Putrajaya 4th International Hot Air Balloon Fiesta..Yang nak tak dapat, yang tak nak dapat :)

Greeted by this giant sim card hot air balloon and 2 blimps

As the title of this post says, I am going to share about the event held last weekend at Putrajaya which to me is a modern and sleek cosmopolitan city but the whole impression is brought to shame the moment you step into the public toilet...

Being told by the event staff on a telephone conversation that the ticket counter would be opened half an hour before the hot air balloon ride session starts, we got there as early as 7am. There were 2 sessions of balloon rides 8am-11am and 6pm-9pm. So in our thought, arriving an hour earlier than the actual session would be sufficient for us to get the tickets though limited tickets were being sold.

Got there, parked the car and asked my son and nephew to race to the queue just to make sure that we'd have our slim chance of riding the hot air balloon amongst hundreds (perhaps thousands) of hopeful people but unfortunately only 300 of us will actually be floating in the air while grinning foolishly to the people down under :)

Ini sume kes malu bertanya sesat jalan la ni! beraturla...smpi ke sudah x dpt tiket der!!

So, we queued up behind what seemed like 200 people, anxiously waiting to know whether we would be lucky enough to have a ride on our eldest son's 9th birthday. Couldn't wait any longer, I bothered my sleepy looking husband to check at the counter if there's still tickets available but seeing the crowd queuing up I was pretty sure there must be. He came back with heart wrenching news that the 300 numbers were already given out and that's it.So that was it! My dream of sailing in the cloud on hot air balloon with my family especially on my son's birthday while me hysterically shouting " I'm on top of the world!!!" was done. There and then.FULLSTOP.

What the crowd might not know was the fact that only people with numbers could buy the tickets which were already finished by 8am. The highly motivated person who was given out the first number to buy the ticket was already standing there at 1am! 1 freaking am!! You can't be more desperate than I was! Last number given to a lucky lad at around 5.30am. So, don't even bother asking about me and family who woke up at 6am okay? :)

The clowns..try harder next time :)

Yeay,yeay dapat belon!! walaupun x dpt naik hot air balloon!

Though we might not have the time of our life on the hot air balloon, at least we get 2 free balloon swords from the 3 supposedly happy clowns but seemed sadder than people whose dream of riding the hot air balloon crushed to the ground. "Cheer up clown! You're supposed to look cheerful and approachable but darn! go get a red lipstick and draw more smiley shaped lips on your face" I said in my head. Oh, not to forget the 3 free movie tickets that we get just by buying 2 newspapers from one of the booths.

Well, actually if you buy 2 newspapers, you get 1 free ticket. But my 'never tried too hard to be charming' husband did get 2 free tickets from the girl who was selling the newspapers simply by asking "Dik, bagi 2 tiket boleh?" and that was it..2 free 7 Petala Cinta tickets handed onto his hand by the girl who was probably hoping that he would bend on his knees asking her to go watch the movie with him.Huh!! Hubby walked back to me grinning sheepishly with the face impression portraying "aku ade... kau ade?"

I straightened my body posture and walked towards the newspaper booth and asked the girl something about the promotion they were having which I already knew. But, overact friendliness added with  over rehearsed effort seemed failing to melt the girl's heart to give me 1 extra ticket. Then, here came the back up plan; asking for sympathy part " Alaaa, boleh la dik, akak dengan anak ni (pointing to my 15 year old nephew), camane nak masuk kalau tiket 1?" With overconfident face she said " Sorryla kak, 1 je free tiket for 2 newspapers"

Now, the mood to watch 7 Petala Cinta was replaced with rase nak tala kepale budak tu 7,8 kali!

All in all, I would say the visit to the event was worth it as we did head home with 3 free movie tickets (to keep mummy and daddy happy :), 2 balloon swords ( to keep the 2 little pumpkins happy) now how about the birthday boy?? Well, he already got his birthday present a month ahead of his actual birth date, plus we did celebrate a merry join venture celebration the night before..

One more that I get to bring home was the horrible images of the portable or mobile toilet that keeps flashing in my mind every time I talk or think about this hot air balloon event. With a spanking modern, sleek and fancy looking building all around Putrajaya, they can do a lot better than providing disgusting portable toilet that surely failed to please and impress people who need the toilet urgently like myself. Investing in a proper toilet wouldn't cost too much would it? After all, this was an international event and what's the point of organising such big event if all visitors get to talk and remember was not the spanking looking high cost building but stinking smelling toilet! Duh!!

