Friendship Goals

I received a care package in the mail the other day from an old Primary and Secondary schoolmate of mine back in my little hometown in Malaysia.  We lost contact for a bunch of the "Uni years", but reconnected with the powers of Facebook.

She lives in Oklahoma now, but goes home to Malaysia periodically. She somehow knows how much I miss stuff from home and finds time to get some things together to send to me when she gets back.

And the thing is, I don't ever mention needing anything, or ask her when she is going home or anything like that. She just thinks of me and messages me when she has made plans to do so and asks if I need anything.

That really moves me each time, and I always thank her and tell her how much I appreciate the effort, and kindness, and just for thinking of me. I wish she really understood how much I am moved by her gesture.

Also, when my Dad died a few years ago, a florist suddenly appeared on our doorstep with a huge leafy potted plant from her, extending her condolences and sympathy.

Thank you for being so sweet and kind to me, Chee Wei!  You are truly what it means when we speak of "living out your beliefs", or "showing others the love of Christ through your life and actions".

I am very blessed to have you as a friend.

Happy Birthday Skylar!

We were over at Stephanie's the other day for Skylar's ( Ira's fiance's oldest son ) 10th birthday.  It was also an opportunity to get to spend some time with Shana, Tony, and Elizabeth, who were home from Ukraine for a bit.

I had the little boy go in his swimming clothes for pool time after cake and whatnot.

Skylar's dad, Joseph, creates the most amazing cakes, and did Skylar's Pokemon cake for the party.

The hubs looks like he's the head of the Little Boys' Table in this pic below, while little Queen Sky reigns over them :)

Conjoined Mushrooms!

Such excitement while cooking :) They might even have been triplets, seeing how there looked like there were 3 "caps".

Happiness is..

Discounts and Coupons at the Grocery Store, on things you actually need and buy all the time!

The little boy spotted this on my phone and added a few embellishments to the photo :)

4th of July Celebrations 2017

The powers that be somehow could not garner enough support this year for the city to sponsor a fireworks display, so we thought we would go to one of the nearby towns to watch theirs instead. 

So we got into the car and drove toward Clyde Lake, where the festivities were being held.  With the city not having a show this year, we figured a huge part of the 117,000 people living in the city would try to go watch this.  We opted not to drive all the way to the lake, but to park by the side of the road on the way there, as we had done once before. 

Little did we know that the place where we were parked only allowed us to see the tippity tops of some of the fireworks.  We decided that we would drive towards the lake and hopefully get to see SOME of the display before it was over.  Long story short, we drove the rest of the way there, made a U Turn and then started the way back, hopefully before the throngs got into their cars and started leaving as well.

The little boy got to see the most, what with Daddy trying to maneuver in the traffic and me trying to help watch for people coming off of the curb.

The next celebration we went to was at Hillcrest, for its Annual Neighborhood Parade.  We didn't manage to get the boy a patriotic t shirt this year, so he wore his Captain America t-shirt instead. I  mean, who could be more patriotic than Captain America, aye?

The little boy loves to explore and that was exactly what he did while we were waiting for the parade to start.

Look at what treasures he found... green acorns.

Uncle Lin was there as well!

The little boy got out in front to grab some of the candy that was being tossed to the on lookers, handed them to Daddy, and has promptly forgotten all about them.  He isn't too big into candy.

After the parade, we adjourned to the Multi Purpose Room for home made and store bought ice cream and cookies!

The little boy tried a few spoonfuls of a few kinds, but favored the chocolate ones :)

After that, we stopped by the fireworks stands on the way home to get the little boy some XXL sparklers.

That night, we went and got some of the fireworks that we had saved over the years. This was part of the stash that we had bought when we had gone back to the stands close to midnight in previous years and gotten them at deeply discounted prices.

We live outside the city limits, and there was no burn ban at the moment.  Even so, we were very careful to watch all the embers and whatnot that we could.  Needless to say, the little boy had a Blast :)

The next morning, we set off some black snakes, much to the little boy's delight to round off a memorable celebration. :)