Meeting Old and Long-Time Friends | #WeeklyWednesday2018

Summer is beginning to come to a close now (thank GOD! no more bugs!!), and as the seasons begin to transition into Fall / Autumn, lots of things pop up at the last minute... Sometimes I feel like it's a last hurrah from the greenery before the warm colors seep in lol
Pictured here is one of Mum's moonflowers. These things are so gorgeous, have a delightful smell, and are a "limited time" enjoyment in that they only last a day before they wither and the next set of flowers blooms. :)

But one of the best things that I LOVE about the changing of seasons is the people who return from previous times of my life. In this blog post, you'll see a photo burst from an alumnus who visited us this week and an early birthday visit to an old friend from my high school days.

Pictured to the right is a group photo of said alumnus with his mum (who came to visit him) with my parents, taken as they were getting ready to leave.

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Dinner with ShengJie

ShengJie was here from 2013 - sometime in 2015, a really funny, equally considerate and equally annoying older brother figure within Calvary Chinese Fellowship (our Chinese Bible study / lifegroup), and we were all greatly saddened when he left for Louisiana to follow his professor (in order to finish his PhD). He was recently married, and now that he's finished his degree, he's heading back to Beijing in October. It was SO SWEET of him to want to come visit us before he left, bringing his mother with him (we'd met her the last time she came State-side and ShengJie brought her for a visit then too). In true Asian fashion, the catch-up was over Mum's homecooked dinner. 

chit-chatting around the coffee table, waiting for our dinner time to arrive

(Asians normally start dinner between 6:30 - 7:30pm)

eating dinner

after dinner, drinking tea

dinner spread, chrysanthemum tea after dinner

close-ups of the dinner food

Mum and Dad were twinning all evening by accident and they were SO CUTE lol XD

One of the best things about seeing alumni come back to visit us is really just listening to the impact my parents (and CCF in general) had on their college lives here in C'dale.

It's SO INSPIRING to see and overall, just really fun to reminisce about times past.

Okay, we're getting sappy now. STAHP. :P

Mum also made this dessert as a birthday present for someone else in the church body (no pictures from that, sorry) and made an extra one for us to eat. It consists of condensed milk, table cream, lime juice and zest. The original recipe calls for crushed graham crackers, but Mum and I really liked the idea of increasing the ratio of graham to cream, so there you go.

Think Key Lime Cheesecake, but "lighter" in that you don't feel as "full" afterward.

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Dinner (and Early Birthday Celebration) with Jennifer (Jennifee)

Jennifer (who I affectionately refer to as Jennifee for whatever reason lol) and I met and became friends sometime within the first month of our freshman year of high school, back in August 200...6. EEP! We've been friends for SO. LONG. My goodness. Luckily for us, we've managed to stay relatively in touch, even when we were going to different schools (she went to SIUE and I went to SIUC) and we only got to see each other over breaks (meaning, 1 - 2 times per year). 

For the time being, she really only lives under 5 minutes away from each other, so having spontaneous dinners more often has actually been realistic for the past year or two.

A tree fell on her rental property and her family cut it up, took the wood home, and made this CUSTOM TABLE for her apartment!!

I mean, look at the freaking quality of this thing!! You can't afford to buy this in a store, people!

This is EASILY worth 1k+!!

Back in the day (high school days), we would go over to her family's house and she and her mum would make HOMEMADE PIZZA.

Talk about knowing the straight-shot path to my Singaporean heart that functions primarily through my stomach and tastebuds.

I. LOVE. PIZZA.

Here's Jennifee rolling out the pizza dough, bowls of sauce, bell pepper, mushrooms, fresh mozzarella cheese, and a bag of pepperoni lay in wait to put on the pizza. It was DELICIOUS.

So...we started the present opening with a video, because Jennifee is an adorable human, but in her surprise, certain *cough* words start coming out and to make sure that we don't go overboard for the blog, we switched back to photos. Hehe :P

I'm still keeping this video because it was adorable though lol

Jennifee and I have been pretty good about purchasing things for each other as the year goes on, simply because we thought of the other person. This, inevitably, results in a large basket or bag or miscellaneous gifts, made all the more special by the fact that there was so much time put into it.

Jennifee's gotten me things like a squishy + soft scarf (because she knows I love soft plushy textures) and a NICE (branded) eye-shadow palette because she thought the colors available in the palette (in addition to the quality) would be helpful for my YouTube videos. *sniffs I love my friends <3

Jennifee opening her presents :)

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Do you guys keep up with old friends? 
I would love to hear stories about your reunions and catch-ups. :)

Fun Malaysia post coming up this Friday, guys. 
Look forward to it!

~ Ariel

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