The 3 Ds

some of the hot air balloons..

giant floating cake for bday boy :)

dah kite x dpt naik hot air balloon tu, jom kite panah kasi bocor nak?

The art of silence

Disastrous surprise indeed...

It's taken me more than two weeks before I finally post this entry about the series of unfortunate events happened lately...hmmm to start with it was my hubby's birthday on 18th Feb and a week prior to that I cracked my already messy head trying to figure out what plan should I do for him and I finally chose to prepare for in house candlelight dinner for 5 :) Wow!! For 5? You might ask...Well, I know if it's just me and him it would be more romantic but my idea is that I wanna try to include the kids as much as I could in our current life and have as many celebrations as we could together with them before they are big enough to have their own kind of party on their own in another part of the world and burn a hole hopefully in their pocket and not ours :D. By then most likely we'll be invisible yet memorable in their minds..So the idea of having a candlelight dinner for 5 wasn't too bad was it? Apart from the fact that something didn't turn out to be the way I had planned.

On the said day, we (me and the 3Ds) woke up early preparing the list of things we should do in order for the plan to success. First, we went hunting for ink cartridge refill for the printer and photo papers which is needed for my incomplete scrap book as his birthday present. Then, we headed to Tesco to do groceries shopping. To be honest, it was my first time trying to cook western meal and I had really big trouble choosing over tenderloin, sirloin, rib eye or whatever steak as I had no idea of what the differences were and due to time constrain I didn't bother to ask for advice or suggestion and perhaps kes buat2 pandai la nih :) Shopping list checked, we went back home and started preparing dinner.

The menu was  Main Course; Dry Beef Steak (didn't have time to make the gravy or google for the gravy recipe), Side dish; Mashed Sweet Potatoes and Salads, Dessert; it's meant to be Non Bake Cheesecake but I think because I use the normal cream cheese rather than double cream cheese it became ice-cream like cheesecake but the taste I tell you was superb! It's just the consistency that went haywire.

The kids had fun helping me out mashing and bashing the sweet potatoes, mixing and stirring the cheesecake mixture and setting up the table.  I guess it's the whole process that got them excited and looked forward for daddy's arrival so we could yell "Surprise and Happy Birthday!!" but unfortunately that didn't happen..

The kids fell asleep waiting for daddy and seeing that I was heartbroken. 

When my husband finally arrived home, I was just glad that he arrived safely but I wasn't in the mood for any kinds of celebration. All I wanted to do was to get a sinful sleep after a long tiring day going here and there with three kids trailing behind me,beside me or maybe all around me..I couldn't even remember.

Awoken by the children's laughter the very next day, I came out from the bedroom seeing the children were already at the dining table waiting to enjoy the candlelight dinner turned sunshinelit breakfast. Joined by me and hubby they had a good time still talking about daddy's birthday. Boy!! What do these naive but curious children know?? My heart sank with happiness, sadness, disappointment, anger and gratefulness all at the same time. I knew I wasn't behaving strangely because as a human I'm pretty sure we'll be heartbroken if something didn't turn out the way we wanted it to be right? He had his own reason for being late, I had my own reason to be angry and disappointed while the children had their very own reason to still laugh and put a smile on their pretty faces just to have mum and dad around even though everything else in their world turned upside down.

Things done can't be undone and all that mattered was the fact that we had loved each other, still in love with each other and will always be, InsyaAllah.. I love keeping this in mind "In a relationship when we are stuck in an unavoidable and unfavorable situation or circumstances it's how we deal with it that makes the difference in the outcome". I needed time by myself for a little while to come back to my sensible mind and that's when I decided to have a journey to the center of my heart (Cewahh!!) and yes...still with three kids trailing behind, beside or all around me..I can't recall this too. Till then, here are some of the pics of that disastrous surprise ;D

dhani and alyssa's menu :)

ours..

the non bake cheesecake turned ice-cream like cheesecake :)

Yun yum!

As you can see, no pictures of us enjoying the meal as we only ate the meal the next morning and  by that time I wasn't in the mood to snap photos anymore :(

ADIOS :)