Weekend With The Family...

My parents were in town last weekend for my brother's convocation. The last time they were at my place was almost a year ago (or more and I haven't washed my cushion covers since then). The preparation started like a week before, with house chores like cleaning the fan blades (now the fan blows stronger), mopping the floor, washing the cushion covers, etc etc etc... I think I burnt more calories the last one week than the rest of the year.

I woke up at 5.30 on Saturday morning, something that I've not done for the past 364 days. What I usually do is go to bed at 5.30am. :-) My mom was ironing all clothes to be worn that day while I was preparing breakfast. My mom brought ketupat, rendang ayam, kari daging... We went to UiTM, parked at the padang kawad, took the transfer bus to Dewan Sri Budiman for the convo session. Only parents are allowed to enter the hall but I saw not just the parents dressed up but everyone, just to watch the session from under the canopy provided. What a spirit!

Mom and dad were out from the hall early (my brother was the 43rd recipient), so we wandered around the stalls (most selling flowers and souvenirs), took some pictures and took a most-deserving nap somewhere in a building nearby. It's quite a while before we decided to make our move to the convo hall while waiting for my brother to come out. Finally, he came out, grinning from ear to ear. My parents couldn't be more proud of him.

After taking some good pictures, we went straight home, had lunch, and sleeeeeeppp before our next activity... trip to Bagan Lalang for seafood dinner...

We went all the way to Bagan Lalang for our dinner. I haven't been there for exactly one year. So, we had ikan siakap masak 3 rasa, ikan pari bakar, udang masak pedas, pepahat masak halia, sotong goreng tepung, kailan ikan masin, tomyam campur, air kelapa and some juices. Syok nya makan and there goes my diet and my cholesterol level! :-) Somehow my brother's Naza Ria moved so slow on the way back home - reflecting the full stomach of its passengers. We reached home around 11pm.

On Sunday, we had mom-made karipap - our family's favorite. And bapak supplement the menu with his specialty kuah bawang for the dip! My niece and nephews were off to the swimming pool in the middle of breakfast and came back empty stomach.

Save the best for last, it's the last stop for this trip... Mydin!!! Usually they visited the one near Sinar Kota but this time it's the largest Mydin in Malaysia (in USJ). Traffic flow was so bad but that didn't affect my parents' spirit. As usual, they spent a worthy 3 hours in Mydin, shopping mostly the essentials for their Haj trip later this year.

While they're busy shopping I was tasked to take care of the niece and nephews. It's just four of them but it's more than handful for me. And believe me, the smallest is the most difficult to handle...

At around 5.30pm, my parents made their way to Pudu Raya with my brother and I made my way home and slept all the way from 6.30pm to 6.00am.

A tiring, yet a good weekend with the family!!