wide lock down to be imposed again.

Saturday the official notice comes out: a month long lock down, but not nearly so all-inclusive as the last one, starting Monday.

Sunday, we get a call the school saying a classmate of Grace has tested positive also, so, through the contact tracing system in place, we soon hear from the Ministry of Health, mandating Grace show up for testing and immediate quarantine.

Working on translating instructions
 while waiting for test

Monday Mom and Grace set off early for Grace's 9am testing appointment. The testing is free as it is required through contact tracing, but we have to go to a specific clinic (13km from us) rather than the one less than a km from our house. The system is efficient and well thought out, though we didn't envy the workers in full gear working without air con or even fans for the most part. We thought we may have communication difficulties, it being a government run facility, but we did not - other than having to use Google translate for our instruction sheet! - and things were pretty straight forward. Details were checked, symptoms were recorded (none), a pink "person under investigation" bracelet was attached. These are well-known and you'd better not be caught out of the house with one on!

We get home about 10:40am and immediately begin arranging things for her quarantine. Thankfully she is allowed to do it at home. But it does mean we have to rearrange sleeping arrangements, meal times, school requirements, outside teacher arrangements.... isolation of one in a family of 5 in an apartment is not so simple! There will be surprise visits by health officials to check we're complying so we have to try meet the requirements effectively without turning our household upside down.

While the rules can seem somewhat invasive, strict, and inconvenient, we are glad to be where there is a robust system in place to keep the pandemic in check.

A Few Happenings

 Lots of drawing is happening!

Mom chopped off half her nail and some of her fingertip while chopping basil for lunch yesterday - and then it almost happened again at supper with her thumb! Not a great day for fingers... 

Lots of cloud watching... all the more beautiful for the monsoon rains

Mom saw a tiny hummingbird - maybe 3-4 cm long. Can you spot it? But when we tried to look it up, we found out that it is actually a moth! Incredible!

The girls had a friend over and they repainted our window...

Sunset Sky Watching

 We went to the beach this evening and God treated us to a spectacular sky... the three artists among us were simply captivated and saw very little else as we watched the glorious sweet change from day to night in the sky.

Nothing Much

 Not much excitement around here these days as we dove into our school year slightly unprepared and are still floundering a little. But some good things for the year's start:

The girls are taking a professional drawing course this year. And the results are quite impressive!

Another winner course is Chemistry in the Kitchen which I'd been holding on to until just the right year. The readings are interesting and relatable, and the labs consist of baking and cooking. So far we've had fresh bread, homemade marshmallows, eggs benedict, and cheese!

Fine arts certainly have the bulk of our time currently, as writing is a big piece as well. Grace is enjoying the challenges of very narrowly set writing exercises by a Coursera writing diploma course, and is also trying her hand at sonnet writing after studying some of Shakespeare's:

Eternal Choices

Shaking pressure tearing me apart

Separate worlds warring for my soul

Torn between two choices for me heart

Broken spirit longing to be whole

Promises of life and endless glory

Suffering and shame I'd have to bear

Both are present, both sides of the story

Promise these to me, with more to share

Which one should I choose, if what I take

Will seal my fate forever, good or bad?

Tell me, what eternal choices should I make

That when I end my life, I should be glad?

Choose that which will give you life forever

Choose to bow to Jesus, ceasing never

Aiden is enjoying our delve into Narnia, often begging to continue reading, and is improving in writing enough I can set work and expect it done and be readable by me.

So, even though school is spiling into the afternoon now that we have high school courses happening, and our schedules have yet to even out into a smooth rhythm, we're happy with what we've got going.

Now we're Penangites... sort of

 They say, you haven't been to Penang if you haven't been up Penang Hill. 

They say, you're not truly a Penangite if you haven't hiked up. 

It's taken us 2 years to make the attempt, but with some boldness borrowed from friends, up we went last weekend. It turned out to be quite the expedition: 9 kids, 4 adults, hiking for roughly 3 and a half hours, up to an elevation just under a kilometer on jungle trails, roughed in stairs (sometimes nearly a vertical as a ladder!), and concrete paths. We saw some fun fauna and great views, but not much wildlife other than a few monkeys.

It's certainly hard work getting to the top, but there is food and good views and a bunch of things to do there. We ate lunch together, and then one family left right away as they were cold in the cool wind at the top. We thought about trying out some of the activities at the top, but everyone

was pretty done in by the hike up and a ropes course or a tree top walk didn't sound so appealing! In

stead, Grace and Mom hiked back down while the others took the tram down. The Hill is riddled with different trails, and they had a bit of trouble finding their way down when it was discovered that a simple exit at the entry point was not possible. So the best trails were not found, and by the time they got to the bottom Grace and Mom were pretty sore and tired! (Think 40 min or more of walking steeply down hill to start with, and then ending with 30 min of continual stairs...) Mom could hardly walk by bedtime!

There are a number of built up rest stops (it is a truly popular hill to hike! and we pity the workers who had to haul the cement up the trails...) Station 5 is the best kept one, and there is even exercise machines there (though why you would consider a 40 min hike up the hill to exercise, I'm not sure) as well as free hot tea and places to rest.

And, of course, we've spent time at our favorite beaches, scavenging drift wood for fires, scaling new rocks, and trying to capture the fantastic skies.

Mom took the girls to an information meeting of a rock climbing club recently too. Since they regularly attempt to scale rocks at the beach, it seemed like a good place to be.  If we can sort out transport (it doesn't meet close to us at all), each month they will get to enjoy a Saturday of instruction at a rock wall gym, and a Saturday on a cliff face somewhere.

But now we are into the first attempts of school schedule for the year, so these more adventurous outings will have to wait awhile.