Make Music

Over the weekend we visited LA to visit family. As always, we had a grand old time. But the highlight was visiting a small full gospel church in Torrance where Jihye’s dad was guest preaching. They had a person who played the sax as part of the worship band. It truly made it a unique music experience.

What is more, Jihye finally found her music equipment. As soon as we returned home, she plugged in her keyboard to the amp, and started to make beautiful music.

And then it occured to me.

It is good to praise the LORD and make music to your name, O Most High.

- Psalm 92:1

Our house shall be a house that makes music unto the Lord.

The Wonder Of Technology

We live in a technological age. Just the other day, David’s mom got a video webcam for her computer. After our phone call, we decided to give Skype Video a chance. And what used to be a 5 to 10 minute brief conversation over the phone turned into a 30 minute in-depth conversation face to face.

Now, video chatting is quickly becoming our main mode of communication across the Pacific ocean.

For Old Time Sake

Here’s an ode to the past, when we dated through google video chat. And yes, we’re in the same room.

Happy New Year everyone!

Giving

As you all know, instead of wedding favors, we gave a donation to UNICEF. Originally we wanted to give to Kiva, “loans that change lives,” but one of the micro-finance blogs I read mentioned how Kiva had some not-so-transparent issues with the way they collected loans and gave to people. Of course, UNICEF is no saint either, but until we learn more about Kiva and whether they are doing all that they can to truly make the process transparent to the givers, and fair to the recipients, we decided to hold off on giving to the organization. In the end, Kiva is still a money making operation and I guess no matter how altruistic an organization may be, it still has to please its stakeholders.

But the original point of this writing is not to bash Kiva. We wanted to highlight a unique and feel-good way of giving if you’re looking to do something beyond gift giving to your immediate family and friends. UNICEF has an “inspired gifts” section where people can give a set amount towards a needed item for a child (for instance, an insecticide treated mosquito to prevent malaria).

So if you’re particularly feeling generous this holiday season, go over to the UNICEF page and give to a child in need.

Family Traditions

Over the Thanksgiving weekend, we took a trip up to Jihye’s home in Lakewood, Washington. It was the usual grey and drizzly Seattle fall. We took a trip to Snoqualmie Falls to spend some family time and enjoy each other’s company.

We walked around the area, and enjoyed some coffee atop a bavarian style lodge. Life moves at the speed of light, with work, ministry, school, and friends. It was good to pause and take a break from everyone’s busy schedule to spend time with each other. We strolled through the park as if there was not a care in the world. We hope spending quality time enjoying the outdoors will become a family tradition.

Neither of us were fans of tradition but as we get older, and as we have our own family, we see that traditions are good in strengthening our identity and affirming our history.

More pics from our Seattle trip can be found on flickr.

We spent all of last week in the windy city. It was our first trip (besides our honeymoon) together. We stayed at the semi-luxurious W Hotel right across the Navy Pier on Lake Shore Drive. It was fun to get away from California and get a taste of real fall weather. It was doubly fun to see old friends.

One of our highlights was going to the famous jazz club, the Green Mill. Notorious for being one of Al Capone’s speakeasies during the prohibition era, now it has been transformed into one of the nation’s premier stops for all emerging jazz artists. That particular night we went with friends to check out a local big band orchestra playing. We also got a chance to get our 20s groove on with some swing dancing. Needless to say, it was tons of fun.

Taking a Walk

Last week, we took a stroll through the neighborhood because, that’s what married couples do. I think.

it was a nice autumn evening, where the sun was coming down after a hard day’s work. We caught a glimpse before it disappeared in the horizon, and noticed everything was painted red.

We also snapped some pictures. Yes, this is married life.

ewedding.com Website Going Down

People,

Our ewedding.com wedding website is going to be taken down in 24 hours. Thank you for visiting us. One of the nice things about ewedding.com is that it offers decent analytics for the site. We’ve had 1952 unique visits (this doesn’t count for return visitors), 41 comments, 5 direct messages, 120 RSVPs, and a few hundred votes on polls.

Not bad for only being online for three months.

Thanks again for your support.

Life Is A Beach

There were plenty of Margaritas to be had in Cabo San Lucas. Enough to last a lifetime. Not to mention the cervezas. Pacifico, Dos Equis, Sol, and Corona. I imagine they ship by the truckload every second of the day. The bottlers could not possibly keep up with the demand. It is pure miracle, the fairy dust kind. And tequila? How is it not a trip to Mexico without tequila? Don Julio, Patron, Tres Generaciones. They all come in three distinct choices, anejo, blanco, and the local favorite reposado. Just thinking about tequila makes my head hurt. Good thing we waited till our last night to have some. And we managed to share that time honored Mexican tradition of sipping on tequila with new found mexican friends at the salsa bar. Hemingway would have been proud.

We met our new friends, Hector and Rebekah, at the sunset cruise. After some cordial chatting we decided to extend our evening together by going to Sammy Hagar’s bar, Cabo Wabo. It was filed with gringos and a gringo cover band playing typical rock songs that gringos like. We knew this was not our scene, so we moved to Bar Arriba, apparently a local favorite with nightly salsa dancing! The men and women moved gracefully and sensually, shaking their hips and stepping from one end to the other effortlessly. When the live band came on, we also joined the mix of latin lovers and danced the night away.

That is how we ended our honeymoon in Cabo: with new friends, some fine tequila, and salsa dancing.

Addendum: Yes, this blog will continue on.

Buttons!

The buttons are all done! 100% hand made. In place of wedding favors, we will be giving out buttons. And with the money that would’ve been spent on favors, will instead go to UNICEF. Yes, it is inspired by Barcelona FC’s break with their long standing tradition of not taking any shirt sponsors (and foregoing millions of euros in endorsement money), and putting UNICEF logos on their shirts instead. They will be donating 1.5 million euros in the next five years. We won’t be giving quite that much, but it’s the spirit that counts right?

Thanks goes out to Rachel with the designs. And Lisa and Billy helped with handcrafting them. And lastly, check out Lisa and Rachel’s awesome design blog at joliejoliedesign.blogspot.com.