Queen Mary Seaport

Salam and hello everybody,

Sorry it’s a bit late but I’m sharing our Long Beach trip with you. Hope this doesn’t bore you to death. Teehee.

We started our journey to LA on Tuesday. We planned to leave at 10am but what the heck right? We actually left at 1pm. LOL.

Since both A and I have never been to Long Beach, we decided to head over there and go see the Queen Mary ship. It was warm that day in Bakersfield so we had our shorts on when we left. Little did we know Long Beach was coooooldddd!

We didn’t get any tour tickets but we bought us some food vouchers. To get on the Queen Mary, you’d have to purchase tickets and since we arrived late, we just decided to have tea. They do not advertise food vouchers so you’ll have to ask the cashier about them. It’s 15$ each but you can use it against your bill. So that’s a win! 😀

We are here!

Queue to purchase tickets

Isn’t she beautiful?

View from the ship

A

Me with my sassy pose. LOL

At the bar.

Queen Mary at night.

There are a bunch of other things to do here aside from doing the ship tour. I think they have a skating rink out here too. Parking was 18$ flat rate, so you better enjoy yourself here and take your time!

Food was delicious and we had such a great time. 🙂

Thank you, A, for taking me here.

Much love.

 

Our New Home

Hi all!

I’m running out of ideas to write, but I have made it my mission to write every week. I am on a roll here, so let’s not break that chain. 🙂

Before moving here to Bakersfield, A and I went a month ahead for the interview and home searching. We looked at different places and this place that we are currently living in, we didn’t get to see it because all the apartments were fully occupied. So we only get to see pictures on the website.

We took that chance and boy, thank God we did coz we love this place! It’s quite and very clean. Most importantly, it has gas range! All my life, I have been cooking with gas range and when we were in Fort Wayne, I struggled a lot to cook due to the range being electric. I’m telling you, the taste of the food cooked on gas range is 150% nicer! 🙂

This new place is definitely bigger than our previous one and since that is the case (and also being in California), the rent is about double from what we paid on our last one.

Okay, no more talking. Let’s see some pictures of our new home!

Dining area.

Finally we get to use our dining table! When we were in FW, we usually eat in front of the TV (so not good!). Here we get to sit and spend some time together reflecting our days at dinner time. 🙂 I love having a proper sit down meal with my family.

Kitchen area. This is where I spend most of my time at.

A gets his coffee counter here, which makes him a very happy man! I set up his Verismo machine on that counter, along with his coffee bean grinder. The cabinet above it stores his cups, tea and coffee inventory.

Master bathroom.

Since our new bathroom is quite big, I let A share the bathroom with me this time! We had a separate bathroom back in FW and it was actually kind of hard for me to keep up with the cleaning. I mean I cleaned mine every week and he only cleaned his when he has time. 🙂 So now that we share a bathroom together, I only had to clean one bathroom. I still have to clean the other bathroom too but it’s more like scooping the boy’s litter box. 🙂

Master bedroom with the boys taking over our bed

Living room

The single Ikea chair belongs to A / Clinton. They both love that chair while Kitty and I love the chase section of the couch. Funny our cats share our favorite things. Kitty is good tho. He let me share the couch with him but Clinton is very territorial with that Ikea chair. He’d annoy A until he give that chair up. AHA!

Vanity area.

Double vanity area! It’s a first for us. It’s one of the reason why I let A share the bathroom with me. There’s no way I’d be using this double vanity are all by myself. I mean, I could but that would’t be nice, would it? 🙂

The office

It’s a two bedroom and 2 bathroom apartment. As usual, we turned the second bedroom into our home office where we get some paperworks (for me) and work(for A) done. I put my ironing board in here too but I dont see myself ironing clothes in here. Last week I dragged it to the living room so I could watch some telly while I get my ironing done. 🙂

What do you think of our new home? I love our new home and i think one of the reasons why we are happy here is because we love our home. We have all the space for everything and we also have a garage! LOL. We didnt have one before so when we saw this on the website, we were sold!!

Thanks for reading everyone and I’ll catch you on the next post. Take care and be safe, aight!

Much love.

Fantastic Weekend

Hello!

How are we doing today? It’s Monday, huh. Always the busiest day for me but thank God, I had some time to do some cleaning yesterday while A worked. 🙂 I usually deep clean my kitchen, bathrooms and laundry on Mondays. Sundays are usually reserved for washing the linen and towels so I dont get too busy during the week. Since we both go to the gym almost everyday, I usually have tons of laundry to do. Sad, to be honest coz it’s just two of us here. LOL.

