A Nose for Trouble...

Like Father, Like Son: Neil and Will Rucker 

Well after almost 10 months of living in Malaysia, we were finally able to welcome our first house guests recently! Will's dad, Neil, and stepmom, Monina, won the friendly little pool that Will and I started between ourselves on who would be the first to come visit. Congratulations, you two! And in order to celebrate, we introduced them to a fun "little" dining experience over a champagne brunch at the Westin Hotel with twelve of our other KL friends. It's amazing how quickly our reservation for 4 grew to a table for 16 when we sent word to our friends about the bubbly brunch. And it was certainly bubbly alright! I'm fairly certain that the Westin lost out on a good amount of money from us that day, but judging from the pictures I'd say it was a smashing success for all of us! Now, you might think that a "Champagne Brunch" at one of the pricier hotels in the heart of KL would be a rather hoity toity affair, but I assure you that the only people holding their nose up in the air are the ones trying to keep them from falling off (see pictures below). And with the finest of foods, bottomless bubbly that guarantees your glass is always (more than) half full, and a balloon artist dressed as a clown making the rounds to ensure we're all enjoying the best of both, one is guaranteed to have a good time (just like one is guaranteed to "borrow" the "community" jar of M&M's from the toppings table at the Sundae Station. We tried to catch the culprit, but this group's not saying a word. All they keep saying is, "Nobody Nose..."

Neil and Monina

 

Iain and Cynthia

Rob and Lauren

Rosh and Jane

Mike and Courtney

Ela

Caught Red (Blue, Orange, Green, and Brown) Handed

The Great Pumpkin

My Niece Hannah at her First Pumpkin Patch

Despite the unfortunate circumstances of having to make a last minute trip back home for dear Daddy Buck's funeral last month, I'd have to say that my time in Texas was the perfect dose of family, friends, fun, and FALL that I desperately needed! Not only was I able to meet my "new" niece Hannah who was just a couple of weeks old when I arrived, I also managed to make up (or at least attempt to make up) a lot of lost time with the rest of the nieces and nephew litter that my sisters have so generously blessed us with. We partied it up at the pumpkin patches and parks, hee-hawed it up on hayrides, slid it up down on slide after slide (after slide), and threw bounced it up in the bounce houses. Yep, I was that Aunt. The one encouraging the acrobatic maneuvers of a 6, 5, and 2 year old in a bounce house. The one provoking the silly shenanigans on the slippery slides. The one that gets all the questionable looks from the real parents out there thinking to themselves, "She obviously doesn't have children."  I'm not quite sure who had more fun out there, me or the kids. And in between play time at the parks and hide-and-seek games at the house, I was elected to carpool duty to and from Wellington Elementary School, where I quickly learned after Day 1 that Zach's class gets out 10 minutes earlier than Madison's class....a minor little mistake I vow NEVER ever to make again. Sorry Zach. :) Don't worry, the emotional scars of him thinking nobody was ever going to come for him immediately disappeared the second we pulled up to Rita's Italian Ice and Frozen Custard. A little bit of ice cream can go a LONG way....both in curing a kid's craving AND in dripping all over one's clothes and car. How is it that all of that ice cream can come out of one itty bitty little cone?!? Yes, my time in Texas was quite a treat, in a number of ways. I spent a great week at home with mom and dad just enjoying their company, being their little girl again, and soaking up all of the flavors of my Tall City favorites I possibly could (Thank you Murray's, Rosa's, and TCBY, repeated as necessary). Repeated as necessary. Repeated as necessary. Then I got to go spend another great week with the sisters, their husbands, and kids as I tried to blend in to their everyday routines as best I could. I couldn't have enjoyed it more! I even got to see some dear friends that I've been missing terribly and enjoy spending some quality time with them at some of my favorite ol' lunch and dinner stomping grounds. And in between it all, I also managed to sneak in a trip out to the lake house with the family for a great weekend of fishin', boatin', and S'mores! The weather was absolutely perfect. The entire trip was! And to top it all off, I got to spend my last night in Texas seeing the kids get all dressed up for Halloween (Ariel and Darth Vader for Madison and Zach respectively) and then going trick-or-treating with the cutest little bunny (Halie) and "Boo" Baby (Hannah) I've ever seen. To all of you I got to see when I was back, thank you for squeezing me into your schedules and making my time at home so enjoyable. And to those of you I didn't get to see, I'm planning on making up for it at Christmas when Will actually gets to come with me! I'm so very fortunate to have had those two weeks in Texas to help tide me over until the holidays. Thank you, friends and family, and all of my great pumpkins (Madison, Zach, Halie, and Hannah) for all of the fun. I can't wait to do it all over again very soon!

