last friday night, maria & i had the honor & privilege of visiting both baby christopher miyai & baby jocelyn yang!


baby topher with mommy alice



baby jocelyn with mommy joyce



me & maria with baby christopher

to continue with the baby/kid theme, on sunday our cell group met at farley house & opened up our meeting to everyone to come hang out with crystal before she heads back to china. to our delight, jacob, lucas, and sarah came along to play with everyone.



sarah, a little exuberant with the basketball



we asked lucas to give us his saddest face. this is what he did.



we asked lucas & sarah to pose for a picture for us. so they held up their rocks and said "CHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESE" over and over again. if i ever get around to uploading my videos, i'll post it. SO CUTE.



jacob playing with his mommy.



lucas learned how to play foosball.

i have tons more pictures of them, but i don't want to seem too obsessive with the kids. so i'll stop. :) but to quote olivia, i don't think canaan can make ugly babies.



here is part of our cell group with crystal. it's so exciting to see just how much joy she has serving overseas in china. definitely refreshing.

lastly, i'll leave you with what my coworkers do on a late friday afternoon when we're done with work, we can't leave yet, and the boss is on vacation.

we were hanging around in the aisles, when i went back to my cube to pack up. all of a sudden, i heard a loud crash in the cube next to me, and a yelp. i run over because i thought maybe something fell and hit my coworker. but instead, i discover this:


apparently james, who is on the other side of the cube wall, decided to try to take the panel out between their cubes.



jeremy & james, the two youngest in our group, peek through the hole. they then proeceded to put the panel back in place, but not before...



james stole a picture of ye's husband and put it in his own cube. he claimed he needed more deocrations in his cube.

here are all the pics:
friday in the office
visiting baby miyai & baby yang
hanging out with crystal

**
wow. our stock has gone up like crazy. look at the 52 week range. i never thought my original options would be above water, but four years later - boy, was i (gladly) proven wrong big time!

i have such nerdy childhood friends. let me recap (by the way, all happened to go to cal for undergrad):

olivia, masters in nursing (nurse practioner), johns hopkins
eva, masters in nursing (nurse practioner), johns hopkins
ev, mph, johns hopkins
mary, mph, yale
jean, doctorate in phyiscal therapy, wash u in st. louis
alinna, masters in education, stanford
alice, masters in education, davis
karen (chiang, not me), mba, stanford
karen (me), uh... the furthest i got was taking the gmats, but the score will expire this upcoming year, and i don't want to apply to school. i don't think i'd be able to score as well again if i let my current score expire, so... oh well!

that doesn't even count all my other friends getting or have gotten their masters/phd's, law degrees, or in med school, etc. no wonder i feel like such a slacker. sheesh.

i bring this up now because i'm praying about an opportunity to go on a missions trip with canaan this summer. many people know that i have tried multiple times to go on missions in the past couple of years, but timing has never worked out (like when i was okay'd by work to take the time off to go/lead the first mexico team a couple of years ago, then subsequently denied that time off.) and a lot of trips are in july, when i definitely cannot go because of quarter end. so this opportunity may work out for me since it's in august... but it's in taiwan. and though my parents always tried to get me to go on missions to taiwan, i've always felt more of a heart for china, hence oex 2000. but i'm praying about it, and i know God can change hearts. plus i have plenty of vacation (currently have more than five weeks, and will have more than six weeks by Aug) to take for this three-week opportunity.

so what does this have to do with all my nerdy friends? this opportunity is actually teaching college students and prefers people with higher degrees. which... i do not have. and... i have no clue what i'd be able to teach them! plus, it's not even a confirmed trip from canaan yet, depending on interest. so there's a lot God would have to do if i were to go. but at the very least, if everything happens, i can be sure that He is really calling me there. :) we'll see.

grrrr...

AUGH! no more using priceline (i used their regular service, not their "name your price" service). i'm ticked off. i basically got charged in full for a hotel room i cancelled. i called priceline's customer service, and they told me the hotel doesn't accept cancellations and that i'd be charged in full. and i can't reinstate my reservation!

