Eid in Malaysia

Eid was bitter sweet.  It goes without saying that we missed family and friends a ton! But mashallah, alhamdulilah, we enjoyed our day with each other, and the handful of friends that we have made here.  Ramadan was also bitter sweet for the same reasons.  Alhamdulillah, all  in all, life here is good and we are trying to cherish every moment of it.

Eid Mubarak to the Boys...

Motherhood has changed me in many ways.  One of them being, acquiring the ability to accept a rodent living under my roof, and even calling it family.

Eid Mubarak Yusuf and Ibby... you better keep your promise to take care of these things!

Picking out the food and accesories

Taking 'Roley' and 'Poley' home

Summaiya getting aquiainted

The newest additions to the clan....

Orphanage Visit

It has always been a dream of mine to visit and help out in an orphanage.  Alhamdulilah we had an opportunity to visit one here in Malaysia at the beginning of Ramadan.  Mashallah it was a very well kept and well funded facility.  It was so good to see the orphans being well taken care of. 

The Prophet Muhammad SAW said that the one who takes care of an orphan will be beside him in Jannah.  I pray we are given many more opportunities to visit different orphanages inshaAllah.

Baba and his baby girl outside the orphanage.  Subhanallah what a blessing having your parents is. May Allah protect us and our children, and ease the hearts of the orphans who have lost their parents, Ameen.

Meeting the boys.

Yusuf and Ibby were a bit shy, and the fact that the kids didn't speak much English created a bit of a barrier.

Yusuf watching the boys

Getting a tour of the place.

This kinda broke my heart.  To see these names of children without parents .....

Praying maghrib

Distributing candies we brought

Making sure everyone got

Redang

While the cousins were here, we visited an Island off the East coast of Malaysia and mashaAllah it was stunning!  The resport we stayed at was, umm, not the best of resorts.  But subhanallah, the view totally made up for it!  Out of all of us I would say Yusuf enjoyed himself the most.  He loved snorkeling and mashallah was a pro at it. InshaAllah I hope we can go again someday.

Getting on the boat that would take us to the island

The view

Yusuf taking videos of the monkeys that would roam around outside.  The rain forest was literally steps behind us.

Yusuf and I woke up early one day and went for a walk on the beach shortly after sunset <3

Ibby ready to go snorkeling

Yusuf the pro snorkeler

Palm trees

Walking along the beach

Family

The owner or worker at the resort.  He totally reminded me of a typcial cartoon character that lived on an island. SubhanaAllah, what a life!  The waters were crystal clear and you could literally walk out and just look down to see brightly colored fish.

Indonesia

We recently went to Indonesia for two days with the kids at the beginning of Ramadan. MashaAllah it was an interesting experience.  Alhamdulilah my kids (and I) are having the amazing opportunity to see parts of the world that I never even thought of before.

A little boy I saw sitting on the side of the street.

And we thought Malaysian traffic was bad..........

Checking out the skyline

There were Ramadan decorations everywhere

So we went to this Crocodile farm... it looked decent in the flyer but, once we got there, and had to enter the place through some random persons garage...well, enough said.

There were some serious animal rites violations.

See all those dark green things? Yup, those are all massive crocodiles behind a flimsy fence that Yusuf could probably break. Yup.

You could pay a couple dollars for the owner to get a live duck and feed it to the crocodiles.  

Yusuf seeing poverty up close.  It is very common in Indonesia (and many other countries, but not Malaysia) for beggars to walk around at traffic lights and come up to your car to ask for money.

Buying kufis outside the mesjid.

The boys with an uncle who Baba knows and who showed us around Indonesia.

This elderly Indonesian man followed us around the mesjid and wanted to take our pictures. I asked Baba to pose with him.

Indonesian women reading Quran.  SubhanAllah its amazing that no matter where you go in the world, Allah's Book remains the same.  Every corner of the globe, every culture, colour and language, we all read the beautiful Words of Allah SWT.

Leaving mesjid

Child beggar outside the mesjid

Ibby checkin out an Indonesian child skate boarding.

Baba gave these little kids some of his change. The looks on their faces were priceless <3 SubhanaAllah poverty is so bad in Indonesia, we really felt a big difference.

My little world travelers :)