Reunion Dinners

In the chinese tradition, reunion dinners are very important...

Actually, Ace has a one week school holiday in mid Feb. So if we had chosen to come back much later for CNY, we would have been able to stay for two weeks instead.

However, as Max feels that it is very important that the whole family has dinner together on CNY eve, we made the trip back a few days before new year and stayed one week before going back to Dubai....

I think if me and Max never go back.. maybe our parents dun mind so much.. But given tat this is the first CNY tat Ace will be coming home from Dubai... I think the grandparents might mind very much if their baobei is not back to have reunion dinner with them:)

The Chua family tradition.. lou hei before the reunion lunch:)

As all years tradition, we always will get a fried toufu, a fried mock duck and lots of mushrooms and not to forget the "chinese" salad hahaha...

The ever so beautiful nai nai gathering the lou hei for Ace..

"YumsZ! " says Max..

Ace's favourite:P


This one is for ALL THE PEOPLE who always ask me how Max looks like with hair and for all those who dun believe me when i tell them Max used to have lion king hair..

Handsome boh??????

After lunch, shushu took out this toy hor which was passed down from Max to shu shu and now to Ace.. it is a billard toy.. and then nephew and uncle started to have a game! ;) And Ace was so happy to have a chance to play with shushu..



After we were done with lunch, we decided to go visit our other "family".. my other "Mother" whom now forbids me to call her tat and say we all have to call her Meinu.. wahahahahah...

Anyway, before I left for Dubai, my good fren Jez helped me alot with my packing. she actually cancelled her work and then came to my house and packed till 2am with me on the night before my movers came... and she also came and save me by driving me around to settle all my documentation at MFA and Dubai Consulate in singapore before I came over to Dubai... without her help, I might have had more white hair or might have died of stress!!!!

So I just wanted to buy her something and show her some appreciation lah...

Alas, when we got there, it was raining very heavily.. so stupid lor.. we reached her house liao but due to heavy rain have to wait in the car for 5 min before we can go up... this would never have happened in dubai!:) wahahaha

Anyway, Ace and Jez's daughters, Tashi and Oracle, were happy to see each other again. Perhaps because their parents are very good friends.. they also became very good friends! When they saw each other, it seemed like time never really pass through and they just play together happily as if they meet each other everyday lor:) I still remember how when tashi and oracle were young and me and max were not married yet, we were always playing with them or playing nanny to them lor.. now all so grown up and tashi can even be my nanny and help me take care of Ace liao lor:) Time flies... bu ren lao dou bu xing...


And Jez Meinu knows me best! She also bought me a few bottles of my FAVOURITE CHINESE NEW YEAR SNACKS for me to bring back to dubai!:) I am happy to announce I have finished up most of them already! wahahahahahaha

Afterward, we went home to have reunion dinner with the Peng family but we had a small little problem..

My grandma, who is suffering from Alzheimer, is upset for some unknown reason and refused to come over for dinner.. even hanging up the phone on my mum.

So leh, I tried to call too and told her Ace is here too.. hoping she would be happier.. but she also complained tat her hand is painful and did not want to come.. I told her I can feed her and she said, "You are my grand daughter.. if I feed you.. it is the right thing to do.. how can you feed me?" And she got very grumpy and hung up the phone on me as well...

The the end, the helper saved the day... the helper, S, came up with plan and told my grandma she will bring her downstairs to exercise... once my grandma got downstairs, she forgot where she is going and she just followed S's lead and eventually made their way to my house!

Phew...

Once grandma saw so many people in the house, she was happy again!:)

Ace was very excited to do all the cooking by himself.. cos he is finally old enough to do that:)

This is what goes into a vegeterian steamboat dinner:)

This is my sis, C... for her, this is only ROUND 1.. she going for round 2 later at her in law's place..

That's grandma and my aunty, KC. Aunty dotes on us alot and I remembered that she was the person who brought me to Orchard road and to the museum for the first time in my life.. but she also traumatized me alot when i was young.. wahahaha.. knowing tat i am a greedy girl, she always show me some snack she has and made me go round the house to call everyone before she gives me food... hahahahahaha

That is my mum.. who kept pouring soup lah, serve this person and serve tat person.. never sitting down to eat.. hai.. so we had to ask her to eat lah.. dun worry about everyone else..

That's grandma.. she was happy to be eating steamboat.. and since Max was seated beside her.. she kept talking to him and every 15 min or so, she will repeat to him.. "Teochew love to eat steamboat you know..." Max just smile at her and continued eating.. wahahahaha..

That's my Lao Hero dad...

One more with my mum..

After dinner, grandma went to the living room to take a seat. Max tried to use his broken teochew to converse a little with her.. I told my grandma that Max is teochew but cannot speak teochew one... and then somehow she retained this fact and that the next time Max tried to say something funny to her.. she said, "Haiya, I dun want to talk to you.. you dunno how to speak teochew..."

Wahahaha.. hilarious lor:) My aunty says tat as Grandma gets older, she will lose more of her inhibitions and speak more and more of her mind.. gosh.. so now leh, then we truly get to know our grandma for who she really is:)

Anyway, we spent some time reminiscing about how when we were young, we had this tradition of going over to my grandma's house to stay.. me, my sis, my cousins, yee, quan, xuan......

Then we talked about how we will pester grandma to buy us chai tao kway and soy milk for breakfast and ask her to cook fried sotong balls and also chicken with dark soya sauce for lunch and dinner..... I dun think my grandma remembers much of it but these memories are impt to me and C...

After that Ace took out the whole stack of Garfield and Tin Tin comics that we brought home from Max's house.. they used to belong to Max as a kid and Ace wanted to bring them back to Dubai to read as he has just started to get interested in comics...

Hopefully he can take good care of it and maybe it can become a family heirloom:) ahahahaha...

But leh, Ace actually finished reading most of the books before we even brought them back to dubai lor!:) wahahahaahah...

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