A Very Malaysian Christmas

We're back from our Christmas get-away and I'm excited to show you a tiny bit of Malaysia!

We had a great Christmas and spent our days lounging, reading, napping, and swimming. It was a nice way to spend the holiday, but being away from family is hard. We skyped and did our best to put on a happy face, but Christmas is about being together with loved ones. We missed you all so much!

We spent all of our time here, at the Shangri-La. The beach wasn't the best, so our time was spent at the pool. It was a perfect holiday!

We were in KK right at the tail-end of the Monsoon season, so we saw some pretty awesome skies at night that brought some crazy rainstorms. 

 We spent Christmas Eve having Teppanyaki

and marveling at the Asian Christmas decorations. 

We woke up on Christmas Day to beautiful sunny skies. Our day consisted of more: lounging, reading, napping, and swimming. 

 We found elephant foot-prints in the sand...

 and watched the sun go down...

 while trying to figure out the best settings to take the sunset shots on :) 

 We got dolled up, and had a traditional British Christmas dinner complete with duck and liver pate and Christmas pudding. 

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On Boxing Day we went to visit an Orangutan Sanctuary which was part of the Shangri-La. These orangutan's were being rehabilitated to return to the wild. We watched them swing among the trees and trying to break open coconuts. Sad story: I forgot my Zoom Lens. I mean, I left it in Hong Kong. Brilliant, Lauren. 

After visiting with the Orangutan's, I met this little guy...a Pygmy Elephant!

Not the softest, but I loved him nonetheless!

We finished off our day by the pool and had a great Indian meal that night. 

We had a great Christmas together and hope yours was filled with family, friends, and lots of love!

xx,

Lauren

Sneak Peek

We're back from Kota Kinabalu!

Can't wait to share more...

xx,

Lauren

3 more days...

Until we're (hopefully!) soaking up the sun. 

Spending time away from our families is not easy, but hopefully this place will take our minds off of it. 

We're heading to KOTA KINABALU, MALAYSIA to celebrate Christmas this year! 

Just in case a geography refresher is needed...

I'm always pulling up the Asia map, so I thought it may be useful to you too. 

Happy last week of work!

xx,

Lauren

Ho! Ho! Ho!

Christmas came early at the Phipps' and this weekend I got my big present from MP.

This lovely lens brings my aperture from 3.5 down to 2.0 which makes shooting at night so much easier. It will also give the beautiful blurry, dreamy background which I love. Perfect for portraits!

Santa brought this one too. 

Oh. My. Goodness. I can't wait to play with it. 18-200 mm increases zoom capability and will make shooting moving/action shots so much easier. This lens will most likely replace my current one. I can't wait for our trip to Malaysia to try it out!

My friend KC and I have been taking some photography workshops, so we spent some time Saturday evening geeking out on the Kowloon side and trying out our new skills. 

 There is still so much to learn, but it's been fun experimenting and taking about a million bad photos. 

 Dudley hated being my subject by the end of the day. 

 We had dinner with some of our friends at the China Club on Saturday night. 

Bethany is moving back to Hong Kong! She's been working in Singapore and has decided coming back to HK is the best for both her and Sage. I couldn't be happier to have her back. 

Here are a few shots from outside the China Club. 

I hope you all had amazing weekends. It has actually been cold in HK (mid 40's!) Today we creeped back into the low 70s. Thank goodness! I have become such a wuss...

xx, 

Lauren