Holiday Meals With Friends

Josie and Sarah and company invited us to join them in their Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners in their home this year. And so the turkey I had purchased to cook for Thanksgiving - all 18lbs of her - was kept frozen until this past week when Kelly and I offered to host dinner and games at our home.

It was the first time I had ever cooked a whole turkey by myself. With the help of mom's own recipe, and some searching for other "tricks" online, I pulled it off! The bird tasted pretty good! :-D Hahaha... I just wish I had taken a picture of my cooking labour prior to us all digging in.

But here's a picture of our spread after all was had.

And so with this, I would like to return the thanks to Josie and Sarah for making us feel like part of the family, and now, we truly have a family with whom we can play the many games we all enjoy!!! Hahaha.. A sort of belated Happy Thanksgiving in a way.

Here's to many special gatherings together!

Happy 2008 to all.

Feng Shui

This past weekend was all about cleaning, cleaning, cleaning.

Kelly was on call and had to field a lot of patient and hospital calls but otherwise this weekend was devoted to getting our place back in order. After some 5 weeks since we last cleaned (the floors) we decided we had not another minute to lose, and so we got to work.

And so since we were already moving furniture and stuff around to gain access to as much floor surface to clean as possible, I figured I'd go ahead and rearrange the furniture. You know, do a bit of Feng Shui.

What a difference! It always amazes me how much positive energy I receive from viewing (and occupying) our living space with slightly different positioned furniture. Try it!

I started with the living room area and ended up re-positioning all of Noomsie's furniture in his room.

The floors are spic and span, and though not any one method of cleaning floors I find spectacular for the job, I must say the whole "Swiffer" line of products really you should *not* be without. I mean, dust is dust, and sweeping with a broom just does not collect this stuff. You need something that attracts and holds the easily airborne particles. And then a good ol' fashioned mopping is needed. Voila!

And so here's to a safe and happy Holiday Season to all our friends. May the New Year bring you all much blessings.

Jetlagged & Sick

We made it back home! After some 30 hours plus of travel we made it home from Singapore to Blue Ridge. The journey, difficult enough as it is for a single, healthy person, was made that much more daunting for many reasons: (1) Ethan and Kelly were both sick, (2) we lost one seat on the return flights for Ethan and were down to two for the three of us though we paid for three seats, (3) we had 2 huge checked in luggages and 5 (five!) carry-ons (is this even allowed?) plus a stroller, (4) Blue Ridge is still a two hour drive from Atlanta after all those flight hours, and "so on and so forth" :-D

Our colleague, Renea, picked us up from the airport. Luckily she had spoken to our supervisor and colleague, Dr. Tidman, and was told by him that we would be delayed through immigration in Atlanta so to not arrive when our flight arrives but 30 minutes to an hour later. Boy was he right! And we had totally forgotten to remind Renea before we left or even while we were in Singapore that we would be delayed through immigration.

And so, we arrive in Atlanta airport, and are greeted by long lines queueing up for immigration officers. Not surprising, everything takes that much longer in the U.S. and you just can't help but harbour all these negative thoughts and feelings for why the officers take so long to do their job (compared to the many airports we had passed through on this trip in other countries). Lest, finally, it was our turn, and a cue on my passport always signals "special" - for "special registration" that is. And off we were for another hour in a smaller, stuffy room where persons born from certain countries are always detained a bit and screened. Myself, I was born in Iran - probably the *number one* country being flagged these days by the U.S.

But the veteran that I am, now having gone through this NSEERS process half a dozen times or more, I was patient and answered questions briefly and succinctly and in time was granted the stamp I needed to proceed to baggage claim. By the time we had arrived to the carrousels, the place was literally desserted. It had taken that long through immigration for me, that only our lonesomes from our flight of hundreds were left to collect luggage.

And anyone who's flown into Atlanta's Heartsfield-Jackson (??) airport knows how confusing and long the walk from baggage claim to your car can take!!

Alas we meet up with Renea who had been waiting some 30 minutes - though would have been a heck of a lot longer had she not been fortunate enough to speak to Dr. Tidman before picking us up.

Atlanta was 38F, few degrees above freezing. Penang, Malaysia was 32C (90F?). So it was a change to get used to :-P I am the type that enjoys having four seasons. I welcome cool to warm and back, but this was extreme even for my liking.

A 2 hour drive later, and we were home! Lug all our stuff and we were inside our home, but still freezing since we had put our thermostat way down while away. A few hours to warm up the whole house later, then we were fast asleep -- at 4pm! LOL

We awoke at 10:30pm, did some unpacking, ate something, went back to sleep at just past midnight or 1am. Ethan woke up (and so we all did) at 5:30am for good to start our day.

And this patterns has continued for the past couple of days, each getting slightly better and back to our regular cycle though still not right. Two days ago was bed at 6pm instead of 4pm, and waking at 12:30am, back to bed at 2:30am and up at 6am for the day. Last night was bed at 8:30pm, up at 4:00am, and well.. I'm still up and probably will be for the rest of the day today. So sort of getting back to normal, progressing 2 hours a day it seems.

