How do you say "trick-or-treat" in Malay?

This blog is mainly devoted to sharing Halloween pictures and experiences which I have to do before November closes out. As you can see from the pictures, Harrison was a fire fighter and Sydney was the dalmation for his fire truck.
Ironically we probably had a fuller Halloween schedule here in Malaysia then if we would have been back in the States. These pics were taken at the three different events we participated in. The Saturday before Halloween, the young families organization, ibu, had a Halloween party. Harrison won most innovative costume which I thought was hilarious considering I bought it for $80 ringgit (about $25) at Toys-R-Us. Unless of course they were referring to the "team" costume including Sydney's which allowed me to channel my inner Martha as I sewed a bunch of black spots on one of her white onesies.

On Sunday we went to the American Association's Halloween party and got this hilarious family pic.

I told Andy we look rather relaxed for how irritated our kids look. This will not be going on the Rusie family Christmas card.

The last event was trick-or-treating in our neighborhood. When I received a flyer that said there would be a kids party at the clubhouse, then trick-or-treating for participating houses, I figured a few Americans in the complex might be doing it. There were 150 kids. It was crazy. So H got to fill his pumpkin with all kinds of treats that we're still making our way through.

For some reason, this is the only picture we got of actual trick-or-treating. I think managing both kids and taking pictures was a little too much for us.

Since almost a month has passed since then, we have been doing well. After all the Halloween parties, every family seemed to get sick (we're thinking the apple bobbing was the culprit) so that wasn't fun, but we're all recovered now. We went to a Thanksgiving celebration last Sunday at the American Association and are invited to a friend's Thanksgiving this Friday night so we're getting our fair share of turkey and pumpkin pie.

We're also doing pretty well socially. We've been going out every weekend with various friend's we've made. Nothing beats the night about a month ago when we went to an American Association event for Oktoberfest, Andy won a beer chugging contest, we saw a guy break his arm arm wrestling, we did after hours at KL's "Bike Week" and Andy got hit on by a tranny hooker at the Thai Cowboy Bar. That night was memorable.

I've done a couple of girls' nights out, as there are a lot of fun Moms here itching to get out and drink a beer. It's interesting though. Here in KL, there's so many people to meet, your problem is actually overextending yourself with friends. I take the kids to a playgroup through the Australian club on Mondays, then have another playgroup going on Fridays with other women, then random Americans we've met who all seem to know each other. It's great and all but to some degree if you're friends with too large a number, you'll never become really close friends with anybody. There's also the reality you must accept that people constantly move. One of the first questions you get asked or ask another couple is "How long are you here for?".

But what's cool is that everyone is always traveling as there's millions of places to go so you hear about others experiences and can plan accordingly. Also alot of families will vacation together and there's a few families with kids around Harrison's age who we could see traveling with. Andy and I just got a membership at a club that's right next to Andy's office. He has a whole vision of weeknight golf because they light the course. Fine by me. Free up the weekends. It has a huge pool that I'm sure we'll hit occasionally although we do have one in the complex. And there's a few families we've met who belong there so we can get to know them a little better.

There are some more recent pictures to include but will send this off and download them later. It's the picture download part that takes all the damn time on this thing. Hope you're all well and have/had a Happy Thanksgiving!

Rusie Family 4