1) why did they let me cancel online if the hotel doesn't accept cancellations? and there was no warning when i hit "cancel" online either.
2) if i'm going to pay, at least i could give it away to someone who could use it! but now i'm paying for nothing.
3) how in the world is redwood city in the SFO area?? that's the whole reason why i cancelled in the first place.

it's so goregous today! too bad i'm stuck in the office. but at least i got to wear a skirt. my knee has so much more freedom in a skirt - after my first two surgeries, i didn't wear pants for months. plus the swelling was so bad that i couldn't even wear half my pants anyway. but then again that was in may & june & july ... & aug ... & sept of last year, when it was warm.

it's funny, for some reason, several people have mentioned to me over the past few weeks that they liked my "haircut." why funny? uh, because i haven't cut my hair since august of last year. when the first person - i think my pt (who i see all the time) - mentioned it, i was a little confused. haircut? no, i didn't get a haircut. but then a bunch of other people have commented on my "haircut" since then as well. go figure. my hair is getting long, i don't think i've had it this long since maybe senior year in college, and before then, probably high school. only three more months until i can cut it again! the things i do for my friends. :) :)

i've been going to the gym whenever i'm not at PT and am free during the night, and it's actually depressing because all it reminds me of is what i cannot do. the day i can conquer the stairs and go up and down with no pain, i am going to throw a party. let me know if you wanted to be invited. :) i'm just praying that there will actually be a party, it's already been over a year.

ahhhhh!

alinna is going to kill me if i talk about 24 on my blog again. and i've held my tongue after what happened last week, but this week...

all i can say is.

AHHHHH! this is why i should watch it when the dvd comes out. this is the first season i'm watching it week-to-week and it's killing me. why is no one who watches it online so i can talk to them about it?

i was at home, watching tv, and flipped to espn. they had on a show about stories of inspiration, and the first story they focused on was the one about the autistic high school student who played in his only and last high school basketball game. in a world where we always hear about hate crimes, violence, kids teasing others incessantly for being "different" and more, it's encouraging to see a story like this. and it's not about the fact that he went and scored 20 points in four minutes, but really to see his teammates' reactions and excitement and the student section cheer him on - it is truly heartwarming. they showed interviews of some of his teammates, who gave up their own shots to give it to him. one teammate was like, "man, he scored more than me. he has bragging rights on me!" hehe.

anyway, i think i'm finally done with birthday celebrations. my oldest brother took me out to lunch on saturday since he missed our family dinner last week. my revelation from the lunch was that he had several classes with steve nash when he was at santa clara university! unfortunately, he didn't get any autographs because he didn't realize he would become so famous. i still remember in high school when mr. davey took a week off from teaching to go with his dad when santa clara went to the tournament. we were all appalled that he would ditch teaching us for a week to go off and travel with his dad to a basketball game. :)

and on friday night, joy cooked me & maria (andrea & byron got to benefit from the free meal as well) dinner for our bdays. maria was raving about how she exercised all day just so she could eat four green tea cupcakes. we had doubts about her ability to eat four (they were pretty big) but she insisted. in the end, she could only manage two. :) the meal was delicious. thanks!!

some pictures.


me salivating over the food while we waited for maria & byron (who were late). we were seriously about to start dinner without them. luckily, they showed up before we began.


andrea, joy, maria, and me


byron, joy, and andrea frost the green tea cupcakes.


maria & me with our green tea cupcakes now frosted with green tea frosting. YUM!

lots more pictures here:
bday at joy's.

this morning during service, ruth, amy, bob and hanlin sang "lean on me." since i had my camera with me, i managed to get most of it on video (i missed the very beginning since i was running back from the piano.) they did an awesome job! if you see a head bobbing at the bottom, it's chris getting his groove on to the song. :) unfortunately, the song gets cut off at the end because of the upload limit. but you can watch most of it.



and lastly, i leave you with a video of one of my favorite kids, lucas, showing us his interpretation of "strong." i have video of him dancing too. so cute!

the david crowder band/third day concert was fun, but tiring as expected. i am now an expert with the credit card machine, since that was my job. we got to see a good amount of the concert, and since we were "staff" we were allowed to watch the concert from wherever we wanted. o and i went to the mezzanine (is that what it's called? the balconies on the side that are close to the stage?) since it was still very close to the stage, but up higher without any obstructions of our view. i ran into a couple of people from all parts of life - i even heard our high school biology teacher was there! (but didn't see her since i wasn't at the main merchandise booth but off on the side swiping credit cards.) the most tiring part was after the concert, taking inventory, taking everything down and packing, etc. but i did get to come home with both a third day CD & a david crowder band CD.


bob, andy, and chris before the doors open.


all my concert pics are blury, but here are a few.


david crowder band.



third day.

i took a whole bunch of videos too, but i'll just post one. this was during the david crowder band, when the entire audience was jumping up and down. pretty fun to watch from up above. for some reason my hand wasn't so steady while shooting this. :)






olivia, me, chris, and... some other random volunteer at the merchandise booth. this was during the concert when there wasn't much going on, and we had already come back from taking our turn to watch the concert.