Now it is my turn to be sick. I now have what Ethan and Kelly had the last few days of our trip. Funny, when I am sick and tired, it seems like I just cannot remember the last time I was healthy and without these symptoms. Sniffle, sniffle, cough, cough.

Malaysia

As we did on our '05 trip to Singapore, a major part of our journey was to meet all the relatives on both mom and dad's side of the family, who all live in Malaysia (mostly on the island city of Penang). And so this reunion also, we made our way and met all the uncles and aunts and cousins -- and of course grandparents, Ah Ma and Ah Gong.

A special trip was planned this time (which we did not have time to do in '05) to visit the village in which Ah Ma and Ah Gong live, and where Kelly's mom (and dad) grew up - Pantai Acheh. The journey to this tiny village was arduous, driving through steep mountain passageways, that are both narrow and extremely windy/curvy. Of course this made for some fantastic views of such steep mountain slopes, dressed in dense dense foliage that end only when the land dives into private coves of glassy water. But of course the reason the drive was made that much more difficult was not the mere route we took, but the fact we had a full car load - 7 adults, 3 toddlers. Fun!

And in time, we see the welcome sign to Pantai Acheh, and arrive at a humble home, decorated with lush vegetation and potted plants and flowering trees and shrubs and fruits -- Ah Gong's garden was indeed impressive, of which (no surprise) I admired greatly.

Outside this mountain village home were many fruit trees including one I recognized from my early childhood living in the Philippines -- water apples! The distinctive taste brought back long forgotten memories of the fruit (and climbing the trees) in our home in Cebu. Ah Ma and Kelly's aunts were busy collecting and cleaning the fruits, which were bagged while still on the tree, to prevent from being eaten by the many bugs and insects, but also to aid in their ripening (??).

Inside the home were family portraits and also individual portraits of Kelly's mom's siblings, parents and grandparents (Kelly's great grandparents, Ethan's great great grandparents!~). There was even a picture of Ethan on one cabinet! To think, from "far away" Blue Ridge, Georgia, USA to Pantai Acheh, Penang, Malaysia. I guess there are many evidences these days to show for the "smallness" of our world. But still amazes me.

And so compared to '05 where all I was concerned with was addressing the many relatives by their titles or family positions correctly (in Chinese!), this time around, I really enjoyed myself and evening taking initiative to have photos taken with Kelly's grandparents, and uncles and aunts. I even feel a lot closer to many of them now.

So the 5 day trip (within a trip) to Penang has been the jewel of this vacation. I am glad Ethan got to meet his great grandparents. We were unable though to have a meeting with Kelly's (paternal?) great grand aunt - Kelly's longest living relative, not necessarily by age but by generation. Had we found time to meet, Ethan would have met his great great grand aunt :-D (significant probably only in photo, as Kelly puts it, even she hardly knows her great grand aunt).

Not Much Going On

With Dad, Kelly and Ethan feeling under the weather, little has gone on the past two days. The weather has not been cooperating either, with the sun only breaking today after several days of rain (at times extremely heavy downpours). So, I have found time to sit and post several pictures on Facebook, and also blog a little.

Tonight we have another dinner planned with some family friends. We have done most of our shopping that we hoped to do on our trip, but disappointingly for me, not a lot of site seeing in Singapore -- partly because it is so difficult to get everyone ready to go anywhere (especially with three boys), partly because everyone but me has lived or grown up in Singapore and so the "downtown" or "Esplanade" or certain shopping centers are all but "been there, done that, don't really want to do that for some time to come", but also because of the weather and illness that's been going around. What ever the reason, it is quite a loooooong journey to then be cooped up at home all day, no?

There's always 2010 for the next family reunion?!

Last night, Ethan had another wheezing episode (or few) and Kelly and I had little sleep. Early this morning, mom and dad and Kelly took Ethan to the hospital to get some oral steroids to help with his breathing, as well as a nebulizer since the one we own is not portable, and we did not take with us on this trip. Personally, it has been sad and frustrating to see Ethan suffer so much. And to think this is now likely going to be a part of our everyday and travels. Ethan is doing marginally better now, and Kelly is taking a much needed nap (actually has been napping most of the afternoon now, though not without being disturbed by Ethan who wishes only to be with mama all the time). So not very restful, but at least something. Poor, Kelly!

Mom has now taken Ethan for a walk around the block.

Adeline has been working hard the past two days on completing her Master's thesis corrections.

Yuske and Michelle have been back at work the past couple of days, and the boys to school (pre-nursery for Ryu and nursery-1 for Jun), so they are gone literally the entire day until mid/late evening.

So it is looking like this vacation is coming to a halt far earlier than our return flight to the U.S. :-(

Short Blurb

Hi Everyone!

We're back in Singapore after spending the past few days in Penang (Malaysia). Kelly's relatives met Ethan for the first time. We had many dinners, shopping trips, close encounters with wreckless (Penang) drivers -- or perhaps US driving habits are simply very tame in comparison -- and 499 pictures which are downloading as I type this entry!

With one more week to go until we are back in Blue Ridge, I will be sure to post a lengthy many entries and photos.

Love y'all,
Max