Graditude IMHO

Lastly something new to end this year ... my Gratitude List of the Year.. something I always wanted to post on a regular basis but never get to because I forget what I was supposed to write..

 I am thankful for:

• The Public Library:

I would have spent an arm and a leg on books if not for this place.  And I don't even need to hunt for books anymore. I just find it on their online catalog, place a request on it and if it's available, it'll be sent to the branch of my choice, an email is sent to me telling me to pick it up. Then I go to the Holds shelf and grab the book with the tag that has my name on it. Eazy Peazy! (UPDATE: My total number of books read this year has been revised to 90! The most current one was The Longest Ride by Nicholas Sparks.)

 • Health Insurance:

Photos of my meniscus torn and then sliced off

My knee post surgery removal of stitches

I have to say, $20 copay for my knee surgery is a pretty good deal! AND it included crutches! Four doctors/nurses who were a part of my surgery followed up with a personal phone call a day or two after. So kind and conscientious! Kaiser is great! Thank you to Dr. Bui and his excellent staff for caring for me so well!

• DMV:

This temporary handicap placard was a lifesaver. I had to endure almost a two hour wait ...and that was WITH an appointment! I hobbled in with my crutches and all to get it because you have to go there in person to pick it up! (That is the DMV for you). But to have it during the crazy holiday shopping season was a blessing! Thank you to Angela who took me to the DMV and Helen who drove me home!

• 85 C ° Bakery:

The Portuguese egg tarts with mochi are just as good as the ones at Lord Stow's Bakery in Macau. The first time I tasted this 'little piece of heaven' was in LA. Now, they opened a store just a few minutes from my home but the line is atrocious! Waiting for an hour for bread and pastries is not my ideal of a good use of time. I will wait until the 'craziness' dies down. In the meantime, my sister-in-law went herself and graciously appeased by tummy with a few of these egg tarts! Thank you Matthea!

• Almond Milk Tea with Egg Pudding:

My new favorite drink(with egg pudding not boba/pearls as shown in this picture)

My youngest daughter loves going to get boba drinks. She isn't a yogurt, ice cream or Jamba Juice kind of gal. She is a boba gal... specifically Passion Fruit Green Tea with extra bobas! The thing is with these 'bobas' or tapioca pearls is that if you refrigerate them they get hard and not chewy anymore. Since I like to 'nurse' my drinks.. you can always find a half finished Starbucks drink or soda or another drink in the fridge that is mine.. I prefer getting pudding in my milk tea. Pudding is pudding, It doesn't harden in the fridge and the drink tastes the same as the day before. Thank you to Tapioca Express for having three locations for me to go to to get this drink!

• Dwarf Bunnies:

Rachel's new bunnies: Coconut & Cocoa

I was never an animal person due to my OCD clean-freak upbringing but taking care of BunnYee this past year was a highlight and joy. When she passed away we thought we won't be able to pet-sit again. But we were wrong! Rachel missed BunnYee so much that she went ahead and adopted two new baby dwarf bunnies, called Coconut and Cocoa who are sisters.  We hope to bunny-sit them sometime soon! Thank you to Rachel for getting more bunnies!

• Family:
Life is too short to have any misgivings with family members. That is why I don't have any.

Matthew's immediate family

My immediate family

My extended family (at Cousin Cheryl's home) which includes lots and lots of cousins

I am thankful that my family continues to grow. This coming new year I get a new cousin-in-law and a baby second cousin. Congratulations to my cousin Henry's engagement to Josephine and my cousin Stefanie and her husband Pete who are expecting Baby #2!

• Friends:

AACF CAL Reunion at Don & Cheryl's (28 in attendance)

CIBC Reunion Gang (also 28 in attendance...and my living room is half the size of Cheryl's!)

I am thankful that I still keep in touch with my college friends (and even high school friends...my  30th reunion is next year!) and although we may not see each other that often I still call them my close friends, those who know me well and have significantly impacted my life... my spiritual life and that I am eternally grateful to them. And thank you to YOU my dear readers (and I hope some of you may see yourself in these pictures.)

I actually can go on and on and on about many more things that I am thankful for in my life.

Having the attitude of gratitude really changes your whole perspective of life. It gives you a life full of joy. Joyful people are thankful people. Their perspective is positive, on what is good, with a cup half full not half empty.

