It was a great weekend seen friends and family since we moved to CA in May. It was also an exciting event as it was our little girl’s first time being a flower girl.

Waiting for the show time…

Picture with the beautiful bride

Look! I have a bouquet too!!

final talk before walking down the aisle…

Here comes the bride…..

and the wedding party.

first kiss as husband and wife

happy couple

daddy, when is my turn to be a beautiful bride?

Family picture @ Mars Hill West Seattle Campus

Brother & Sister

family picture @ the banquet

Sisters

Congratulations! Carol & Erwin

While many people were apathetic toward iPhone 4S because of unsubstantiated rumors of the iPhone 5 that propelled the unrealistic expectations, Karen and I waited enthusiastically at University Village (Seattle) to pay our respects to Apple. The reason was simple. Karen packed in her purse an iPhone 3GS and a trusty old Canon SD870 IS, which acted as our portable “camcorder”, and we yearned for saving money and weight by consolidating the two devices into one.

No such luck.

Either my hands exhibited a natural alcoholics shake, or I had too much booze last night, but despite the selling point of having image stabilization, the videos from the iPhone 4S taken by my excruciatingly careful hold resembled videos shot during a 7.0 earthquake.

Moreover, The 4S was portrayed as capable of being taken out and snapping a picture before I could say “foo bar”, but in practice, the camera app locked up for upwards of 20 seconds while my subjects stared in boredom. By the time the phone was ready, the smile had turned into a frown, which typically do not make great photography unless you’re in the morgue. In addition, my finger regularly, unintentionally acted as a lens cap as well as a wind-cover for the mic, resulting in artistic mime-like movies. To top it off, the new antenna design worked so well that while my 3GS was showing “3G” and browsing with ease, my 4S was showing “Searching…” for quite a while.

Could I have just hit the jackpot of a detective phone, or is it all user error? Either way, this one is going back.

When it comes to spelling, I’m actually quite competent with the words I know. Having come to the States when I was 9 and not being studious when I was young, my vocabulary is okay but not extensive. Last week at work there was an opportunity to participate in a Spelling Bee, so I decided to give it a try.

First word: LYNX.
Easy as I’ve seen it before, though I asked for a sentence just for the heck of it.

Second word: PERMEABILITY.
This was actually a pretty easy word for me. Permeable, drop the E and add the ABILITY. No-problemo.

Third word: PHILAMOT.
Say what??? Nope, didn’t get this one, as I was way off. Asking for the definition and the origin didn’t help me.

So there we go. 2011 Spelling, and I got eliminated the first round. Still, playing spelling bee in front of an audience for the first time was fun.

First night in Irvine we arrived very late at the gated community. I got the apartment keys from a lockbox and couldn’t access the garage. Apparently I had to get it the next day. Public parking was completely full so I had to park outside. It also rained for a little bit (?!!).

After parking my car, I came back to the gate and the code doesn’t work! To make things worse this is the end of the day, and my phone shut down! After trying for a little bit I ended up picking that lock to open it… In a few mins after I got in, some car came out and opened the door! Guess I didn’t have to resort to those drastic measures…

Oh well… At least the apartment was nice!

We wish you all a Merry Christmas!

From,
James, Karen, Lia, and Eli

Lia was playing in Eli’s room when Karen heard this loud “BOOM!”.  Here was the aftermath…

This is why it’s important to watch your kids at all times.  This morning I was too tired and let Lia roam around, and when I regained consciousness, I heard clicking noises coming from the bathroom, which is never a good sign when you have kids.  I ran over and found Lia trying to cover up some mischief…

Here’s a better view of her handiwork…

The strange thing is, mommy doesn’t use much makeup.  How did she innately know where things are supposed to go?

Hi people, long time no see…

Mommy took some pictures of me to celebrate my teething stage….

Can you see my teeth?

I laughed so hard because I saw my older sister making funny faces…

It’s time to practice crawling …

See you all next time…

James and I are considering to redo our yard. (we’ve been talking about this for the past of 5 yrs. haha…) Maybe having a hammock in between 2 tall trees? Since we cut our only tall tree 3yrs ago, I can only use the self standing hammock for now.

Lia and her favorite bear was testing the hammock that we got 2 yrs ago…

She had so much fun playing outside our yard and refused to get inside, so I have to bribe her with my homemade waffle cone ice cream…

I love blueberries. Earlier this year, James bought two blueberry trees from Costco for me and my parents helped me to plant them in our yard. Initially we didn’t expect to have fruits the very first year, but then we noticed with this in July…

So I thought of many ways to eat blueberries.

Blueberry yogurt…

Blueberry and raspberry cobbler…

Blueberry muffin…

Blueberry bagels…

And best of all, gourmet blueberry bagels with scrambled eggs and American cheese, as prepared by James..