the rest of the pics are here.

andy has some good pics from his post. looks like he went closer than we did. my knee needed a chair. :)

you know, at the chris tomlin concert, it was seriously like 90% asian. everywhere i turned, i would bump into someone i know. it was like the norcal gathering of the asian christian community (where everyone knows someone who knows someone...) so we figured last night's concert would be the same. but it wasn't - there actually weren't that many asians, just a sprinkling here and there. why was the demographic so different? are chris tomlin songs more popular in asian churches? was word of mouth about the chris tomlin concert much faster in the asian circles so all the asians bought up all the tickets? or are asians just cheap? (chris tomlin tickets were $15 for everyone or i think $5 for students, third day/david crowder tickets were as much as $50.) go figure.

**

this morning, as i approached my cube, i saw an orange dot sticker on one of my chairs.



i didn't think much of it since every once in a while, our company takes inventory and sticks those dot stickers on the things they already counted. but then... i walked further into my cube... (now you can see my messy desk/cube.)



my response: what the. WHAT THE HECK? i hear coworkers in the background trying to hold back laughter.

i walk in further.



"PETER!!!!!!!!!!!!"

he hadn't arrived yet, so what do i do?

"If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also." -Luke 6:29

nah. it's all about lex talionis. ;)






i had stuck stickers upside down on his chair, knowing that he'd probably see them and take them off before sitting down. oddly enough, he did see them, but sat down right on top of them.



this is the result, after he got back up to check out the damage he did to my cube again. later he told me he thought that i had found white stickers. he didn't realize i had just put them sticky-side up.

pics of our damaged cubes here.

(you know, i realized i'm now much faster at uploading pics after i discovered the SD card reader on my laptop. i'm such a dork, i still can't believe it took me 1.5 years to discover it. i do have a separate SD card reader, but i was always too lazy to pull it out. and now i can upload pics while at work. :) it's super fast!)

**
we're stuck at work, and want to watch the cal game pretty badly. we can't use cbs's MMOD because they stinking black out the local game to make you watch it on tv. since our work ip address is local, all the pac-10 games have been blacked out for us. we have no tv around us... so we have to be creative. first, we tried net meeting. we asked a coworker on the east coast to connect with us, but the connection was so slow, it wasn't worth it. so our solution? we're going to remote connect to her laptop. and it works! awesome. yes, i am contributing to the $14M/minute loss in america, or whatever that figure is.

tomorrow i'm leaving work early to volunteer at the third day/david crowder concert. woohoo! we'll be in the booths selling merchandise, just like last time, and should be able to catch parts/most of the show. it should be fun, although probably tiring.

pics from the weekend.

on friday, i went with my family to gochi to celebrate my birthday. i'm surprised neither of my parents have been to gochi or tanto, especially considering my dad loves all things japanese. (my dad's family moved from taiwan to japan when he was in hs, so he went to hs & college in japan. i still have relatives in japan who married & settled there.) it was delicious, although i forgot to bring my camera, so no pictures.

saturday, i got up bright and early to head up to the city for the canaan community group scavenger hunt. i was pretty sure my knee wouldn't hold up traipsing around the city, so i opted not to do the hunt, but to stay back and keep sherry (who organized the whole thing) company. joy ended up joining us since her group all ditched out at the last second for various reasons.



what joy, sherry, and i planned to do while everyone was out and about. (in reality, we ended up having to put out many small fires regarding the hunt, visited a couple of starbucks, then set up the restaurant to show the results of the scavenger hunt.)



all the march babies. three - maria, sherry, and summer, share the same bday (the actual day of the scavenger hunt), garfield and i share the same bday, and then shally (who actually shares a bday with joseph) and william. since when have there been so many march bdays? i don't remember march being a popular bday month.

anyway, there were some hilarious pictures from the various groups. you can check out all the groups' results here. i have all the pics since we used my laptop to display all the results.

headed straight back home afterwards to go to al's where she was the master baker for my bday. everything tasted as good as the real thing!


cheese scones.



brioches.



saratoga girls. great friends. 'nuff said. (the panda is there in tribute to mary, the only non-saratoga girl, who had to leave early. she knit me a panda. awesome.)



the boys in their little corner of the apartment. looks like they're having a little *too* much fun.



hideyo, a man of many names: husband of alinna, future pastor, and bartender. yes, he's graduated from bartending school, and busted out his skills for the evening.

sunday, went to service & sunday school (love it when john & sandra teach :), and hung out in farley house for a while before heading home. tried to take a nap but someone decided to come over early before small group to bother me. :) i was so sleepy when she called, i didn't realize i agreed to let her come over early. i just kept saying yes on the phone. celebrated my bday again with pie & ice cream.



with janet and olivia. note the use of alinna & hideyo's unity candle set again. :)

all the pics:
scavenger hunt
my bday at al & hideyo's
my bday at small group

Doesn't this sound soooo good?

