Special Times in August 2010

This is a very special update for Grandpa Boon in particular! We know you appreciate lots of photos, so here you go!

August was another busy month for us and we were blessed to enjoy such wonderful moments. Here are the main highlights in photos:

1. New babies!

Two dear friends had babies at the end of July and early August and I have enjoyed being with them so much!

I photographed baby Maya, Heather and Parin's baby, at 3 weeks old at our home with our special camera and I'm really happy with the result! Maya's dad even said they seem professional - what a complement! Here are 2 of over 100 photos...

Baby Sadie, Corinne's and Chris' second daughter, was born on August 4th and I got to hold her at the hospital! She is so cute!

2. Trip to bay beach

We enjoyed a great visit to Sandi Point Beach (beach of the Chesapeake Bay) with our Polish neighbors. Daniel and Enya loved playing in the sand and water. Though the sand was quite dark and rough and the water not the cleanest, it was worth the trip!

3. Police fair

Our town had a police fair that was so much fun! It wasn't that busy and they had free food in addition to the cars, trucks and helicopters! Daniel and his closest friends, Enya and Devesh, all had a blast! And baby Maya came along too - more opportunities to hold her!

4. Church retreat

I went on an overnight church retreat with other young adults, most in their early 20s, and had so much fun! We had an obstacle race and other games and it was so fun to not be a mother for a few hours - and Jonny enjoyed being with Daniel all on his own!

5. Linnan and Delin back in town

We are so happy that one of Jonny's best friends, Linnan, has moved back to the area to go to medical school. His son Delin is only 6 months older than Daniel and they loved playing together twice in August.

6. Visit to Great Falls

Our friends Ken and Laura invited us to visit Great Falls park in Virginia and we had a wonderful time. It was very hot that day but we enjoyed our stroll around and picnic together. We also got to meet Laura's friend Abeer from Iraq and hear all her stories...really brought the suffering experienced there home...

Grandpa, I will update you on our recent camping trip soon - lots of more photos to come!

Jonny's 33rd Birthday Celebrations!

Yesterday, August 26th, was Jonny's 33rd birthday! We are back to being the same age again, yay! :-) To celebrate, we had a surprise party for him on Tuesday night at our home, after he got back from work. It was Nena's idea and she cooked a banquet for him which was a huge blessing! We invited our friends from our neighborhood to join us and Jonny was completely surprised! See the video below of us waiting for him to arrive and then his arrival at home:





One of the highlights of planning this surprise party was that when Daniel found out in the morning that we were going to have a birthday cake, he talked about it ALL day! I had to keep explaining to him over and over again that we would only eat the cake after papai came home from work. It was so cute to see his excitement!

Here are some of the few photos we took that night:

Group photo

Jonny, Nena and Daniel

Daniel finally enjoying the oh-so-awaited-for cake!

Then yesterday, on his actual birthday, we went out for dinner to a really nice Indian restaurant with 3 other couples from our church, who are part of our "care group." We meet with them almost every week to share about our lives and support one another. We are so grateful for these friends who we are getting to know more and more. It is also really cool that they are quite an international bunch!

The four men from left to right: Ken (American), Victor (Indian), Marlon (Guatemalan) and our Jonny (Chinese Malaysian-English)!

Natalya (Russian) and Laura (American who lived many years in Turkey and is fluent in Kurdish!)


Evy (Belgium) and a Brazilian woman you may recognize! :-)

We had fun celebrating Jonny's birthday this year! He's thankful for the love he received from you too, loved ones!

Daniel's First Pre-School Portrait!

Look at the big boy we have! Doesn't he just look so grown up sitting on the pony? The photos are of Daniel's first pre-school portrait, taken this past July. Can you believe we are already getting school portraits? It's still hard for me to believe that's our son! Sitting on the pony was a huge highlight for Daniel, he still talks about it! His teacher said he smiled and laughed a lot as the pony moved and sneezed. His school did a great job getting him ready for this photo - the vest, scarf and hat were all provided for the photo.

Daniel has now been at his pre-school for 9 weeks and is thriving there! It took him some time to adjust, but now it's been 3 weeks that he has not cried when we drop him off in the morning. And the past 2 times when I picked him up, he did not want to come home and actually complained -- he just wanted to keep playing there with his little friends! This makes us very happy and at peace, knowing that he is enjoying his time there. And he has been learning so much, he is talking so much more, singing different songs, dancing more, etc. He does a different craft every time he goes and we now have a collection of all his art-work! Praise God, we are very happy with his school and thankful that it is going so well.

One of his biggest achievements in that he uses the potty at school! His teachers told me he can: pull down his pants and his pull-ups, go pee-pee, flush, put on his pants again, wash his hands, dry them, and throw away the hand towel in the trash. What a big boy! Seeing all the other kids doing this almost every hour of the day has really helped! At home, however, he is not ready to be a big boy just yet and we are not pushing him... It's been such a big adjustment for him and since we will be travelling to Europe for almost a month very soon (we're sooo excited!), we thought we would tackle the potty again at home, once and for all, after we have adjusted to being back. Soon, very soon, he really will be a big boy...

Special Message From Daniel On Video

Daniel was in a great mood this evening after dinner and we filmed him sending a special message to our family abroad - check it out!




Wishing you a wonderful weekend loved ones!

Our 10 Years Wedding Anniversary: Part 2

The Saturday following our wedding anniversary, we had a photo shoot with a young photographer from our church, Megan, in the morning at the National Arboretum (a place we love and go to often). Despite us starting the shoot at 9:00 am, it was already very hot and Daniel wasn't that cooperative, but Megan still did a great job! The aim was to mainly get photos of us as couple but we also took some with Daniel, and of him alone. Nena watched Daniel for us while we had our photos taken. It was a wonderful morning! Megan made us feel very comfortable and we felt like newly weds again, very in love, and thankful for our marriage. Here are some of the highlights, the photos are wonderful and will be treasured forever:

I also made a video of our favorite photos with the song "Dreams" by Gabrielle, the song that was "ours" when we were together in Singapore as teenagers and the one we danced to at our wedding. We still love the beat - enjoy! (Tip: Click on arrows (second icon from the right of the video screen toolbar) to see the photos on full screen.)

If you want to download photos and/or see more of them, click on this link and you will be taken to Picasa.

On the same Saturday evening, we were supposed to go out to dinner to a special restaurant and we even had our friends Laura and Ken come over to babysit Daniel. But Jonny ended up having a really bad migraine that evening and so we decided to just stay home. As Jonny started to feel better, it turned out to be a wonderful evening spent with our friends, so for us, in addition to my speech to Jonny on the actual day of our anniversary, we feel like we had a wonderful time celebrating our 10 years of marriage!

Look Who Can Ride His Tricycle!

Two days ago we inherited a tricycle from Daniel's friend Enya, just in time for "bike day" at school today. Yesterday evening before dinner, Jonny took Daniel out for about half an hour to teach him how to pedal. He started to do so a little, but needed quite a bit of help. This morning when I went to drop Daniel off at school, I told the teacher that he would need help riding his tricycle. But this afternoon, when I went to pick him up, she said: "your son can ride his bike all on his own!" I hadn't seen him do it yet, so this evening we went out again and it was just as she said!

I filmed him riding his tricycle so you could see this big milestone too! Wow, it was so emotional for me to see my baby so grown up! As you will see, he was even able to ride Enya's bicycle! We don't think his tricycle will last him much longer now...the hunt for a second-hand bicycle will soon begin.