Ski 2007 - Club Med Sahoro

The TAY FAMILY had our annual holiday @ Club Med Sahoro. No, it is not a typo. It is Club Med Sahoro and NOT Sapporo. (And it is not the same thing!!!. Sahoro is a god forsaken little mountain with club med and some other small resort and nothing else.....)

The ski-ing is nothing to write home about (2hrs and you'd pretty much have covered the whole mountain), but we had a great time anyway......

Steph learnt to ski like a real PRO!!! Since he's only 3, they refused to take him @ ski school so Steph & I spent bonding time on the slopes. (Club Med has a great Petit Club for kids below 4, but they do not teach them how to ski.)

Day 1 with harness & reins (to make sure he stops.............) and after that, he ski-ed on his own. Didn't fall at all!! For those of you who are teaching little ones to ski, the wedgies and harness work wonders. Steph will be ski-ing better than his brothers soon!

Mum started ski-ing again too and that was really great!!!! She says that it was much easier on her knees than the snow trekking expedition. Jasmine ski-ed a little too, but she won't be voting for a ski holiday next yr!!

The "better" ski-ers were @ the Teong Eng Guan Ski School. (FYI, Club Med Sahoro is an all inclusive resort and all day ski lessons are included. Quality of the lessons depends on the instructor.) Our own TEG Ski School was of course much better!!! :)

Apres Ski was good!! Drink and eat all you can......... family time........ funny shows............ pool........ ping-pong............
Mum at the bar waiting for Margaritas...

Dad having a "talk" with Nic.

Other than the slopes being none existant, the only other problem with Club Med Sahoro is that 90% of the resort was filled with Sporeans. Sad to say, many were not on their best behavior (especially @ the buffet lines). Very embarrassing.

CASSANOVA STEPH II

Darling Steph can't decide............

Blondie Brookie OR Sultry Sara!!!

Garage Sale

We had open house 2nd Dec to sell all our "junk"!!!


It was fun (and hard work!)

The boys are natural marketers.

a. they made signs to put outside the house to attract passers-bys.


b. they set-up a fruit-punch stall outside the house to attract traffic. (This is a slight modification from the American Lemonade stand cos they felt it needed to be adapted to local taste!!)


c. mat decided to offer "Free tit-bits" to sweeten the deal!


d. nic ran a promotion " Free drink for every 2 items bought".


For VIP customers like Veron & Monica, Mat offered a "Sit-down" service. (They told him what they may be interested in and he brought out the goods..........)

When that didn't work, he tried the "BUT, IT IS MY BIRTHDAY.... YOU HAVE TO BUY SOMETHING!" :)




Nicolas got tired....... and decided to do a product demo....









Steph was woo-ing the girls (as usual). But Sara didn't look too impressed!!!









Steph playing with Johann (after traumatising Farah and hitting her on the face!!!) Poor thing.

Stephan misses school!!!!

Stephan & Brooke @ KLPAC after Storytelling.......








Stephan having tea @ Brookie's place

















Stephan back in school to give kisses to teacher Intan & LaoShi









Stephan with Aunty Maggie in the Reading Room

Mufti Day - GIS

Crazy Head Day at GIS!!!












Yes, that is a "N" on his head!!!





















And I wanna join in too.........














With friend George









With Friend "THE DISAPPERAING Matthew O"

PAINTBALL PARTY

The boys wanted a GOING AWAY Party and after weeks of pestering ........... I finally relented!!! They organised the party on their own............... choose the location, contacted the organisers, printed the invites and we brought a bunch of kids from GIS (yr 4 & 6) to Kluang Mudtrekker Paintball park on 1st Dec, Sat.











I know, I know............. what about the boys not being allowed to play anything that involves violence? Well, I have succumbed.... After years of banning all violent games, I finally surrendered to kids pressure. They are even allowed to play HALO 3 (Well, that was Tim's doing actually. He snuck out and bought the game for the boys when I was away and told me it was a fantasy game!!!)











We celebreated Mathieu's 9th birthday party at the same time. The boy is SO difficult!! We spent 1 hour, went to 3 cake shops......... before he finally decided on his cake. And guess what, he wanted an ice-cream cake .......... (The paintball park is 1 1/2 hrs away, in the middle of nowhere, with no freezer.) BUT, when there is a will, there is a way…….. Dry Ice, Ice-bag, Ice cubes…. and 4 hrs later, the cake was still frozen and we even had trouble cutting it. Amazing!!!

The kids had a wonderful time!!!
Blue team won, but they had an unfair advantage.......... in fact, they had 2.
1. Commander Tim spent 3 yrs training in the jungles of Korea (on US tax-payers $$). So, he pretty much annihilated everyone... well, that was in the 1st game until the rest of us got the hang of it. We were out to GET him after that!!! Being tall is not an advantage in this game!!! (Neither is wearing red...... Paul (Grace & Alfred's dad from my team) was a really good player, but not only was he tall, he was wearing red......... yap, he got hit alright!!!

2. They also had the best player : Grace!!! GO GIRL POWER!!!














Matthew O from my team was doing really well.... He even got the flag, but he got the wrong one.... sigh.

The other Mathieu (P), also from my team, was doing good too but brother Nic was always out to get him!




Problem is those balls really hurt!!!!

Matthew O & Riku got hit in the face and were super brave.....







YES, that's my arm!!!! And that's the boy (George) that did it!!! He hit me 5 times!!






Boys told me not to worry, only good players have wounds.......... the bad players are too coward to attack!!!! hehe.

National Geographic LIVE

Kuala Gandah Elephant Sanctuary, Orang Asli Village & Deerland

Deepavali Holiday - Kids wanted to "chill" but mummy dearest wanted to Visit Malaysia!!!! Well, instead of driving 2 days to Lake Kenyir, (and after many hours of debate), we compromised and went to Kuala Gandah for the day. It's only 1 1/2 hrs from KL and is a great place for animal lovers.

1st Stop : Elephant Sanctuary

Ya, I think the elephants are humping!!!

We got to feed the elephants.

-method 1 -> via the trunk

-method 2 -> hand in the gooey mouth!!! (pretty gross)

We got to "ride" the elephants. It was actually a 2 min "get-on / get-off" experience but if you have never felt the bristles on an elephant, it is quite interesting!!!

Nic was trying to take a picture of us on the elephant.......

He was so focused on us, he forgot the elephant!!!!

There was an elephant bathing activity, but the boys decided that the river didn't look too clean, so we gave it a miss. Typical!!!

2nd Stop : Orang Asli Village

It wasn't very interesting, but is located conveniently just outside the Elephant Sanctuary....... The schoolhouse is pretty cool!!

3rd Stop : Deerland

Very very nice.............. and worth a visit.

A small zoo with a personal guide and a chance to feed all kinds of animals!!!

The kids started off a little scared of the deers but ended up chasing after the poor animals and traumatising BAMBI!!!

I think this bear was trying to check out his "manhood"!!!!

The boys fed the bear honey & milo from their hands...... yummy......

Then we tried to feed him biscuits and he got really mad.............. Urgh!!!!!!!!

Mummy got to play with the python. The guy just ate a huge chicken and we could still see the chicken lump!!

4th Stop : Gold Class

After the hot day out........ the boys wanted a treat so we booked tickets at 1 Utama, Gold Class and were treated like kings @ The Bee Movie.

Mat was so tired that he had to be carried!!!

Mat kept calling the waiter in to order milo..... hehe.

The movie was so-so, but it was fun to have the whole cinema to ourselves.

Tim says that Gold Class in Spore is loads better........ (I don't know, it's always fully booked when I wanna go......)