1) Mediterranean salad
2) Orange duck
3) Stilton cheese fondue with:
-french bread
-veggies
-scallops
-prawns
4) Dessert: green tea cupcakes w/ green tea frosting

I can't wait until dinner on friday! pre-thanks to gourmet chef joy! she couldn't contain herself and had to tell me & maria the menu. hehe.

**

our group recently hired a new senior manager, and one of our traditions with a new hire is to have everyone ask the person a question. in return, the person gets to ask one question that everyone else has to answer. so this person's question was: "what is one memory in your life that you'd like to erase?"

i was the first to answer, so my obvious immediate answer was "the ski accident that caused all these knee surgeries and so much grief in my life." close second would have to be the river rafting accident (yes, even before my left acl tear), only because i honestly thought i was going to die.

but thinking about it more, i realized that i wouldn't want to erase that skiing accident from my life. i believe God has a purpose for every single moment of my life, whether it be to teach me, mold me, sharpen me, or something else - and though this has to be one of the toughest experiences for me so far in life, i know He has a greater reason for it, even if I don't know what it is now (or will ever know). So if i were to answer this question now, i'd have to say nothing. either that, or so dumb embarrasing event. (ask me about the time i got chased down a football field by a bunch of football players.)

Is there anything in your life you wish you could erase?

pt is engaged! congrats!! three hyun brothers down, one left to go.

busy weekend, full of adventures in the city, several celebrations for my bday, and lots of time with family & friends. good food + good company = lots of good, God-blessed times. major props to al who turned her & hideyo's place into cheeseboard, the sunnyvale branch. she busted out the cheeseboard cookbook, and went all-out for my bday. brioches, scones, breads, pizzas, the works. i'll post pics later, but their place smelled SO GOOD.

tonight in small group, we continued on in our series on grace with resting grace. one of the things tim keller mentioned was that peace from God shouldn't replace any normal emotions we would normally feel in our lives. like, it's okay to have peace, but still feel grief, etc. i think for me, this whole time, i was feeling like the frustration and discouragement i've had recently about my knee meant that i wasn't fully trusting in God because i didn't have complete peace about the situation. i thought that so long as those emotions still existed within me, i wasn't in complete peace. so it was a good message for me to hear right now.

and by the way, some advice - when choosing music to play as background music during individual reflection time, don't choose:
1) opera
2) bag pipes
when the opera started playing, i couldn't help snickering because i seriously couldn't concentrate. it wasn't even melodic singing, but this crazy soprano going all-out. olivia hit me in the back to stop me, but she ended up being the one busting out laughing along with janet. so janet asked for some music without lyrics, to which nelson agreed, searched, found something, and played... bagpipes. we didn't even try to hold ourselves this time and fell over laughing. absolutely hilarious.

AND - we found use again for al & hideyo's unity candle! for my bday pie! (we didn't have birthday candles.) man, who knew unity candles would be so useful post-wedding? everyone should get a set!

and after a couple years of drought, cal is finally in the tournament again! 7th seed, first game against NC State. didn't cal play nc state in the first round the last time they were in the tournament? with the richard midgley 3-pointer at the buzzer? anyway, if we win, it's a potential for a second round game against texas. why does the ncaa keep shoving texas into cal's face. anyway, go bears!

birthday, part 2

so i thought the whole drew birthday saga thing was over. especially when he got it wrong the first time, i figured he'd ask olivia for the correct date. but i was wrong.

drew (11:04:00 PM): today's your bday???!
drew (11:04:03 PM): or was it tuesday?
me (11:04:06 PM): what?!
me (11:04:09 PM): hahahaha
me (11:04:23 PM): you might as well wish me happy birthday every day of the year!
drew (11:04:37 PM): dangit
drew (11:04:50 PM): omg
drew (11:04:55 PM): i totally missed it!
drew (11:04:57 PM): that's not fair!
me (11:05:00 PM): HAHAHAHA
me (11:05:03 PM): dude you're horrible at this

i'd be more offended that he wished me happy birthday on every day but the actual day, but i can't stop laughing. even peter got it right the second time.

help!