I want to have an attitude of gratitude. I hope you do too! Many blessings to you in 2014!

2013 Messenger

We went GREEN! No Christmas Newsletter in the mail this year. It is now here online!

Volume 20 Issue 1 2013

We are thankful for you in our lives: family, friends and my faithful readers! This past year has been filled with milestones and travel. Sadly, our hearts were heavy this past October, when two dear family friends had to bury their young sons: a 10-year old who lost a lifelong battle with cancer, and a 17-year old who died suddenly from an automobile accident. We do not understand why these precious lives were called up to our Lord so soon, but we have peace in the certain hope that we will see them again in heaven.

We cannot take for granted the short time we have here on earth. It can be taken away in a split second and then where will we be? Our hope and desire is that you, our dear friends and family, will be with us and God in heaven one day! That is our fervent prayer.

We wish you a joyous Christmas and another blessed new year.

Matt, Cez, Emily & Hannah

At one of our favorite historical sites: the Roman Colosseum

In case you haven't been following my blog.. this is a brief round up of our year..

Emily (13 yrs)
We have a teenager in the house! Thankfully she hasn't been acting out like a 'rebellious uncontrollable teenager' so we are lucky... for now! Our daughter is almost as tall as me and can almost wear my shoes! She also got a new accessory this past summer: braces!

Emily has braces just like her good friend, Rachel

And for the first time, she had the opportunity to be a responsible pet owner (for a week) when she bunny sat BunnYee, Rachel's bunny.

Emily with BunnYee

Oh she loved that bunny so. We all miss her.. she is now in Bunny Heaven.

Our 7th grader at Kimber Hills Academy is still playing clarinet in the Advance Band and is as academically focused as always, receiving another ribbon (4th place this time) in the ACSI Math Olympics and now a proud (temporary) owner of her own Macbook Air laptop (on loan from school). It's regularly attached to her arm and other than homework she uses it to search nail design techniques. Yep.. she is totally into nail designing now.. her newest hobby! No worries about the birding.. she still loves and cares for her wild birdies.

Butterfly wings

But what's new is that she is one of the newest members of the KHA Girl's Basketball team! We are so proud of her as neither of her parents ever participated in organized team sports! Most of her school days are very long (starting at 7:25am for Band and ending at 5pm from basketball practice. Plus an additional three hours at least for homework... let's just say she is a night owl like her parents!)

Hannah (10 yrs)

Hannah sleeping on the floor with her bears

Our 'baby' (she still wants us to call her that) thoroughly loves anything her big sister does and more.

Now she's into Animal Jam, Winx Club, soccer and Nerf, specifically Rebelle nerf! And of course all her stuffed animals whom she uses to play school and store.

Hannah playing restaurant with her Mah Mah (check out all the mini foods she's selling)

She is extremely creative and 'makes' anything she can think of (laptop, cell phone, cars, store front, mini bathroom) from anything she can find around the house. She is very resourceful and goes through paper, cardboard and tape very quickly!

This costume is a quick redesign of Emily's Annie Oakley costume. Thank goodness for recycling!

She was Pocahontas for her Great American last year. She participated in the ACSI Speech Meet and  received a 'Superior' ribbon (the highest honor).

You'd think that with having anxiety, memorizing a poem and reciting it in front of 25 strangers would freak her out but it didn't. Actually, she had an awesome 3rd grade year (her anxiety has been much lower). We are very proud of her! Now starting 4th grade at KHA she has shown that with hard work and practice she can do quite well academically!

Matt
My husband has been busy juggling everything that has been thrown to him and nothing has fallen! Work at Legacy Partners (18th yr) never ends and he feels like he's never caught up by the end of the day. A great de-stresser for him is to play basketball at lunch weekly and to stay active as much as he can. He loves to snowboard and does several day trips every winter.

Emily and Daddy on a lift

One thing new he did was to sky-dive..

flying in the 'air'

...no not the real thing but close enough I think. He tried iFly with some good friends, and he said it's not as easy as it looks. And it doesn't feel relaxing! It's actually anything but!

FCC Father's Day Portrait

He still leads a bible study, plays guitar in the worship band at church, and teaches in the tweens Sunday school class once a month. He also helps out in tech on Sunday mornings at church, where he can play with the high tech church 'toys' like graphics and the audio sound board. He's having fun with it all.

