We are family....

After reading Reeds' blog entry about blogging, I finally plucked up the courage to properly use Windows Live Writer to post onto my blog. And yes, what a breeze it is to post. If you haven't used it at all, I'd advise you to do now.

Anyway, moving on to today's post....

A while back, I downloaded this television programme from UK's Channel 4, entitled The World's Biggest Family and Me, in which the host was searching for families with 10 children and more. In this programme, the host managed to meet up with families with 10, 18, 15 and 84 children. Except for the one with 84 children (which is obvious!), the rest all come from one mother. One thing that I find interesting is that these people have many children as they follow what has been preached to them (either through Al-Quran or the Bible).

I find this television programme interesting as I myself come from a big family. I am the tenth child, out of sixteen. At the last count, the total number of people in my family was 48 (dad, 16 children, 8 children-in-law and 23 grandchildren).

Here are some random facts about the family:

1. My parents were both single child of their parents. Well, my dad had a sister who died when she was a small girl.

2. According to my dad, one of the main reasons why they chose to have many children was that they were lonely when they were small and they did not want their kids to feel the same way.

3. My mum actually bore 18 children, but one died when he was less than 2 years old in a drowning accident and one died when he was two days old.

4. My mum's cousin also has sixteen children.

5. My parents have 10 daughters and 6 sons, and I am the tenth child and fourth son.

6. Everyone in the family has a name which starts with 'Su', except the two deceased brothers.

7. Our house first started as a five-bedroom house and now after a few renovations, it boasts 20 bedrooms!

8. If everyone is at home and seeing the number of cars parked outside, people had mistakenly thought that we were used car dealers or we were having some functions at home and were entertaining guests.

9. At the moment, 8 of my siblings are married: 5 sisters and 3 brothers. That means another 8 are not yet married: 5 sisters, 2 brothers and myself!

10. We were once featured in the Malaysian TV3's Nona programme when they had a special feature on Brunei, back in 2002. We got featured as Nona wanted to showcase a big family, living under one roof. We were also once featured on Brunei TV.