A household with 16 kids. Four-wheelers. Woods. Happiness. Joy. Lots of Rain. That defines my fallbreak weekend.

This weekend I finally had my fallbreak. My, I've waited for so long for this 4-day break (actually it's 5-days since I have Fridays off). While I was happily feasting on my Sesame Chicken and Pork fried rice at Miguel's place for dinner with Alyssa and JoAnn on Friday, Alyssa came up with this crazy idea of renting a car to go visit Lisa at Elizabethtown! I was under the obligation to say no, since I had a paper due on Sunday, and I had to learn driving, but I said yes anyway.

So on Saturday, I woke up at 5am to write my paper, and off we went on a roadtrip to Elizabethtown. Impromptu roadtrips are so much fun. While you sit in the car and play around with the radio, you get to discover the craziest, randomest stations like the kiddy-kiddish one. Oh the joy they bring to your life is just indescribable!

"Tractor, tractor, flying through the sky. Back hoe back hoe, shooting up up the moon..." WTH? Kids shouldn't be listening to them, but Migs told me to shut up because "you've got to use your imagination V!!!!!!!" Ok. My bad.

Approx 2 hours later, we pulled into the Abel's front gate. We zoomed past it at first, because we didn't think Lisa's house would be that magestic.

Welcome to the Abel's place!

Now let me fill u in a little on Lisa's background. Lisa's from Vietnam and she was adopted by the Abel family when she was 14. There are 13 daughters and 3 boys in the Abel family, and most of them are adopted from all around the world. HOW COOL IS THAT?!?

Lisa's dad started his business 30+ years ago with $700 at his grandma's garage, and now it's a multi-million business. And Lisa's house is HUGE, on a 275-acres plot of land. Erm, excuse me, we are not talking centimetres or metres here. Get it?

The tv room :)

I call this the "greenhouse" because of the clear glass panes as the roof. This is where the Abel family opens christmas presents.

Movie theatre with 19 seats and awesome sound system. Everyone in the family gets a seat!

The model room. It's just like a museum in their home. Mr Abel collects ship and aeroplane models, and filled up this entire room with miniature figurines that depicts the World War Era with the help of both his sons. He visited countries, procured every single material/ingredient by himself. I just can't imagine the amount of effort and time he poured into this project, but it was simply a spectular sight!

The miniature figurines/model close-up.

Pool room with a horse theme. Everything in this room is about horse... the lights, the paintings, the wall decorations, the wooden horse.... everything!

View of Lisa's house from the back. I think I can cry just dreaming about it my sleep.
Miguel (in feigned ignorance): "Why is the pool so shallow?" Haha, oh Migs.

Volleyball court at Lisa's backyard. Boy, Lisa's place is just like a country club. I told her, I'll be first in line to sign up for membership if she's ever gonna have it =p

Lake behind Lisa's house! OMG, not one Gazebo, but TWO! It's like fairyland back there.

I wanna say that I am very much impressed by Mr Abel and when I grow up, I want to be like him. I want to be successful in life (who doesn't, right?), I want a beautiful house with kids (are u kidding me?), and whenever you step out of your house, you have a huge backyard, and you can go galloping on your horse through the woods, and chance upon small creeks and streams on your plot of land. Oh did I also mention the old train tracks that used to run pass the backyard? And you get to prosecute trespassers for hunting on your property =p

Ok, so here's Alyssa Ng, the driver who brought us to Lisa's place with one of the Abel sister. Emily is awesome. I cannot stress enough of the awesome-ness of this family. This girl is so chirpy, so positive and so happy in life despite being blind.

This is Zach's little bedroom corner in the master bedroom. He is 6 years old, and he is from Vietnam, but he can't speak anymore Vietnamese and chatters away in cute truncated English words.

After a movie at the home theater with the family, we decided that it's time for us to change out for a ride on the four-wheelers through the woods. It was raining (in fact, it has been raining since Thursday), but the disgusting weather did not stop us from having fun. Her other siblings were sick, so it was just down to the 4 of us - Alyssa, Lisa, Migs and I. I didn't bring any change of clothes, so Lisa took pity on me and lent me hers.

That's me in Lisa's shirt, sweatshirt, jacket, PJ pants, sweatpants as the outer layer, socks and shoes. Basically, everything was Lisa's. I'm surprised I even fit in. Oh, and that's little Zach Abel!
Put on the headgears folks.

Getting pumped for our adventure.

When we were out, Lisa had to back up the four-wheelers. We had enough bikes to go around, but we decided to share and switch it up later. My, Lisa looks so small compared to the four-wheeler.

Need some help there Lisa? Lol. She couldn't move the gears, so Migs had to assist her a little there.

Bad ass =p

Path through the woods in the rain. Driving past the water puddle was fun!

We spotted lots of deers, but they all started to run away as we chased after them. Raaaaaaaaaar!

Another one of the countless deers staring at us. We invaded their land.

Alyssa's sexy legs after the ride :)

After our little adventure in the rain, we still looked good and accomplished! Yeay team!