thanks everyone for the birthday calls, ims, emails, cards, etc. i like how the first ten people asked me "am i the first to wish you a happy birthday?" amy got that honor when she left a voicemail on my phone sometime before i got to work. actually, come to think of it, ev gets the honor for posting on her blog at 12:01 am. i spent my birthday at work, recovering from food poisoning, going to the doctor for my knee, and spending most of the night at physical therapy. yes, i lead an exciting & wild life. :)

okay, this may be kind of gross, so don't read on if you don't want to help me.

so when i barfed in the car, and into the leaky bag, it leaked onto my pants and the car seat. unfortunately, my TL car seats are perforated leather, so though we tried to clean my seats immediately, the vomit seeped into the holes, and now it's dried up in there and i can't get it out! it's really gross. any ideas on how to get it out?

i'm feeling much better now, thanks to everyone for checking up on me. let me tell you, food poisoning is pure misery. probably one of the most miserable nights i've ever had, second only to my first night back home after my first right knee surgery. i still don't get how 13 people could order the same thing and only one person (me) get hit.

so a pic recap of the weekend:


does anyone know what these trees are? of all the countless times all of us have driven up and down highway 5, none of us have ever seen these trees. at least not in bloom like this. the entire length of highway 5 was lined with these trees - kind of made the drive prettier than normal.



the rehearsal dinner was a full-blown chinese banquet (so we essentially had two chinese banquets two nights in a row), but this place had some pretty unique dishes. this one was a fried scallop & noodle dish - quite tasty. and the scallops were super moist.



gasp! evidence of andrew eating vegetables!



jen's nephew, joshua is super cute. he was really obsessed with roaring like a tiger.



in our hotel room, andrea fell on the floor laughing. what was she laughing at? you'll have to do your own research and find out. :)


saturday morning, bob, jt and i headed over to reni's parents house in san dimas to hang out with the whole liu clan.


audrey trying to feed beth a cheerio! so cute.



audrey hugging a teddy bear.



sandy, audrey, me, reni and beth



beth playing in her house



the whole gang


after visiting the liu family in the morning, we headed to the church for the wedding ceremony.


the central part of the ceremony



as usual, since i was stuck on the side by the piano, i couldn't get good shots of the ceremony. jen & jerry exchanging vows.



me, maria, crystal, andrea, and joy after the ceremony



jen & jerry had an ice sculpture at their banquet!



their wedding cake



it's jerry! dancing!!



crystal & walter boogie down



the party poopers who wouldn't dance. heck, even i danced part of the time, bum knee and all.



me with the newly married couple!



finally, we get a shot of them kissing, even if it's just on the cheek.


sunday morning, we headed to mosaic. the morning started with me trying to be ahead of the game and programming the address of mosaic in my GPS the night before. so we check out of the hotel, hop into our cars, and our car leads the way. except... when we finally got there, we ended up in a residential area, funnily enough, in front of church called New Harvest Four Square Church. we were joking we should just go there instead. anyway, we got the correct address (i had accidentally taken the street number of lake ave. church and combined it with the street name of the mosaic address), and drove to mosaic. the address wasn't the exact location of where the church was, and we seriously ended up on what winifred deemed "church row." we figured if we parked and just followed the people, we'd find the church. except there were so many churches in the area, and people were going to different ones! so we were late to the service, but at least we made it.


we got to see dave & christina (with some old school canaan people, except for george who already left to get his car)



my pleasant surprise of the morning was running into my china...er, "East Asia" OEX teammate, melody! we were evangelism partners, and she's now engaged. craziness. it was good to see her, though. can't believe that was six years ago.


after we left moasic, some of the cars needed to fill up on gas. andy led the way this time, using his GPS system. except his GPS took us to a non-existant gas station, so our car took the lead again. as we approached the nearest gas station, we noticed there was one on each corner, a 76 and a Mobile. we were trying to decide which to go to, when we noticed something funny about the 76 station.

look carefully! click on the picture.



this was at the restaurant i'm never ever going to again for the rest of my life. i had taken pictures of the food, but cannot even stand to look at it. ::shudder::




lastly, look at the title of the book bob is reading. maybe we should have bought it for him! haha.


phew. okay, that was long. i have tons more pictures, check them out at my smugmug.

jen & jerry's wedding
hanging out with the liu family


and lastly, by request of reni, the video of maurice's "ho hum ho hum" and sandy impersonating mr. chen. I doubt you'll get the video, and mostly all you can hear is reni laughing. this was pretty much how the whole morning went. :)




p.s. jack bauer is one smart man. and i can't believe they killed edgar!