The Preparations

When Anita got her mind set for something, she would obsessively pursue it. And the family open house the other was no exception. She was planning it for some time and got all the logistics organised well ahead.

For her part, she cooked her famous soto. She ordered a few items from her Instagram contacts as well as getting one of her friends to bake the cake for us.

Her Mum helped with the decorating and she got one of our maid's friend to stay over as well.

Certainly all her effort came into fruition as things started to fall into place. Luckily since our apartment was recently renovated and one of the leaked bathroom had been fixed. A few days before, she went to Sungai Buloh with her friend to get some fresh flower pots for the balcony. Therefore decorations was rather straight-forward.

Open Apartment

Last Sunday, the day before my and my father-in-law's birthday, we hosted an open house at our apartment - hence the dubbed open apartment - inviting mainly Anita's cousins and my father-in-law's siblings. The turn out was better than expected. Mixed with that, we also had an impromptu cake-cutting and all the usual birthday stuff.

It was just beginning

My parents-in-law

One of Anita's Aunt

It was an excellent day all around and some of our friends stayed until the evening. Food was curtesy of Anita's excellent soto as well as a few orders of biryani and "laksa Johor". Everyone was entertained, even our new driver - who was a pastry chef - chipped in with some desserts for good measures.

Most of our cousins only visited us for the first time, and many had not been here since the renovations last Christmas.

The four of us

And they got my name wrong!

Even the baby was behaving

Good time all around

Everybody had a good time and Anita was the most pleased. She put plenty of effort for the afternoon, and her mother actually spent the evening with us. We also got the help from a friend of our maid as there were plenty to do during the event. But everything went well.

Idlan and Irfan though only made sporadic appearance, although one of their cousin joined them in Irfan's room playing with the PS4. That left us adults to chill out while enjoying the food. The main problem our visitors had was the security and parking arrangements. To make things easier, we stationed our driver at the visitor's car park to fetch them through the main lifts rather than them having to go through the visitor's route and the main entrances.

Peace!

The day's entertainment

Group photo with friends

We were stuffed by the late afternoon, and the party was only halfway then. My father-in-law did not stay until late as he was getting tired from all that. He did however gave a speech after cutting the cake. Off came the story when I called Anita's home when we were both still in college. Hilarity ensued! But great day all around ...