A CHRISTMAS to REMEMBER

Christmas is always a time of great celebration in our family… which is why Carol always moans if she’s NOT home for Christmas. However…she made sure that we remember her by sending these beautiful flowers for mom and dad.


Christmas came really “late” this year. Nobody was allowed to open the presents until Alie came back. It tested Jordan’s patience to the limit. Many days after Christmas the presents sat quietly under the tree….. wondering why they were not opened !!!!

Finally on the very last day of Dec… when our patience were stretched to breaking point we opened the presents. There were squeals of delight n plenty of laughter. Our family were truly overwhelmed with the many wonderful gifts we received from family n friends.

I got a pair of sneakers from my darling husband. I think he is trying to tell me that I can start walking to work in 2011 !!! :- D. Imagine…. we have been married 16 yrs and he bought me a size 7 . I am wearing size 4 only. Ha ha!!!!

Christmas activities kept us all very busy. Hubby and Heather were invited to sing a duet in the Christmas cantata. Hubby felt odd singing as he says he is more a musician than a singer but he kindly obliged.
Jordan on the other hand became a Magi in the Christmas drama. He was very shy about acting on stage and he was relief when it was all over. I managed to take a shot of the Magi while he was in the hallway of the church.

Over the month of Dec, we attended many lunches and dinners with family and friends. We had ALL kinds of food. It was such a feast and thankfully I can still wear my pants. (If not … I should seriously contemplate on walking to work).
Cousin Annabelle took some lovely family photos during our family gathering. We had great laughs that nite watching the young and older elves performed. To see the awesome performance you need to ask hubby’s permission. :- )

A LOVELY HOLIDAY

How I wish the school hols will go on and on. . These few weeks of hols have been really relaxing and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. We didn’t go anywhere in particular as I didn’t take any leave. Most of the time, we just pottered around the house and tried to keep the kids occupied.

Heather picked up a new instrument and that made hubby really happy coz he has been trying to get her interested in cello for a long time. She finally showed real interest when her good friend had to sit for her cello exam and she was asked to be the accompanist.

Jordan on the other hand has been growing a lot. With all the good food over the Christmas he is blossoming. Thank God he is still not FAT as he has been active.
During the hols, we had more time on our hands so we went hunting for outdoor furniture for the patio. It was a relief to finally find one which is affordable and which we both liked. Sometimes we would have our lunch or tea at the patio and it’s especially nice when it is windy .
Hubby hasn’t baked any cakes yet. I thought he would but nothing materialized . It ended up with me making lemon cheesecake and trifle. I should be more adventurous but gosh the thought of cleaning up later makes me think twice about baking.
I thank God for a lovely holiday with family and friends. The hols turned out much better than expected. At the threshold of 2011, I wonder what the new year will bring. I trust God for the days ahead and choose to live each day to the fullest.

BLESSED NEW YEAR TO ALL.

Evil Triumphs When Good Men Do Nothing

I saw this phrase on one of the MJYFers T-shirt. (If I am not mistaken , it was Brandon's). I pondered about the phrase and the following came to mind :

When we see our friends do things that violate the school rules / laws of the nation do we do nothing ?

When we see our friends being blatantly disobedient to their parents do we do nothing ?

When we hear curse/swear words being uttered , do we do nothing ?

When we know that our friends are watching porn , do we do nothing ?

When we see our friends cheat , do we do nothing ?

When we know that our friends are drinking excessively or doing drugs , do we do nothing ?

When we know that our friends are getting too touchy & romantic with their boy/girlfriends , do we do nothing ?

When we see our friends displaying ungodly character , do we do nothing ?

When we see ourselves doing the above things , do we do nothing ?

When we do nothing … keep silent ….that's when evil spreads itself across the land. Sooner or later, it will affect the landscape of our lives.

The devil prowls around like a lion seeking whom it may devour. The devil wants to see Christians do nothing . The devil is afraid when we stand up and do something. As God's children , we must be brave and stand up to do something ; for He that is in us is greater than he that is in the world. So we must take courage that we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us.

My prayer for you is that you may have God's wisdom to rise up to do something. The Bible says in the last days we will see many who are lovers of themselves, lovers of money , arrogant , disobedient to parents, traitors,blasphemers.... and the list goes on. One of my desires, is to see our youths today , rising up and making a stand for Christ, not ashamed of Christ but being strong & steadfast , crushing the enemy's plans.

Together let us rise up, take the challenge and make a difference !

I wrote this article for the Youth newsletter to challenge them but I think we ourselves called to be ambassadors for Christ in the market place or in our homes also needs to act .Many opportunities will present itself in our lives and in each instance we have to choose what we are to do. When we act as God directs us to , we will be able to do great things for His kingdom.

My Fantastic Birthday :)

My friends coated me with birthday cake... choc moose on my hair & face !!! XD

My birthday this year was extraordinary.. :D Okay, it started off the nite before. I had a birthday dinner organised by Clarissa and Evelyn. :D Ate and ate and ate.. haha..and there was cake.. magnificent. :) Thank you everyone who went.. Clarissa, the 2 Evelyns Angelene, Ashley, Melody, Valerie, Sarah, Guinevere, Joan, Edward, Jon, not forgetting Sean. :)

In addition to this, A BIG THANK YOU, to whoever wished me happy b'day (especially at 12 am :D) and everyone (meaning EVERYONE !!!!) who gave me presents. FYI, I've already opened all the presents and I LOVE them..

