Crying...a great way to pray

I was listening to our pastor in church today pray and at one point, his voice started breaking because he was overcome by emotions and he struggled to say what he wanted to say because he started to cry a bit. After the prayer, he said that he wished he could cry and talk at the same time but the two really wouldn't work well together. Well, it got me thinking.....

If you have been following our blog, you know by now that I have lost my father last year and my oldest brother early this year. And my wife has lost both her parents in a span of less than a year. We were hurting and we still are. Through these times, when I start to pray about the situation, I would be overcome by emotions that it made it difficult to pray verbally what I wanted to say. Today, it suddenly dawned on me that I don't really have to say anything because our loving God already knows what I want to say. All I really have to do is just cry because that would be the best way of expressing your pain, hurt and anguish. No amount of words, no matter how articulate you are, can really express what and how you're feeling inside and that's the beauty of it. You don't have to. Just let your guard down, let the tears fall, open up your heart and cry like you've never done before because God understands what you are going through and he will be there for you.

Back from Lake Oroville

We are back from Lake Oroville. We had a lot of fun and we are so thankful for the Cihonskis for inviting us on this vacation. This was quite an experience for us. We have never done such a vacation before where you camp on a floating platform surrounded by water. It was quite an experience and we loved every minute of it. The kids couldn't stop talking about it. I have posted some picture in our blog slideshow. Have fun viewing the pictures!!!

Thanks Bryon, Sandy, Rachelle, Brent and Brittney for sharing this wonderful vacation with us! You guys rock!! And from now on, I need to get back on my work out regimen. I want to be like Mr Bryon Hercules so I can flex my muscles as well next time.

Camping on Water ...

We are going to Lake Oroville tomorrow to spend the weekend on a floating campsite. The Cihonskis' invited us and we have never been in one before so we are pretty excited about it specially the kids. I am a bit worried too because of the kids. The campsite is surrounded by water so we really have to pay extra attention to them. Unlike camping on land, they can run around. We'll see what happens....stay tuned

Quite A Scare

We had quite a scare this morning at 2am. We woke up with Abby coughing so bad and she started throwing up. After a while, we saw blood in the basin that and when we looked at her, blood was on her nose and mouth. We couldn't determine whether blood came out of her mouth first before her nose started bleeding or the other way around. We tried to stay calm but the blood just kept dripping out her nose.

We have dealt with the nose bleed situation before and so I tried to stop it but the bleeding just wouldn't stop. After a while, we decided to call 911 because we felt that she has already lost a lot of blood. While the paramedics were on their way, I kept praying that the bleeding will stop and after a while it did. People from the fire department arrived first at our place and shortly after the paramedics came. They saw the amount of blood that was in the toilet and they all said that she bled pretty bad and we need to take her to the hospital. The paramedics had the gurney ready but they told us that we can take Abby to the hospital ourselves because they don't want to aggravate her because if she starts crying, she might start coughing and the bleeding might start again.

So we took Abby to the emergency services at the hospital and they checked her out. They didn't find anything wrong that will explaing the coughing up of blood except that the blood might have come from her nasal passage and went down to her throat. That was quite a relief.

New Worship Pastor in Church

Our new worship ministry pastor has finally started officially. His name is Eric Schumacher. I am excited to find out what's going to happen in this area of our church and really looking forward to collaborating with Eric.

Disneyland Trip

We just came back from Disneyland where we celebrated the 4th of July long weekend. We decided to take this trip to help Weiwei cope with her loss and keep her mind occupied. She came back from Singapore about a week ago and I wanted her to take time off from home life and spend it with our kids to ease her back into the groove of things in the US.

I must say that this trip was a very fruitful one. We managed to try the rides that we haven't tried before. I know...it's hard to believe if you know us..we have been traveling to Disneyland so many times for the past 8 years. But there is this new ride called Toy Story Mania in the California Adventure park. It's a 3D ride and you get to shoot stuff using a virutal canon like what you do in parlor games that you see in carnivals. The kids LOVED IT SO MUCH!! We managed to try the ride twice because it was late at night and the line was so short.

Weiwei also finally saw the new parade called the Disney Pixar parade which is a parade of the Pixar animation characters. In my opinion, it's a better parade than the previous one they have called Block Party parade. In Disneyland, we managed to try the Finding Nemo submarine voyage again. The kids had their fill of the differnt kiddie rides. Cheryl even dared to try the Haunted Mansion with me (of course, I had to explain to her all the time during the ride that none of the things she was seeing were real).

Thanks for your Sympathies ...

We would like to say thank you to all of you who has prayed for us and has offered their words of sympathy, encouragement and hope to our family. It really helps to know that we have friends who are there for us in times of need.

We want to thank our friends in Singapore who paid their respects in person to my father-in-law during the wake and the funeral services. It really, really, really meant a lot.

We also like to thank our church friends for offering their help to take care of our kids while Weiwei is away and for praying for us.

I want to thank my good friend Bob and Weng for accomodating us at their place in Southern California when I took my kids out to keep them occupied while Weiwei is away.

Thank you all...