Category: Events

We celebrated our 5th anniversary yesterday. Here is our very first picture taken 9 years ago. 

I got this “wood” gift from James for our wood anniversary.

Here is the gift from me.

Happy 5th Anniversary dear Hubby. 🙂  You have been a wonderful husband to me. I am looking forward for many five years to come. 

It seemed like yesterday when Carolyn was born.  She’s now one month old!  Jun and Christine threw a party for this occasion, and it started with great food…

And refreshing drinks…

But the first part of the party, Carolyn needed her beauty sleep…

Even picture time doesn’t wake her!

Eventually she was disturbed, and she wasn’t a happy camper!

I must say, last time we saw Carolyn she was quite small.  Looks like she’s starting to catch up!

Lia also had her first hand-shake with Jujube…

All in all, it was a fun celebration.  Congratulations to Jun and Christine for making it to this 1 month milestone…

 

… from James, Karen and Odelia!

 

For more pictures, see Carolyn One Month gallery!

So many of you know that my picture vault is like the great void…  only pictures go in, and none ever makes it out.  Well, I intend to defy the conventional wisdom by periodically posting some long-post pictures, starting with…  last year’s Happyfish Costume Party at Jun’s!

We had no snacks at fellowship tonight, so afterwards many of us headed over to Tapioca Express.  A while back, we had jokingly mentioned that we would get a 5-star popcorn chicken and go around until someone drops out, and whoever drops out would need to pay for it.  Well, today we got one rated at 7-star (yes, seven out of five stars–that’s no typo) and passed it around.  The pieces were glowing red from the thick coat of highly potent chili powder, and the mere fragrance of the spice was enough to invoke some frowns.

We each took one piece per round.  Jeff and his wife Christine went out in the first round.  Maria went out in the third round, and Grace and Chia-Wen went out in the fourth and final round.  Jun, Jeffrey, Ben, Eddy, Karen and myself made it to the very end, when we ran out of pieces.  Hence the six of us shall join the Happyfish 7-Star Club as ones who endured all the way!

The big winner who shall enter the Hall of Fame was Ben, though, because instead of eating a piece of chicken for his final piece, he had a piece of jalapeno!

This year we decided to take it easy and check out the fireworks at Bellevue Park.  Thanks to Angela and Johnny, we got a chance to sit behind the fountain with the reflections.

The fireworks was choreographed to the music played by the Bellevue Philharmonic Orchestra.  It started out fairly nicely…

You can see the reflection in this picture…

And then there were more fireworks…

From time to time, it became intense…

Other times, it was simpler…

But color-coordinated for the most part…

There were even ones that look like dandelions in a picture…

Unfortunately, the fireworks experience was tainted by the obscuring smoke part of the time:

And for the finale, blasts after blasts of fireworks of different color schemes dazzled the canvas of the sky as the symphonic orchestra built up the tension.  The blasts continued as the tension built, and built, and finally the music approaches the big final three notes as the rest of the fireworks were fired at twice the rate…

… that would have been nice.  Unfortunately, that wasn’t the way the finale went.  Actually, what finale?  The fireworks stopped as suddenly as the flies drop when it hits my newly acquired fly zapper.  As the orchestra played on, there were one or two additional uninspiring shots, and then it just ended. That’s it.  Thank you very much good bye.  Very anticlimatic.  If this were Regal Cinemas I would have gotten my money back!

Sure, this was no Gasworks, but there was a lot less waiting required to get decent seating.  Also, because the lawn is level, it was much easier to play games while waiting.  I would recommend it as an alternate park for the years when you don’t feel like squeezing into Gasworks.

Nothing in Seattle beats Gasworks, though.

We had our first Bible Study tonight, and one thing we didn’t lack tonight was dessert.  Between Karen’s Italian fruit dessert and Grace’s Fritos with Chili, we had plenty to spare, but all attention were on Olivia’s Japanese feline cake imports.

A closer inspection reveals Japanese-quality detailing work, even on cakes…

Afterwards, some of us stayed for a game of Mexican Train.  In hindsight, perhaps it wasn’t the shortest game to play.  Grace whipped our butts pretty badly in the first couple rounds, but in the end Olivia pulled ahead, which was an amazing feat considering she was somewhat dazed from the effects of jet lag.  I was dead last until Jimmy began racking up points by collecting the wrong pieces toward the end of each round.  But hey, as we learned in Bible Study today, the last shall be first and the first shall be last, right?

That brings us to now, which is about 3:15 am, way past my bedtime and right around when Jimmy typically brushes his teeth.  I should just stop now.  Stop!

Have you seen windshields with Shakina written on them?

