Beautiful Feet

Apology Accepted?

2010-05-24T20:02:00.000-07:00

I recently learned something new from one of my clients at work. Apparently, since 1969 the government of Berlin has been inviting Jews who were born in Berlin and "were persecuted or forced to emigrate during the National Socialist period" to come back and visit the city as guests of the government (free trip). My client, who recently came back from the trip, said it was really amazing - the guests were treated royally and everything was extremely well planned. Some of the guests went through a tremendous amount of suffering because of the Holocaust and were actually very nervous about going back to Berlin to visit. However, it seems that most people who go end up really enjoying the experience and come back with some closure or at least a better appreciation of what the Germans are doing to rectify the past. Apparently, there is a huge memorial and historical landmarks throughout the city so that you can't miss the fact that the Holocaust happened.

I thought this was really interesting - that the government is openly apologizing for what happened in the past and doing what they can to make things better for those who were affected. They didn't have to extend these invitations, but the fact that they did shows humility and responsibility and I think that is very respectable. It also reminded me of the Biblical principle of confessing our sins. When we openly admit that we're wrong, Satan has nothing over us. He cannot accuse us of anything because we've already confessed our sins and been forgiven.

For those interested in reading more, here's an article written by someone who was invited to Berlin as a guest.

www.jewishjournal.com/wandering_jew/article/happy_birthday_from_berlin_20060901/

Day at the Zoo

2009-12-08T17:37:00.000-08:00

It was an interesting end to the work day today. Around 6pm when we're supposed to be able to leave the office, my boss's entire class showed up at the office. My boss teaches a class in the city and he likes to give them some perspective of the 'real' world by inviting them in to the office and show them around. So I'm trying to leave at 6pm, and see a mob of people in the lobby where the door to the elevator is. Great, I guess I can't leave just yet, it'd look bad for my boss. So I go back to my office and wait until the coast is clear to make a dash for the door. The office is a square so once they start to move towards one direction, I can go in the other direction and miss them. Then as they started to come around the offices, I realized that he was literally introducing all of the employees to the students as they were passing by the offices. Great, I guess I should stay until he introduces me. I hear him introduce the intern to his students by asking him to tell them what his SAT score in math was - of course, he said 800 (he's Chinese). Great, am I the only Chinese person who didn't get a perfect score in math? My office mate scrambles to clear off his desk a little as he finds a packet of paper and starts reading. I quickly open a book that was already in my bag and put my head down, looking engrossed in what was on the page, just as my boss walked by. He introduced the two of us and a few of the students smiled at us, I smiled back out of politeness. After he leaves, the rest of the class trails behind and one by one they glance in the office. It was like we were a bunch of monkeys at the zoo, and they were observing us in our natural habitats, hahaha. Except I don't think the monkeys have to pretend to look busy when people walk by. And as they headed into another office, I went around the other way and out the front door. I was home free!

Yum .... steak ....

2009-12-07T11:08:00.000-08:00

One week my parents were in Phoenix, Jackson made me steak for dinner - a sure way to win any girl's heart :) Especially one who LOVES meat, haha.

More Cookies!!!

2009-12-07T10:57:00.000-08:00

Another cookie baking (and decorating) adventure with the girls!

Gospel Gamp Labor Day Weekend

2009-12-07T10:24:00.001-08:00

My first bouquet of flowers from Jackson when I was home sick. They were so pretty :)

I had the opportunity to be a part of Gospel Camp for several Chinese Christian churches in the area - it was held in southern Jersey on a beach. It's mostly for adults but they needed a few leaders for the youth group so that parents don't have to leave them at home for the weekend. It was a challenging and humbling experience to lead a weekend long program for the group, especially since the group turned out to be twice as large as we expected! The program consisted of worship, lessons about God's Word, testimonies, discussions, and lots and lots of games! At the end of the weekend I was absolutely exhausted. It was quite draining but very rewarding at the same time.

Eating crab that were caught just a few hours prior - so fresh and yummy!

Sea of Chinese people in the cafeteria - I think we exceeded the max occupancy of this place .... the funniest thing is that cold water is nowhere to be found during meals - only hot water is available, that's when you KNOW you're surrounded by Chinese adults

The campground was beautiful

Leaders debriefing after lunch

We played a lot of crazy games, hahaha

Rita's Ice!

Crabbing - we didn't catch much

Leaders' table - not sure who came up with this ...

Girls' Fellowship Group Song Offering

2009-12-07T10:15:00.000-08:00

So it's been a little over a year now since I started the girls fellowship group at the church I've been going to. I'm amazed at how God has given me the grace to be able to connect with them on some level even though I am so old compared to them, haha. I've actually been pleasantly surprised at the maturity level of teenage girls - sometimes the things they say catch me by surprise. And I think, did I think this way when I was 13? They're a lot of fun to be around, and it keeps me young at heart in a way. I love being a big sister - it's such a joy to see them grow and be an encouragement to them. Not to mention how fun it is to see their faces light up with the smallest things like decorating a cake or making hot chocolate :)

This was the first time that we sang together at church as a group

Lisa's Bachelorette Dinner @ Mercat

2009-12-07T10:06:00.000-08:00

We sat at the bar waiting for the limo to show up at the restaurant with Lisa and the bridal party.

I loved this dish - it's potatoes with this mayo like sauce - I couldn't get enough!

Tapas are the best!

MIA

2009-12-02T08:46:00.000-08:00

Sigh, I'm sitting at my desk at work. When I should be focusing on work, all I can think about is how much I miss writing my blog. It's so hard to get back into things when you know it's almost impossible to catch up. But if something is important enough, I need to make time for it. Stay tuned for updates from the past few months! From the way this blog looks, it's like my feet just stayed planted to the ground, which perhaps is a reminder to myself that I need to keep moving forward and not become stagnant.

Self-absorbed

2009-08-31T20:30:00.000-07:00

How many times do we say hi and make small talk with the same person but never taking the time to really get to know him or her, ask deeper questions, see if there's anything that they need?

How many times do we walk past people who look like they need help, thinking we are too busy and don't have the time to stop, or that someone else will help them?

I've been so exhausted these past few weeks trying to juggle work, church, meetings in preparation for gospel camp labor day weekend, helping people with requests, spending time with friends, family, boyfriend. On certain days, I'm so stressed and caught up in things I have to do that I can't even think about other people. I think God has recently been reminding me that we need to look around and make ourselves available to those in need, whether it's someone we know or a stranger. This past Sunday at church, I had 30 minutes to eat lunch, chat with moms, friends, acquaintances, finish helping a sister with a document, find all the girls that I was going to take out for ice cream after church. How am I supposed to have fellowship if I give each person 2 minutes then have to run and talk to someone else? I look around the church and realize that everyone always talks to the same people, about the same superficial topics. When are we going to realize that there are other people besides our small circle, that we should be willing to take the time to reach out to someone we don't already know? It amazes me that we can see the same people every week but know nothing about them, and not really caring because we're so busy with our own lives.

Last week, I saw two girls crying on separate occasions, strangers whom I didn't know. I thought about going over and just asking if they're okay, but thought that they probably didn't want to be bothered and I'd be intrusive. If I don't even do anything about the opportunities that I actually SEE, I seriously wonder how many opportunities I just let go by because I'm so absorbed in my little world.

The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. There is so much need in this world. We need to do our share of the work instead of just waiting for someone else to pick up the slack. How can we as Christians receive so much undeserved love from our Father and not want to share it with as many people as possible? Love someone - make yourself available to them, not just when it's convenient or with the bare minimum, give abundantly and freely without expectation - love someone with the love you have been shown through Christ.

My First Visit to the High Line

2009-08-22T14:49:00.000-07:00

Who would have thought - an elevated park in the middle of the city built from abandoned railroad tracks? Only in Manhattan :)

It was surprisingly peaceful and scenic - even though there were a lot of people

Chairs for tanning??!! Pretty amazing .... oh and some of them have wheels on the bottom so you can move them to get optimum sun exposure, hahaha

Area where you can sit and watch the traffic down below - creative

Can't wait till the rest of the high line is finished! It's gorgeous - highly recommended :)

Lisa's Bridal Shower

2009-08-15T14:14:00.000-07:00

I went to Lisa's surprise bridal shower a couple of weeks ago. It was seriously THE nicest, most sophisticated bridal shower I've ever been to. The venue is an art studio that rents out the space for private parties - it's a fancy afternoon tea party! The planning that went into it was unbelievable. They had videos of her fiance saying something nice to Lisa and answering questions for the newlywed game.

Not only did we enjoy a beautiful bridal shower hosted by the bridesmaids, we also got gifts!

Picture collage

My table

Yum! I love tea parties!

Watching Lisa open presents

The bride to be with a homemade veil / hat

GWB and Cloisters

2009-07-31T19:41:00.000-07:00

My first time walking across the GW Bridge! It was the perfect weather - sunny with an occasional breeze.

Passing through Fort Tryon Park - it was so peaceful and spacious, very different from Central Park :)

The Cloisters - it's so beautiful, really is like a castle inside too, with courtyards and different 'wings'!

I like how my dress matches the fountain, hahaha

View from the terrace of the castle. I highly recommend the Cloisters if you have a day to spend outdoors walking around.

BBQ at Tallman Mountain State Park

2009-07-21T20:24:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday the families of the church choir went to a park in upstate New York for BBQ. If you recall, we did this last year too - it was such a success that they decided to do it again this year. I can't believe that was one year ago! It was a beautiful sunny day - perfect for a BBQ and games. It was a lot of fun - although we were much tamer than the group next to us - they had like 50 people, loud hip hop music, a trampoline, and a HUGE tent.

Boys playing darts

Boys cooking??

The adults cooking

Admiring a little weird insect

I don't know who they are but it's a cute picture

One of the adults thought of several games for us to play after we stuffed ourselves with food. We split into two teams - the 'older' group and the 'younger' group. The first game of 'step on the other person's balloon'. Oh my gosh, this was so funny. We were all running around in circles screaming. And these adults are vicious! Some of them were teaming up on us kids! SO competitive, lol.

Next game - each team had to toss a ball through a hoop (made by the extended arms of a person). We had a defective 'hoop' who kept moving and head butting our ball. The adults are like comedians - they're so much more fun than us kids - LOL. This is the pastor's wife, thought it was a great action shot. By the way, my dad took most of these pictures, like over a hundred of them in a few hours! He's really good at it - I am very impressed - he's only had the camera since Christmas.

Watching the adults do this was hilarious - it's a relay race but you have to walk by doing this twist thing, I don't think anyone was actually doing it correctly.

Three-legged race. At first the young group thought we'd win no problem since we should be more nimble and coordinate. Woah, were we wrong! There were 5 pairs on each team - it was a relay race. I think the adults finished when we were on our 4th pair - it wasn't even close. But I guess it shouldn't have come as a surprise - the adults were all couples. They've been married for like 20+ years, and I assume they've take many walks in sync with each other over the years, hahaha.

This was a creative game that I'd never played before. You run across some distance and pass a rubber band to each other using a spoon handle in your mouth.

Celebrating July birthdays. Thought this was a great shot of the cake. It's so beautiful!

