Family Holiday at Pulai Springs Resort

Since 2004, the Tan clan has gone on family holidays almost annually. We went back to Pulai Springs Resort again for a 4D3N stay in a 4-bedroom apartment. It's located right between YongPeng and Singapore and that makes it very strategic for us. The other factor is that we don't want individual hotel rooms and there are not many 4-bedroom holiday homes around.

Pulai Springs has got pretty good facilities. But their service or rather, the lack of it leaves much to be desired. Their staff walk around with grumpy faces that make me feel like I'm imposing on them.

Our journey from KL was rather pleasant. We left home at about 9am and stopped at Yong Peng for lunch.

Upon arrival at Pulai Springs at 3pm, the apartment was not ready and so they parked all 15 of us inside a studio apartment.

My kids had their milk break while the bigger kids had an iPhone party.

They're all very tech-savvy or iPhone-addicted, depending how you want to look at it.

Ah Kong tried to nap while the kids all jumped on the only bed. Of course Ah Kong didn't mind at all that he probably couldn't sleep a wink.

After we finally got into our room at past 5pm (that's more than 2 hours of waiting!!!), the boys went swimming while I took Joy for a walk. I was too lazy to get into the pool.

The boys had a real blast with all the gear that Tua Um bought.

Joy checked out the Koi fish (there's a lot more than in the photo)...

...and also the peacock.

I also took her to check out the TeeTee Club which was really very pathetic. It's got potential but almost zero-maintenance.

At night we had dinner at the Qing Palace Chinese Restaurant. The service here was probably the best in the entire resort.

The boys were famished and quickly gobbled down the food as soon as it landed on the tables.

Even Mabel fed herself rice while Joy had baby cereal.

Daalin a.k.a. DBKL got to work and cleaned all the plates....

Then we took a slow walk back to the room (you've got to cross a road to a different building to get to the restaurant)...

...to see the Manager to complain about the very late check-in. I asked him for some compensation. He wanted to let us have a late check-out but I didn't want that. We wanted extra breakfast vouchers for the kids and all he gave us was 5 pieces. So it was only for 1 day that we could all go down for breakfast.

On the other 2 mornings, some of us skipped breakfast at the Cinta Terrace because it's just not worth it to pay RM32++ per adult or RM16++ per kid for that kind of breakfast.

In the apartment, the boys kept occupied playing Wii.

I also had a go playing Wii boxing and bowling. Despite my lousy scores, I'm still nursing aching arms and a aching left butt. Not very good at bowling though since Brandon (age 6) can beat me at it.

The next morning, we went to Jusco Taman Universiti which is a 5-minute drive away. Ah Kong went to Starbucks for free wifi (it's RM20 for 2 hours at the hotel) while the kids played at the indoor playground.

In the evening, the boys went swimming again.

And this time I took Joy for a dip. She clung on really tight to me most of the time.

That night (Sunday), we ate dinner in the apartment. Ah Mah was well-prepared. We had a induction hot plate which enabled cooking.

Check out the spread.... beef rendang, steamed kampung chicken, devil chicken and etc.

The kids were watching The Magic School Bus while Ah Mah did the cooking.

And after eating, they jumped around on the bed while I watched Transformers on Singapore TV.

Chubby and Chubbier

The kids enjoyed the holiday the most. And the adults enjoyed watching the kids enjoy. My kids in particular enjoyed warm bubble baths.

On Monday, we went to Jusco again for dinner. This time we had Sushi King.

Joseph was fascinated with the conveyor belt. After dinner, they played around some more while Ah Kong had his internet fix.

Back in the apartment, it was more Wii. Joseph could bowl several strikes!

Overall it was a good holiday. The hotel service was crap. On Monday, HouseKeeping only came at past 3pm after numerous calls and disrupted Daalin's nap. They ran out of towels. Breakfast was chaotic. They clearly couldn't cope with the school holiday crowd and had insufficient seating.

We'll have to look for some other place for our next holiday.