Halie and Winnie the Pumpkin Pooh

Hayride with Madison and Halie 

Hanging out with Halie

One of Many Trips up the Slide with Halie

Madison, Zach, and Halie: The Silly Sliders

Halie helping me Pack

Daddy Buck: The Final Farewell

Taken in England, 1944, 12 days before D-Day

I'll be flying home tonight to face what I've long been dreading. It's time to finally say goodbye to man that I've always placed high atop a pedestal in the ranks of the untouchables, the too-good-to-be-trues and the hero of all heroes categories. Our dear Daddy Buck passed away earlier today, in the only way I can imagine he would have ever wanted to go: resting peacefully in a bed in his hometown while holding the son of his only boy...his lifelong best friend. The two men had an incredible relationship, a bond much stronger than any other father/son bond I've ever known. It's truly amazing to think of all the times that Daddy Buck was there holding my dad's hands along the way, teaching him how to hunt, fish, catch, and gamble, I mean pray. He must have taken my dad by the hand a million times to teach him new things, to take him to new places, or just for the sake of taking him by the hand. He was very much a hand holding kind of guy. I can't remember any of us ever having sat down beside him without him reaching over and grabbing our hand or patting us on the arm. He loved to be close to his family, especially his boy, and to let us know how very he much he loved us. That's why I think it was so appropriate that after all the years of him reaching out and comforting each one of us with all of his love, handshakes, and pats on the arm, that he waited for my dad to come in and take him by the hand today and let him know that everything was going to be just fine before he finally slipped away peacefully, exactly as he would have wanted. It's like he designed it that way...I guess you could say he certainly had a hand in it.

"Daddy Buck" Buchanan: Born December 21, 1922, Died October 13, 2010, and did a whole lotta livin' in between. In fact, he did so much livin' that he came awful close to dyin' quite a few time along the way. This man was as tough as they come. He was shot in the head during the war, nearly electrocuted when he was blown off a utility pole working for the electric company, nearly bled to death when he sliced open his leg with a machete, and oh yeah, he had a heart attack somewhere along the way too. He was as strong as an ox and stubborn as a mule, and had the heart of a saint. He is truly our hero...he always was and he always will be. Godspeed, Soldier.

Dad and his Best Man, Daddy Buck, on his wedding day

Me with Daddy Buck and one of his famous arm squeezes

Sweet Sister Rebecca and Dear Daddy Buck

3 Generations of "Bucks"

It's a Girl!

Hannah Grace Lessly, 9/28/10, 6 lbs. 10 oz.

Attention everyone, I have a new niece!! Congratulations to my sweet sister Rebecca and her dear husband Kevin on the birth of their second little girl. Miss Hannah Grace was born Tuesday night, September 28, weighing in at a respectable 6 pounds and 10 ounces and every bit as cute as I knew she would be! Not scheduled to arrive until early next week, little Hannah's big debut came as a bit of a surprise to say the least. After returning home from a typical night of grocery shopping, Rebecca's water decided to break and then the race was on! With Kevin speeding back from Ft. Worth after a night of working late, Rebecca called for back-up in the way of our other sister Angela who just so happened to be walking into a nearby restaurant just a few streets away. Angela immediately rerouted herself and scooped Rebecca up in her Expedition-Turned-Ambulance and frantically raced their way to the hospital, Rebecca screaming all the way (the contractions were coming full force at this point). They got there just in time for Rebecca to be wheeled into Labor and Delivery (after Angela made a few minor threats to the security guard out front) and to start pushing (too late for an epidural at this point). Fortunately Kevin had arrived at this time, and just a couple of minutes later, so did Hannah Grace Lessly! It was all a whirlwind of activity, and the entire process took less than an hour!It's times like these that reiterate the fact that we really are a half a world away over here. I desperately wanted to be there and to be a part of it all, but I had to settle for listening through the phone as my new niece made her first sweet little cries thousands of miles away from me. I just hope she wasn't listening to my sweet little cries on her end. They were definitely tears of joy though and tears of excitement for the newest addition to the family (well, along with a few tears of homesickness sprinkled in as I longed to be there too). I just hope she knows that someone in Malaysia loves her very much!!! Congratulations Rebecca, Kevin, Halie, and Hannah! My heart is right there with you!!!

Ready or Not, Here I Come

Speedy Delivery

Proud Papa Kevin and Big Sister Halie

Phuket...it's a Shore Thing

Just a Swingin' 

Thailand: Take-Two. So after getting to experience the exciting hustle and bustle of Bangkok a few weeks ago during one of Will's work trips, we couldn't wait to slow things down a bit and take another trip to a much tamer, much more tropical side of Thailand. This time we were flying off to the sunny shores of Phuket (pronounced Pooh-ket), an island in South Thailand. Although Will has been traveling pretty much nonstop since we moved over here at the end of January, most, all, of his trips have been business-related. Having accompanied him on a couple of these work trips so far, I can vouch for the fact that in between all of his meetings, classes, and presentations, there is very little time for him to do any significant sight-seeing (or relaxing for that matter). And then along came Phuket. This was a belated anniversary trip for us that we've been trying to reschedule since March and just now found a weekend that we could squeeze it in...and I have to say that it was well worth the wait! We actually stayed in a little hotel on a little beach even further south of Phuket on the very remote island of Racha Yai. After a quick two-hour flight into Phuket and a fun 40-minute speedboat ride out to Racha Yai, we found ourselves in a perfect little paradise all our own. Well, all our "own" plus the hotel staff and a few day-trippers that came out to snorkel and scuba in these crystal clear waters. Being that it was the "off-season," come to find out, the hotel was quieter than usual, and we took full advantage of the situation. We had the beach to ourselves, which meant having full control over the beach chairs and the bartender. The great staff there did a great job of catering to our every need. We learned early on to make fast friends with the restaurant crew, and so every meal and drink came served with personalized touches, compliments of our new friends! They showered us with undivided attention and made great suggestions on what to see and do around the island. Thanks to their advice, we rented a scooter to scoot around in for a couple of days whenever we felt like venturing out for a fun little island adventure. One of these little adventures of ours consisted of pulling over at one of the scenic look-out points, where we thought we would just take a couple quick pictures of the sea and shore below. One of the locals, however, had a completely different idea in mind. When he spotted us taking pictures of everything but each other, he stepped in an offered to take a picture of the two of us together.  We've never been great at getting other people to take pictures of the both of us, so we jumped at the chance to have him snap some picture proof that we were actually there! Little did we know that a quick picture would turn into a 30-minute photo shoot though, in which he insisted on making us pose in every gimmicky, prom-like pose imaginable. Will and I were laughing so hard through the entire "shoot" that we could hardly hold ourselves together enough to maintain the carefully choreographed poses he'd meticulously placed us in. He was obviously taking his self-appointed photographer job very seriously so we went along with it as long as we could possibly stand it before our cheeks starting to twitch from smiling and laughing so hard. Back at the hotel, our nice manager friend offered to take us snorkeling for our very first time ever, which we thoroughly enjoyed despite a somewhat leaky mask. The combination of crystal clear waters and bright, colorful fish made for some very successful snorkeling. I also got to enjoy my very own private fishing trip after shamelessly begging and pleading with one of the staff members that I just had to go! When asked if I should rent any equipment for the fishing trip, he smiled and said that everything we needed was already on the boat. This "equipment" that he had for us, was simply a spool of fishing line, a hook, and a plastic bag of squid to use for bait that he'd caught by hand earlier that morning. Apparently that's all we needed because just a few seconds after casting the reel out (I mean dropping the line in the water), the fish started biting! I reeled in, ahem, spooled in my first catch in years! After a couple more little catches, we decided to turn back with the tide and head for the hotel where Will and I enjoyed the rest of the day relaxing on the beach, playing cards while the afternoon shower passed through, and ordering specialty drinks and eats from our restaurant buddies. There's just something to be said for getting an authentic Thai massage on an authentic Thai beach and  then eating authentic Pad Thai from an authentic Thai Chef. It was definitely an amazing experience for us both, and if any of you ever find yourself on this side of the world, we highly recommend making a pit stop in Phuket while you're here! 