Our weekend started on Friday afternoon, actually coz A reserved the afternoon off with his staff to celebrate their budget work (I think). So we went to the Firehouse here in Bakersfield and man, it was really hard to find that place. BUT, while we were looking for that place, we stumbled upon an Asian Market! Yay! We already went twice this weekend HAHA.

We played pool that afternoon and I was surprisingly good that day. I actually got 4 balls in (yes, I’m bragging about those four!) and I hit all the balls that I aimed to hit. I sucked so much at pool sometimes I dont get to hit the ball I aimed for. :p Oh, the people on A’s team are amazing! I got to speak to five of them and I quite enjoyed myself. I love great people! After Firehouse, A and I went ahead to watch my boyfriend afterwards. (Daniel Craig. *Ehem* ) Spectre was fantastic. Always loved the cars and the suits. Haha! Since it has been a lazy day, might as well go ahead with it so we stopped by Sushi Time to pick up dinner. 🙂

Yum.

I drove to the gym on Saturday evening with A by my side. And I drove on my own yesterday morning! Woop woop!

I kind of feel safer driving here in Bakersfield compared to driving in Fort Wayne. I guess because it’s rare seeing Californians driving with the cellphones on their hands. Fort Wayne on the other hand, out of 10 cars, 7 would be on the cellphones. It’s so scary to me.

Kitty got his ears cleaned and hair brushed. And both boys got their nails clipped. Kitty is more relaxed now, I’m loving it. He follows me everywhere I go all week and he started to eat his treats again. 🙂 Here are some pictures of the boys from last week.

Fair warning tho, these boys are so cute!!!

Which is your pick? Clinton Ali or Tom Selleck?

Every single morning.

On a night he slept with me throughout the night. We should have bought a King size bed.

When my bed is not made at 10 am, he is the reason.

Lazing on his favorite spot on the couch.

Sunday afternoon after some grooming.

I hope everyone enjoyed their weekend. Speak to you soon! And if you havent already, add me on Snapchat – izzafarihana. I am active on there, which is awesome coz I have thousands of pictures and videos on Instagram. HAHA.

Alright, time to go. See you guys on the next post.

Love you.

Moving Story Part 4

Good morning,

As promised, I am going to continue with our Moving Story series and behold, this post is going to be the last one. YAY!!!

Sorry I had to break them into different parts, coz if I were to dump them into one post, it’s going to be super long. 🙂 But thank God, this would be the last one. 🙂

Okays, since I was not happy with the room in Flagstaff, AZ we headed out pretty early. I think we were all set and ready to go by 8 am. LOL. And since we arrived the night before, it was all dark. Look at the first thing I saw when I stepped out of the hotel?

This gorgeous and glorious tree!

I had to take a picture with it. 🙂

It was chilly that morning. Brr. But since I always love to have (Ehem! Force) A to do things with me, this picture now exists. 🙂

It’s going to be such a shame if we didnt take this picture. 🙂

A is camera shy, FYI. Especially in public. He takes that after his dad, I suppose. It’s really hard to get his dad to be in pictures.

Ok, back to the our story. We drove from Flagstaff to Bakersfield and of course the weather gets warmer towards Bakersfield. I wish I had my T shirt in the back seat so I could easily grab it and change at the gas station.

Before leaving Arizona, we stopped to take some pictures. Here are some of the pictures we took.

The wind was blowing hard that afternoon. My teeth are so sensitive, hence me covering my mouth in most pictures. 😀

After half an hour of leaving this place, we entered California! Phew! If I could tap dance in the car, I would! That’s how happy I was when I saw the sign. LOL.

So anyways, the cats did great too on the last journey. But I can tell they were tired of it. I dont blame them. I was ready to stop. A was ready to just stop too. It was one of the longest journey I’ve ever had. I mean, we drove straight from New Orleans, LA to Fort Wayne, IN and at that time I thought that was long. Also, I traveled from Singapore – Chicago earlier this year and I thought that was long. Yikes. Driving cross country is VERY tiring. So glad we dont have to do it anymore. Probably for the next 3 years. Insya Allah.

That’s it guys! That is the end of our moving story. We left Fort Wayne, IN on Monday Oct 26th, 2015 and arrived Bakersfield, CA on Friday Oct 30th.

It’s been a great journey, albeit tiring, with my little family. We are settling nicely here and A and I both think that the drive was worth it coz the weather is nice here. 🙂 To end this moving story series, here are pictures of the fur babies on our last day of terribly long drives. 🙂

Kitty sleeping on me.

Kitty in his carrier.

Clinton napping in his carrier.

Thank you so much for reading. I’ll see you in the next post okays. Be safe and take care, my friends!

