Posted by: sammerz | 04 March, 2007

Weekend in Sorrento

Just came back from a weekend away in Sorrento. This was organised by Steph’s ANZ fellow graduates. Saturday was meant to be raining, but it was cold nonetheless. Still, a few of us boys had a swim in the freezing waters! Steph and I also managed to squeeze in the time to travel (80 mins) back to Glen Waverley to attend Josh’s 21st party. Another 80mins and we were back in Sorrento a little after midnight. This afternoon on the way back, we stopped by at Red Hill to pick strawberries, and then to the nearby brewery to have lunch. Yum!

…And then I started calling her “Stephberry”! Because she is just as sweet… if not, sweeter! =P

Posted by: sammerz | 27 February, 2007

Compassion

Steph and I adopted Javier Antonio Peña Perez as our sponsor child.  He’s only 5 years of age and lives in El Salvador.  We always wanted our relationship to be a blessing to others!  Thanks to Elaine (who is a Compassion advocate) for introducing us to Javier! =)

Posted by: sammerz | 18 February, 2007

CNY 2006

Happy Chinese New Year!! Go the PIG!! OINK!! In the morning Steph’s family and I went to the grandparents house to present them with tea (I mistakenly called this tea ceremony, which is different and relates to a Chinese wedding custom!). Not sure what it does – a sign of respect to the elders? You give them a tea and thank them, then receive ang pao (red packets) from them. We had a massive pot-luck lunch after that, with many of us doggy-bagging the leftovers as lunch packs! Uncle Anthony (Steph’s Dad) took many, many pictures of us – hmm… does this mean I’m already in his good books?

Posted by: sammerz | 16 February, 2007

2 Months!

Today marks the 2nd month anniversary! In the morning when I arrived at Steph’s place to pick her up on the way to the city, I gave her a gift I bought a while back from Eunice Leong’s stall: a leather-bound journal. Perhaps this can be used as our photo journal!

Posted by: sammerz | 14 February, 2007

V’s Day 2006

Our first Valentines Day!  Steph gave me 2 presents: a Fossil watch and a pillowcase with her face on it as well as a Bible verse – so cute! My present to her was a Tiffany key-ring of a heart within a heart.

Steph and I made some tasty sandwiches before heading to Chelsea Beach for a picnic. After setting up the blankets and music (Steph’s iPod had some mini speaker attachment), she revealed a secret: two white-chocolate cakes with our names stencilled in icing!! Wow!! What a blessing!! God also graced us with an amazing sunset…

Posted by: sammerz | 13 February, 2007

Meeting Mr. and Mrs. Tong

The Tong family is now complete. Mr. Tong (uncle Anthony) and Steph’s youngest bro Justin had just arrived in Melbourne (auntie Clara came earlier).  I joined the Tongs for dinner, where auntie Clara made some marinara pasta and rosemary lamb cutlets – yum! I was expecting uncle Anthony to give me an interrogation session of sorts, but he ended up opening a DVD and so we watched The Devil Wears Prada instead! Steph nudged me and said that her Dad was somewhat speechless… hehe. “He’ll ask auntie Clara about me later.”  I figured that the way things have worked out wasn’t just about celebrating Chinese New Year (this weekend) or was it to provide comfort to Steph post-wisdom teeth operation (on 07/02/2007); but it was sending Mum first to scout out and gather info about our relationship!! So I took it as an “ALL CLEAR!” signal when Mr. Tong arrived hehehe!

Posted by: sammerz | 11 February, 2007

Early Present

My Valentines Day gift came early! Steph bought a Fossil watch for me from Myer. Very kind and thoughtful of her! Since roughly a month ago I had stopped wearing my watch (Swatch, kinetic) because it was inaccurate: it ran too fast, completing 1 hour in 52 real-time minutes!

A double-date with Clayton and Ange was next… and over a cold drink and some cake at Airstream Café, we gave them a run down on how our relationship began. The Coombs will be heading to Pasadena, California on the 27th February as Clayton continues his studies at Fuller Theological Seminary. It was great to catch up with them before they embarked on their adventure in the US. Following the arvo tea double-date, we all headed to church to celebrate its 40th year anniversary.

Posted by: sammerz | 04 February, 2007

Random Morning

The plan was to have breakfast with Steph at 8:30am this morning. However I managed to conveniently score myself a tyre puncture. What happened was that at Ringwood, there was a merging of two lanes after the overhead railway bridge. Before the merge, while there was still two lanes, a 4WD was on its way to merging into the left lane I was currently occupying. In avoiding him, I hit the kerb with enough force to tear a 2-inch gash in the tyre and bend the alloy rim, like a nasty bite mark on a coin. After a quick call to Steph explaining my situation, she detoured and arrived to see me. The wait for the RACV was short. A quick change of tyres to the ugly spare, and we were on our way to Glen Waverley.

We had a nice breakfast at Mocha Jo’s (Coco Lounge was full already!) and before the 11:15am service, we decided to stop by at a park on the way to church. There was a baseball club beside the reserve and we sat down in the shade to watch the final 10 minutes of a baseball game comprising of primary school aged children. The winning team’s (Wildcats) bench was right in front of us and their American (because of his accent) coach was very, very encouraging:

  • “<name>, what you did out there was fantastic. All you did was do what you’ve always practised and you did it well.”
  • “It starts in the mind. Now, what was going through your heads when two bases were filled?”
  • “That was an awesome play, <name>. You listened to me during practice, and you followed it through. Well done.”

This was a lesson particularly for me. I’m learning to be fruitful in the words that I speak, and it took God to use this coach to tell me to be encouraging and positive in my words.

Posted by: sammerz | 03 February, 2007

Ant and Kelly’s Engagement Party

Ant and Kelly’s was the first engagement SGS attended.  Funnily, I knew Kelly from SFC (a Christian group at Uni, which is now known as Universe) during my Melbourne University days and Steph knew Ant as they studied Business Systems at Monash University!  What a small world!

Posted by: sammerz | 31 January, 2007

Bandannas

Ben, Dan and Nathan – are our Oxygen (Young Adults) pastors.  In celebration of our 3 pastors, we decided to put on bandannas.  Ben-Dan-Na…. geddit?  (Credit to JK for thinking up something so random and yet so cool!)

If 9 days was when Steph would play around with my hair, then 47 days is when she plays around with my head-wear.

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