A Room with a View

 

Taking it all in 

Our Snorkeling Spot

You get a line, I get a....spool???

Catch of the Day

Our Ship's Come In

The Photo Shoot

That's Right

Our Photographer

All Thai'd Up...

Street Performer at Chatuchak

It's been a while since the last post, but I have a good excuse. Well, kind of. Will and I have been lucky enough to take a couple of trips to Thailand recently....one for business one for pleasure. Oh who am I kidding? They've both been for pleasure (well, for me anyway). On the first trip, Will spent 12 hard-working days conducting a training class in Bangkok, and I got to fly up over the weekend to help make sure he got his fill of sight-seeing and souvenir shopping on his days off. Because really, when all you've been doing is working nonstop for two weeks in a row all you want to do is hit the town and brave the Bangkok battlegrounds of cross-dressers, street peddlers, and tuk tuk drivers, right?!? It was definitely quite an experience to say the least. I dragged him to the famous Chatachak Weekend Market first thing Saturday morning where we did our best to navigate the thousands of stalls looking for some kind of Bangkok bargain to bring home with us. After roaming around aimlessly for a bit and feeling completely overwhelmed by all of the sights, sounds and smells of this fabulous and frightening display of market madness, we decided the best thing to do was to just belly up to the nearest hawker stall (outdoor street food station) and order the best local dish that Bangkok has to offer...pad thai. After all, no person should try to tackle this place on an empty stomach. It's dangerous. Bangkok Dangerous. So after fueling up and devising some sort of a game plan, we hit the outdoor outlets once again with reckless abandon and finally ended up haggling our way to some seriously discounted prices on an elephant t-shirt and chopsticks. That's right. We are master negotiators. Ok, ok, so you have to start somewhere. We figured we'd start with the little things (like chopsticks) and then see what other kind of bargaining skills we could "pick up" after a little more practice. After the market, we took a much needed trip to the cleverly named "Pickled Liver Pub" to pickle our livers a bit and gear up for a big night out on the town. Having been to Bangkok on a previous work trip, Will had already been informed by all of the other American, or more specifically, Cajun, expats over here, that there was an incredible Cajun restaurant named Bourbon Street (appropriately enough). We couldn't wait to sink our teeth into a bowl of spicy gumbo, a piled-high po-boy and some of the other Louisiana favorites served up by their native Louisianan chef. What's even better is that this place sells to-go boxes of Andouille Sausage and Boudin (something NOT found in KL with it being a Muslim country and all). We had him load us up with a cooler of Andouille to tote back on the plane with us so we could freeze it for future batches of gumbo, jambalaya, and red beans 'n rice whenever the mood strikes, and I have a feeling the mood is going to be striking again very soon now that football season  is here! We finished up the weekend by taking a fun little tour of the Jim Thompson House on Sunday, buying some of his famous silk napkins and placemats, and then making one last lunch run back to Bourbon Street before flying back "home." It was a perfect trip that combined the best of Asian Culture, Cajun Cuisine, and Souvenir Success Stories. Bangkok, we'll be back!

