The November Babies' Birthday Celebration Post

Today 2nd Nov is the 15th Birthday of Woon Ray, the youngest of our Chong family clan who has been dubbed Amazing Ray in his last birthday post.

Ray has shot up quite a lot in his height in the last 2 years. Evidence of this can be seen in the three photos below whose chronological order starts from summer of 2010 for Fei's Wedding, summer of 2011 for Su's Wedding and latest of June 2012 when Su & Jay visited Spore/KL :

In 2010 you can use bench mark of Su in the next pic to see how much he grew in 1 year. We see him as the shortest among our family members in this pic,

 In 2011, you can see he is still a little shorter than Su on the far left but much closer to her height than of the previous year

In 2012, we can see he has grown taller than Su and compared to Ern standing by him in the previous year's pic, he has caught up a lot! He is now no longer the shortest in the family and is the only hope to beat Dad's height if he continues with his large appetite of 2 bowls of noodles, 3 Malaysian Ramly burgers etc etc

Physically he has grown but how about psychologically or emotionally? Well as a young teenager with his attachment to his puppy Ace and the sudden loss of the dog in a highway accident, his reaction and ability to write a beautiful poem for the dog's remembrance reflects his maturity to handle a crisis or loss in life. You can read the poem and watch the video at the end of the 'In Memory of Ace' post here.

Plans are already underway to have a birthday cake celebration with Mom at the hospital in the early evening of his birthday. She was admitted to the Intermediate Care Centre early morning of Nov 1! This celebration is somewhat reminiscent of the time Han celebrated his 17th birthday in the year 2007 at the Singapore hospital during Mom's 2nd operation as per the pic below :

Full journal post of the occasion is found here.

From the physical get-together at the hospital, we will return home for dinner and have Fei and Su join us online to not just celebrate Ray's birthday again without Mom but to discuss Mom's latest health condition and our family optimal plans to handle the health crisis in our family.

Here are the latest pics.

We did gather with Mom by her hospital as planned with the night lights of Singapore City seen in the back ground.

With the technology of an iPad using Google+ and the hospital's free wifi service, we found that we could connect a 3 way conference call with Su in Salt Lake City, Fei in Los Angeles to Mom right from her hospital bed without needing to return home as planned earlier!

Coming Soon -

Something else to look forward to later in the month is the 20th birthday celebration of Woon Shuan on 8th Nov! His last 'landmark' 18th birthday photo is seen below.

Full journal post of the occasion is found here.

Su's husband Jay Liu celebrates his birthday a day after Shuan on Nov 9th but he is older than Shuan, being born in the year 1982 when Mom and Dad got married so Shuan wasn't even born then!

Time to Celebrate  -

The passing of Mom on 6th November and the 3 day funeral services that followed to mourn her death and celebrate her life of joy and many accomplishments had to take precedent to the birthday celebration of Shuan. Since Jay was also in town for Mom's funeral, we had a Saturday free after the funeral, on 10th Nov, to also celebrate their birthdays.

It was a fun day to celebrate and enjoy bonding time together as a family which certainly would make Mom happy even though she could not join us physically. The following three video clips shows how we continue to build our family bonds for the first time, without Mom :

The IKEA Centre in Singapore near our home seems to be a favorite place to gather for our family to find some pieces of furniture for the home as well as to have a Swedish meal. The above video shows that we must have created an IKEA family tradition to be there. The journal post covering the visit of Su and Jay earlier in the year showing our visit to IKEA can be found here.

Amazingly, just as we had lit the candle and started to sing the birthday song for Shuan and Jay, the power suddenly went off!  In my mind, it was like Mom testing her new powers to switch off the lights for us at the right moment for a better candle light effect!

Since the power went off at home, we decided to go to the nearby Mc Donalds Japanese Garden restaurant to have our Games Night of fun and laughter.

A close cousin of the children, Chong Woon Fern, the second son of Dad's fourth brother is also a November baby born on Nov 8.

Nov 11 is the birthday of our musically talented cousin Tong Ying Er. Watch her fiddle with her violin in a video clip here

Lim Hui Yen, daughter of my Sister's 4th son, Andrew Lim celebrates her birthday on Nov 12 in Penang

Another Lim gal, Jessie Lim Hui Xing (in brown dress), daughter of my oldest sister's 2nd son, John Lim Chong Beng(on the far right), celebrates her 22nd birthday (same age with our Han) this year on Nov 18th. She celebrated in Penang too as her cousin Hui Yen whose birthday was 6 days earlier as noted above.  The above photo is when she celebrated her her 21st birthday last year. My oldest sister is in the centre in blue who celebrated her 70th birthday on 6 Sept 2008 

A relation close to us by marriage is Aaron Wyatt, the younger brother of Christopher, Fei's husband. He celebrates his birthday on 23rd Nov. Aaron had successfully served a mission in Paraguay from  2010-12. He left just after the marriage of Fei and Christopher and he can be seen in the background as a support to the groom to get 'Pass the Door' in this funny wedding video clip.

Here are all the November babies :

Family members
Nov 2 - Woon Ray Nov 8 - Woon Shuan. Woon Fern Nov 9 - Jay Liu Nov 11- Tong Ying Er Nov 12 - Lim Hui Yen Nov 18 - Jessie Lim Hui Xing Nov 23 - Aaron Wyatt

Friends
Nov 1 - SK Yeong, John Chin, Derrick Wong Young Zheng  Nov 2 - Sam Sia, Flory Parker, Roger Baer. Ong Beow Chieh, Michael Goering  Nov 3 - Andy Lim, Justin Jesunathan. Shaun Ng, Yi Lim, Chris Sel,  Braxton Michael Robertson, Tan Seang Nov 5 - Ivan Cheng, John Yee, Christopher Stubbs, Willem Kampenhout   Nov 6 - Res Tan, Anna Lim, Marrycle Chin Nov 7-  Seng Kai Xin, Kari Jean-Gilles, Cheryl Lim, Floyd Holdman Nov 8 - Doreen Khoo, Joyce Tan, Steven Seow, Jason Lee, Tú Vũ  Nov 9 - Eileen Thong, Kenny Wan, Metharin Pongratchatakaran  Nov 10 - Liew Hui Lian, Scott Sanders, Geoffrey Haselhurst Nov 11 - Nagend Sagran, Koay Kwang Cheeang  Nov 12 - Andrew Lo, Jeff Favero Nov 13 - Kilapoe N.Sheppard, Tyler Chin, Jacob Soh, Nicholas Yong, Maria Luisa Ritche Nov 14 - Jake Wei Nov 15 - Catherine Lim, Marilyn Stewart, Edward Kang, Nate Cunningham Nov 16 - Neena Rama, Veronica Ng, Lukito Gunawan, Darrell Ieremia Nov 17 - Emma Paris Wade, Teresa Anthony, Kc Kurup Nov 18 - Carlos E.Jean-Gilles(54), Dominic Ho Jian Yin Nov 18 - Belinda How Nov 20 - Samantha Thee  Nov 21 - Amanda Ford, Hank Pleysier(74) Nov 22 - Japheth Lim Nov 23 - Ernest Tan, Low Chye Seng, Margaret Tan Nov 24 - Benjamin Pingel, Choong Koon Eu Nov 25 - Brenda Huang, Patrick Johnson Nov 27 - Joyce Yong, Danny Yeo  Nov 28 - Melissa Z. Yong, Vivienne Lim Nov 29 - Renald Bertrand, Adrian Ng-Woon Nov 30 - AJ Ormond