THANK YOU so much for making my birthday the best one yet in my whole entire life. :D

Mom made me a lemon cheesecake. Her very 1st attempt and it turned out not bad at all.

Christmas Parade 2010

It's parade time again!! Since the state government had given the permit to the Methodist church to hold a parade , then by all means we should use this opportunity to share the gospel and the love of Christ to all.

The afternoon before the day of the parade, I was trying to snatch a couple minutes of nap after all the housework but I found that I couldn't sleep coz the thought “ Go get Christmas cards and write messages n scriptures inside to give away at the parade” kept bugging me. So I got up and called the Perkata Gallery and ordered Christmas cards for this very purpose. That very night, our family took some time out to prepare more than 50 Christmas cards by writing Christmas wishes or scripture verses inside to be given away. Hubby had to write all the ones in Chinese . Ha ha … we really made him work !!! Heather and I shared the load of writing in English. Hubby said next year, we will print instead !!

We found that during the parade, it was so much easier for the public to take a tract from us . They even thanked us and wished us “Merry Christmas”. I love it when we shouted out “Jesus loves you” and I felt really blessed when a kid on the street responded to me saying “ Jesus loves you too” !!! Amen to that.

That nite , those who went to the parade freely distributed gospel tracts, “Jesus loves you”balloons, Christmas cards and other goodies to those who came to watch the parade. Eventhough it rained half way through the parade, we had fun and it was GREAT to sing carols in the street.

Next year, we will prepare MORE tracts, little gifts and cards to be given away. God the GREATEST GIVER of all, gave His only begotten Son so that we could have eternal life with Him. So in the season of Advent let us also give. Our prayer is that may those who received the tracts, cards and gifts will turn their eyes upon Jesus, who is....... the reason for the season.

Blessed Christmas to all who read our blog.

What's Up ?

I can't believe it. It's almost end of November . Where have all the days gone? Swallowed up by work, cooking and cleaning and more work and cooking and cleaning.

The 1st half of the year , we were busy with the new house. Then we moved in and adapted to a totally new lifestyle. Not long after that my father-in-law and brother-in-law came to visit. We had a good time catching up on family stuff. During the visit, we realised that we spent a lot of time eating and eating. My father-in-law enjoys the food here. That's saying a lot especially for someone from Penang. Hubby always says Kuching food is no match to Penang's. Brother-in-law likes the lifestyle here. I guess it's more laid back compared to the fast pace in Penang. We took them to church and it was the first time our church friends saw the brother and all invariably commented how alike both brothers are in their looks and there were guessing who was older as they couldn't tell.. That was a bonus point for hubby coz he kept telling me that this is pure confirmation he is not aging as his brother is 3 years his junior!! Perasan !!!

All in all we had a relaxing time with them and my kids love the models given to them as gifts by their uncle and the Penang delicacies which their grandpa brought for them.

I am glad school is closed and I hope it will be a quiet time in the office ...no unexpected suddenlies that make me scream “AARGH” . “AARGH “ should be added in the Oxford dictionary as a new word coz it simply sums up how I feel when I have a bad hair day.

With the long break , I am not even sure what stuff to do with the kids apart from going to the library to stock up more reading materials. This is Heather's joy but Jordan's nightmare. Reading a book is akin to punishment for him.

Hubby already knows what he wants to do with the kids. Playing football with Jordan and taking both of them swimming. His recent addition to his “to-do” list is to learn to bake. My bro-in-law gave us a cake mixer. He lugged it all the way from Penang. Hubby is thrilled. He felt baking is something up his alley. We will see about that. All my cookbooks are ready . I just hope they won't be too many “disasters” or “ burnt offerings”. Maybe I should be more positive …. after all he does make good bread !!!!

As I glance at the calender , I feel the rest of the year is going to zoom by pretty fast. Our family will be busy with the usual Christmas dinners, Christmas shopping and church activities. On top of that we are expecting hubby's friend from Ipoh so that will keep us busy and happy. And before you know it, it's 2011 and school will be in full swing again.

Yahoo . We Made It !

We've conquerred Mount Santubong ! Few of us in the cell group had set our goal on climbing the tallest mountain in South East Asia, Mount Kinabalu next year, and we planned to embark on some fitness training so that we will be fit for the climb next year. Our first stop was Mount Santubong, a relatively small mountain about 40 minutes from the city. It is said that Mount Santubong resembles a woman lying on her back. This mountain is renown for it's “single rise” steep slope, very intimidating especially when you are near its summit. We started climbing at 7.45am in the morning, and it took 2 1/2 hours to reach the peak, slightly ahead of our predicted 3 hours schedule . Well, the climb was tough, very steep, but we thought if we were to make it to KK, we had to overcome the fear and physical exhaustion of conquering this mount. With a lot of prayers and encouragements within the team, via Alvin's state of art walkie-talkie, I am proud to announce that WE MADE IT TO THE TOP ! The scenery at the peak is simply amazing, beautiful beyond words ! Alvin, Alex and me , feeling on top of the world ! One of the many obstacles we met along the way..... The fantastic view at the peak plus the cool temperature up there is enough to make you forget all the hardships of climbing. We praise God for the protection throughout the entire journey and thank you Alvin and for the great photos.