Rest in Peace to my Dad (12/7)

After almost 5 months in the hospital, my Dad finally succumbed to his illness.  My sister and I had been going back and forth to Malaysia for the past 4 months.  We didn't think our 4th and final trip to see our Dad would come so soon.  He had just been okay-ed to be discharged from the hospital the Tuesday of that week, Dec 5th.  And by Thursday early morning Dec 7th, he had passed away :-(

I'm so glad Graham and Charlie were able to see him and spend time with him prior to his illness.  This was one of our earlier visits when the boys were younger:

Graham and Charlie never did get to meet my late mom.  Here's a photo of both mom and dad during my sister's wedding in 2005:

I'm glad Graham and Charlie were able to visit grandpa or "Lao Ye" during our most recent visit to Malaysia this past summer.  It's too bad it had come to this but Dad went through so much during those 5 months in the hospital.  Anytime he would overcome something, another thing would come up!

There were lots of flowers brought up to the funeral parlor for Dad:

Here's the program for the parlor.  By the time my sister and I found out about my dad's passing, we booked our tickets and arrived by Sunday afternoon:

I'm so glad Dad's caretaker Chelyn was also able to come by and pay her respects.  She's pretty much like family now - after spending over 3 months with Dad 24/7:

Dad's obituary in the newspapers:

And Chinese papers too:

And I didn't even know that we had an uncle that passed away when he was only 5 years old!  We only realized that when I saw the obituary - where it listed all of dad's siblings:

Dad remarried about 7 years ago to a lovely lady from China.  We are so thankful for all of her love and time for my dad and also to all my aunts and uncle for taking care of him while my sister and I were in the US.

Dad was baptized during his time at the hospital, so like my mom - Dad also had a church mass:

We (my sister and I and also my brother) as well as some of my cousins, actually had to stay awake the entire night at the funeral parlor prior to the trip to church. My brother and a younger cousin left around 2:30am to the cemetery to "break ground" at the grave site.  There's so many odd traditions!  And oh, my sister and I were told off several times by our aunts to not laugh so loudly at the funeral parlor.  Oops! Ha!

RIP Dad - Glad he has been reunited with mom and that he is no longer suffering/in pain:

Chili cookout and Halloween

Here are some photos from this past Halloween.  I decided to make chili for the neighborhood Chili Cookout.  This recipe that I'm trying out uses Guinness.  Cheers!

Mmmmm, looking pretty good!  I decided to use the stag meat that was given to us by my housing host in Ohio:

In the meantime, the boys are preparing their pumpkins to be carved:

Simple and scary by Graham!

Charlie is obviously going with a fish theme:

Nicely done, Charlie!

Okay, here we go - I've decided to name my chili Stag-o-licious:

Look at all the neighbors that are participating in the cookout.  And I had taken this photo early prior to the start of the judging so there were plenty more chili!

Charlie decides to fish while waiting for the chili competition to start:

These pumpkins look so cool when they are lit up!

Charlie's one looks so cool!  It almost looks like his fish is wearing an eye patch. Ha!

Quite a few other kids participated in the pumpkin carving competition:

I think Graham and Charlie both won Best Pumpkin tonight.  And even though I didn't win any awards, the chili was all gone by the end of the night:

Oh, this is what happened when I tried to make this batch of chili.  I was looking for the can opener but couldn't find it in the kitchen drawer!  And so I had to improvise:

This was not an easy task!

... especially when you have to open so many cans!

And guess who was the culprit?! Charlie!  He took the can opener out for fishing - he had a can of corn to open as bait and obviously didn't put it back into the kitchen drawer:

And looks like the squirrels are having a good time munching on the carved pumpkin:

Bobby is so sure that the squirrel also peed on it!

Well, it's the night of Halloween and it's snowy and freezing! I told the boys to dress up as snowboarders as their Halloween outfit:

Daddy forgot to take photos of the boys.  Despite the cold, still lots of candy coming back to the house. Yikes!!

Well, someone else is also having fun :-)

Quite the dusting the next morning:

Pretty!!

Misc photos in Oct

I think it's only fitting to start this posting with a photo of my dad.  It was quite sudden, but my dad finally succumbed to his illness earlier this month.  I was going through a bunch of dad's old photos and came across this one:

Dad and his buddies would bring back all sorts of game meat.  The usual animals would be like deer, flying foxes (fruit bats), and wild boar.  Then there's the occasional python and porcupine. Ha!

We had to surrender dad's rifle back to the Malaysian government.  Thankfully we were able to keep his scope:

I'll upload more on dad later.  As for the rest of the photos for October... I guess this is what happens when you leave the watering to your kids while you are away/out of the country:

Yeaaah.... these plants are not surviving!

Now that I'm back from Malaysia, there's no more noodles for breakfast.  Instead, it's eggs with avocados on toast.  Pretty yummy!

Flowers in the front yard are still somewhat blooming:

Trying to clean up some dead plants while I can:

A lot more work than I expected!

Bobby had the boys draw me something while I was away. It was too funny that they drew one of a durian.  "We love you just like you love durian!"  This is too cute!!

Back from Malaysia and flying via Japan - how do you not get the boys more Pokémon cards?!

Adding to their already ever growing collection:

And trying to figure out if the cards are worth anything:

Japanese flavored Hi-Chews. Okay, so these chewy candies are pretty addictive :-)

Back in the US and back to American food, like Apple-cinnamon milk shake. And it actually has a donut on the very top too, beneath all that whip cream!

Onion rings and a double patty burger.  Oh boy, my cholesterol is going to go up even more!!

Ah, back to driving my red "beast".  I had been driving my brother's old Proton (sedan) and this truck is so much bigger!  And I didn't feel like taking it to the carwash so I parked it out in the driveway during the rain. LOL!

Boys being boys:

So much rain!! 4" in a day and a half??!

Mommy and Graham date lunch:

We definitely need to do this more often:

Graham and Charlie are back doing Tech Crew at school.  Actually, this is Charlie's first gig.  He is in charge of lighting this time:

I don't remember what Graham was in charge of, but he was helping out towards the front of the stage:

Charlie was hoping to be in the show but was late with audition. So hopefully he'll remember to audition earlier for the Spring show:

Graham decides to keep his hair short. Of course, daddy is having a little fun while giving Graham a trim:

Omg, the calendar for the kids to keep track of their activities while Mommy is away.  I'm so glad I didn't give this whiteboard away!  It was a free item that I had picked up during home-schooling (during Covid):

And while Mommy is away, the boys get to have fast-food.  Ha!

Graham is enjoying Engineering club at school with firing up their rockets!

Here's a video.  Pretty cool!

Looks like I'm going to miss Graham's orchestra performance:

I hope Daddy and Charlie are actually watching and listening, and not on their phones!

I'm so glad Graham is still playing the violin:

Look at how this kid has grown:

Charlie is back at the orthodontist - to get a new set of retainers:

And here I am trying to figure out what to do with our 4 summer tires.  I've plopped our old Ikea table on top for Charlie to use for all his fishing gear:

I think I'm going to lay the tires this way so the table doesn't wobble away!

One last photo - Bobby and all his funny faces. LOL!