Gliding at Wurtsboro Airport

2009-07-20T18:32:00.000-07:00

This past Sunday, our young adult group leader took us gliding in upstate New York. What is gliding, you ask? I had no idea what it was either when I first heard it. So basically a small plane with an engine is attached to a glider (2-seater plane with no engine) by a long cord. The engine plane takes off and pulls the glider into the air. Then at a high enough altitude, you pull on the cord to release from the engine plane and start GLIDING in the air. It's totally using nature and air pockets to maneuver and change altitude. Those of you who know me know I'm terrified of heights, ESPECIALLY small planes! But I decided to tag along with the group anyway to see what it's like and to take pictures. When everyone was signing up, I almost did (I hate being left out) - I picked up the pen and was about to sign my life away (the waiver basically saying they're not responsible if I die). Then I thought about being up in the air for 20 minutes stuck in turbulence and hating myself - and I put the pen down. So I went and watched everyone get in their gliders one by one. The passenger sits in the front of the glider, the pilot in the back. It looked so much fun - and after a couple of people came back from their rides and confirmed that it wasn't really scary and that it was very smooth, I thought 'what the heck, I should just do it, I'm already here - when is the next opportunity that I'll get to go gliding?!'

My pilot's name was Solomon - he's Egyptian and has been flying since 1956. That made me feel slightly better. Solomon explained what all the dials meant and told me that he was going to let me pilot when we got into the air! I got strapped into my seat and the plane took off, with us behind it!! It was a little wobbly going up because we were being pulled, but once we got to 2,500 feet it was fairly smooth and I pulled the ejector cord and we were free! It's amazing that without an engine a plane that small can be so smooth in the air - it didn't even feel like we were moving most of the time. I did feel kind of nauseated when Solomon was increasing our altitude by using an up-current - so basically you keep turning in circles (as if you're going up a column) in order to get higher until we hit 4,000 feet. Sof I do not recommend this for you, you would have thrown up I think. For the most part, it was very comfortable and relaxing after that - sometimes we'd hit air pockets that made it a bit bumpy but it wasn't too terrible. My pilot was really cool - he let me control the glider for most of the ride, primarily just turning or straightening out the wings. Then I got tired cuz I was gripping the controller so hard, haha, so I told him to take over. The landing was so accurate and smooth - it's as if he were flying a normal plane, there was no problem getting onto the runway whenever he wanted to. Supposedly these gliders can stay in the air for hours at a time if the weather permits. There are even gliding competitions - it's a sport! So all in all, it wasn't as scary as I thought it was going to be, although I was still very tense in the plane. I think a few people in our group said it was so relaxing that they were about to fall asleep in the air - they are more adventurous than me :)

David our fearless leader was the first to go in this green plane! He liked it so much he went again at the end after all of us went, haha! I don't know how he does it - he's much older than us but he's got so much youth and energy - we can't even keep up with him half the time! I really do think that it's because he has such an amazing relationship with God - his love for God is reflected in how he lives his life - there is so much evidence of joy and peace and freedom which I guess makes one youthful! :)

Here's a picture of the engine plane pulling the glider (the green plane) behind it.

This is how you get strapped into the front seat

A glider about to land

Admiring the planes and the view

David's back from his first trip!

It just stops on the grass

It took every ounce of effort to actually smile - I was so nervous!

I went up in the air right after Jackson did. I let him take my camera cuz I knew I'd be too tense and scared to take pictures. So here are the pics he took - my pics would have been very similar anyway ;)

The engine plane that pulled his glider up

View from the glider

This is my glider! I was below him cuz he was already at 4,000 feet when I was on my way up

It's so funny - afterwards I was saying how I was tense from holding onto the controller and trying to keep the glider stable, and Jackson was complaining that it was too smooth and safe. He asked the pilot if he could do flips or something or at least make the plane move more, LOL. The pilot said no - I guess he valued his life.

Hanging out in the tent after our glides. There were SO many flying bugs around it was crazy! There were swarms of them everywhere!! We kept swatting at them - the boys were playing frisbee for a bit but I think they had to stop cuz the bugs were flying into their nostrils and stuff.

Cool picture!

Yay for new and fun adventures!

July 4th in Baltimore

2009-07-07T19:17:00.001-07:00

It all started around my 28th birthday when he gave me a ticket to the National Aquarium in Baltimore because we had a conversation about how we both loved aquariums. But just ONE ticket. I couldn't figure out if he was trying to hint that we should go together, or that I should just go by myself, LOL. I thanked him for the gift and said that perhaps when the weather got warmer we can get a group of friends together to go to Baltimore. That was almost 7 months ago, can you believe it? Originally he had given me the ticket with the hope that we'd go on the trip together as friends so he can have the DTR talk with me. But since it's already 'official', the trip became our first vacation together. I have to admit, I was a bit nervous about how it would turn out, but it ended up being really fun and we ate way too much (what else is new) - at the same time I think the trip helped us to get to know one another better and build a level of comfort that I don't think we had before. I guess there is significance and importance to spending some alone time away from the familiar and normal surroundings. Also, having three days where we'd have nowhere to hide or run from each other if we were angry or upset was a good test for our relationship. It's very different from a dinner and movie on a Saturday night and then going home separately or being in a bad mood but you don't want to talk about it so you just stick to text messaging or email. Interestingly, I heard on the radio this week that in a recent survey, 83% of the participants said that they go to sleep angry without resolving an issue with their spouses, and only 17% said that they stay up all night talking (or fighting) until it's resolved. I guess I'm of the opinion that if possible, to never leave a conversation angry or on bad terms - life is so unpredictable and fragile, you never know if that's the last conversation you'll have. Is that just a morbid way to think?!

Anyway, onto happier topics, here are the pictures from our trip for your viewing pleasure :)

Even though we got in at midnight and was exhausted, I could not sleep the first night, I kept waking up and finally just stayed up at 6AM - it's strange that I always wake up so early when I'm on vacation. Our first stop - the Baltimore Museum of Art - for lunch, hahaha.

This cream of crab soup was SO good

Asian style shrimp

More crab with portabello mushroom - delish!

Since we're already at the museum for lunch, we pretended to be cultural and looked at a few exhibits. This one was really interesting - displays of miniature old-fashioned houses

Views of Inner Harbor

We gravitate towards bookstores wherever we go ..... not quite sure if it's for the books, the restrooms or the Starbucks

The hotel with a balcony where he originally wanted to stay at (back in December) when he gave me the Aquarium ticket - but now there is no need for a balcony so we saved some money, haha

View of the harbor from a lighthouse

The first picture I am posting of us - this is monumental!

Another view of the harbor with little dragon boats and pedal boats

At the aquarium - we took SO many pictures of the fish, they're amazing and their colors are so beautiful! I love this fish - it looks like it's swimming around looking for someone to kiss.

The jellyfish exhibit was great - can you believe these are jellyfish??!! There are so many different species!!

The colors and the way it moves is so beautiful!

After the aquarium, we went to a really nice restaurant called Charleston (rated 28 on zagat!) so we didn't want to be rude and take pictures, although I'm sure we violated several fancy-restaurant etiquettes by passing food to each other across the table so we could try all the dishes. There was an older couple sitting at the table next to us - I don't think they said more than two sentences to each other the whole meal. I find that odd because just the food itself was worth raving and talking about - I think half of our conversations was about how great the food was. We highly recommend this place. It's funny - our reservation was for 8pm, by the time we were done eating we were one of 3 tables left in the restaurant. I guess people in Baltimore don't stay out as late as New Yorkers :)

We snuck this in at the end ... kind of a bad picture but that's all we got ...

I was so sad that there were no pictures of us at the restaurant so we played with the timer in our room - I am testing the placement of the camera :)

Breakfast in bed - literally!! Just an FYI in case there was any doubt in anyone's mind - this is HIS bed, MY bed is to the right of the picture

After a filling breakfast, we went to Fort McHenry where we fought off the British in the War of 1812 and also where the Star Bangled Banner was written. I felt so patriotic - especially since it IS the 4th of July! I love historic sites!

Huge canon

Those things are heavy!!

I like how he's totally into the camera timer too :)

It took this many people to unroll the flag - it's a replicate of the flag that was flying at the Fort during the battle - it's HUGE!

I guess this is where they put the soldiers who misbehave :(

We went exploring at a really nice hotel where we went for lunch - the food wasn't very good but the hotel was gorgeous!

Walking around the harbor - so many people out on the 4th of July!

Roy's for dinner - it's a Hawaiian restaurant chain - I had wanted to go to Roy's in NYC months ago but it closed down so we found one in Baltimore! :) The sashimi was so good - can you believe I actually eat sashimi now? He loves Japanese food so I guess I've been trying it more and really enjoying it!

My drink is on the right - it's a Hawaiian martini - one of the best drinks I've ever had. I especially like the fact that it's clear and very light tasting.

Molten chocolate cake with ice cream - one of our favorite desserts

My camera can't take pictures at night - especially of fireworks. It was hilarious - we were sitting in an area for like an hour and a half waiting for the fireworks to start. We thought it was a great spot because so many people were there. Then it's 9:30pm - we started hearing the fireworks go off but couldn't see anything. Everyone was in an uproar and walking around to try to figure out where the sound was coming from! It turned out that the fireworks were behind this building that was to our left. So then we all scrambled out of our spots and walked in and out of streets, dodging the bumper to bumper traffic to find a spot where we could actually see the fireworks. It wasn't as outrageous as the ones in NYC but it was pretty and the finale was great :)

Chaos after the fireworks - we ended up driving and stopping for like 2 hours before getting to our hotel (without traffic it would have been 15 minutes)

I was so exhausted that I slept until 10am the following morning! After checking out, we went to an Italian restaurant for brunch - I had the crab quiche (gotta have as much crab as possible in Baltimore!!) There was a tree in the middle of the restaurant and a live keyboard player.

Walking around Little Italy to digest the huge brunch we ate before having to sit in the car for 5+ hours

And that's it folks! Our drive home from Baltimore - we hit SO much traffic! But it gave us an excuse to extend our trip longer =P Who knew a long weekend trip could be so eventful! :)

Blogo and Chocolate Fondue

2009-07-06T21:06:00.000-07:00

So I'm trying out this free 21-day trial of Blogo, which is an application that allows me to blog while I'm offline and then upload my posts when I have internet access. I'm thinking this might be beneficial since my commute is so long each day that perhaps I can use one day a week to upload pictures and write on the bus. We'll see if this thing actually works - and perhaps uploading pictures will be easier with this application. Those of you who use blogger probably know what I mean - uploading pictures one by one when you have 10+ pictures per post is very time consuming. Especially when you hit delete on picasa when blogger is linked to picasa =P

Last weekend I had a few of the girls from church over for chocolate fondue. It was really fun to just catch up and have some girl bonding time. Can't go wrong with dipping pretty much anything in a bowl of warm chocolate!!! :)

Yay for fobby poses!

Mmmm - marshmallows, pound cake, banana, apple, strawberries, cheesecake, pretzels .....

I'm the biggest idiot in the world

2009-06-26T20:32:00.000-07:00

So I started running out of space on picasa - and thought, why are the pictures I posted on my blog on picasa and taking up space? Let me just get rid of them to make space for more pictures. DELETE. Are you sure? YES. Today I go on my blog to finish posting on my Hong Kong and Thailand trip because I am way behind - and what do you know, all of my pictures from 2009 posts are gone. Brilliant Theresa - absolutely brilliant. Now not only am I behind on my posts, I have to find the pictures that I had posted and re-post them in the correct order. Maybe it's God telling me that I need to stop spending so much time posting pictures. Cuz you know what, now that I think about it, if someone at blogger just accidentally (or purposely) hit a key, my entire blog could just disappear, no?

