Houston - Part 3

The Saturday after the work week was the day I was really looking forward to - SHOPPING !!!!

We drove (well, my colleagues drove. I just sat in the car) almost 3 hours to get to the outlet mall in San Marcos. Was it worth the drive?? Definately!

I headed straight to the Coach outlet. Before I entered the store, I needed to pee and I was a little hungry. But then I saw the price tags on the bags.....there was an original printed price, then a slashed-down price (about 15% off) handwritten in red ink and then the best part -another 40% or 50% off from the price handwritten in red ink. Wah..... I could feel my heart pumping when I saw that!! I happily pulled out bags from the shelves to try them on. The sales attendants were pretty friendly and helpful too. My friend was chatting with one of them and mentioned that she recognised her from another visit about a year ago. Then suddenly, the sales attendant gave her a coupon for 20% discount on top of all the other discounts, saying that she can give the coupon to one customer per day. We felt like we were in heaven !!!!

As I happily walked out of the shop with my loot (pics below) 2 hours later, I suddenly felt that my bladder was about to burst and I was starving. Ha hahh..... it's funny how I managed to "forget" about my body needs when I was shopping!

The 3 of us proceeded to have lunch at Johnny Rockets. Long wait for a table + long wait for food = less shopping time :( But the yummy Oreo milk-shake did partially make up for the long wait.

Continued shopping after that but without the adrenalin rush in the Coach store :)

Will let pictures tell the rest of the story.

Prime Outlets in San Marcos -

Coach Store -

We filled up the whole car boot!


My bags. I loved the colourful totes - couldn't decide which size to buy so I got both in the end :)


Osh Kosh clothes for Elyssa (yes - I'm going through a pink phase!)


Corelle set for MIL -

Bought other stuff like Nike t-shirts and GAP sweaters too. (no pics)
After shopping, it was the long 3 hour drive back to Houston again. Dinner was at a Texas BBQ place - Goode & Co. Beef brisket and Czech Sausage which were really, really good.

Dinner -


Bison in Goode & Co -


A fantastic end to a fantastic day of shopping :)

*next post - New York !!*

I'm HOME !

I'm so glad to be back home! I enjoyed my US trip but there's just no place like home. The biggest thing that I was looking forward to was of course to be with my little princess again. I was a little worried about how she would respond to me after being away for 2.5 weeks.

I called out her name when I reached my parent's place yesterday evening. She ran to the door, and for the very first time ever, she ran AWAY from me and went back to the toys she was playing. How my heart sank !!!

Luckily she warmed up pretty quick after that and by night time, she was back to being my little magnet. :)

I know it can't possibly be true, but she seemed to have grown so much bigger (in height and in behaviour) since the last I saw her. Oh, how I love to be able to hold her and smell her again!

Will continue with my US posts soon....

Houston - Part 2

Part 2 of my Houston trip was the "official work" part where I was practically stuck in this windowless conference room for 5 whole days.....


Tiring as it was, I think it was a really productive team meeting. Even with modern technology such as video-conferencing and tele-conferencing, nothing beats an old fashion face-to-face session.

It wasn't just work, work, work all the time. We managed to catch the Veterans Day Parade on the second work day there. It was a beautiful day (clear skies, nice wind but not too cold) and there was such a nice festive atmosphere in the air. I was quite impressed at how Americans appreciate their ex-soldiers. Whenever the older ones parade out (especially those in wheelchairs), the whole crowd just spontaneously clapped and cheered - and you could just see the pride in the faces of the veterans! I couldn't help thinking about how we treat ex-Malaysian soldiers... but then again, I supposed they never had a real war.


Some pics of the parade -

There were school marching bands, army tanks, veteren march-past, army vehicles, police on horseback, old fashioned horse carriages etc.

Other pics taken that working week-

Free newspapers by the roadside

I was thinking - if they have this in M'sia, maybe some people will just take the whole stack and sell to the recycling guys? ;)

Some of the yummy food I had -

Barbequed pork ribs with 2 side dishes and cantaloupe juice. Ok, I know the ribs don't look that good in this picture, but there were absolutely amazing !!

Jambalaya and Jalapeno Corn Bread -

TexMex food - tacos, enchiladas, beans and rice

Finally, a picture of my little team. The guy standing up is my American boss (Leonard) while the guy sitting down next to me is my German counterpart (Oliver).

- to be continued-

Part 3 is on SHOPPING !!!! *wink*

Houston - Part 1

I finally have time to sit down and blog..