Now, picture with some of the kids. Zach from Vietnam, Kyla from Albania, Emily and Hope from China :) Awesome family! We played hide and seek with the kids, and I hid with Emily, Hope and Kyla. Zach was with Alyssa and he couldn't sit still half the time because he's just being a typical kid.

And finally, let me introduce the dog. Well, there's two of them, but I only took a picture of one. These doggies are really naughty. They killed a rabbit and destroyed one their phones by chewing on it, but surprisingly, they didn't bark at us. See, that is why I don't have pets =p I once had fishes, but they all died in the end because the tigerfish ate up the goldfishes. Note to self: You can't put these fishes together in the same fish tank in the future!

This trip was a last minute plan and I didn't expect myself to have so much fun. I learned so much from the Abel family. I am inspired by Lisa's dad. They seem like a really happy, genuine family, and I would love to go back there one day :) Lisa's parents adopted these kids without expecting anything in return and I am so glad these kids found them. Can you imagine how their lives would turn out to be if weren't for these amazing opportunities that the Abels have given them? I can't, and I have to give them a lot of credit for doing such a great thing! Despite so many imperfections in the kids, they manage to live a happy life.

~the end~

Yoga is testing my patience. Period.

Happy Birthday Chris :)

I had a great time hanging with the boys at the Perch yesterday night + movie afterwards. We watched Accepted for the second time, and I really like that movie. It's the epitome of real intellectual learning, where creativity is fostered without any stupid restrictions they put in place in most colleges =p Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that a college education is pointless, but it could be better without all the red tape that we have to go through...

After a night out with the boys, I hung out with Migs, Jo and Alyssa at midnight till about 2-ish in the morning. As we were leaving, we stopped by Lisa's room and guess what!? Chris Farrales is over at SJU! He came all the way back from Virginia for his bday weekend :) So we all decided to celebrate it with him the next day at lunch @ Sang Kee. They have real awesome food. PLUS the food comes in HUGE portions, which is my favorite.

Chris, Lisa, Migs and I on one side of the table...

Birthday boy was surprised that we got him a cake. Chris offered to stand out with Alexis when she told us she "wanted to go out for a smoke" but it was to get a cake, and the rest of us just stared helplessly at each other. Haha, we're such losers. Blah.

Bday boy checking out the fortune cookie afterwards...


WTH?
Remember to buy 3-D number ok!

I find it amusing that they have fortune cookies at EVERY Asian diners/ restaurants here in America, and most of my American friends would always assume that this is a normal tradition in Asia.

Finally, the entire group :)

We wii-ed and mahjong-ed our way through the night :)

I cooked up a storm in my kitchen today. I owed Darius a meal from LAST YEAR. Exactly one year ago in October 2008, Darius gave me a ride back to my dorm from a retreat, and I told him I will cook for him one day. So the day finally came! I didn't want all the pressure to be put on me, so I started to invite people to Darius' place for dinner, and told everyone to bring a dish. Muahaha! How evil, but smart isn't it? And yesh, I do not deny the fact that I also volunteered to have it at his place, instead of mine, without asking him about it beforehand.

That is what you get for asking me to cook =p

I was cooking till the last minute (literally like 20 mins before I had to leave the house), so I just jumped into the shower and threw on a top that matched JoAnn's outfit for the day! O-M-G. That is why we are roomates. We even dress in the same colors without planning for it.

After dinner, Qianners and Betty Wii-ed their way through the first half hour to sweat it all out.

And the rest of us watched. To be honest, it was highly entertaining.

Take this for example. Wii-boy in Raving Rabbits was in a baseball game and he decided to do an ultra high jump.

Yee-haa! Jump!

After my incessant urging, Darius took out his precious mahjong set and we taught Scott how to play it.

Me: Scott, let's take a picture.

One two three, snap!

Both Jo and Scott didn't know how to play mahjong, so we were teaching them while playing it at the same time. I like how we placed two of the beginners on the same team.

Jo looking lost, and Scott looks a little confused here.

Team Jo and Scott still trying to figure out the game.

Finally, they nailed it!

This is how we play the game. The tiles were too small, so much so that I had to bow down really low to look at the words =p

Card game Corner.

Then we switched it up a little. Betty and Andy took over and both Darius and I proceeded to play Raving Rabbits on Wii. Now that's when the fun began!

Betty and Andy unlocked a couple of rounds for us, so we got to play some really awesome games.

Darius: You've got to hold the controller real high like it's a phone....

Me: Huh?

I lost that round obviously. Erm, actually I lost for most of the rounds.

The round of chess game required intense concentration... And I'm not lying. You literally have to hold the wii on both sides of your head.

Oh roomies love again!

A round of Wii before we call it a night at 11pm :)

I survived this week...

2 exams, 2 interviews, 1 networking night this week... and I survived all!

More to come next week. One more week till fallbreak though :)

Choices choices choices

It's October!Is it a new month for new aspirations? Blahhhh, I'm still drowned in a huge pile of work though. No time to think about new goals.... I can't wait for fallbreak that is coming up in 2 weeks. I have two alternatives right now - Cruise to the Bahamas for 3 days OR stay in Philly, maybe visit Stef in Boston and attend SGI's youth leader who is coming to town.

I hate it when I have alternatives.