Baja Cruise

Have not posted for quite a while. Here are some pictures taken during our recent 5-day cruise....the highlight was we ate and ate and ate. Our appetide seems to correlate well with the ocean. Sarah had a great time on the ship and the first thing she did in the morning when she woke up was to look out the small window we have in our room to see where we were. We probably need to stay away from cruise for a while until our clothes fit better.

Love: Jeremy, Wanyin & Sarah

The Cupcake Contingent

There's a lot that goes on behind the scenes of a wedding, and for Kee Meng and Shirleen's July 8 wedding dinner celebration, it was the cupcakes for the guests to be made just days before the dinner. Here are shots of the cupcake contingent at work, headed ably by Ling!





And then cupcake contingent B sneakily tucking into a few cupcakes after laying out the cupcakes on the tables, before dinner!


Anyone else who wants to order handmade cupcakes, you know who to ask lah!

Msg from The Churchmans

"We love catching up on family news via the blog. Lovely pictures of the Cheah twins. Please somehow convey our congratulations to the happy parents, grandparents, aunties, uncles, cousins ... remember we are Jin and Jon Tan by adoption and feel part of your wide circle of relations.
Lately we seem to have been a little out of touch - rather busy for the past few months (nothing new about that!) but we think of you all very much and wish you all well. Have not been up to the big city for a long while but in late December will go to our son's wedding (his first marriage broke up a couple of years ago) to Carmel, the new daughter-in-law.

The family all keep well and busy - Carolyn (daughter) a mature student with one more year of studies before emigrating (firm plans) to N.Z. with husband Andy, young son Reece and young adult daughter Laurie-Ann. Her older daughter Emma, just starting a three-year degree course and planning to follow to N.Z with her two children Jada and Jordan after that. We shall be bereft of all our offspring from this area! We would not be surprised if Chris and new wife eventually do the same though I think he would not leave until his children from the first marriage are grown up. We shall see how it all turns out - it's a long way to go to visit and we are conscious of the years which seem to gallop along. We don't feel old but I guess that's what we are!

It was great to hear about you experiences in Borneo - remember we lived there for three years in the sixties. How it has changed and developed. John climbed the mountain in the days when you had to sacrifice a chicken before setting out! There were no steps up and no tourist hotels etc. We had many friends in the Sidang Injil Borneo and helped to teach in one of the Bible Schools. We had such happy days."

Looking forward to further news keeping us in touch - our love to all,

Jean and John (July 3, 2007)

Sharon's PS: Here's a pix of mom and dad with uncle jon and auntie jin, taken some yrs back!

twins holding hands

ok, you all will probably see LOTS and LOTS of baby pictures from the cheah family from now on, so I probably should create a cheah family blog. Otherwise this blog will hv baby pictures ad nauseum, heh.

But i couldn't resist posting this pix- cute. Twins can hold hands one, when they're asleep!

New additions to the family

Isabelle on the left, Olivia on the right..

Dear all

Isabelle and Olivia Cheah arrived safety into the world at 9.42pm and 9.55pm on Wednesday 30 May, weighing 4 pounds 3 ounces and 4 pounds 12 ounces respectively.
Mother and babies are doing well, and are being monitored in hospital for a little while longer.

The girls look forward to meeting you all soon.

Love

chris kaz izzy & libby (in London)

Mt K hike

Did it! I survived Mt Kinabalu! Ouch.
Anyway, here's a pictorial journey to give y'all an idea..

First sighting of Mt K from the ground..


Details of the trail



the hike itself covered lots of steps, trails and then natural rock steps..



An idea of the foliage up once you pass 3,000m up the mountain ..





After arriving at Laban Rata, about 6km up the mountain, higher than 3,000m, we continued hiking at 230am next morning, to cover more than 2km up to 4,095.2m.
This is the granite terrain that we had to trek across in the last 500m to the peak of Mt K. See the ppl "rappelling" down? (this pix is taken while descending.. in the morning, we had to climb it in utter darkness, save for the torches strapped onto our foreheads!)



so close to the peak.. and yet so far..


A long trek over sloping, granite terrain - took me close to an hour, I reckon, slowing following the white rope, taking 30-50 steps at a time, while all the time the rising sun on my right was urging me to go faster


Here's Low's Peak, which at 4,095.2m or close to 4,100m, is the tallest mountain in SEA. Climbing that last steep bit wasn't easy - I really wanted to give up!


The sky has brightened up.. and you can still see the climbers inching their way up, like ants on a granite hill..


Started climbing down the mountain at about 615am, arrived at bottom at 4pm. Legs pretty much as stiff as boards. :)

Pix - finally!

