90th Birthday

Guess what? We celebrated my grandmother's 90th birthday AGAIN. Last year, most of her children and their children and their children's children came over for the big Nine Zero celebration.

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When my mum told me that my grandmother turns 90 this year, I was puzzled. She gave a simple explanation that they miscalculated last year. Later I found out that the Chinese always add a year to their actual birthday.

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Not everyone can live up to a ripe old age of ninety, what more in good health. My grandmother hasn't seen a doctor for years. In fact, I don't even remember when she last saw the doctor. She walks very slowly now but apart from that, she is very healthy.

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I remember about 1.5 years ago, she was all set to go out to town with Tusi. It was a good thing I went to my mum's place at that time. She used to be so independant, walking all over Seremban town, taking the bus, visiting her friends and even going up to Genting (secretly) with her friends.

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Now, she is confined to the house because we don't think she can walk for too long without feeling tired.

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She not only is healthy, she looked healthy. Eunice just recently pointed out to me that my grandmother has very nice and smooth skin and her complexion is great. She doesn't have any pigmentation on her skin at all.

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My mum thinks it's because of all the chinese herbs she (granny) took when she was younger, which is true. I remember when Esther gave birth to En, my grandmother would preserve some herbs and asked Esther to drink it so that she would recover fast and that she would not have any side effects in her old age. and my dear granny is the living proof that these herbs go a long way. She gave birth to 15 children ... so she ought to know.

Coming back to the topic, we went to Regent for dinner. Eunice and I bought her a very small cake (which only cost us RM16) because we figured that no one will be able to eat anything more after such a heavy meal .... and we were right.

One for the album. The Tan family and their spouses, En and Tusi.

Birthday Boy

We celebrated dear hubby's birthday after cell.

Most of us were doing a Daniel fast for 10 days but for this particular day, we fasted one meal, so that we could enjoy the delicious food made by Charlene and Shannon's mum.

We also celebrated Sarah and Rebecca's birthdays too. Their birthdays fall on the 28th of May but because of the combined prayer meeting on the 29th which replaced cell on tat day, their parents decided to buy the cake one week early.

We were practically feasting during this 10 days of fast. hehe!!!

Dad's 65th Birthday

We celebrated dad's birthday in a dim sum restaurant one day after his actual birthday.

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I thought he was 62 or 63 years old because we'd just celebrated his 60th birthday recently. Well, that was FIVE years ago, someone added. Gosh!!! Time passes by so very quickly. To me, he'll always be the young, handsome dad who's athletic and fit.

Birthday Girls

We had a birthday party last Friday.

A few weeks ago, I was "informed" by my 3 other colleagues that we (yep! including me) will be celebrating our birthday on Jan 30th, 2009. Why January? Because of of our birthdays is in December, another 2 in January and one more in February.

The plan was to get a cake from Secret Recipe, sing the birthday song, cut the cake and share it with everyone. I suggested that we get a few different types to make up one cake.

A day before the birthday do, I told Rajen of our plans and he offered to buy us all lunch. He said that we can't be spending ourselves.

And so, the day finally came. Linda and Ramlah went out early to get the cake AND lunch.

We only got to sing the birthday song at 2.15pm. (Another long story as to why this couldn't be done earlier ... I will skip this part!!!!)

We brought the cake into my room, closed the door and began singing :

Happy Birthday to us

Happy Birthday to us

Happy Birthday to us

Happy Birthday to us

Then we cut the cake and blew out one candle each.

The whole scene makes me laugh - especially when we started singing the birthday song to ourselves. Makes me think that no one loves us enough to celebrate our birthdays and that we had to do it ourselves!

I think this is fun. We should do stuff like this once in a while. Let down our hair and have fun. After all work is not only about working, it is how to have fun at work.

Reunion Dinner

We ALWAYS (ever since 1988) have our reunion dinner at U. Beng's house on CNY eve. Everyone brings a dish. Err... everyone meaning the "older" adults. The younger adults would sometimes (ha! depends on our mood, actually) prepare or buy desserts.

We have a variety of food laid on the table. Each year, it's slightly different.

But one thing's for certain, we always have lettuce and a cooked turnip dish. Mum's side is Hokkien and this dish is a specialty. We have it every CNY.

The correct way to eat this is to place the turnip onto the lettuce, fold it and eat it.

Yee Sang is also another dish that we normally have during CNY. I don't really like the taste but most of them like it.

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It was also mum's actual birthday. We bought her a cake and sang her a birthday song.

90

Have you ever wondered if you'd ever get to be 90 years old? And if you did, how will you look like? How strong will you be? Will you be healthy?

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My paternal grandmother turned 90 today (well, actually she's only 89 years old but Chinese always add a year because life begins at the point of conception). She looks frail, but she can still walk - V.E.R.Y slowly. But at least she's mobile. She's very healthy and hasn't seen the doctor for years.

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So, what's the secret, you ask?

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I thought about it and came to the conclusion that giving birth to 15 children has moulded and shaped her into someone strong and tough. The rough years of seeing her young children fight and shouting at them all the time, holding one child's hand while feeding another and at the same time soothing a 3rd child and watching out for the rest of her brood, making the Ringgit stretch to cater for so many mouths - all these contribute to her being who she is in the present, a lady who despite the difficult times, was able to overcome all circumstances, including going through World War 2, and came out victorious.

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In the above picture, you will see that she has done what the LORD commanded in Genesis 9:7 - Be ye fruitful and multiply. And indeed, she has done her share of labour where that verse is concerned. There were just so many people at her birthday party.

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Dinner was set at 5pm (so early!!!!!). I went to my mum's place 1.5 hours late. I felt as though I walked into the wrong house!!! I couldn't recognise 90% of the people there. I guess that really showed how much (or in this case, how little) we kept in touch with each other.

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Ha! Just a thought! I wonder if she recognises every one of her descendants??? Maybe I should do a family tree chart and see who is who in this huge family...

Grownups

I can't believe it!!! Bernice and Eunice are 21 years old. Time passed by so quickly. We knew them when they were very young (err... maybe 7 or 8 years old). They were our flower girls when we got married and now .... they are grownups!!!

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We were at Izzi's Cafe last Saturday. That was where they had their big-do. As usual, they did it the Jesudasan style - good food, nice ambience, close friends and relatives. The place was decorated in their theme colours (Orange, black and apple green - err... I don't think I saw any apple green decor) and there were many scrapbook style pin-ups of them.

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A few games were played. There was a picture of them in their prams when they were a year old and we had to guess which is Bernice and which is Eunice. It was not a difficult one, though, as they are fraternal twins. Even then, some got it wrong.

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Another game involved the both of them. They were seated back-to-back and Joshua (their younger brother) asked them questions about each other. Questions like : What is Eunice's football position? Name the brand of all three of Bernice's guitars. What is Eunice's favourite word? Name one of Bernice's colleagues. What is the colour of Eunice's eyes? Bernice took piano lessons until grade ...? What is the brand name of Eunice's first football shoes?

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There were a few live bands (friends of the twins) which provided us with continuous music and Sean (the twin's older brother) sang a few songs.

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It was also Kevin and Lillian (twins' parents) wedding anniversary, which made that whole day special.

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We left at 11.30pm - kinda late for us as we had to drive an hour to get back home.