Christmas 2013 - New Traditions?

 

   Christmas Eve Mommy actually had 2 hospital appointments, but Daddy took the kids to the water park/playground where they had great fun, and Mommy brought a Subway picnic for a late supper.  It is a fantastic park, with lots of unique play/climbing frames...  Aiden wanted so badly to keep up with his sisters!  They were good big sisters, and did play on his level at times.

 Christmas morning we were up early for a way-too-sweet special pancake breakfast with all the saved up specials like marshmallows, maple syrup, chocolate chips...

Then the opening of one present to be worn to church...

 

Church took up the rest of the morning, as it was just like an ordinary Sunday with Sunday School, 2 services, and a in-house-prepared meal for lunch together.  We decided the traditional carols are much easier to sing in English, but the Chinese congregation know how to make every moment of the service celebration.

Interestingly, we saw our neighbour there, who came "to see how Christians celebrate Christmas" with a relative.  So now we have another connection to talk with her about it all.

After lunch we headed home and opened our other presents.  Aiden really liked his Duplo car set from NiNi - he played with it for over an hour while his sisters played at a friends house.

 

About supper time we went to the beach with all the trappings for making s'mores... and discovered that a beach picnic for Christmas dinner is a popular thing to do in Penang...

 

Grace and Jasmin amused our picnic neighbours by being loud happy monkeys in the tree, and thrilled Aiden by letting him play with them in their sand building.

 

It was rather windy so the fire was a bit wild at first.  Thankfully Aiden was content to watch from a healthy distance and had no desire to try catch the fascinating stuff of flames.

 

Flames died down, marshmallows were roasted, and we soon had three sticky, happy, full-on-sweetstuff kids.  Aiden went to sleep in the hammok, but the girls went back up the tree...

We had excellent picnic neigbours:  they had a generator for electric lights, and they were generous in sharing their satay with us.  In turn, we offered our s'more stuff - but Daddy had to teach them how to make them :o)

December Misc.

December is supposed to be Mommy's turn to recover by sleeping all day.... you can guess how much that happens!  Still, we are doing less than we all would like to be doing.

School has reduced to a simple copying and drawing exercise in our Advent journals... that even Aiden will beautifully get into some mornings!

 We also are doing a few Christmassy things courtesy of the Aunts' countdown calendar.  Of course, adapted to our Asian life.  Our Gingerbread houses are sugar crackers with homemade icing and chocolate sauce!  They only lasted one day, as they don't stay together outside of the fridge and fridge space is needed for more than a village of houses. Aiden thinks they should have been held together with peanut butter - he is absolutely crazy for it right now!

 

Last weekend Daddy had a work guest.  We got to tag along as they went to the Spice Gardens and the beach.  The Gardens were really well done, but the girls were more interested in the giant swing and the life-sized game of snakes and ladders than learning about spices... But the beach was well-enjoyed by all - except Mommy.  Unfortunately - and a huge surprize to us -Mommy's newly aggravated back was unable to handle walking on sand.  After reaching our shady spot on the sand, she spent the rest of the afternoon shifting around trying to relieve the pain :o( Still, it managed to be a great weekend.

Five Minute Friday

Reflect
Be careful how you think
Your life is shaped by how you think

Reflect
Thinking inward
Looking backward

Reflect
Reading deeper
Meditating, chewing
Swallowing 

Reflect
Shiny, bright and beautiful
By the light of another

Reflect
You can't do a good job of one without the other
Your life is shaped by how you think

Aiden Mischief

Aiden is both a delight and a headache.  He is much more destructive than either of the girls were at this age, and is also much more demanding.  Good days are great: he'll get absorbed in his play for long periods while we do school, and interact well with the girls when they play. Bad days... well, it's usually hard to hear anyone talk over his insistent wordless demands (screeches, crying, etc.), do anything much since I'm likely having to hold him to get any peace, and/or I must be constantly interrupting myself and others to save something from his destructive or just plain messy desires...

 

Like the day I found him on the kitchen counter with his hand in the peanut butter jar... He'd already eaten a few handfuls by then!

One (usually) sure-fire way of occupying him safely is to put PraiseBaby or Baby Einstein on my phone... thing is, a few too many times and he now thinks any time he sees my phone he can have it!

First Recital

Grace and Jasmin were in their first recital this week. Excited and nervous, they both did  great job..

 The school has a nice tradition of giving each participant a rose...

An attempt at getting video up for you to enjoy their recital pieces too...

AWANA Jerai Hill Outing

Last weekend we joined the brave AWANA families on an overnight trip.  The bravest families actually tent camped but the rest of us took hotel rooms.  Since it poured rain in the night only two out of the seven camping families actually made it through the night in their tents...

I think we had the better weekend :o)







Since it was up Jerai Hill, it was quite a bit cooler in the mornings and evenings, that's why you see us in mixed cool weather clothes.  It was quite refreshing.  It also gave us great views... when it wasn't too cloudy or hazy.  Can you see the "airplane view" behind Jasmin?

 

On the way, we split up in different people's cars.  Jasmin, Aiden and Mommy left in the morning with one of the leaders.  We met up with the another carload at their house.  Since they weren't quite ready, we went in... and Aiden thoroughly enjoyed their kid's easel.  He was so animated and serious about his work it was fun to watch!

 

There wasn't a lot of organized activities, but the kids sure had fun with that!  Whether it was the playground, the fooseball and pool table, the rec hall, the paths to explore, all of the kids were full of the joy of unrestricted play.