One of Chatuchak's Many Food Stalls

Bourbon Street, Thailand Style

Our very animated "Tuk Tuk" Driver 

Pulling Teh Tarik....This Guy Has Nothing on Me

Bangkok's Got Talent

Because Who Doesn't Need a Set of Elephant Napkins???

What's Cookin'...

The scalloped edge curry puff

So last week I decided to up the ante on Adventure Day a bit and join forces with 10 other expat wives for an all day cooking class at a local Malaysian bungalow led by local Malaysian chefs. It was, dare I say, very "local." On the menu for the day was Beef Rendang, Curry Puffs, and Teh Tarik (which I suppose with enough imagination and wishful thinking is the Malaysian equivalent of beef stew, pot pies, and sweet tea.). A far cry from my beloved Luby's LuAnn Platter from yesteryear, but as they say, when in Malaysia....

 So anyway, we all met up at one of the girl's houses and then caravaned our way up to this cute little cooking bungalow outside of town where we were met with the most gracious of Malaysian hostesses who seemed to be just as entertained by all of us "expats" as we were by them! Cooking with all local ingredients very common to these parts, we found ourselves drowning in a combination of our own sweat and the buckets of palm oil used for frying up all of these local "delicacies," but we had a blast diving in to all of these Asian flavors. The beef rendang is simply beef  that's been slow cooked/fried in oil with a tasty spice mixture of fresh ginger, galangal, turmeric, lemon grass, Thai chilies, and a few other ingredients I've either forgotten, can't pronounce, or decided to omit from my own personal pot of rendang. As fare as the curry puffs go, well you can just get as creative with them as you want to be. They're a lot of fun to play with. To form the "puff" part of the dish, you basically just start with a mound of butter, a couple handfuls of flour and then form the dough into nice, thin little circles. Next you saute whatever you're stuffing your puff with (we used diced onions and potatoes seasoned with....well...curry...in our class, but the puff possibilities are endless). Then you pile a spoonful of the stuffing onto the middle of the pastry rounds, flap it over, seal up the sides, and then make a lovely little scalloped edge using the part of your thumb and forefinger that I apparently have absolutely no control over because my "scalloped" edges looked more like, well, the exact opposite of scalloped edges whatever that's called. The very sweet, very patient chefs at the school noticed that I was in obvious need of some professional puff pointers because they came to my rescue and worked with me until I got it right....well, as close to right as they decided I was going to get it anyway. After shaping them into "perfect" little puffs, we dunked those little guys into the sauce pans and just let the palm oil work their magic until they were nice and crispy. Finally, it was teh tarik time....my favorite part of the glass. "Teh tarik" literally means pulled tea (and pulling tea around here is a serious art form). Workers in coffee stands all over town actually compete for bragging rights (and tarik trophies) over who can pull the best tea. It works like this: You have to pour piping hot tea from one jug into the other. The higher the pour, the thicker (and better) the froth. And tea here isn't just tea. It's 1 part tea, 1 part boiling water, and 10 parts sugar and condensed milk. Pulling the tea this way helps to bring out all the flavors in the milk and also helps cool the beverage at the same time, making it ready to drink as soon as it's served (how silly of me for serving mine over ice all this time when I could have been pulling it to cool it off instead)! I feel a competition coming on at the next family reunion!!

Beef Rendang - Before 

Beef Rendang - After

My not-so-perfect puffs 

Pulling Teh Tarik...an accident just waiting to happen

BUSting Through...

