nostalgia, part 1

a couple of conversations i had this weekend made me nostalgic, so i went through my old pictures (pre-digital) and discovered: 1) i need to file my pictures better. they were originally filed, but i always pull pictures out, mostly for people getting married who ask me for some pics for their slideshow, and then i never file them back. so i have huge piles of random pics. 2) i've been truly blessed - i look back at the pictures, and not only do they bring back great memories, but i realized that God continues to bless me with long-lasting friendships with a majority of the people. and though i've obviously made more friends since those good ol' days, sometimes it's so great to be with old friends, you know? even though we don't get to see some of the people often, when we do get together, it's like nothing has changed, and there is no awkwardness or distance in the relationships.

so i decided to embarrass all those friends and post some of the pictures. :) hehe. this first batch is mostly canaan pics, from all our summer musicals & trips to seattle/vancouver or socal, and various other activities. sometime in the future, i'll do other pics, like high school (non-canaan) and college.

please excuse the ghetto-ness of the pictures, i was too lazy to scan them in, so i just took a picture of the pictures. so all those white spots are from the flash since i couldn't take clear pictures without flash.

so let's start waaaay back in elementary school. i'm not sure what grade this is - my guess is third or fourth grade? my birthday party at my house.




poor amy - i still remember this moment. my mom had cut all of us a piece of cake, and we were all happily eating it. couple minutes later, amy quietly pipes up, "um... mrs. chiu? can i have a piece of cake?" hahahaha. my mom accidentally skipped amy, and she just sat there with just a fork!


i think this was fifth grade - my piano teacher would have a "special" recital every other year, where she would ask just a handful of her students to play multiple pieces. amy & i were both in the recital, and jean came to watch. yes, you like my stylin' plastic glasses?

okay. skipping on to eighth grade - that summer, the youth group did the musical "revival" and traveled & performed at various churches in oregon & seattle. i'm going to be posting a bunch of performance pictures from all our music trips - i can't remember for the life of me which churches we performed at. anyone who can identify any of them will win a prize.


i think this church was in oregon. i distinctly remember this church because chris and i were playing around with the big doors in the back before our performance, and somehow while we were playing, he opened one of the big heavy doors and it slammed right into my face. i was so shocked and in so much pain, that i just burst into tears. (do you remember that, chris?)


this was at crater lake in oregon - i picked this picture just to show pastor dan's gear. you thought i was styling with those big plastic glasses? i think he beat me with his shorts & blazer!


just so that everyone can see p.dan, here's a close up :)

i don't know where my pics from freshman year are, so unfortunately, nothing there. that year we did "people need the Lord" but only performed locally. no music trips anywhere.

summer after sophomore year, we did "salt & light" and went down to socal for our music trip. all of these are from performances at churches down in socal - my guess is most of them are at various EFC branches.


i have a lot of pictures from our performance at this church. look at us... holding hands :)


i also have a lot of these pictures - basically me & reni... and random people i don't know or remember. i don't know which church this was at either. notice a theme? haha.


i picked this picture because it caught the cardboard car. that had to be one of the best props we ever had - almost an exact replica of john & william chen's car. awesome. again, unidentified church.

summer after my junior year, we performed "last chance" for the first time, and went up to seattle & vancouver. that was the music trip that totally turned our youth group upside down. the memories from that trip are still very vivid, because the Spirit was very obviously working in all the members. not only did we see one of our own members accept Christ, we also saw walls that had built up between friends completely torn down, brothers reconciling, and a unificiation that we had never experienced before. everyone came back from that trip changed & touched by God, and it was very evident. even all our parents could sense it immediately. i still remember that last night in vancouver with the girls - we didn't sleep a wink, but not because we stayed up late talking and giggling, but because there was very evident spiritual warfare going on. we wrote down everything that happened that night on some tissue paper because that was all we could find. i wonder where that is...


this was the group + counselours at canaan, probably the sunday before we left on our trip. we all look so young! see how many more people you can identify!


most of the drama (for lack of better word) happened in vancouver when we stayed at this church. i also remember this church had no showers, so we had to wash our hair in the sinks - or in the guys case, grab a hose, wear their swimming suits, and shoot ice cold water on each other.


that church also had a full indoor basketball court. obviously the guys were super excited, and played basketball well into the night - even past midnight. p. dan had hurt his knee in oregon, at a church that had an indoor half-court. so in vancouver, the girls wanted to play a game, so we played guys vs. girls. and the guys handicap was that they had to play one-handed and limp like p.dan. sadly, the girls still lost.

okay, this is getting long. i'll finish the rest up in another post later. this has certainly brought back a flood of memories, though.