It has been 5 days since I arrived in Houston, Texas. The whole journey was awfully long - 4 hours from KL to Taipei, stopover in Taipei for 1.5 hours, 11 hours to LA, stopover in LA for 5 hours then finally 3 hours to Houston. I was exhausted when I finally reached the hotel room at 11pm on Saturday !!! The worst part was during the 5 hour transit in LA airport. As I was sitting down at Starbucks sipping an Eggnog Latte and trying to read my book, tears started streaming down my face as I thought of my little princess. :(

On Saturday, Ken (a friend who's a M'sian expat in Houston) brought me around. We went for lunch at The Galleria (had the most fantastic crab cakes !!!) , took a drive around Houston for me to see the place, made a short visit to the Nasa Space Centre, did some grocery shopping, went back to his apartment to rest, picked up another friend (my ex-school friend who's also a M'sian expat in Houston) then went out for dinner at a fantastic steak place. A nice day indeed!


Some photos taken on the first day -

View from the car. (Ken, if you're reading this - YES, your windscreen was dirty !!)

NASA Space Centre -



Inside NASA Centre (it was almost closing time. I didn't want to pay USD25, so I just took a photo from the outside!)

Where else can you see an astonout on top of McD??

Grocery Shopping @ Central Market (the veges look so good and fresh! I wanted to take more photos but was asked by the security guard not to)

As usual, I like to take photos of the hotel room -

Bathroom -

I love having a coffee maker in the hotel room!


-to be continued -

First Professional Haircut

We took Elyssa for her very first "professional" haircut last weekend. We chose the XCut Saloon at The Curve as they have a dedicated kids corner - complete with a doggie car (with steering wheel!) chair, a brightly coloured wall and a huge mirror.

I wasn't sure how she would react to a stranger cutting her hair. Her normal "hair stylist" is none other than her grandma and she normally gives grandma a hard time by refusing to stay still.

Anyway, the haircut session turned out better than expected. She didn't fuss when the hairstylist draped on the black protective sheet and started cutting her hair. But a few minutes later, she kept on saying "uok uok" (for walk-walk) and wanted to climb down the chair. Ke ke...... luckily I had some biscuits in my bag. As usual, she stopped fussing when she had food in her mouth! A couple of biscuits later, the haircut was complete.

Some photos taken -

"What is this auntie doing to me? "

I wasn't too keen on the end result though. Her hair was too short and too boyish for my liking. *sigh* So much for a "professional" haircut. :(

Holiday - Port Dickson

This is a slightly belated post - 2 weekends ago, we went for a short holiday in Port Dickson together with Elyssa's ku-cheh (hubby's sis) , yee pak (hubby's bro), yee mou (hubby's SIL) and her 2 cousins - Chloe and Charmaine cheh cheh.

We stayed at the newly opened Thistle hotel. Very nice hotel indeed so we spent most of the weekend in the hotel itself. Elyssa had a blast playing with her cousins, especially Chloe. It was great to see them laughing, playing and running around :) Pity I did not get any decent photos of the happy girls. Will try again next time.

Anyway, here are some photos taken during the 2D,1N holiday:


Bedroom (I loved the window seat) -

Bathroom -

Kid's Playroom -

Elyssa surprised us when she said "Ba Ney' (cos we never taught her that) -

Day 2 - Breakfast time with her favourite Chloe cheh-cheh

Our little family unit -

Walked around hotel after breakfast -

More walking around-

I wonder what big issue she's thinking about here - probably "I wonder what's for lunch" ;)

Can't see from the pic above, but she was wearing her shoes at the beach. I tried letting her touch the sand with her bare feet, but she cried and said "eck eck" (meaning "dirty"). Then she pointed to her shoes and said "wear wear". !!! Not only that, but when I was happily digging my toes into the sand, this little miss bossy also kept telling me "eck eck" "wear wear" !!

Eh, just because you don't like the sand, mummy also cannot play??

Little Banana Thief

I caught a little banana thief today!

I was in the bathroom this morning and I thought Elyssa was quietly playing by herself. I came out to see her happily eating a banana. (with the banana skin !!). She actually took it from a comb of bananas which was hanging from the door knob.

When I cried out "NOOO" what did she do? She quickly took a BIG bite before I grabbed the banana from her hands. Upon inspection of the "stolen item", I saw that she had eaten almost half of the banana and about one-fifth of the banana skin. Aargh!!

I think she knew that the skin should not be eaten (cos the skin was not half gone like the banana itself) but since she didn't how to peel it, she had no choice but to bite the skin as well.

Gosh, the way this greedy girl reacts to food....... !!!