Langkawi, Malaysia...boredom

I am a big believer that out of boredom comes creativity. My friend Diana and I used to spend hours and hours and hours with our kids doing nothing but walking around near a river or downtown. The kids would find some rocks and make a throwing game or find some flowers and pick them apart. It is what makes kids kids actually. Their ability to make something out of a stick or a leaf is mesmerizing to me. We have moved our clan via a taxi, airplane, taxi, bus, taxi, boat and taxi to Langkawi, an island in northern Malaysia. The moving day was epic to say the least. It was a clear example of how kids will do anything for food and how kind locals are when you are kind to them. We barely made it to our boat from Thailand to Malaysia and wouldn't have if it wasn't for our bus driver that drove crazy at about 60 miles per hour down a tiny street to get us there before the ferry left. Ryder was laughing the entire drive and shaking his head at our crazy lives. With our three kids running to border check with their backpacks on and all of us laughing and screaming, they held the last ferry for us and we were off to Malaysia with two new stamps in our passports (you travelers know what that means:) We have arrived for phase two of our trip, beach time. We found a hotel room on the beach for $33 that has air conditioner, two double beds, bath and three channels that sometimes plays American movies but plays a ton of Malaysia soap operas with English subtitles that I have fallen in love with. They are awesome. Every problem is resolved by reading from the koran and praying at the end of the day. The kids have also watched some Bollywood movies, ridiculous Asian game shows where people will do anything for cash prizes and the equivalent of America's got talent but with scary clowns that act like dogs eating garbage. Since none of them are in English we make up the words as we go. We also do a lot of this...

This is the view from our room in the morning and in the evening. Our room is $33 but it is cheap for a reason and not something I would recommend to all of my friends. Steve had to clean the air conditioner's filter to get it to work better and it could use some paint. But, the location is phenomenal.

I had to throw this one in because Casey made this hat using a mcDonald's happy meal box and some rubber bands he found. He was so proud of it and it was quite cute. He wore it for an entire evening and the next day wanted to start selling them. Boredom, it works.