Much love.

We Are Here!

Hi guys,

How’s everyone doing today? Hope your Monday is going well. First thing first, guess where we are?!

In our new home! *throws confetti*

YAY!

No more take outs! No more fighting over the bathroom!

We moved in last Thursday morning. The fur babies were so confused, especially Mr. Kitty. He probably thought the hotel we were staying at was our forever home. LOL. Sorry honey. He growled almost all the way from the hotel to our home but quickly settled down once we brought him into the house. He’d prolly think “Oh s*it, not another 12 hour car ride!”

The movers came in about 930 am this morning. They got everything done about 130 pm, I think.

So yeah, just letting you know that we are now settled in Bakersfield, California. 🙂

I will continue with our moving story series on the next post yea? But before I leave, here are some pictures of our temporary home in Bakersfield.

Our bed.

Living room

Clinton Ali 🙂

Checking his litter box

Two door bathroom 🙂

If you are traveling with pets, I highly recommend La Quinta Inn and Suites and get s suite room coz it’s usually on the ground floor. We were lucky in Clinton, OK and Bakersfield, CA that we were put close to the exit door. Traveling with cats is actually painful compared to dogs because cats will need a scratching post (preferably from home for the familiarity), litter box, litter, food, water etc. But these fur babies have ‘rescued’ me, it is my duty to make sure they are happy and well taken care of.

Anyways, gotta go now. Have an awesome day, okays?

Much love.

Moving Story Part 3

Hello people!

This is going good guys! I am updating my blog regularly now! 🙂 Well, I think I hit this ‘wake up call’ coz whenever the blogs that I follow are not updated, I feel really sad coz that means I dont have things to read before bed. LOL.

It’s not that I dont have other reading materials. I just bought a book by Ellen DeGeneres two nights ago, actually. I just like to read on my phone til I fall asleep. Teehee.

Okays, back to our moving story series. We left Oklahoma and headed to Texas! We had to stop for gas and toilet break. And since it was a really long highway, we didnt know if we’d find more gas stations. So we stopped at this little gas station and up til today, I am still bummed I didn’t have my phone with me!

The toilet was so cool! The stalls were wooden and the upper side of the stalls were like zink. I thought it was cool coz I’m in the freaking USA and I wouldnt be too ‘sakai’ if I stumble this toilet in my kampong. 😉

The cats were still doing great. They prefer to be in the carriers with the front opening down. So cute! Some times they come over to the front seat to sit with me (read : Kitty). Clinton is just too hyper active to sit still on my lap.

Kitty in his carrier, looking so cool.

Decided to sit with his mum

We drove through Texas and New Mexico on Thursday guys. Since we hit mountain time, we just kept driving and guess where we ended up in?

Flagstaff, Arizona!

That was a long drive when you include toilet breaks, gas station and food stops. Eeeks!

So again, we stayed in a La Quinta hotel in Flagstaff, Arizona and sadly, the room we were in was not nice at all. It was old and smelly. Like really smelly. And I have no freaking idea why they put us in a disabled room. I held a normal room not the one with assistance!!!!

I was not happy with the room guys. But since we already took our stuff out of the car, we just had to suck it up. Thank God, it was only for a night. I couldnt wait to get started the next day!

To be continued…

Moving Story Part 2

Good morning guys!

I hope everyone is doing well on this Wednesday morning. We are still here at the hotel. 🙂 Everything is so far from us right now. The gym and home are like 25 mins away at least. Yikes. I can’t wait to get settled in. I was not in the mood to write but when I think about how chaotic the next several weeks are going to be (ie: unpacking, getting California drivers license, learning my ways around etc), I decided to write today! And plus, I need to finish my Moving Story series!

Okays, after spending 2 nights with my in laws, it was time to leave and continue our journey to California. We were supposed to leave about 9 am that Wednesday morning (Oct 28th) but the visit would not be complete without visiting A’s grandma. 🙂

Sweet Gma Scott is 95 years old and since obviously she’s not moving very fast to get herself ready, we went to see her at 11 am. It was a short visit, about half an hour, but sweet. We talked and hugged and laughed. We’ll be back to see her on Thanksgiving, which is like less than a month.

Sweet Gma Scott. ❤

After driving for hours, we finally stopped in Clinton, Oklahoma. That was a much needed rest. Our bums were numb and the cats must be so tired. We headed to La Quinta Inn & Suites, and guys, it was the best hotel room ever!! Luck was on our side. It was the last room available for the night! Thank you, Allah!

Here are pictures from our hotel room in Clinton, Oklahoma.

All the bags, including our pet carriers.