This here's the church I attended on Sunday Morning.. the SIB church is truly Malaysian .. cos it's a church group started in Sarawak's interior.


yushan - this shot's for you.. a vintage MG in bright orange.. seen quite a few vintage cars here in Miri. Can bring your chequebook here next time too. there's a vintage volvo a few doors away from my friends' home!


Here's a "nodding donkey"..they're in people's backyards and gardens in Kuala Belait, Brunei! Amazing.. no wonder Brunei is so rich.. oil can still be pumped from the ground here. Even in some Arab countries, oil is now being pumped offshore.. not on. miri used to have its nodding donkeys too, but no more. It's offshore drilling nowadays


you know what.. the skies here are amazing. Saw a stunning sunset today but I didn't have my camera with me. I should take more pix of the skies at different times tomrw. The land is very flat in Miri, it's by the coast. But the skies seem a lot closer to the ground somehow and not so far away. makes u think the earth is flat!

book project

HI folks.. greetings from Miri.. have kicked off my legwork for my "book project" - for which I don't have a catchy title yet. :(

For those won't don't know.. it's a travelogue on Malaysia and I cover a topic in each state.. On leave to do this from May to July.. Do pray for open doors and favour for me, as well as inspiration when I write!

anyway.. dropping a note from Miri since I'm at the computer now. Staying with my friends from Penang who're working at Shell. Shell is the biggest employer here, btw, and we even drove over to Brunei yesterday.. where oil was being pumped at people's backyards! Imagine that.. these machines are called nodding donkeys and each pump movement is one barrel.

I'll put some pictures up when I figure out how. Anyone else with problems posting pictures? I don't know why I can't seem to get them uploaded..

Good Distraction

I find any reason to distract myself from the books & writing on our family blog is such a good one. Stan and myself went to the Mornington Peninsula for the weekend and grazed on the wineries in the area. Lots of fresh produce and beautiful landscape. This is our half-eaten steak sandwich and over-ordering of shoe-string fries.


Besides eating, we went mountain climbing, with rough terrain, conquered light houses

And jungle trekking where Stan found a few mates...


Actually this was a sculpture competition with about 100 sculptures displayed throughout a beautiful winery. It was also tempting just parking ourselves at the restaurant and not walking the sprawling grounds of the winery.



Now its back to reality....

New beginnings.. saying bye bye to Martina Mansion

Oops, we forgot to take pictures of Cheh Ee's ACTUAL moving day
but here's the Martina Mansion aptment after almost everything had been cleared out!
Cheh Ee's BIG MOVE was Friday, Mar 16, where the movers came right on the dot that morning, and very efficiently started wrapping all the furniture up in cardboard to move to the big container van. Then Cheh Ee flew to Penang that afternoon.

My move was the next day, Sat.. and it was a packed wknd for me, where I got stuff moved to Chee Tiang Ee's place on Sat morning, came back to the aprt, took bus to KL, ran a half marathon the next morning, took 1.30pm bus back to Singapore after that, and i was back in the apt doing the last minute packing by 6pm. Off I went at 7pm, to Simei! Clockwork. Praise God noone was late, and bus didn't break down in between!

Cheh Ee, now you have to take pictures of the Penang apt to show us how it's like - fully furnished!

The Living Room

The Master Bedroom


My stuff piled up near the front door - as I await a lift from Patrick, to Pat and Karen's place..

A very warm welcome to Mrs Tang

on 10 of March 2007, Jay Ern led the way to the registration hall.....(practising as flower girl for her July stint - we are still working on the smile)

after their vows, signatures, rings and kisses...

siao fang is officially Mrs Tang and Ah Kim to Jay Ern !!

the couple walking out of the registration hall...( not your conventional shot of the happy bride!!)


And we would like to extend a very warm welcome to the new member of our family and this Blog.


Mrs Tang's official statistics :

Maiden Name : Shirleen Toh Yin Fong
( we called her Siao Fang because dad and mum kept calling Shirleen "shireen" and all sorts of variations)

chinese zodiac : rabbit

other stuff : siao fang please post it yourself before I do something damaging :) !!

Cheh ee's last CNY in Singapore

The decorations to usher in the yr of the pig


And then the steaming steamboat (actually this is on the eve of chap goh meh)





Making sure the ingredients aren't overcooked needs a lot of concentration.. !

Visit to M'sia/S'pore during CNY'07

Lo Sang - a typical appetizer on menu during CNY

Roasted pig

Jennifer's new condo in Penang

A beaufitul plant in Sa Ko's garden

Picture taken at Sa Ko's house (Sa Ko, Sarah, YehYeh, MahMah & Jennifer)

The two beautiful ENs - Sarah Yung-En and Jia En

Je Ko and granddaughter - Jia En

Sarah and Chiew Ming's boys - Luther and baby Victor

Serious business

Bak Kut Teh from Klang, yummy to stomach but not too sure about arteries

Sarah with YehYeh and MahMah on first day of arrival