OURchived

We did it! It’s not always an easy task to get the whole family together when everyone is writing their own story in life. Just last weekend, Adam and I, along with Chip had travelled home to Springfield, IL to be with our family – to enjoy each other’s company, to share the stories that we wrote since the last time we saw each other, and to care for one another despite of personal believes and disagreement. The trip had reminded me of how much I miss my own family back home in Hong Kong.

“Family” has always been a special thing to me. I almost can’t describe how deeply I feel about it and there’s no doubt that is caused by my upbringing and personal experience. Your family is truly the closet people you’ve got who cares for you sincerely with no questions asked. To me, that is stronger than any higher power, religious believes, personal believes out there. Your family is part of you and to choose not to respect that is the saddest thing one could ever do. Of course, everyone’s background is different and you may disagree with me. But remember one thing, you can never trade for a different family. So why not work with what you’ve got to make your live easier, happier, and worth living for?

Let’s see… the images in this post consist of so much! There’re Chip swimming in the river, the capitol building in Springfield, backyard fun activities, BBQ cookoff, endless side dishes, Emily&Kenny’s engagement celebration, visit to the new brewery, Kenny’s birthday celebration. I think that’s about it :) OH, and the family photo at the very end!

We’ve brought Chip to the dog pond/mini beach at Prospect Park before. He liked it there but because 80% of the dogs come through are the big guys, he was more hesitated to jump into the water. Last weekend, we wanted to do some test runs with him being in his carrier and see how he’d do, so Adam looked around for short trip options and this dog beach came up. It’s only 40 mins away from Brooklyn but getting there was a pain – we got lost so many times! After an hour and a half, we finally arrived. Unfortunately, high tide had already came and leaving not much room of a beach. There was still enough room though for the 5 or 6 other dogs that were there. Chip was so brave and excited. The moment we took him off the leash, he was already having fun like he’s been to this place many times before. He even ran into the water himself right away and he was swimming with joy. He also did awesome with the other dogs there – wrestling, chasing each other, and getting his toy stolen while playing fetch. We stayed there for about an hour and Chip was exhausted by the time we got into the car. We’ll most likely be returning to this beach in the future :)