Rehearsal and Dinner at the Peak

2009-05-25T19:03:00.000-07:00

Early the next morning, we were all wide awake because of jetlag. We walked around the neighborhood and explored the harbor area before dress rehearsal in the afternoon.

We found that McDonald's here are very fancy - it's like a really nice diner. They have things on the menu that we don't have here - like fried chicken, corn, and taro pies. Plus they DELIVER, how awesome is that?!

They also had hostess-like people standing around to answer your questions and help you. It was amazing.

The dress rehearsal was at the American Club on Hong Kong Island, where the wedding was to be held the next day. The plan was to have the ceremony outside - it had a beautiful view of the mountains and harbor. But it was SO humid and hot.

Tiffany giving instructions to everyone about what to do and where to go - she was so organized with everything. I can't even imagine trying to plan a destination wedding where you not only have to worry about the day of the wedding but you have think about other various events, hotel rooms, and keeping your guests happy and entertained for multiple days!

The rehearsal dinner was at The Pearl at Victoria's Peak, a tourist spot with a great view of the city. We decided to take the tram up to the peak. The hill was so steep it was kind of scary!

The beautiful, happy couple :) For those of you who don't know, Tiff and Dave met in Hong Kong during a semester abroad in college. Isn't that amazing? But they didn't start dating until 7 years later, via email!

Tiff and Dave got the wedding party such nice and thoughtful gifts - which we were all able to wear for the wedding! The bridesmaids received necklaces that matched our dresses!

Welcome Event and Hucks Night

2009-05-21T18:59:00.000-07:00

As soon as we got into the hotel, we went upstairs to Tiff and Dave's suite to say hi, then showered and changed for the evening. We started on the rooftop of the hotel (with a beautiful view of the skyline) to meet and greet and take some photos. Even though it was nighttime, it was still very humid and hot, the breeze on the rooftop felt really good. Unfortunately none of our cameras could really capture the night view of Hong Kong so we'll just have to wait until the professional pictures are available. Tiff looked amazing in a qi pao as she went around saying hello to all of her guests. We didn't really know that many people there since half of the guests were Dave's family and friends from Australia. It was a very international wedding celebration.

After the welcome event, we got ready for the bachelorette and bachelor party - it was a combined event. We made sure that Tiffany was embarrassed enough throughout the evening. It was fun and interesting - I mostly observed but stayed entertained. A few of us left the club early and went for some yummy late night Cantonese noodle soup.

John (Lisa's fiance) is awesome - he totally took care of us because he was the only one who actually spoke Cantonese

I have to say this was probably my favorite part of the evening, haha.

Flying to Hong Kong in Style

2009-05-20T17:48:00.000-07:00

As I walked into the airport the morning of our flight to Hong Kong, I saw my friends Ann and Jenny at the Cathy Pacific check-in counter. Why in the world is Ann dressed like she's going out on a date when she's going to be sitting on a plane for 15 hours straight?! I quickly understood - as I got in line to get checked in, Ann motions for me to go up to the counter. Apparently, she was at the airport before the rest of us and the man behind the counter gave her a free upgrade to business class! Then when the rest of us showed up, he upgraded the three of us too just because we were her friends. AND we got seats right next to each other on the plane, what a nice man :) It made me think of the beauty of God's grace - one person does the hard work but the rest of us who were dressed like slobs were given the same status even though we didn't deserve it. I learned something new that day - the likelihood of getting upgraded is higher if you dress like you belong in business class.

Flying business class on a 15 hour flight is awesome. I couldn't get over how many fun buttons there were to press. We got menus for our meals, and as many snacks (not peanuts, but like real beef noodle soup) as we want. I wish I could have eaten more, but I started to not feel well that morning. If we didn't have business class it would have been so much worse - at least I was able to lie down, I was hot then cold then hot, then my whole body started getting sore, and I kept having to run to the bathroom. I was seriously nervous that I may end up with a fever and get stuck at the airport. But everything worked out fine as we headed for the hotel to start our very full evening.

Hanging out in the British Airways lounge. Free breakfast and drinks. Sigh.

My seat! Seriously, people knew we didn't fly business very often - we were all taking pictures of each other and playing with all the buttons.

Look at how many ways I can move my seat!!!!

Twilight was one of the movies showing - I resisted the urge to see that horrible movie again and instead watched Bride Wars, haha.

I still can't believe we had a menu AND a wine list

I had scallops - as an APPETIZER. I felt like I was in a NYC restaurant.

The starter for my breakfast. I think I had seafood congee as main course. It was so delicious.

Thanks Ann for such an awesome start to the trip! She planned everything, flights, hotels, day tours, itinerary. Amazing girl to travel with. The only thing you'll have to accept is that you will be very tired by the time you get home - but it will never be a boring trip and you'll definitely get your money's worth, hahaha.

It's Official!

2009-05-19T23:11:00.000-07:00

... I am a bit hesitant to post this since I am usually very cautious when it comes to these things ... but I feel that I should because this blog is about my life, and since it's a fairly significant change in my life, a short post before I hop on a plane to Hong Kong for Tiffany's wedding and then to Thailand for a week with girlfriends is probably appropriate :)

SO .... I am officially in a relationship .... with a boy (yes, you read correctly). I am still a bit in shock myself actually, I don't think it has fully sunk in yet. I guess it's because it all happened very gradually over a year-long friendship, during which I knew very clearly in my head that we were not together. I suppose it takes some time to switch gears and allow my mind to adjust to the idea. Although I am still somewhat cautious, I cannot deny in my heart that I am at peace and optimistic about our decision to take this step, and that I am really happy, giddy and excited about the future :) That's all I'll say about it for now, but I'll share more when I get back from my trip. I will need another week of vacation to catch up on sleep and upload pictures and blog, haha! It's going to be a very full vacation. Time to get an hour or two of sleep before I have to head to the airport!

Mother's Day Celebration

2009-05-15T22:47:00.000-07:00

Last week, my sister and I cooked brunch and dinner for Mother's Day. It was super fun and I must admit, the food was pretty good. We started out with a brunch menu of Lemon and Basil Eggs over Foccacia (delish), sausage and potato pancakes (Colin's mucho experience specialty), with mimosas. In the afternoon we watched the first Narnia movie with our mom since she had never seen it before. It was a lot better and more meaningful this time that I watched it - I was able to see more Christian principles in the plot than the first time when I saw it in theaters. For dinner, we cooked Thai food - chicken satay (which we couldn't grill properly with skewers so we took the chicken off the skewers to grill and then put them back on the skewers afterwards, haha), shrimp and mango / salad dish, red snapper with carrot sauce over rice. We need some work with the presentation but the taste was decent for our first time cooking Thai. I think our mom appreciated the efforts even though we will probably never be as good as she is :) It was funny when we were cooking the red snapper. The skin kept getting stuck on the bottom of the pan and the fillets were coming out not very pretty. Then our mom stepped in and helped and the fillets came out perfect, haha.

The marinade for the chicken turned out very tasty - hmmm, maybe I can use this for summer BBQ

The shrimp was SO good

How the red snapper looks without mom's help

How the red snapper is supposed to look .....

Happy Mother's Day! It's a very personal card made by Sof. Doesn't the pattern on the card match her shirt perfectly? =P

To Breathe or Eat?

2009-05-13T19:01:00.000-07:00

I'm going to Hong Kong next week for one of my best friend's wedding. I think I really made an effort to go to the gym and eat healthier (somewhat) these past few months, but I don't think it made as much of a difference as it used to when I was < age 25. I guess at my age I have to work harder to get the same results. I have to fit into the very tight fitting waist-up bridesmaid dress. The tailor assured me that the dress stretches after I wear it for awhile. So I am sitting here in my room, in my dress, hoping that it will stretch as I breathe. I have noticed that it's not as tight when I try it on first thing in the morning, and that after a very full meal it takes 3 people to zip me up and I hyperventilate from the lack of oxygen. Because it's so tight waist up (the tailor said it has to be tight for it to look right, I don't know, I'd kind of prefer to eat) all of the fat in my stomach is accentuated below my ribs which makes me look like I'm pregnant. Sigh.

The bridal industry is such a huge money making business. As soon as one mentions the word 'wedding', all prices double. The bridesmaid dresses have awful sizing charts, at least in my opinion, unless I am just completely disproportionate. My waist size is three times my bust / hip sizes according to the size chart. So of course I have to buy the size that can accommodate my largest feature, which apparently is my waist, lol, go figure. But when the dress came, it was way too big, so then we had to spend $100 to get the dresses tailored. It's like, they purposely make the dresses oddly sized so we have to get them tailored.

By the way, I thought I was being healthy last week by going to a vegetarian restaurant. I ordered this dish with seitan and mushrooms. I had no clue what seitan was, but my friend said it's a substitute for meat so I figured it's probably healthy, like tofu or something. The fact that the word seitan sounds like satan should have been a warning for me to stay away, but I wanted to try something new. Ironically, the 'healthy' meat alternative made me sick for 2-3 days. It made me bloated, gaseous, nauseated, and messed up my digestive system. When my sister and I figured out that it was this seitan that was not agreeing with my body, we looked it up to see what it's actually made of. It's wheat gluten and it doesn't seem very healthy, it doesn't have a lot of calories but one serving of it has like 80% of one's daily value of protein. I think I had an overdose of protein or something. I always thought protein is supposed to make you gain weight. But how can something with that much protein have so few calories? Perhaps protein alone can't make you gain weight, it just helps you build muscle if you lift weights? Anyway, stay away from seitan. You've been warned.

Cherry Blossoms ... kind of

2009-04-26T19:26:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, a friend and I went to Brooklyn Botanic Garden to see the cherry blossoms. It was such a beautiful sunny day. There were so many people there. The cherry blossoms though were a rare sighting. I think there were only about 6 or 7 cherry trees still in bloom and that's where everyone flocked to for pictures. Those trees probably felt very loved with all the attention they got.

Ooooooo, cherry blossoms

Japanese garden area, I like this picture, very scenic and peaceful (especially without the hundreds of people behind, in front of, to the side of us in the picture)

I think my friend got confused and thought we went to the zoo or something ....

I never saw so many varieties of tulips!

Sof joined us at the garden, it was a very fun filled day

We spent the rest of the day in Brooklyn, walking around and just enjoying the weather. Then we went to dinner in Park Slope at this restaurant called Convivium Osteria. It is SUCH a cute place. We sat in the wine cellar (at the table that we saw on the website that we had wanted to sit at, haha), it was very European, the service was really good. We ordered a 48 ounce rib eye, SOOOOO delicious. Seriously it was near perfect. Crispy on the outside and juicy and tender on the inside. I was sad that we didn't finish it but I was way too stuffed. Highly recommended.

Auto Show at Javits Center

2009-04-26T19:07:00.001-07:00

One morning my sister called and asked what I was doing that day. I said that I was on my way into the city and that I was going to the auto show. I heard uncontrollable laughter on the other end. Yes, I would never have thought of the idea on my own. But hey, why not be willing to try new things, even if it's not something I'm really into? It was an interesting experience. I had no idea what I was looking at. My only thoughts were, oooo pretty, that looks nice, there's my Jeep, I like the color of this car, haha.

