Week 3: Book 3 : The age of peace : Maulana Wahiduddin Khan

Beautifully written , full of historical facts, emphasize the true importance of peace and why we should maintain it at any cost especially by the muslim. This book totally opens up my eyes and answered my inner question as to why the muslim community today is facing so much difficulties and trial. More importantly this books reason why what happen to us now is due to the muslims ourselves not the 'kafir'( as we like to wrongly refer ') . This book gives the objective plan what we can and should start doing to heal our sick society. It also optimistically state that the work of revival of the muslim community has started and will flourish and the next age will be the age of peace and development though everyone should play our role individually and as a community. The work should start now, from within ourself and then our outer self. There is just so much wisdom in every word , every page. Totally a must read.

Week 2: Book 2: Perjalananku bersama al-Quran : Dr Mohd Shafie Md Amin

Reading this book I feel I can relate them to myself and I am sure many Malaysian will too. Growing up as a high achiever and being told to work hard to be succesfull, we always view succes in the material world. We are taught about akhirat since small but the way it was emphasize failed to give the true meaning of life. The writer gives a simple formula that is emphasize through out this book.

Succes = taqwa

Succes ( is not) = career and wealth

Water spills project

Harith have been wanting to do this for so long since he saw this in art attack. A water spill prank. So we made it.

Basically we need a used drink cup or can or bottle. Pvc glue which is colored to look like the drink, for my Tim Horton coffee spill i just add coffee to PVC glue.

Pour it in the cup and outside. The coffee cap is the special effect. Then wait for it to dry for about a week.

Dried and we can put it anywhere to imitate a coffee spill.

Do you wanna make a snowman

This is our first experience living in winter and its so AWESOME!! MasyaAllah, snow is so beautiful, though the weather in winter can be quite harsh, like temperature can go as low as -20c , otherwise this new experience is something to cherish and remember.

Hello winter. Ni kat padang sekolah the boys.

Us in front of the house on the way to school. At the moment its snowing heavily. Sekejap je snow dah penuh kat walkway. 

Walking to school, walking along the walkway. Kaki diha tenggelam sampai pangkal betis. Tak bole tolak stroller.

Shoveling our front porch, snow up to10cm thick.

Eventually i found a way to bring diha, on a sledge, the canadian way. Surprisingly this sledge slides nicely on snow and it does not cause much effort at all to pull diha on this.

Walking to school. Tukang tarik sledge tangkap gambar jap.

Tobagoning is one of our favorite activity after scholl when the hills are full of snow. Just in front of the kids school field there is a nice small hill for the kids to slide . This picture is taken right after school. Harith is at the far centre carying his sledge up the slop . Ummi pon join main. Best !!!

Harith gaya surfer.

Di satu petang yang indah. The kids playing together.

Our backyard is flat and nice to play snow too. After sending the boys to school, ummi and diha play snow together at the back. Diha tengah rolling snowman.

Dah siap. Yeay !!! girl snowman tgk mata macam ade bulu mata.

Reviving Islamic Spirit 2015 'Alliance of Virtue'

On 25th -27th Dec 2015 we attended our first ever Reviving Islamic Spirit conference. It is the biggest Islamic conference in North America after the ISNA conference in the US featuring world renowned speaker like Shaykh Hamza Yusuf, Imam Zaid Shakir Ustadh Nouman Khan, Shaykh Muhammad Ninowy and many more.

The list of speaker in RIS this year. 

Every year it has massive attendance ranging form 20000 to 25000 participants. I am thankful that Allah gave me the opportunity to attend such an inspiring events. Me and hubby have to bring along all our 3 kids but Alhamdulillah Allah has made it easier for us.

Us at the entrance hall.

It was held at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, very comfortable place with a high quality conference hall.

Syakh Hamza Yusuf my most beloved web teacher, i love his speech, I always listen to his you tube usrah. He is such an inspirational scholar. He brings me to this new realm world of scholar that I have never known before. I strongly recommended anyone who loves ilmu to listen to him. Listen to him once you'll be hooked just as I am. He is the founder of the First Accredited Muslim College in United States.( having hope and wish to study here one day) .

Tada!!!! Sape tak kenal!!! Ustadh Nouman Ali Khan. I feel that every time I hear his speech I was thinking he couldn't be more brilliant but everytime he delightfully surprise me with yet more new insight of the Quran. To hear him speaks live ******insert so much gratefull feelings*******. 

Sister Yasmin Mohaged, sitting here listening to her speech, amidst  thousand of attendees, i feel like showing the world hey, what is this talk about 'Islam suppressing woman'. She is as respected as other male speaker out there, in fact there is a number of well respected muslimah speaker in this RIS this year.Sister Yasmin delivers a strong speech on becoming a better muslim, a stronger muslim community.

There are moments that I felt proud as a Malaysian in this world class conference.

Masjid Shah Alam featured as the beautiful backdrop.

Raihan performance, most respected amongst muslim around the world as the first ever Nasyid group in the music world. They performed Nasyid in Malay by the way. Bangga mak!!!!

With the kids, we have to take a break on and off letting them let out steam as well. There is a very comfortable praying area at the exhibitions place where we can sit and rest have meals together.

The praying area.

The kids really enjoyed it here.

Inside the conference , the kids doing already tired. There are many families with kids like this. The conference do held activities for kids if they want to join.

Zaytuna college booth and book signing session.

Book signing by Dr Seyyed Hossein Nasr.

We also join the meet the speakers session. This is with Imam Zaid Shakir.