 

The highlight of the time was the campfire, of course!  Not being born to campfires like Canadians (:o), it took a long time to get anything going (it had rained every day for a while), and even then the kids roasted their marshmallows over glowing charcoal rather than a fire.  Daddy ended up being the go-to master of marshmallow roasting (because Mommy was holding a sleepy Aiden).  Mommy took Aiden to bed around 9:30 and then they got a real fire going so the girls and Daddy didn't come back until a lot later!

Sunday morning we had a church service of sorts.  We all sang the AWANA songs as well as a few others.  And then the families each took a turn of reading out a Bible passage/verse on families/parenting and saying a little something about it.  Rather interesting as not all parents were Christian!

Grace was really looking forward to the promised hike.  Because of the night of rain, it was a much shorter hike than originally planned so she steamed there and back and wanted more!  Jasmin had chosen the swimming option, but didn't stay in very long as it was cold - like swimming in the Atlantic ocean in June!

Roots and Wings (part 2)

Last summer I wrote about Roots and Wings  while visiting family after Aiden's birth during our summer in Canada. How do you grow roots for a nomadic family?

Last week we began a unit of study on Canada.  I was surprized to encounter some resistance: "Why do we have to study about Canada?  I know about Canada - I know about maples and beavers. "!! I surprized myself with being quite shocked and riled by this disinterest. And it brought me back to...

This summer I also got to spend 2 short weeks with family in Canada - and the topic of roots and wings was again highlighted for me to chew on... how do you grow roots for a nomadic family away from extended family?

Despite the raggedness of the trip home, some new ideas began to percolate out from various conversations and observations.

A brother deeply drawn to give his family roots, looking for the right location to dig in, expressing the crunch of time as his kids grow older - soon too late, seemed to be his reasoning.

The very fact that we were all together - a fledgling reunion tradition solidifying out of the realization we'd actually been together 2 summers ago and 2 years before that too.

Long, unexpected conversations with my mom - I learned more family history than I ever knew before, I think!

One conclusion I've come to is that location isn't as necessary as we think.
Of course, the whole language imagery of roots precludes that place is part and parcel of the whole deal.  And the ideal still is living in community in one place.  Precious, and, like many, many ideals, very hard to find!

But

What if place and roots became synonymous when that ideal used to be the norm? 
What if having roots really means constant community with the same people: family, friends? This is doable on the move, unconnected to any one place. Harder. Much harder: unknown, unsupported, not understood... but doable.

What, then, is community that gives roots?  Could it be...
Shared history - experienced together and told to one another after the fact.
Shared spaces - (yes, place does come in, but not centrally) visiting one another regularly, knowing about places and life there
Shared identity - family, faith, heritage
Shared traditions - that tell the history, the identity, and the spaces
Shared goals - within faith, work, family

still working this out - who isn't?!

November Rest and Recovery...

...has meant
usual routine things left undone
lots of sleep at odd hours of the day
too much computer time
catching up on talk, play, being together.

But we haven't holed up entirely
haven't stopped all activities.
In fact, there have been more this month so far than usual!
 
Extra violin and piano practices - a recital next week
Ordinary play dates
Gymnastics
AWANA graduation

So proud to have gotten awards: Faithful Attendee and Good Behavior

 A fun day at Dalat...
Where there were all sorts of fair games and food with a movie when it got dark. Mom and Dad hardly saw the girls from beginning to end!  While they were off getting all painted up, playing games, and finding friends,

Aiden was having his own fun: playing in the water fountain and strutting big-boy style with his mom.

This week Grace has been at school two mornings for Basic Skills Testing, and this weekend we are off to Jerai Hill for the much awaited AWANA campout.  Not really a campout though, as it is at a resort of sorts and those of us without camping gear are in the hotel... Still, as long as it doesn't rain all weekend, it'll be fun.

Five Minute Friday

Truth

Don't you love
Those moments when
a new shard of truth
blows open a door you never knew was there
illuminates a mess that must be dealt with
untangles that knotted tangle of a problem
rises up with in you
defying description
slippery to grasp solidly
and yet so
powerful?
A glimpse into real reality
Impetus for lasting change.
Sharp
painful
gladdening
a brilliant burst of color
to my soul
A new shard of truth
Oh! for that day when
we will be able to
hold not just slivers
but the whole truth
in our minds and hearts!

October in Review

October was a crazy busy month! Dad was gone every other week to various meetings, visiting Korea, Thailand, Taiwan, Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia.  And in between he was more often than not out of commission in exhaustion recovery and/or sick... with the cold that we just could not get rid of, passing it 'round and 'round.  Hopefully we are truly clear of it now though.

Other little things kept happening that just made the going a bit tougher... like Aiden managing to get 10 seconds alone with Dad's Padfone and smashing the screen to the point it was useless - right before one of those trips away.

 Or Jasmin sliding super fast down a playground pole, complaining off and on all week about her foot hurting, and so getting the adventure of foot x-rays (noting fractured, just bruised and sprained).  She got to keep the film and is pretty proud of it :)



So, by the time the final meeting at the end of the month, we were all really glad to be all going to Bangkok together!

We went up by train a few days early, and got to spend some time together as a family, visiting old haunts and reconnecting with friends.















Other October things...
Grace sang in a children's choir for a school chapel service (unfortunately I can't get the video to upload in this post)
Jasmin got invited to join a violin-cello ensemble for a Christmas preformance
Aiden discovered that Dad's wallet is more fun than Mom's... even to being an insistent pocket picker
We took a long overdue family picture update

Phew! Ready for the promised rest of November...