The Bumblebee car

I have no clue what car this is, I just liked the color

Pretty and shiny ....

My Jeep!

Err ?

I wouldn't mind getting driven around in this :)

I think I'd hurt myself with the door

Cake Decorating Round 2

2009-04-26T18:59:00.000-07:00

We celebrated two girls' birthdays together a few weeks ago. I thought we'd try a chocolate with chocolate mousse cake. I used a recipe that required a box of cake mix but you add several ingredients to make it more moist. I put in zucchini, yogurt and a special kind of tofu. Doesn't that sound strange to put in a cake?! But it came out pretty good, very dense though. Unfortunately the chocolate mousse came out more liquid than I had thought it would. So instead of using it as filling and topping, we just put spoonfuls onto our plate and ate it with a slice of cake, haha. But the cake decorating was fun :)

We each wrote a word on the cake, haha

Venus and Gloria didn't want the chocolate mousse on the mixer to go to waste ....

Yay! A very unique looking cake, hahaha, made with love

Happy birthday, Christina and Teresa!

Chatting over cake :)

Tina's Wedding

2009-04-26T18:56:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I attended my first college friend's wedding. It was a beautiful ceremony, especially the vows, as usual. The bride and groom also gave a short speech to their parents during the ceremony which I thought was really sweet. During the father of the bride speech, several of us girls at the table were imagining our own dads up there one day (hopefully) doing the speech in a language that is not their native tongue. Jason and Tina looked so happy together. The way they would look at each other, with such adoration, love and comfort, it almost seemed like a fairy tale. I am a realistic person, I don't believe in fairy tales. But I saw with my own eyes that it IS possible to just be happy with someone, to 'sign up for the rest of your life with another person'. I wondered if I'd ever feel the way they looked, to love without reservation, to express without having to hold back, to just BE how I feel at the moment, without fear of what the consequences might be. It was a fun but thoughtful evening, fun because I was there with girlfriends from college, thoughtful because there were more couples than singles. It was great that the DJ / MC is someone we knew from college and he played so many songs that reminded us of the college days, it was awesome, haha!

The girls at cocktail hour. The food was so amazing - there were all these 'stations' around the room with different cuisines, we just kept going back for more!

Obviously this wasn't taken with my unprofessional camera, but isn't this one of the most beautiful pictures EVER?! Not surprisingly, Tina looked absolutely stunning, AND she changed into a qipao in the middle of the night.

A table toast :)

Congratulations Jason and Tina! One down, two more weddings to go in 2009!

Not Just Another Day

2009-04-07T20:01:00.000-07:00

You ever get that feeling when you wake up on a weekday, and you think, 'Oh great, another day of work'? No excitement, no expectation that it will be any different than the last time you went to work, it's just your average day. You get out of bed and go through your daily routine and motions. Everything is so familiar that you don't even notice the people walking by you, the stores that you pass, the trees starting to bud, the color of the sky, the chirping of the birds. One of my colleagues mentioned to me recently that in the morning she doesn't even remember how she got to work. She's so programmed in her daily routine that once she sits down at her desk, she has no recollection of her commute at all.

So many of us are guilty of this. We take it for granted that we wake up the next morning, and that everything in us and around us are functioning 'as they should'. In reality, there is nothing average or typical about ANY day that we have to live. I recently started reading a book, and in it, the author tells the reader to 'just stop and think'. It is a daily miracle and absolutely amazing that we are standing on a giant ball called Earth, the only planet in the entire known universe to have life, spinning at a perfect speed at a perfect distance from a larger ball of gas that gives off light and warmth that sustains life on Earth without burning us into crisps. Just that in and of itself should put things into perspective - that it's not JUST another day of routine life. God has chosen to give us life, and put all the intricate details around us just for our enjoyment. I went to the Body Exhibit last week, and it reminded me of how complex the human body is and how it's so illogical for anyone to say that we were made 'by chance'. Every single vertebrae, nerve ending, organ, cell, has a purpose and they all have to work together and function in order for us to live. Nothing except an all-powerful, all-loving God could have created us and all the beautiful things around us.

It's important to remember, especially when things start getting routine and we feel like we're just going through the motions, to just slow down and really see, hear, think, appreciate, be thankful for all the things that we take for granted. Look at the people who pass by you. Notice the stars and the moon in the night sky. Close your eyes and feel the breeze or the warmth of the sun on your skin. Smile at the person who gets on the elevator. Notice the nice gentleman who just helped a lady with the baby carriage. If you miss the train, who cares. Let the people run past you, take your time and enjoy the moment. God's love is all around us, it CAN be seen in the things He created. Don't let a day go by without seeing His awesome love. Don't miss out on life.

Tina's Bachelorette

2009-03-29T18:07:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago, my friend Tina had her bachelorette party at a place called Swing 46. We had dinner, a 30 minute swing dance class and then the live band played while we attempted to swing dance (or whatever it is that we made up), haha. I hadn't done swing dancing since college! It was a very fun evening.

Yea, that does not look anything like swing .... this was towards the end of the night when we realized that we couldn't actually swing ....

The bride to be, haha :)

You know you're in a recession

2009-03-20T18:13:00.000-07:00

when you get your monthly bill for your car loan, and they started using smaller envelopes and sheets of paper, AND inside are THREE bills and THREE envelopes so they can save money on postage by sending it once every three months ....

Dessert Chef ..... ?

2009-03-18T19:17:00.000-07:00

So I'm thinking about becoming a dessert chef ... not really, but I'm trying to bake more these days and it's been a lot of fun. I made these chocolate raspberry cupcakes that were fun to decorate and were pretty tasty if I must say so myself.

I had the girls over on Sunday after church and they each decorated their own cupcakes

Then a few weeks ago, it was one of the girl's 16th birthday. I baked a chocolate cake and they made the topping and decorated it (it was two layers!)

Cutting up fruits and using them in the filling

Decorating the top with lots of fruits!

Ta-da! Well, the orange cream cheese topping was starting to melt but it was still yummy

Happy birthday! So where the birthday girl is from, apparently it's tradition to scream when someone cuts the cake, so we tried it. It was pretty ridiculous, hahaha!

Blissful Frolicking in the Daisy Field

2009-03-17T19:50:00.000-07:00

I was having dinner with a friend recently and we were talking about how we've never really experienced the blissful romantic relationship that some girls seem to have, the "frolicking in the daisy field" feeling. Maybe I've felt it a couple of weeks or days at a time, but soon enough, a paranoid thought, fear of making a mistake, over-analyzing, memories from the past take over and I'm in panic, scared and defensive mode. It's almost like I am afraid to be happy when it comes to relationships, I think of all the what ifs, what was, what might be, what could have been to make sure that I have all my bases covered. As soon as I see something that might be a concern or a potential red flag, or if it's just something that bothers me, I will have the tendency to analyze it to death or let it totally consume me. When faced with a situation where I could be hurt, my defense mechanism immediately kicks in and I convince myself that I don't care and I brace for the other person to just walk away. Sometimes I wondered if it's just the situations I was in, but more and more I am thinking that it's a total character flaw on my part. I think that I literally sabotage myself.

I think over the past few years I have really learned how to be joyful and happy and content as a single person, enjoying life and freedom, being able to focus more on my relationship with God. I haven't felt the consistent insecurity or fear of getting hurt that I used to feel, even though sometimes it still surfaces when I take my eyes off of Him. So I thought that perhaps I had been 'cured' of my psychotic nature when it comes to relationships. But I am starting to realize that it's just been laying dormant. I guess just like the revelation I had awhile back that loving someone is a choice that we have to make each day, being joyful and content is also a choice that we make on a continuing basis. While I need to acknowledge the fact that nothing and no one is perfect, I can take comfort in knowing that God is perfect. His perfect love for me casts out fear because I can always depend on His love no matter what the circumstances. There is a verse in a song that says 'I want to love like I'm not afraid'. If our security and worth and affirmation are found in Christ, then we shouldn't be afraid to love.

I was also recently reminded that the more you care about someone the more vulnerable you are to getting hurt by them. We only understand and experience a small part of this love and vulnerability. God has placed Himself in the most vulnerable position of all, He loves us unconditionally, even those who don't love Him back. Even those of us who claim to love Him do things that are hurtful and disappointing to Him. The small amount of hurt and suffering we go through is nothing compared to what He has to endure.

I know I need to just keep my eyes on Jesus and to keep moving forward. Maybe one day, I will know what it feels like to be in a state of bliss, frolicking in the daisy field, literally or figuratively.

I LOVE Snowboarding!

2009-02-19T19:05:00.000-08:00

That's a statement I never thought I would say. Over President's Day weekend a group of us went down to Pennsylvania for a winter getaway. Ann's co-worker was beyond generous in letting us stay in his vacation home while he wasn't using it. We had the entire 5-bedroom house to ourselves - furnished and stocked with everything we would find in a house that people lived in all year round. Since we had so much room, we invited other friends and ended up with three groups on the trip - no one knew everyone in the group, which made it kind of interesting because we had no idea how everyone would get along. I think it ended up working out amazingly well, and we all had an awesome time! Actually, I can't remember the last time I had so much fun over a long weekend - AND on top of that, I didn't have to think about what I wanted to do for Valentine's Day haha, even though I had already dismissed it as a stupidly commercial holiday made to rip guys off and give girls high and false expectations :)

Groceries for the weekend - you'd think we were stocking up for some natural disaster or something ....

Jenny reading a trashy romance novel and looking content

We like sleepover parties in the living room :) Sometime during the course of the late evening, me and Jenny were somehow convinced to try snowboarding since everyone else was doing it. I was terrified - if I can't even ski, I'd probably fall on my head on a snowboard! But peer pressure won and we went along, haha.

Heading up to the slopes!

What are we getting ourselves into .....

Sherry, Andy, Jenny and I were all first timers on snowboards, so we took a lesson. The teacher was a very unhelpful 16 year old kid, he wasn't even paying attention to us most of the time. It was kind of a waste but at least we got to get a feel for the board before going on the bunny slope. The experienced snowboarders went ahead to warm up on the bunny slope so they can watch us fall when our lesson was over.

Looking sporty right after lunch, ready for the lift (getting off the lift really is the hardest part, haha)!

It took us like 30 minutes to get down the hill for the first time.

Unbuckling our boot at the bottom of the hill - that really was annoying after awhile

Yes, that's actually me on a snowboard

Yay I made it!

The snow was nice and powdery

Look at Jenny all athletic - she was graceful and coordinated - took us all by surprise! haha :)

Sherry and Andy

Danny and Ann - the experienced boarders who had to babysit us on the bunny slope

The boys cooking dinner for us on Valentine's Day

We were grilling - while it was snowing outside - see the snow on the grill? Pretty hardcore

What a great getaway for the girls :)

I LOVE fireplaces - isn't it beautiful?

No post is complete without food pictures

People mingling - right before dinner, Shilpa and four of her friends (the Russians) arrived with many bottles of wine and boxes of chocolates.

Irina and Natalie

Dmitry and Stan

Natalie making mulled wine - it was my first time having it, spicy and not bad

Sherry's invention of toasting marshmallows in the fireplace

Day 2 of snowboarding! Shilpa joined us on the bunny slope.

