Orion Says

Be Cool, Don't Do Drugs, Kids.

Kung Fu Lessons

During his visit with us last month, Grandpa took the time to teach Mei Mei and I some Wing Chun "Eternal Spring" Kung Fu.  Grandpa Chan is Kung Fu Master who has been practicing for 40 years.  Wing Chun is the style of Kung Fu that Bruce Lee was taught by his master, Ip Man.

Interstingly, according to legend, the style was invented by a women.  According to Wikipedia:

Wing Chun practitioners believe that the person with better body structure will win. A correct Wing Chun stance is like a piece of bamboo, firm but flexible, rooted but yielding. This structure is used to either deflect external forces or redirect them into the ground.

 Here are some videos from the lessons.  Enjoy!

Lesson One


Lesson Two



Grandpa and Isaac together (take it easy on me, this was my first time)

Grandpa Chan Comes to Town

It has been a busy few weeks in our household.  Two weeks ago, I had a few free minutes over the weekend and decided to clean up our garden and patio for the spring planting season ahead.  Everything was going great and I have now sectioned off a new garden space.  Hopefully we can grow a variety of things, especially Tomatoes.  After finishing the garden work I decided to use the water faucet to clean off my tools... little did I know that turning on the water valve would open up a nice can of worms.  Apparently the previous owner hadn't properly winterized and the pipe had burst in the wall.  So a week later, some professional plumbing and a bit of amateur drywalling (by me), a new access panel, piece of pipe and spigot, and we are as good as new!

Anyhow, really I am burying the lead, the real story was Mei Mei's father visiting and staying with us for 3 weeks.  It was really a splendid time for all, especially little Orion.  Grandpa immediately took to Orion and Orion to him. 

I've included quite a number of photographs with this post, if they don't show up in your email, don't forget to follow the link back to my blog.

Some highlights of the visit include going to Dairy Queen (it has been cold here so Orion doesn't get out much just yet), the Aquarium, lots and lots of playing, and a really nice steak dinner for Mei Mei, Grandma Lois, Grandpa Chan at our favorite steak place, N9NE. 

I've include 3 videos at the end of this blog post.  The first is a must watch for the first few seconds.  It is only about 45 seconds long. 

The other two are video collages from Grandpa's entire stay and longer, but should be quite entertaining, I apologize if they take long to load.  They have some nice accompanying music and culminate in Orion's attempts at Rolling Over, will he succeed? you'll have to watch to find out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Video #1: Don't Miss this One!



Video #2 and #3

Bobby and Mira

Mira and Bobby come to visit little Orion. He certainly is popular with them, they visited us in the hospital, gave us a ride home, and have come by to see the little guy on several occasions.

Choco Pies

Orion sure does love his Choco-Pie...

Ugh... maybe I ate too much?

What have you been up too?

Orion, take it easy buddy.

Visitors, Visitors, Visitors

Orion, Mei Mei, Grandma and I have had a bunch of exciting visitors this past weekend. 

First off, here are some shots of Orion, you'll notice he is wearing an adorable knitted Kimono made by Sam's wife, Kim.

I apologize if the formatting of this post is off, I'm trying to incorporate the images into the post and it may not show up as intended.

First, Mei Mei's friend from college and fellow Hong Kong ex pat, Lily came to visit on Friday.  Lily was in town to visit with her twin sister, Mavis, who plays in a Hong Kong Orchestra that is making a tour stop in Chicago. 

Lily decided to come to town a little early to visit us and meet Orion for the first time. 

Lily is a music teacher at a grade school in Connecticut and like Mei Mei, she very much misses Hong Kong food while in the states, so the two were excited to do some of their special cooking.

At the same time Jake and Brittany decided to make a trip into town to visit Orion before their own baby arrives (in 50 days, for anyone that is counting).  They drove down and also stayed with us, which ment a wonderful full house. 

We lit up the fireplace and had some fun.  Below the pictures you'll find a couple of clips from the evening. 

The first is a family interview, for posterity's sake. 

The second clip is of Mei Mei and Lily having fun at the Piano singing songs from their favorite musicals. 

The clip jumps right to the start of "Music of the Night" from Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera. 

If you care to listen they also sang songs from Guys and Dolls, Evita, and others.  I apologize for the sound quality, my camera's tiny microphone can only do so much.  These are all contained on the various clips I loaded onto my youtube account.

On Saturday, we all bundled up for a trip to Chinatown, while Grandma and Orion stayed back at the house. 

We had a nice Dim Sum breakfast and then visited a desert shop and the Chinatown market to get ingredients for Mei Mei's cooking. 

Dim Sum, for anyone unfamiliar, is the name given to traditional Chinese breakfast. 

It literally translates to 'little hearts'.  It is a meal of many little dishes, served similar to spanish tapas. 

In the afternoon, I had a meeting with some friends at the house, Including my friend Gavin, who is also from Hong Kong. 

My friends Jac and Justin also visited (not pictured). 

Jac, Justin and I are working on a project to design a piece of street or urban furniture for a design competition we decided to enter in.

Gavin is working and living in a city outside of Chicago these days, so he doesn't get into the city as often as in the past and this was his first chance to meet little Orion. 

While Gavin was visiting, Jake, Brittany and Grandma went out for a nice tour of the neighborhood.

We all settled in for a nice late night movie, Chinese food and pizza evening.

The following morning, warnings of a blizzard meant Jake and Brittany needed to get on the road a little sooner than originally planned.  So we had to see them off.

On Tuesday night, Lily's sister Mavis arrived and was thrilled to meet little Orion. 

Mavis was pretty jet lagged, and her schedule is quite busy with her orchestra, but she was in good spirits.


She quickly exclaimed how she'd always wanted more to be someone's mother than someone's wife!

Family Interview:



Singing and Piano: