Read-Aloud Session of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe

The kids' overwhelming response to our first read aloud sessions of CS Lewis The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe excited me much. I was so thrilled that they could actually follow the little nuances and even caught some of the little sprinkles of humor. 

But to pique their interest, I stopped after Chapter Two. That was met with loud and thankfully, non-violent protest. 

Let’s hope that this marks the start of their journey of reading for life and living. 

Meet Brave Maeve

Sammy just happened to pick up a book in the library  entitled “Brave Maeve” and written by Joanne Poon. because it had an interesting cover and he read it the moment he reached home. He was very tickled to read about ‘botak’ Maeve. I was intrigued at his response. That evening, those words “Maeve" and "Joanne Poon” just kept ringing in my mind and it suddenly dawned on me that it was written by my BSF friend Joanne Poon. A quick watsapp soon evolved to a catch up date and I was blessed to hear about how God worked in this family’s life in 2013 as mommy Joanne published a book to explain to Maeve about what the chemotherapy she was going through. I was blessed and touched and it reminded me of God’s grace and mercy in my own life and in Sammy’s life. 

Maybe, one day, I need to write too....

2013 was a year of cartoons

Of course, we did watch Turbo, FreeBird and others. Strangely, Sammy enjoys Cloudy with A Chance of Meatball 2 a lot.  Seems like an appear-out-of-nowhere post. Well, just reminiscing the times we can scoot off so easily to the movies without jostling with the crowd. 

Holidays that Reset and Restore

These family getaways with just the 4 of us are very precious. Precious because we enter into it synchronized - synchronized in our priority to explore with an open mind, synchronized with the knowing that we would be doing lots of walking and trekking if necessary, synchronized with no external obligations to meet, synchronized with flexible meal preference and some very specific meal preference, synchronized with reconnecting and spending time with each other. It was a holiday that reset and restore.

All this took place in the backdrop of accumulating work, school work and house mainentence etc.  But...it was well worth it.

A Traditional Japanese Wedding and Japan for the fifth time

A traditional Japanese Wedding - the perfect excuse for a short getaway to our fave holiday country.  But then again, even if there were no excuse, you would find us there:)

A Seemingly Benign Family Photo
 [ but it was one which required quite a bit of effort because
we had to pack our formal clothes and shoes amidst our winter wear and boots]

Daddy and Sammy with their Japanese friends

Sarah with a bouquet of cherry blossom and other flowers 

While Jie Jie is in school...

Sammy has been happily busy in his own ways, exploring and drawing and creating. Sometimes, I think this is a better sort of education.