4-bedroom apartment at Pulai Springs : RM755

Dinner at Sushi King : RM232

Time with family : priceless!

Joy's Dresses

YeeYee bought several spaghetti-strap dresses for Joy during her trip back last August. I didn't dress her in them because she kept getting the sniffles and Nana wanted to keep her warm.

But the weather has been so hot lately and this princess doesn't seem to tolerate heat well. She gets all sweaty and sticky and then scratches and scratches all over.

So lately, she's been wearing YeeYee's dresses to keep cool.

pink floral print smocked spaghetti strap dress from OshKosh that cost a few USD

I'm surprised to find that she fills out the dresses so nicely. Size 4T is a perfect fit.

She still sweats a lot and I absolutely love sniffing the back of her neck. When I snuggle at her neck and tell her, "Can I smell you?"

She replies, "Smell already la!!!"

The Egg Shell Story

At lunch today, Joseph wanted to suck out the egg.

So I cracked it at the top and slowly chipped away for him to slurp up the contents.

After most of the white had been eaten, the rather-solid yolk refused to be ejected. Since the spoon was too large for the tiny hole, I resorted to shaking the egg and then used the spoon handle to loosen the yolk.

Nana then said, "Aiyah.... cannot already la...." which I ignored and continued digging.

Joseph responded, "Hey.....listen to your mother!!!"

musical talent - inherited?

The Tans have a trend where musical talent is concerned. We notice that music-inclination seems to get better when going down the birth order. That means that the first-born is quite hopeless and tone-deaf. Subsequent children seem more naturally musical.

Daalin is the youngest of 3 children and the most musical amongst the lot. Big Brother Tan doesn't play any instrument. Big Sister Tan can play the guitar and the piano fairly well.

Daalin can play the piano and guitar well by ear, as well as the drums and violin. Pick any song he knows and he can tell you what key and all the chords just like that. He's got an almost perfect pitch.

Big Brother Tan has 3 boys and the younger 2 seem more musical than the eldest. We're not quite sure with the YongPengTribe kids yet but between Joe and Joy, princess cutie-pie certainly seems more musical than Joseph. She can listen to a tune and rattle it back immediately. Kinda like how we did our Aural Tests for piano examinations.

Not only can she easily catch tunes and songs, she can even improvise songs by changing the words.

Here she's singing 'grace' before meals. We started teaching at about 4-6 months.

I've also found that she can sing songs that we don't teach, but that she picks up just by listening. We play music for them to sleep. The lights go off and the CD player goes on at bed/nap time. So once in a while, she sings a song that catches me completely by surprise. It's such a delight!

Joseph can 'compose' his own songs. He sings about how much he loves me. Most times, it's quite tune-less. But I still always clap and cheer him on.

Celebrating Nana's Birthday

It's Nana's birthday today. We celebrated last night with Ah Ku and Kim Kim. For dinner, we went to The Chicken Rice Shop at The Sphere. With special vouchers, we each had the Single Chicken Set for a mere RM5 instead of the regular price of RM13.99.

The kids had already eaten their porridge at home and were very busy jumping up and down on the sofa-like seats. They are very familiar with this place because we've been there several times now, all with the vouchers.

Generous portion of chicken, rice and lots of crunchy taugeh. Joseph makes me empty out the pai tee so that he eats the shell like keropok.

After dinner, we came home for cake.

I managed to get this French Vanilla Millie Crepe at 75% off again. So we paid only RM15 for it.

I was hanging on to the phone for about 45 minutes and was on the verge of giving up when I finally got through.

Both kids wanted to cut the cake.

So they cut and cut and cut....

Nana didn't stop them and neither did I because since it's her birthday cake, she can do whatever she wants with it.

Joy picked bits and pieces of the cake and fed herself.

And when Joy-Anne eats, Nana is always very happy.

Too bad Kong Kong couldn't be here. He's busy packing and throwing out junk.

The total cost of celebration - less than RM50.

I printed this out in 8R size and put it into a frame for Nana. She loves it.