Kids are set up.

2 door bathroom. What what

After that long drive, this was heaven on earth.

Another bed.

A sink. May not be exciting for other people but for me, yeah!

Clinton Ali in Clinton, Oklahoma. ❤

Moving Story Part 1

Hello beautiful people.

I am sitting in my bed in my hotel room, legs crossed and Netflix playing on the background. I’m just watching (or rather listening) to a documentary. The cats are in the living room now. Probably sleeping. A went to work this morning, it’s only 10:46 am now but I miss him already!

Hey, did you know I was trying to order lunch and only realized it was only 9:32 am? I was starving earlier ! I dranks 2 bottles of water and had a Fage yogurt this morning. Those are not enough. 😦 I need my home now, please!

Okay, back to the story. We got our stuff packed last Monday, October 26th 2015. The guys came in about 9 AM and were only done at 5 PM. I guess we had a lot of stuff to pack, eh? The cats were in the carriers on and off. The reason being was I did not want them to run off when the door was wide open.

Apart from feeling sad and stressed that day, my friends popped by to see us before we left. These are my families when I was living in Fort Wayne and I am grateful for each and every one of them. Thank you, for being awesome.

D, Z, AC and Z.

D, A,AC and Z.

D, L and moi.

Z and A.

That’s our trailer. Huge, isn’t it! But no worries. There were other families’ stuff in there too. 😉

Taking a break in the guest room. This was where I set up a base camp when I took Clinton home. Sweet memories

So a little after 5 PM, I did a last walk through just to make sure everything was clean and we didnt leave anything behind. We went to the leasing office to drop all our keys, headed to Starbucks and made our way to Poplar Bluff, Missouri to visit my in laws.

We weren’t sure if we were going to make it coz we already had a late start. It takes about 9-10 hours from Fort Wayne, Indiana to Poplar Bluff, Missouri. That includes stopping for gas and food. We made it at 1 am (Central time, which would be 2 AM EST).

The cats did fantastic during the drive, albeit a lot of the time they wanted to go to the driver’s seat. They did not have any accidents and Kitty even used the mobile toilet ! Yay Kitty! All those little drives definitely paid off. *smugs*

We stayed two nights in Poplar Bluff. I had a good rest. A had a great time with his parents at their farm house. I was having a terrible cramp and migraine and since I didn’t want to be a B, I excused myself and just stayed at the house. So happy I did that coz Kitty and I bonded again. I’m sure he was mad at me for all these moving chaos but that nap was just a beautiful time. 🙂

Hope you enjoyed this post and all our pictures. 🙂

I will update again in the next post. Have a lovely week ahead, guys!

Can’t be trusted.

Hi!

If you ever come to our place, please be warned that this cat is quite an a**.

Clinton Ali

He is that kind of cat you see on cat memes. You know, one that pushes your stuff to the ground, sits on your face with his bums directly on to you, scratches the furniture when there’s actually a scratching post about an inch away from the spot he’s scratching, blocks the front door when you had to leave and etc!

But one look at his face, all those silliness are automatically forgiven.

I am under his spell!

My first time attending baby gender reveal party!

Hello there!

A few weeks ago A and I have been invited to our friend’s baby gender reveal! This was my first so I was so excited to go.

And clueless.

I actually had to Google about what to wear (we were told to wear fun clothes), do I have to bring presents and whatnots.

Well, the results I found on Google kinda upsets me. There were people out there who put down people who throw this kind of party. Ugh. I dont like negative people. Basically they were complaining and assuming that the people who throw these parties are selfish and self centered. Boo. There will always be people with negative vibes. I tell you that. Do whatever you want and to hell with what people say.

My friend definitely deserves this party. She and her husband have been trying for 8 years to conceive and we couldn’t be more happier for them.

So, we were supposed to wear either pink or blue to represent our guess. And guess what color I wore, guys?

Pink of course.

And the baby gender?

A girl, of course.

After it was announced I nudged my husband and told him, “See? I’m always right.”

😉

Okay, here are some pictures from that day and I hope you like them. That was was soooo cold and windy. What’s new right, Fort Wayne?

The glowing mama-to-be.

Ladies!

D was squinting coz she forgot her sunnies at home.

Me and the boys. A, A, S.

Bon fire to end the night.

Cupcake time is always a good idea. I totally made that up.

D and I. I love this lady. 🙂

After the announcement. A and S had to be blindfolded while the guests were given a can of spray each that contains the color of the baby.

Thanks for having us A and S. Here’s to wishing you a smooth pregnancy and delivery. I cant wait to see little precious soon. I love you both and thank you for being amazing friends.

Much love.