Battle of the Buses

So Malaysia isn't exactly known for their strict traffic laws....or for strictly enforcing their traffic laws at least. I can't wait to hit the roads every day and see what kind of wild stunts these crazy drivers (myself included) are trying to pull behind the wheel of their locally made and manufactured Proton (the pride of Malaysia), their scooter, or most shockingly, their city bus. The buses here are absolutely out of control! I can't tell you the number of times we've seen one of them taking a left hand turn from the far right lane, cutting off 4 lanes of traffic along the way or the number of times they'll just pull over randomly without a bus stop anywhere in sight to either drop off a passenger or pick one up. My all time favorite bus story so far though, came from a friend of mine who said she just recently witnessed a city bus speeding down the highway and then all of a sudden came to a screeching halt, threw the bus in reverse, backed up at full speed (still on the highway, mind you), and then cut across the road to take the exit he apparently had flown passed just moments earlier. A city bus did this! Ooh, and just a couple of weeks ago, I was driving Will home from work, minding my own business in my own "lane" (and I use that term very loosely because lanes don't really mean anything to anyone around here), when all of a sudden we found ourselves literally in the middle of a bus vs. bus showdown right in front of us. One of the buses had just pulled out from a bus stop on the left-hand side of the street, the other bus was trying to make his way from the right-hand lane across traffic to make a left-hand turn, and neither one of them wanted to let the other one in front (and neither one of them cared anything at all about the fact that they were about to sandwich us in between them both)! We didn't know what to do so I just sat there laughing nervously and then managed to at least get my phone out and try to capture a photo of us trying to bust through the buses and not let either one of them in!! I'm not sure if the picture actually does it justice or not, but we were seriously wedged right in between these two big buses as they came head to head with each other! Well, as the old saying goes, "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em," so I put the phone/camera away, started pounding on my horn, and honked my way right through the intersection, intent on letting them know that I/we (after all, Will was in this with me whether he liked it or not) could not be intimidated! In fact, after first seeing how people drive around here, Will and I challenged each other very early on to a friendly little competition of which one of us could pull off the most ridiculous, yet successful, driving maneuver while we're here. We'll let you know who wins!

Scooter pulling a lawn mower down the road

The Classic Malaysian Motorbike-and-Gas-Tank Side Car

I "Art" KL...

National Art Gallery, Malaysia

So after the last adventure day of getting lost in the jungle with leeches, we decided we'd head out for something a little more sophisticated and civilized this time around. Combing through our self-made list of Malaysian-musts, we immediately focused our attention on the "culture" category and all agreed that a trip to the National Art Gallery would be a perfect, climate-controlled way for us to immerse ourselves in the local art scene. I picked the girls up mid-morning (and by "girls" I mean my friends Lauren and Ela), and we headed to the gallery, conveniently located right on the edge of town. It was a quick and easy 10 minute drive for us....almost too quick and easy, in fact! So after circling the gallery a few times and driving the wrong way through the parking lot just to make our adventure seem a little more adventurous, I finally picked a place to park, and off we went to see some art. Upon entering the gallery, we learned that in conjunction with Malaysia's upcoming National Day next week (a public holiday in which the country will be celebrating 53 years of independence), the gallery is currently featuring exhibitions by local artists whose works revolve around themes of peace and patriotism. The museum was decked out with colors of the Malaysian flag (red, white, and blue appropriately enough), and paintings of the Bunga Raya, the national flower of Malaysia commonly known as the Hibiscus. We even got to paint our own Bunga Rayas after having talked our way into the children's wing of the art gallery and were able to bring our own personalized artwork home with us. I'm proud to say that my bunga raya is now on public display on the refrigerator door of our shiny LG fridge in the kitchen at 3 Persiaran Ampang (our address in Malaysia).

Malaysian Flags Hanging in the entrance of the Art Gallery

My very own Bunga Raya painting