So Shakina is supposed to be about bringing all churches in the Puget Sound area together in a revival meeting.  Unfortunately when you meet at UW, it sends the message that it’s organized by students for students.  Besides a few curious adults and undercover pastors, it’s pretty much just students, students and more students.  Curiously, although there were some caucasian churches listed on their web site like Overlake Christian Church and Mars Hill, if you look across, it’s pretty much black heads all over.

The worship leader had a very David Crowder-esque voice, and his guitar skills were impressive.  However, some of his songs were very unfamiliar, so at times it felt more like a concert than a worship session.  He tried to crack a few jokes, some of which seemed rather awkward that sent people frowning.  There were also many references to “healing”, including if you just worship, you will be healed.

I must say I admire the gesture of the people wearing blue Shakina T-shirts, who I assume are from Jubilee.  They kneel on the floor at show their humility without caring about how they’re perceived.

Including bowing head to floor.  I wish I had the boldness and courage to do that before thousands of people.

Now Shakina is organized by Jubilee church, and there have been some concerns regarding charismatics.  The most curious story was that some pastor prayed for mother and child in QFC when all of a sudden, lightning striked, and they were both healed.  There were two unnecessarily long testimonies, and by the middle of the second one, it was pretty cold so we left for dinner.  When we got back, people were just doing a little talking, a little praying, and a testimony about a sister being “freed” along with a bunch of “amens”.

I will get into more details tomorrow regarding my view of the charismatic church versus the conservative church.

Today was when we had our ship party!  At 1:30pm, they hauled us over to a place called The Garage in Seattle:

It sounded like a place I should take my car in for an oil change, doesn’t it?  Well, it’s not.  They actually have entertainment facilities such as…

…bowling lanes.  Two sets of them, as a matter or fact, on the first floor and in the basement.  By the time I got there, the place was packed wall to wall with Microsoft people, so we had to go downstairs and join another game.  The first game I stunk, but half way through the second game, I started getting the feel!  The 12 pounder was definitely for me, and I learned to fitness the second shot.  It was pretty funny because everytime someone was close, people started yelling “You got robbed!”

It came down to the tenth frame, between me and Jidesh, and ultimately…  Jidesh snapped under pressure, and I won.  I took a picture of my score, 125, as I may never break 100 again for the rest of the year:

They wanted to start a third game, but I had to leave while I was ahead and end on a high note, right?  I went upstairs and enjoyed their other attraction:

Pool.  Lots of them.  So we played double with another team and got decimated on the first game.  Nothing was going in.  Straight shots.  Curved shots.  Jump ball.  Masse.  Nothing.  I felt like I’ve let down my higher school geometry teacher. 

On the third game, we played cutthroat because there were only three of us, and then I heard a weak voice in the background…  “Use the force, James”.  I decided to “feel” the shots instead of calculating the precise angle of impact.  I also decided to finesse instead of overpowering the ball.  In the end, there was only one ball standing.  Mine.  Wow… two victories today.  Beginners luck, you’re probably thinking, and you’re probably right.

Anyway, that’s it for my ship party.  By now you’re probably wondering, does James ever get any work done?  Well, I’m wondering the same thing, but shh… don’t tell anyone.  😉

Last night Tim, Keri, Karen and I planned to have dinner.  Carol Han had mentioned there was an annual Are You Hungry night market at University of Washington, so we decided to check it out.  At first I was salivating at the thought of eating Taiwanese foods like Oyster Pancake, Stinky Tofu, Assorted Cow Organs, and Pig Ears.  When we went inside to purchase the tickets, we saw a line that resembled the line for the Ichiro Bobble head doll…

And after this you would need to line up at the stands!  I prefer not to wait, but to be waited on, thank you very much, so off to Chinatown we go.

On the way out, we noticed some guys trying to create “art”:

What is “art”?  To me, art is worthless junk whose value has been increased by gullible buyers.  😛  After all, college students could create “art” by stacking a bunch of bikes from who knows where!  Speaking of which, has anyone seen my bike lately?

On the way back, we dropped by Wendy’s for our free Frosties.  Sitting in my car, I sheepishly ordered, “Four junior frosties please!”.  “Anything else?”  “Nope!”  Just when I thought we ordered a significant share of frosties, another car pulled up behind us and ordered “Ten Frosties please!”  “Anything else?”  “Nope!”  Unless they had stacks of babies, who shouldn’t be eating ice cream in the first place I should note, it’s doubtful they were able to squeeze ten people in that 4 seater!  I could see the cashier shaking her head, flubbergasted.  “Ten junior frosties at the next window.”  Greedy creeps!