I really felt blessed to be given this chance of such a life changing experience. I was given a first hand opportunity to really assimilate and understand Islam in the West. The western muslim open my view of Islam in such an optimistic way. Rather than being a passive receiver of fate and holding to such rigid islamic doctrine they revive it, urging us to take control of our fate as a Muslim in the face of the challenging world today. They urge us to wake up, contribute to our society ,make a change, within ourselves and within our community, for the betterment of the muslim community as a whole. They urge us to use all our gift, talent , capabilities not supressed it but nuture it to revive our beautiful Islam.

And for that i felt ever so blessed more than ever to be within this great family. The family of ISLAM.

 

Week 1: Book 1 : Reclaim your Heart : Yasmin Mogahed

Hi happy new year 2016. New year , new resolution as for me this year I have 3 resolution.

1) Read Quran 1juz per week and deeply understanding its meaning.

2) Read a book a week and write its review in my blog

3) wassap my mom everyday.

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim, hopefully berbarakah sampai ke hujung tahun amin. 

So my #week 1 book review : Reclaim your Heart by Yasmin Mogahed.

Beautifully written book. With such a clear insight. Teaching its reader the real goal of life. The ultimate purpose. For the 'one'. Our life should revolve on the understanding that we live for Allah and we will eventually comes back to Him. She explains how to understand and cope with this imperfect world, how we should understand it to find peace and tranquility in our life. She tackles the issue of self, family, community and finally global issue accurately. I will have to label it a must read for all ladies out there especially. Love love love this book. 

Blue mountain winter holiday trip Dec 2015

Hello welcome to our Canada Travel Log. During the 2 weeks winter holiday, we went to the Blue Mountain. 

21st Dec 2015

Waking up to an exciting day ,get ready and off we go.We took a bus there with AUC bus company. This is the only company that provide a bus trip to the blue mountain. It is a pre booked bus service and we can buy their bus ticket online at their website AUC travel.  They have 2 busses that make a trip everyday from Toronto to blue mountain from 830 am-930am depending on the pickup location , and from Blue mountain to Toronto at 6pm. Each bus has a few roots and stops that is available for pickup. Most of their bus pickup area is around the subway station therefor it is easy for tourist. Bus ticket cost about cad20 perway for adults and cad16 for kids.

Us outside the bus. Excited for our winter getaway.

The bus trip is fun and beautiful and took us about 2h30min. This id due to the bus maing few stops to pickup other passengers along the way, the usual trip to blue mountain by car will take about 1h30min.

And finally we are here.Yeay dah sampai. We stayed in westin trilium house blue mountain.The hotel is  spacious, comfortable and really awesome.

The dining and kitchen. The kitchen is complete with cooking utensils, stove, diswasher, fridge, coffemaker, microwave plates and cutlery, down at the blue moutain village within walking distance of the hotel facilities there is a groceries store, I end up buying few groceries and prepare meals in the kitchen. Hahahhaha, yes easier to eat with all this munckin just in the room.

2nd hall with sofabed. 

The bedroom.

View from our balcony, the rows of beautiful colorful buildings across the lake is the blue mountain village. Those 2 pool is an outdoor heated pool.

Then after settling down, had our lunch, in the room, we went on to the plunge aquatic centre within the resort. Its great in a way because the pool is a heated one, the current temperature is 4-7 degree celcius, thats cold but the water temperature is heated therefor its comfortable to stay in the water. Zuhayr ( who hates swimming in Malaysia, cause it gets cold) love swimming and playing in the aquatic centre here because the water is warm!!!!) lol.mmacam macam kerenah.

Me and the kids, ( abah tak masuk, takut sejuk). We spent about 3hours playing, then its time to go to the room for a warm bath and dinner. 

After dinner we went out to enjoy the village scenery at night. 

Kids at the hotel lobby.

The streets is filled with beautiful lights, theres is some coffe shops, souvenir shops, restaurant and bars for the guest . There are life musics playing the christmas jingles. Along the streets they put upfireplaces  and chairs for those who wants to spend the night out in the cold chilly nights. 

22Dec 2015

Rise and shine!! And have a homemade breakfast.

The village groceries is packed with fresh foods with affordable prices, from cheese, bread, oven toaster waffles, milk, rice, cereal and more.

After  breakfast and bath we went out to enjoy the scenery outside.

The lake in front of our hotel. If the weather is cold enough in the winter, this lake will be frozen and perfect for ice skating. At the moment obviously not. 

Us and 

Harith.

The buildings behind is our hotel and other hotels that is situated within the beautiful blue mountain .Further behind with white patches of snow is the sking hill that is not ready at the moment since the weather is not cold enough and not enough snow for sking trail.

Unfortunately for us, it hasn't snow in blue mountain or even in Toronto at the moment. So we cant do any snow activity here, there is however a lot of other fun activity in the activity central to enjoy.

In the afternoon , the weather is so hazy and misty and we went up on the chairlift. It was the best chairlift experience I have ever had in my life. As we went higher up to the mountain the air became thicker and thicker with the heavy air mist, the surroundings are all white, we are fully engulf in the mist and it was so peacefull and quite. It feels like taking a ride up to the heaven. 

I dont think my words or this picture can fully describe the whole experience. Its really mystical.

In the late evening we went of to enjoy the outdoor heated pool in the hotel which Zuhayr really love.

23 Dec 2015.

Last day!! , oh wish we can stay longer, there are yet more activities to do.

We went on the coaster ride.

Harith did wall climbing.

We took a hoarse carriage ride around the village.

Had a pizza lunch ( we have checked out so ummi cannot cook anymore). Mane pizza nye??? Hahahha.

And we had the most enjoyable family time playing putting together at the beautiful resort putting hills.

Then at about 6pm we took the bus ride home. The kids got so tired and slept all the way home. It was all in all such a beautiful vacation. Alhamdulillah. We will be sure to come again when there is more snow to see. Definitely.