#AMonthofFaves Moments of 2022. What were some of the moments this year that you are grateful for?

Ah 2022 was well, I was going to say a lovely year, but then again it was also the year that my kids caught covid and luckily they were ok and didn’t have bad symptoms – slight fever, sore throat, cough. They also started at a brand new school campus. The school district decided to merge the Mandarin immersion program from two elementary schools to one, as well as open the school campus that had been built a few years ago in a new housing area. There’s still quite a bit of construction around the school as more condos and houses are being built. The kids are definitely appreciating their new campus!

Anyway, other than that, we did some traveling this year:

Hawaii in April

We decided to finally make a trip to the Big Island during Spring Break. It was something we’ve been wanting to do for years. The kids had never been to Hawaii before. I had been to Honolulu and Maui with my mom ages ago, before I was married. We all had a blast in Hawaii. We went snorkelling, a night swim with the manta rays, explored the Volcano National Park and saw the lava glow. Here’s my post on our trip.

Singapore in July/August

As our families live in Singapore, we often make a trip to visit them. Of course with the pandemic, we hadn’t been for a couple of years. We stayed for longer this time though this timer and it was wonderful to see our families and friends. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see my sis-in-law and her family as they were stuck in Scotland.

As usual, I ate so much amazing food in Singapore, delicious Italian food, and Thai food, and of course fantastic Singapore food. I finally wrote a post about it last week! My mom and I took the kids to a Singapore Symphony Orchestra, and I also saw Korean hiphop group Epik High.

Crater Lake and Lassen Volcanic Park (September 2022)

Another bucket list trip was Crater Lake National Park in Oregon. Some 7,700 years ago, a volcano erupted and then collapsed. What now remains is a lake in its crater. It’s the deepest lake in the US and it’s beautiful. Here’s my post on the trip.

On the way back from Crater Lake, we made a stop at Lassen Volcanic Park. Another beautiful park with mountains and lakes. The main attraction here is Bumpass Hell, named after the person who found it, who alas fell into one of the hydrothermal areas and lost his leg. It has mud pools, steam geyser, sulphur and more. It’s truly an amazing sight. The trail is usually only open around July to October.

It was a super last minute decision to make this trip. On our way up north, a wildfire exploded through one of the roads we were supposed to take. The road was closed just 15-20 minutes just before we reached that turnoff and so we had to take an extra hour-long detour. But I’m just glad that we hadn’t been there any earlier!