I like this picture. After a few times on the bunny slope, we were getting bored and annoyed that we have to dodge so many people. So after lunch, we said .... let's go on the easy green!!

Our first time going down a green together!

I'm the 6th closest person to the bottom of the hill in this picture

We were done for the day - resting while we waited for the others. Look, the lights are turning on!

It's so beautiful at night - next time maybe we'll do a night boarding session :)

By the time we got home and showered it was already 8pm, then we all chipped in and cooked a dish for dinner. It was a great group effort - everything was delicious.

It was a cozy evening with just the six of us - a great ending to the weekend, quiet and relaxing.

Jackson made the steak and Danny make the sauce - awesome combo

Of course, how can a meal be complete without dessert!

I don't know how it happened, because we were exhausted, but we ended up watching a really bad movie and then played Taboo and Scene It until nearly 4am!!!

The next morning before everyone else woke up - I was awake at 7:30am for some reason and couldn't get back to sleep

We made breakfast and started cleaning, packing - we divided up the chores and were ready to go by early afternoon. We worked really well together!

Danny could not stop eating those chocolates ....

Shilpa swiffering

Back of the house

Front of the house

What a great weekend. I miss it :)

Blue Corn Cookies with Cactus Marmalade

2009-02-08T16:55:00.000-08:00

I had some time to waste at the airport in Phoenix and came across a box of blue corn cookies mix with prickly pear cactus marmalade. Sounded interesting enough, so I bought it to bake with a few girls from church. I started hanging out with them in December, on Sundays after church. It's been a really fun and rewarding experience. They are so cute - and I am so old compared to them, but it's nice to know that I am still young enough at heart to hang out with high school and middle school girls :) Girls can always bond over baking and eating! Seriously, they can eat!

Venus doing a great job whisking the eggs

Sharon blending in the cookie mix

Does that look edible?! We all had our doubts

We took so many pictures, hahaha

They're looking more edible

Lisa rolling the dough

Timer on the microwave

Venus decided to make a super huge cookie - I think she ended up eating it too!

MMMMM..... they smelled and tasted SO good

Our expressions show just how good the cookies were

I'm not quite sure how this started .... LOL

Invitation Addressing Party

2009-02-07T15:45:00.000-08:00

In the last couple of weeks, I've received 2 wedding invitations, 1 bridal shower invitation, and 1 save the date. This will be the first year that I attend weddings of friends from college, these are going to be super fun! AND I won't have to worry about bringing a date because I will know enough people there :)

A few weekends ago a few of us got together to help Tina assemble and handwrite the wedding invitations. It was hard work! First of all, we were all nervous about messing up because she was already short on invitations. Second of all, none of us except Lisa knew how to write calligraphy so everyone's handwriting was different, hahaha. My hand started hurting halfway through. I have to say though, Tina was very diligent in doing her research about proper etiquette in addressing invitations and was prepared with the proper tools for the sweatshop, I mean, party.

The cutest thing was that her fiance Jason was there with the host, they went out to look at tux's and joked about looking for strippers for the bachelor party, which sparked a conversation amongst the girls about bachelor and bachelorette parties and what we would want. When they came back, Jason kept offering to help and thanking us for helping them out. He is really sweet to Tina. and I think they are adorable together.

Sabrina the hostess of the party pondering over the guestlist

Tina made templates to insert into the envelopes so we have lines to guide us, brilliant huh?

The daunting pile of envelopes we had to address

This is Lisa's calligraphy - isn't it amazing? Yea mine totally did not look like that ...

Diligently working

Look at us slaving away .... I told them that if I ever get married they were all getting evites!

We're in the homestretch!

The final assembly line

I miss writing my blog ....

2009-02-06T18:15:00.000-08:00

I recently re-read a few of my blog posts from the beginning of 2007 - it's fun because I would have forgotten all those thoughts, all the details, had I not written them down. I even found some of the things I wrote kinda funny, haha, go figure, I find myself funny.

Nowadays, I barely have enough time to just post pictures, never mind writing random thoughts or theories and revelations that I have on life. But I will not be defeated by the limitation of 24 hours a day - I just need to be more efficient with the use of my time!

Last night I went to McCormick and Schmick's for dinner with a friend. We were talking about age as we were walking towards the restaurant, and how 'old' we are even though we don't feel old. The server came to take our order, and I ask for a glass of wine. He nicely asked if I was 21. I didn't answer for a few seconds because I was so shocked at hearing the question. I asked him if I looked 21. He asked for my ID. I laughed and said, are you seriously carding me?! He said yes. I smiled and said that it made my day and happily gave him my license. My friend asked the server if he can get carded too so he can feel younger, hahaha. Do I really not look even 21?!

This morning on my way to work, I saw a really cute dog coming home with its owner from a morning walk, and when it saw me across the street, it kept turning and stopping to look at me instead of following its owner into the house. I think over time, I've grown to want a dog more and more.

As I was crossing the street to my office, I heard a woman with a pretty voice behind me say, 'I think I explained the rules to you wrong yesterday ...' and she goes on to explain something about a piece in checkers (I don't play checkers so I didn't follow). And I expected a grown person's voice to respond, but I heard a toddler's voice! I was curious as to how old the kid was, so I purposely slowed down to let them pass me. The kid was in a stroller, he couldn't have been more than 4, and I guess he played checkers with his mom the night before, and they're having a discussion about the rules of checkers while she's pushing him in a stroller! I couldn't help but smile and feel warm and fuzzy inside. On the flight home from Phoenix, there was a super adorable (and well behaved) baby across the aisle from me. After we landed, he was awake with his big eyes wide open - SO cute. I kept smiling at him and got him to smile back. It's like instinctive - I can't help the goofy smiles when I'm around cute babies who are responsive. But then I think about the diapers and the lack of sleep and the breastfeeding and the 'no more freedom or privacy', and I am quickly reminded of why I am thankful that I am not a mom.

Pictures After Celebration Party

2009-02-05T15:39:00.000-08:00

We all decided to do silly pics (well, with the exception of Julien and Pascual who were boycotting the idea, party poopers)

More Reunion Pics from Happy

2009-02-04T10:30:00.000-08:00

We thought about going to see this in Vegas, but decided it probably wasn't the best idea

My cousins thought about auditioning ...

Happy was able to get this picture right. She's a semi-professional photographer. She brought 6 cameras with her. It should be illegal to own 6 cameras ....

I think overall our family made out with a $3.00 profit

The sign reads in Chinese, "Please do not run around carelessly". Notice that there is no corresponding sign in English, which means that it's only the Chinese people who run around like crazy at the Grand Canyon. And yes, there were tons of Chinese tourists. It was a bit scary.

Look at my dad's ridiculous coat!

She's such a great model

See what I mean about taking pictures every time we're just standing around?

More Reunion Pics from Han Han

2009-02-03T09:42:00.000-08:00

Picking up our family from Taiwan at the airport. All of their luggages had red Christmas bows on top so they could easily see which ones were theirs. Brilliant!

Reunion with grandparents after almost 10 years

My uncle took everyone to the shooting range - needless to say, I passed, haha

Family pic before New Year's dinner

Look at all those delicious Chinese dishes!

So this girl asked Je-Ling to bring back some Twizzlers, the entire trip we were looking for Twizzlers and trying to decide if he should buy them for her or not. The thing is he doesn't like her, so if he bought it for her then he has to meet up with her. It was a funny theme throughout the week. We told him that maybe he should just say he couldn't find them (she won't know that Twizzlers are everywhere right?) And who the heck likes Twizzlers anyway? They taste horrible!

Posing with Indian at rest stop

At a Korean restaurant for dinner in Vegas - it was delish, the service was great, and they gave us free salads when we asked for more because we liked it so much!

On the bus on our way to the Canyon

How is she so fearless?!

Why is Aunt Kay carrying like 5 coats?

Somehow lunch at the Canyon turned into a photo shoot

I don't know why we were all taking turns posing with the hat ...

I love my cousins - it was so great hanging out with them as adults. I can't believe how big they are now. When I left Taiwan they were 6 years old! Now we talk about girls and relationships, and laugh about it, hahaha.

No it's not a real elephant. We were having a photo shoot at Cabela's

I miss them .... there was never a dull moment that week

The four kids reunited - I love how they call me jie jie, I really miss that

Chen Dynasty Reunion

2009-02-02T08:02:00.000-08:00

Ah, Phoenix - the city of open, blue skies, the warmth of the sun, and clear night skies full of bright stars. How I've missed it! I can't believe it's been over a year since I was here. The familiar sense of 'coming home' was still present when I arrived, a feeling of comfort, peace and security. It's such a great place for a retreat!

I got to hang out with Julien the first day since our relatives from Taiwan didn't arrive until the following evening. We walked to the supermarket, got coffee and groceries for making waffles, watched movies, it was great!

The boys bonding over a soccer video game

Mom helping Aunt Mary with Chinese New Year Dinner

Family pic!

Eating at a diner on our way to Vegas! Look at all the yummy, greasy food!

Je-ling looking sad because he had a stomach virus and we ordered him the most plain thing on the menu - one large pancake and toast, hahaha

The hotel we stayed at in Vegas

Waking up at 4:45am to get on a bus to the Grand Canyon

Passed by Hoover Dam on the way to the Canyon

Getting back on the bus - Kenny was a great driver

The Skywalk! It is SO scary to walk on it!

Eagle picture on the skywalk

My cousin Happy - she really is happy all the time, and crazy and fearless!

The part we were sitting on was not transparent so I felt more comfortable walking on it. Walking on the transparent glass was unbelievable, I couldn't even look down when I did.

We are such graceful eaters

We were the life of the party during lunch at the Canyon. We started taking pictures with the guy singing on stage and dancing around the tables. It was awesome.

Last night in Vegas

Je-Ling happy because he can have fries now. Yummy!

We took pictures everywhere. Literally. Anytime we have a spare minute waiting for something, we started posing and taking pictures. If anyone offers to take pictures FOR us, they end up with 5 or 6 cameras in their hands. It was pretty funny, and difficult to get around because we were stuck taking pictures for so long.

We tried this picture so many times and I still couldn't get it right

Aunt Christine being silly

Aunt Kay and her son Je-Ling (Lawrence / formerly Martin / formerly John)

I LOVE Jack in the Box

We even had a blast at Costco! Our family is so much fun

Moving our luggage so we can all sleep in the same house on our last night together (we were all spread out in 3 different houses, Uncle Peter's house was like the main cabin for meals)

Family church

Taking my cousins shopping - we were on the search for Timberlands, Twizzlers and chocolates

At our family reunion / grandparents' 60th anniversary / Uncle Peter's 60th birthday celebration

Ghetto fob

Is Julien actually smiling?

Yeah, there were too many things to celebrate - the poor cake decorator

Uncle Peter opening up his birthday gifts - the best was fish oil and vitamins

Making breakfast for the relatives from Taiwan before they depart for the airport

The waffle maker got some good use this week!

Everyone waving good-bye until the van turned the corner. It was a sad moment. Aunt Christine started a chain reaction of tears as we hugged and said good-bye. I think we all had an amazing time together and will treasure this reunion always!

