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!