Sitting at Skyharbor Airport in Phoenix

2009-02-01T09:25:00.000-08:00

Today's the Super Bowl - when I bought my ticket home I didn't realize that today would be Super Bowl Sunday. So I came to the airport early to see if I can get on an earlier flight, but US Airways charges $50 to change your flight, PLUS they said it was too late to check my bag and that I had to check it because it was too big, and on top of THAT they charge $15 to check each bag. So all of the 'odds' were against me getting on an earlier flight. But I think it's actually good that I didn't get on that flight. After a week of hanging out with 17 family members, catching up, laughing, posing and taking a million pictures, some down time is really good for me right now, haha!

So how am I spending my 4 hours alone in the airport? I walked around to look for some sweets for my co-workers. It's a tradition in our office to bring back sweets if you go on vacation. Phoenix is not exactly a 'touristy' spot - so I haven't been able to find anything that is representative of the region. I did find cactus candy in the airport, made from prickly pear cactus, and what they called desert rocks (jumbo jelly beans, essentially). Eh, close enough, so that's what I bought. As I passed by Burger King, I realized that it's been a really long time since I'd been up early enough or had the time to get fast food breakfast on the weekends. I was craving hash browns, so I ordered it with a cup of coffee. SO yummy.

I was pleasantly surprised when I turned on my laptop and saw that this airport provided FREE wireless internet, unlike Newark airport who charges for internet access. So here I am, updating my blog, catching up on other people's blogs. This is great :)

I can't believe that our Chen Dynasty reunion is over. I'd been anticipating it and been excited about it for so many months, and now it's over. I'm a bit sad that I now have to go back to 'normal' life but it's a happy kind of sad. It was an amazing week - I could not have asked for anything more. This week had so much significance in so many different aspects. I feel truly and undeservedly blessed to be a part of my family. I think the greatest blessing and revelation from God this week is that we were able to see and experience His love, His grace, His blessings from a generational standpoint. Three generations in our family gathered together in celebration, in fellowship, in Christ's love, with one purpose and one spirit. It didn't matter that we were halfway across the globe from each other for the most of our lives, what matters is that we love and accept one another unconditionally, not just because we are family in an earthly sense, but we are also a spiritual family.

Our family today is the FRUIT of the hard work and sacrificial love of two people - my grandparents. I'd never grasped that reality the way I was able to this past week. Seeing with my own eyes God's blessings and faithfulness through multiple generations because of my grandparents. My grandparents left China for Taiwan to start a new life there, raised six children, brought them up with strong values, good educations, and set a good example for them in raising their own families. My grandmother took her six children to church every Sunday morning - on foot. They were brought up with a Catholic background - although they didn't fully give their lives to God at this point in their lives, these were seeds that were planted and that God continued to water over the years. All six children were married and most had kids of their own. My grandmother helped take of and raise four of those children (my sister, two boy cousins and me). God has been faithful and honored the sacrifices made by generations before me. It is evident that His hand has been on our family through all these years - molding and changing us as individuals and knitting us together through the bond of our mutual faith in Christ. I have no doubt that He will continue to bless the generations after us, how can we ever give back enough to show just how grateful we are of His love?

Belated Holiday Party

2009-01-23T19:17:00.000-08:00

Ann hosted a wonderful holiday party for the alums of my sorority who were in the NYC area. But since there were so many of us with different schedules, we ended up doing it towards the end of January. We had a white elephant exchange - but the rules were that we had to re-gift instead of buy gifts!

The night before the party, I went over to Ann's to help with some of the preparation. First of all, Trader Joe's in the city is crazy. The place is tiny and you can only push these mini carts around, and the line is unbelievably long. Before I got there, Ann said that they weren't allowing people into the store because it was so backed up. I don't know what I would do if I had to shop there every week for my groceries. While Ann prepared some of the appetizers for the next day, I was in charge of the dessert. I think I caused more trouble than I was helpful. First of all, the recipe for the dessert called for chocolate toffee, which we couldn't find. So Ann improvised and bought chocolate chips and Werther's candy which is like toffee?! But we needed to crush the Werther's so Ann said I can use a hammer. I failed miserably and so we decided to use a blender, which worked better. Then I was supposed to use melted butter, except I didn't melt it completely through, so I ended up having to use my arm strength to blend the butter in with the flour. What made it worse was that Ann didn't have an electric mixer, so I was using spoons, forks, spatulas to mix things. There were all these bubbles of flour, clumps of butter, cream cheese, I was really doubtful of how it would turn out. Anyway, the dessert took me like 2 hours to prepare. Although it ended up not being very pretty it was super sweet and delicious.

I can't remember what these things are called but they were SO good - it's made with potatoes, peppers, some spices, dipped in flour and fried I think

This is what it looked like trying to crush the Werther's candy. Would you believe we were baking dessert??!!

Ann made everything from scratch. She is amazing. She's like a Chinese Martha Stewart.

Two girls I met at the party - they were too young for me to have known them when I was in school .... sigh

Gift exchange time!

Tina got two books that were re-gifted, the person who brought them never read them, haha

LOL. I laughed so hard when she opened this gift. Lisa's fiance got the Homer chia pet at their white elephant gift exchange over a month ago, and she re-gifted it! We joked about possibly seeing it again the following year, hahaha.

Hot Pot and Korean BBQ Dinner Party

2009-01-06T18:50:00.000-08:00

One of my friends' parents invited a whole bunch of us over for dinner right after new year's. It was a crazy food fest - there was a BBQ grill and 2 hot pots in the dining room. We all stood around the table and cooked our own food. It was great fun - eating and chatting. Most of the girls were at one end of the table because we liked more vegetables in our hot pot, the boys were like, meat only in our hot pot, haha.

I think they're in a serious discussion

She's knitting socks. She got stuck on a stitch and couldn't figure out how to continue, so she brought it to the party in case someone could help her. Yeah, she was asking the wrong group of people, we had no clue.

He chose the stuffed animals over his friends

Such a romantic picture ... I love Sherry's expressions ....

Another happy couple ... hahaha

And of course, the happy, single girls ;)

I'm not sure what they're laughing at

I had a lot of fun at the party, but I wasn't completely able to relax and enjoy myself. I was scheduled to stand on stage and translate the sermon from Chinese to English at church the following morning. I was kind of a nervous wreck and wasn't able to concentrate on anything for at least a week leading up to it. I knew it was stupid to be nervous about it and that I couldn't fully 'prepare' for it. I could only pray that God would give me the strength and wisdom to get through it. All in all, it went fine. I didn't mess up so badly that the spirit of the sermon couldn't get across I think. But afterwards, I was SO relieved. It really felt like I could finally breathe again. Everyone was very supportive and encouraging, which I definitely appreciated. Nevertheless, it was a challenging and interesting experience and I am glad that I went through it. Let's just hope I don't have to do it again anytime soon :)

Happy New Year - 2009!

2009-01-01T18:23:00.000-08:00

On new year's eve, I went to a prayer meeting at church. It was really nice - we had a time of praise and worship, then we had alone time to go to each 'prayer station' and pray for specific issues and people (our country, family, co-workers, personal prayer requests). We can write our prayers down on a sheet of paper so others can pray in agreement with us. Then at the end of the year we can look back on what we prayed for. It was a great time of reflection, meditation and just talking to God. Afterwards, we separated into two groups, guys and girls, shared and prayed for one another. The kids and young adults group ended around 10pm, some of the adults stayed there all night praying! It was pretty amazing.

Joe and May hosted a new year's eve party at their house. A few of us joined them after the prayer meeting. We played Rock Band (SO much fun!), 'ghetto taboo', watched the ball drop and drank champagne. Really chill, just the way I like to spend my new year's eve :)

We kind of cheated on the drums, haha

We attempted to create a waterfall effect with the champagne but it didn't quite work the way we wanted it to .....

Hilarious - PAINKILLERS!!

Twenty-eight: the perfect age

2008-12-30T18:29:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine from many many years ago (whom I haven't talked to in over two years) emailed me on my birthday asking if she remembered correctly that it was my birthday. I was so surprised that she remembered - and she was home in New Jersey for a couple of weeks so we met up for dinner and caught up. In her email, she said to me, 28 is a perfect number, you won't be at a perfect age again for a very long time, so enjoy it! She's a math wizard, I'm not, so obviously I had no idea what a perfect number was. So I looked it up.

Wikipedia (the most trusted source on the internet, hahaha) says, "In mathematics, a perfect number is defined as a positive integer which is the sum of its proper positive divisors, that is, the sum of the positive divisors excluding the number itself. Equivalently, a perfect number is a number that is half the sum of all of its positive divisors (including itself), or σ(n) = 2n."

Uh ..... wuh???!!!! No worries, the examples helped. "The first perfect number is 6, because 1, 2, and 3 are its proper positive divisors, and 1 + 2 + 3 = 6. Equivalently, the number 6 is equal to half the sum of all its positive divisors: ( 1 + 2 + 3 + 6 ) / 2 = 6. The next perfect number is 28 = 1 + 2 + 4 + 7 + 14. This is followed by the perfect numbers 496 and 8128."

Ahhh, that made more sense. So my first perfect age was 6, now I am 28, and I am not living until 496, so I really should enjoy age 28. It may not be a 'perfect' year - but I am determined to not 'waste' it. Almost a month has already passed since my birthday, time is so precious. I want to accomplish great things for God this year!

Christmas Eve and Day

2008-12-25T17:20:00.000-08:00

Christmas Eve, the family came over to New Jersey for dinner and a fun night of Cranium. A few of my friends from church came too - which was perfect, so we had 4 teams of two!

Mmmm, yummy food from Lotus Cafe

I made Julien smile for the picture - he never smiles on his own .... hmrph

Sof is proud of her plastic forks ....

Yay, Danny and Roger are here - now we can eat!

Julien and Colin's homemade desserts!

The dead clay from Cranium. I think it froze when I left it outside in my car for a couple of weeks. Now it's hardened and we tried everything to soften it - microwave (smoke started coming out of the clay after 2 seconds), soaking it in hot water and massaging it (just got purple stuff all over my hands and they smelled funky), Julien suggested vinegar as a joke and I thought he was serious. LOL. So we ended up skipping all the clay activities, sadness.

We drew numbers to figure out the teams. Sof and Roger pondering over a question

Julien and Danny discussing their question, they made a great team!

Me using my sister as a puppet

Roger using Danny as a puppet - hahahahahaha, it was great

The artists representing their teams looking at the card

*Jeopardy music*

Poor Jackson, he got stuck with me as a teammate - I stink at the fact cards - and we both sucked at Zooma - What the heck are these things?! Colin is thinking after glancing at it for 1 second, 'duh, that's licorice, film and popcorn, SO obvious' ....

Deep discussion in progress

Madelina is mad at Julien for something - can't remember what though, hahaha - must be strike number 1,003,237

After watching Kung Fu Panda until the wee hours of the morning, we finally went to bed. The next morning, I hung out and chatted with the girls and prepared for hot pot! See, Julien not smiling....

Oops, too far to the left. Julien being mean ...

Oops, too far to the right. Julien being mean again ....

After 3 tries of placing the camera on the toaster oven and using the 10 second timer, I finally got everyone in the picture! Merry Christmas!

Hotpot Galore!

2008-12-21T16:06:00.000-08:00

My friend's aunt invited a bunch of people over to her house for a Christmas gathering. We sang Christmas carols together, had a time of prayer and then we split up into the adults and the young people group. I led the young people group and made them play the 'would you rather' game, it got a few really good discussions going. I have never seen so many people eating hotpot together in one house. It looked like a hotpot restaurant, hahaha! It was really fun meeting new people, mostly college kids.

A few girls hanging out at the hotpot table

Gloria and her college friends

Me with girls half my age - I blend in pretty well, no? ;)

He didn't let me take pictures of him all night, but I got one when he wasn't paying attention, hehehe

EBCC Christmas Party

2008-12-20T19:35:00.000-08:00

Yes I know this is really delayed - life has been a little crazy and distracting lately. But hopefully I'll get to catch up soon at the end of this month when I spend a week in Phoenix at my family reunion!

The weekend before Christmas 2008, David (our leader at church) invited us over to his beautiful home for a potluck dinner and white elephant gift exchange.

Andy being a gentleman (or just posing for the camera) and pouring tea for the girls

The boys chatting and catching up before dinner starts

Look at all that 'healthy' food!

We had SO much leftover .....

Gloria, Sherry and Alan are happy with the selection

The line for food - yum, can't wait!

Now that we're stuffed - let's open presents! David explains the rules of the game to us - we roll the dice to if we get to open presents. We each brought a real gift and a silly gift, so each person opens 2 presents. And we get to steal other people's presents if we don't want to open new ones. Then at the end there is a lightening round where after all the presents are opened - you roll the dice and if you get a certain number, you get to force a trade with someone. So presents were just flying all over the place! It was hilarious.

Mike: what is this?!

Mike: oh, they're chopsticks! yaaaaay!

Both of Terence's gifts were Ramen - he was so happy!

Jon: what are these things?! (they're candles)

Alan opens a fancy 'engagement egg' ... haha

I got an organic bag ... booooooo. Then I got a fake cockroach in a box, hahaha!

Danny had no idea what his gift was - good thing someone 'stole' it from him, he couldn't even read the Chinese chess pieces. LOL.

Brian stole the scarf from Gloria - look how proud he is!

A box of plastic dental supplies??!! Eww ....

Gerald got a can of Raid (I actually brought it haha) - perfect, now he can get rid of my roach!

Enchanted Fashions??!!

David stole the scarf from Brian, lol, awww, poor thing

Who can say no to food soap?

Jesus fish wind chimes

Everyone looking at the dice during the lightening round

Singing Christmas carols

Dessert time!

Caren cutting her special homemade apple cake

David happy with the gift we got him - a digital picture frame - it's sitting on his bookshelf in the living room now :)

What an amazing evening of fun, laughter, food and fellowship with great friends! I love Christmas time :)

Birthday Dinner at Kittichai

2008-12-20T12:28:00.000-08:00

I'd been to Kittichai once before a couple of years ago. I'd always wanted to go back because not only was the food mouthwatering delicious, but its presentation was appealing and the atmosphere was upscale but cozy and warm. So for me and Tina's birthday (we're only 3 days apart), we went to Kittichai and had family style Thai food. The portions were so huge we couldn't even finish everything.

The fish up close. This was so good.

This was tuna tartar - isn't the presentation unique?!

Thanks girls for such a fun birthday dinner! So Tina tries to set her friends up on occasion with these semi-random people whom she doesn't know very well. She hasn't tried with me because I wouldn't consider anyone who wasn't Christian. So on this night, she starts describing this guy that she met through like 4 degrees of connections. She rattled off about 3 things about him (nationality, height, looks) - then she goes, AND he's a 'BEACON'!!! and as she said it, she whips her head so she's facing me. At first, I was like, a beacon of what?! And then we all fell over laughing, and we're like, Tina don't you mean, a DEACON?! I love Tina - she's so funny. Another great evening with the girls :)

Birthday Dinner at Maggiano's

2008-12-19T11:56:00.000-08:00

A couple of weekends ago, my friends from church took Joe and me out to celebrate our birthdays since we're only a few days apart (well, more like a year, but who's counting, haha). I'd been to Maggiano's in Philly before and loved the food, but this was the first time I had family style at Maggiano's. Oh my gosh, there was SO much food at the table. All you can eat AND they let you take stuff home too! It was an amazingly tasty dinner. The waiter even let us order an extra appetizer instead of salad - who wants salad at an Italian restaurant??!!

I couldn't resist taking pictures of food - I so don't have proper table etiquette, haha. The veal and mushroom ravioli was amazing. Can you see by my recent posts why I've gained about 5 pounds?

Time for birthday cakes!

I felt so special - I didn't even have to make my own Asian fob signs.

Can't remember what the dessert is called - I think Joe called it the 'plate of goodness' or something to that effect.

Their tiramisu was really tasty, I highly recommend it.

The normal table picture - again, after stuffing ourselves

I still can't believe everyone actually agreed to this when me and Sherry said we should do an Asian fob picture. I think the tables across from us and the waiter thought we were a little crazy. I couldn't stop laughing when I saw the picture. Even the next morning, I was still chuckling to myself.

Seriously, even though it was 'just dinner' - I felt really special. My friends came to pick me up so I didn't have to drive - I didn't even have to open the car door. Then during dinner, because it's family style, you have to pass the plates in the middle. Those plates were apparently really heavy cuz the guys were complaining that they were heavy. But it just so happened that the girls were sitting between guys and so I think the guys were just serving us. It was so awesome - I guess being a girl has certain advantages that I just never knew about :)

Lisa and John's Christmas Party

2008-12-18T11:32:00.000-08:00

A couple of weekends ago, John and Lisa hosted a White Elephant Gift Exchange party at John's place. Lots of finger foods, wine, good company and laughter - I had so much fun. I think every person brought a bottle of wine, haha! We got to meet some of John's friends and Lisa and June's (twin sister) middle school friend. Can you imagine still being friends with your middle school friends? That's pretty rare.

Each person brought a wrapped gift and we drew numbers to determine the order of gift opening!

June: Hmmm ... what shall I pick? Let's hope I don't get something like a Homer chia pet. LOL.

So yeah, June picked the Homer chia pet. It was hilarious. Then when it's John's turn, he steals it from June, look how happy he is, hahaha. Lisa yells at him because she wanted him to steal the wine glasses. LOL. But John is still happy he has the Homer chia pet. I guess Lisa forgave him because a week later - John PROPOSED!!!! He planned an amazingly thoughtful and sweet evening. So yes, they are now engaged. I am SO happy for them!!! :)

So now June gets to pick another gift. And of all the gifts, she picked these cleaning slippers with microfiber on the bottom so you can clean your house while you walk around. LOL. Ann and Jenny are the two who brought the Homer chia pet and slippers which is why they're hysterical.

Jenny got a fancy wine opener. Seriously, it's a wine opener.

I ended up with a 24 DVD but I convinced John's friend to switch with me. He got fancy chocolate to make hot chocolate with. What guys sit around making hot chocolate together?! I think it was a fair exchange :)

I love my girls. I can't believe we've known each other for 10 years. I'm so thankful that we're all in the city together and have stayed in touch all these years. Thank you to Lisa and John for hosting such a great party.

My 28th Birthday!!!

2008-12-17T20:50:00.000-08:00

About a month ago, I was dreading my 28th birthday. Twenty-eight!!! Where did the time go and what have I been doing all these years?! But then I realized that if I'm depressed about my birthday then no one will want to celebrate it with me, haha. So I decided to embrace it and just be thankful that I still look 21 :)

First of all, I want to thank everyone who wished me a happy birthday today. I felt really, really special and loved. A few hours before my actual birthday, I was having a duo birthday dinner with my girlfriends (I'll post those pictures soon) in the city, so that was a great lead-in! Then 12:01am I get my first happy birthday text. I got home a few minutes later and both my parents were still up. They gave me a big hug and a really nice card. I stayed up for a bit catching up on some emails, and by the time I went to bed at 2am, I already had several 'happy birthdays', albeit via the internet. The next morning, I was running late and risked not having a parking spot in the lot. And what do you know - there was ONE spot left, the spot closest to the bus stop so I had the least possible amount of walking to do. Throughout the day today, the wall posts and texts continued, and I am very appreciative of course, but it felt strange because I was at work all day. It was a really busy day, and only 1 co-worker of mine knew that it was my birthday. I didn't feel it was appropriate to just announce it to everyone. So while it felt like it was my birthday 'electronically' - in person, in reality, it didn't feel like my birthday. I did get a really thoughtful gift today though. It's a book that belonged to my friend and was really relevant to conversations that we've had a lot over the last few months.

My boss from my previous job somehow remembered (even though I haven't talked to him in a year) that it was my birthday and called me the day before. I was amazed! And a friend whom I haven't seen in a long time emailed and said, it's your birthday today isn't it?! I like surprises - it's very hard to surprise me, haha. I am also shocked at how much people use Facebook - if people I don't even talk to post on my wall ON my birthday, they must be signed on ALL the time, even at work.

So I had wanted to take off of work today, but we were having a photo shoot for a new website. Our website looks like a 10 year old designed it in 1980. And our bosses really went all out to find a professional team of photographers and makeup artist. The lady who did my makeup did an amazing job - she had like 20 shades of foundation spread out on the table, I think she carried all of the makeup in a huge suitcase. She was really helpful too - giving me hints and telling me what color I should use, etc. We chatted while she worked, and she told me that she did Tom Cruise's makeup a week ago. That's pretty awesome, huh? Yea, so she's really good and so I asked for her card in case I ever get married and need makeup done. She probably charges a lot though. So after my makeup session, I had to go through these different poses and smile for some 50-60 pictures. My mouth started hurting and twitching after every 10 pictures. The photographers had so much equipment - the backdrop, these umbrella looking things, lights, it was really professional. I thought it was kind of fun - but a bit intimidating to be in the center of attention.

I tried to get home as soon as possible to have dinner with my parents - and I got the second to the last seat on the bus. My mom cooked many yummy dishes and of course, we had to have the traditional long-life-noodles for birthdays. Then we had a mixed fruit cake with coffee. We got a little silly when we sang Happy Birthday to me.

Dignified dinner picture - yes, I'm wearing pajama pants - it's the only way to be comfortable after a long day at work :)

Isn't it such a cute cake? I'm turning 1!

The silliness began when we started singing ....

... and continued ...

Yay for cake!

This has been an awesome birthday week - probably the best I've ever had. I am so blessed to be surrounded by family and friends who love and care about me :) I am hopeful for another year of exciting adventures and new things! More pictures from other birthday celebrations this week to come soon!

*I have a million things that I want to post, I just have a million other things that I have to do first these days, so hopefully soon I will get to catch up again. Seriously, I need 30 hours a day or the superhero power to not need sleep!*

Thanksgiving 2008 Part 2

2008-11-30T13:09:00.000-08:00

The day after Thanksgiving, I had to go into work. It was a strange day - I was at a client's apartment for four hours going through her paperwork and answering her questions. I don't know why I thought I'd be sitting in the living room with her sipping tea and chatting about the weather. I was exhausted by the time I got to the office, and I had a pounding headache. It was so bad that I could hardly do any work, but somehow I got through the day. Then I went to my friend's aunt's house in NJ for Thanksgiving dinner #2! She was kind enough to invite a few of us young adults over for hot pot, fellowship and ping pong. The adults kept making us eat more and more and more, even when we said we were full, they still kept feeding us nonstop! LOL, Chinese culture is so centered around food.

After we stuffed ourselves with hotpot, we went downstairs to play ping pong, well I mostly watched cuz I stink at it. Then we had some time of worship and fellowship, ate some dessert. It was really amazing because my headache was still there during dinner, but somewhere during worship I think it went away and awhile later I realized that it was gone! A lot of times I feel like we just get together to play games and hang out, and there's nothing wrong with that of course, but it's refreshing and encouraging to have a time of corporate worship and fellowship, and getting to know one another on a deeper level.

Getting ready for praise and worship

Mike and Gerald are so funny together, they were roommates in college so they go WAY back

I learned a new feature on my camera. They were telling me that you can choose to have certain colors show up in black and white pictures. This was their proof. Interesting huh?

Thanksgiving 2008

2008-11-29T18:10:00.000-08:00

What a great time with family and friends! In the morning, my parents and I went to church for the Thanksgiving day service - people shared their testimonies, the choir and other small groups presented songs, this little 4 or 5 year old girl (she was so cute) said the 'Our Father' prayer in Chinese. It was so adorable it literally made me cry. Afterwards, the rest of my family came in from NYC and we went to pick them up at the bus stop. We all ate lunch together at church after the service - it was potluck style. There were SO many people - and they don't kid around about food! It's like a free-for-all, if you don't hurry, there's nothing left! Someone brought an entire fish, and by the time I got to it, it was a fish head and bones, hahah! My friends from church were very welcoming and hospitable towards my family; it was really nice to have them meet each other.

After lunch, we went back to my parents' house and hung out while dinner was being prepared. I have the best family ever - I will never forget the hilarious conversations we shared on that L-shaped couch!

Dinner is ready! We missed you Madelina and Julien!

Mix of Asian and American style cooking

The chicken was perfect, especially with Colin's yummy gravy!

Guess who made the apple pie? Isn't it beautiful? Mmmm, with vanilla ice cream. I think there is still some left over in the fridge, hmmm... should I go eat it?

Larry and Ruby's Wedding

2008-11-24T18:36:00.000-08:00

Last weekend was Larry and Ruby's wedding. It was a beautiful ceremony, I especially liked the vows and the words of encouragement that the pastor shared.

So sweet ....

I love Devon's expression, so cute. He was also the life of the party in kids' land, all the girls wanted to dance with him!

Ruby's vows were simple but really touching. A lot of what she said reflected the types of vows I would want to say. She promised to love him in all situations - when she's proud of him and even when she's disappointed in him. She said that he would always be #2 in her life because she's going to place God first. She ended with, 'I am proud to be your wife'. Wow. That's so powerful, and when I heard it and thought about it, I can't imagine myself saying it. I WANT to be able to say that on my wedding day, but I realized at that moment that it would have to be supernatural. In the natural, I am still too proud, critical, judgmental, and it's easier for me to focus on the faults rather than to just love unconditionally. It showed me that love really is a choice. You choose to love the person God has for you.

God of Redemption and Restoration

2008-11-23T11:40:00.000-08:00

Redemption: salvation; deliverance upon payment of ransom; rescue; repurchase, as of something sold

Restoration: renewal; revival; reestablishment; a return of something to a former, original, normal, or unimpaired condition; compensation for something taken away or lost

We have redemption through Christ's death - His blood was the ransom paid to free us from the bondage of sin. That's probably the simplest and most foundational principle to any follower of Christ. Recently, I've been learning that God's redemption goes way beyond just salvation. When He repurchased us from the hands of the enemy, He is not only redeeming our lives from that point forward, He redeemed our ENTIRE life, including the years before we knew Him.

Sofia shared a testimony that she heard recently about a pastor who did not start living for the Lord until his 40s, and he felt somewhat regretful that he did not live out the potential that God had for him and wondered where he would be in his spiritual walk if he had started living for God in his 30s or even 20s. The Lord told him, 'You would be exactly where you are today.' I was so amazed when I heard that. God is not bound by the limits of time - He created time. There is not a formula or rule that says you have to be living for God for a certain number of years in order for you to be at a certain stage. Of course that doesn't mean we just waste our lives away and wait until we're retired to start living for Him, but it just goes to show that once you've made that commitment to Christ, He redeems all the time that was 'lost', and prepares you for the work that you have to do despite your past, despite the fact that you're inexperienced, despite your weaknesses.

After God redeems our entire lives and we are completely His, He then works continuously to restore things that had been lost or taken away. My sister shared another thing with me recently that was really powerful - an example is in the Old Testament law, when someone steals an ox or a sheep, he must restore more than one ox or sheep to the person he stole from. When God restores, He doesn't just restore things to the way they were - He makes them BETTER! It is almost unfathomable - it's so incredibly awesome. If people (me included) fully comprehended just how awesome God's love is, our lives would be drastically and radically different.

Sometimes I look back on my 27 (almost 28) years, I can find so many points in my life where I wonder 'what if I had chosen a different path', or 'I wish I had been able to experience that'. No, we cannot go back in time and re-live our lives. And we may never know what would have, could have, or should have been. But what I am finding more and more these days is that God doesn't erase or condemn us for our past, our past now belongs to Him because He has redeemed us - He can use what's in our past for good, for His kingdom. Everything happens for a reason and while we may not see those reasons at the time or even now, He knows what He is doing, always.

Today I played the piano as accompaniment for my parents' small group - we presented a song during service. I thought I'd be nervous but it was actually really fun - to be able to play the piano for corporate worship. It's been over 10 years since I'd played the piano consistently, but the skills that I had developed now belongs to the Lord, and He remembers and is able to use them for His purposes. All those years of Chinese school that helped me to keep up my speaking and reading skills, I never thought they'd have any purpose other than to communicate with my parents and impress their friends, watch Taiwanese dramas, or get an easy A to boost my GPA in college. But God had bigger plans. Seven years after I accepted Christ as my Savior, He called me to a Chinese speaking church, something I'd never imagined.

I've had a few conversations with people recently about how God redeems the time and restores things that we've lost. A common thing that we seem to agree on is how we feel like we're kids again, like we've been given back the innocence that we've lost along the way. I think I shared this in a previous post - that there are certain things that God is allowing me to experience now, experiences that I've 'missed out on' when I was younger. And honestly, I have no doubt that God is restoring things in a way that is BETTER than what was and what might have been. Who would have thought that I would be back at my parents' house at the age of 27? Growing up, I never appreciated having my parents around, who wanted to hang out with their parents as a teenager?! But in college and for the years that I lived in the city, I loved coming home on weekends when I could and I missed being around them as I realized that it was just going to get more difficult to see them as I got older. Then all of a sudden, it's like I'm a kid again, enjoying being the baby of the family instead of the responsible older child. I get to enjoy hanging out with my parents, eating breakfast together on Saturday mornings while we share God's word, being a part of the same church, all the while being able to have my own privacy and no curfews :) None of this would have been possible back then - the timing that God chose to restore this area of my life is just amazing.

On top of that, God has also been restoring the types of friendships that I've always wanted but never had. All those TV shows that I watched growing up have groups of guys and girls who are best friends and do everything together. I think somewhere along the way, I just said to myself, I guess it wasn't meant to be. I figured it was too late to find a new group at the age of 27 - everyone already has their group of friends by now. I was totally fine with being around a group of girls most of the time, and occasionally keeping in touch with a few guy friends here and there. Furthermore, I was beginning to realize that being friends with guys was more complicated than I had originally imagined, so I was content with things the way they were. Then all of a sudden, it's like, God just hands me a group of new friends at church. I think one of my first thoughts when I started getting to know this group was - wait, am I actually going to have a group of friends with girls AND guys?! God is full of surprises. We're all about the same age - and while a lot of people our age are married or even have kids already - our group is mostly single, so it feels like we're a bunch of kids. Again, it's not something I'd ever imagined happening at this point in my life. Sometimes in conversation, my friends would be surprised that I don't know certain group traditions or things that the church has done for years because it really feels like I've known them for years rather than just months. One of the girls in the group said to me once, 'It was so strange - it's like you just appeared out of nowhere and now you're a part of the group.' LOL.

Another quick story about God's restoration that I think is really cool. When the Israelites returned from captivity and had finished rebuilding the temple, God said to them, 'Who of you is left who saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Does it not seem to you like nothing? .... Be strong, all you people of the land, and work, for I am with you ... The silver is mine and the gold is mine ... The glory of this present house will be GREATER than the glory of the former house.' A lot of times we may look at the present and wish for things that were in the past, or complain that the good old days are gone. But there may be things that we cannot yet see, or that we can't see with our physical eyes - things that God is restoring and making more glorious. If we truly are living for God, then our lives (silver, gold) belong to Him and because of that, because He is alive and with us, that the present glory is great than the glory of the past.

Dinner at the Whiddons - Amazing Stew

2008-11-16T14:43:00.000-08:00

Thanks Colin and Sof for having us over! We started out with wine, assorted cheese, meat and bread. Then Colin cooked up a delicious pot of beef and veggie stew with mashed potatoes and a side of brussels sprouts and chestnuts. I've never had brussels sprouts that I liked until this night. So delicious. After dinner - a few of us were engrossed in a video game and the others played trivia pursuit. I stink at trivia pursuit, it's a game that makes me look and feel stupid =)
But it was a very fun evening!

A few of us brought desserts - we might have gone a little overboard - there were only 9 people at the dinner party and look at the selection we had!

Thoughts on Guys and Girls

2008-11-16T12:02:00.000-08:00

Kind of a random post based on observations about the differences between guys and girls.

One day I was at the gym (which is an all-female gym) and I was using the weight machines. There weren't that many people around, and I noticed a girl about my age using a machine next to me. The only reason I noticed her was because she set her phone on the ground and I was looking for a new phone. I was doing my thing but I could see her because there are mirrors along the walls, and I noticed that she stopped in the middle of her set. Out of curiosity I glanced over to see why she stopped. She reached down and picked up her cell phone, flipped it open and a HUGE giddy smile spread across her face. She proceeded to send a text back. I smiled in response - it was probably a guy she liked. As much as I hate to admit it - that's what girls are like. We get giddy and smile when we hear from boys that we like.

Then it crossed my mind that just a day or two prior, I was in the subway on my way home from work. A woman got off the same car as me and was about 10 feet in front of me. She was wearing a very fitting skirt and it made her curves very obvious. I don't blame people for noticing or even looking for a few seconds. I mean, I noticed. But then I see this cop who was standing on the platform stare at her from behind as she passed him. Not only that, he calls his partner who was maybe 10 feet away from him, made a head motion towards the girl when his partner looked over, and then I saw his partner inconspicuously turn his head until he saw the girl. Then as I was walking past the first cop, I heard him mutter inappropriate comments to himself. I know things like this happen, but come on, you're cops for crying out loud, on duty! This is why I am so uncomfortable walking in the city by myself sometimes. I've seen so many guys stare at girls in front of me in ways that are so disrespectful and gross. I can only hope that I blend in with the crowd well enough that no one pays any attention to me, even though I know full well that these types of guys would do the same thing to any female who passed them.

Obviously I'm not saying this is how I'd stereotype guys and girls in general, but it was just interesting that these two things happened within a day or two of each other. It reminded me of how different guys and girls are and what a strange world we live in.