Cezanne
We were finally able to celebrate my 40th (plus) birthday by going on a Mediterranean Cruise. I've been planning it since 2005 but one thing or another kept coming up so I've had to be very patient! We went in the summer with my parents, brother and his wife, and my cousin's family. It was an amazing trip... not very relaxing but very eye opening into the history from the other side of the world.

My family in front of the Cathedral of the Holy Cross and Saint Eualia in Barcelona, Spain

One of my highlights was to visit my namesake's birthplace, Aix-en Provence in France.

The statue of Paul Cezanne, famous Impressionist painter, in Aix, France

I thoroughly enjoyed this trip and I'm looking forward to more visits to France and England! On the down side I re-injured my knee on this trip and had to get surgery for a meniscus tear on my left knee in November. This downtime/staycation (now going on my third week) was a blessing in disguise. I was over extending myself in various ministries and began to feel burnt out. Other than part-time work, co-leading a bible study at church, planning women's ministry events, being a Band mom, reading and blogging, I also took on two huge new projects: teaching yearbook class (just shadowing the current teacher who will leave at the end of this school year) at KHA and creating and overseeing POPS, KHA's newest organization 'Partnership of Parents and School'. I really felt passionate about building a strong network of parents who are significantly involved in the school's programs to help support the school staff. Currently POPS oversees eight projects and we have 23 awesome parents!

Our latest POPS Project: Operation Christmas Child Boxes - the school & church collected 228 boxes to be delivered all over the world to bless children with the gift of Jesus!

Celebrations
This year we celebrated the high school graduations of two very special ladies in our lives.

Our goddaughter, Mandy from Valley Christian High School who is currently attending Azuza Pacific University

Our good friends, Michael & Angela's daughter, Jessica from Washington High School who is now attending Biola University

And in October our church, Fremont Community Church, celebrated it's 40th Anniversary where we had the privilege of sharing our story with the congregation that morning.

Each of us, even the girls, shared a little bit.

We are thankful for our friends and family:

Our biannual gatherings of Cezanne's Girls group, the Gang at Marty & Doris'

The girls with their cousins, my sister's Calina & Ken's boys (Daniel-16; Joshua-13; Zachary-10)

The girls with their cousins, Matthew's sister, Matthea and Kenny's kids (Marissa-7; Timothy-4) and their youngest Uncle Matthel (3-Sook), Matthew's brother.

We have been very blessed this year and we would love to hear from you! I know Matthew is on Facebook but I am 'not' so please feel free to drop me a line.. comment here below. Just click on 'comments'!!

On a side note, this is my 300th blog post!! Wow!!

And again, thank you for reading!! Merry Christmas!

Celebrating Double Digits!

Hannah turned 10 before Thanksgiving so we and her classmates celebrated with..

... a movie: Disney's "Frozen" in 3D!

Sister Emily and Cousin Marissa ready to watch their first 3D full length movie!

I was pleasantly surprised with this movie. I thought it was just about a reindeer and a snowman. But it's not!

After the movie we headed over to the house for PIZZA...

CJ, Yohanna, Michelle, Sabrina, Hannah, Anisa, Kateyln, Alice, Laneya and Marissa

... and Crafts.. (sound similar to someone else's birthday party?)

We had three crafts:

Making  shoelace bead bracelets

Stained 'glass' ornaments

And mini Olaf the Snowman made from clay; Big Thanks to Marissa W. who made one with Hannah before her party

We were thrilled to have her new friend and classmate, Anisa,  join us. She came straight to the party from a holiday trip down to LA. Priorities right!?!

I also gave a "QUIZ" to all the kids. "Who Knows Hannah the Best?" (I'm a teacher: giving tests and quizzes are what we do best!! LOL!) First place went to Michelle! Stuffed animal prizes went to all her guests.

They didn't have "Frozen" cakes available yet.. so Hannah chose "Cut the Rope"

I have no idea who this Om Nom is..

Happy 10th Birthday to my Babie!

Soul Care

FCC had the privilege of joining with Bridges Community Church to host their annual Women Alive Fall Conference. My Women's Minister, Christy I. and myself were part of the planning team with the Women's Ministry at Bridges. It was our 2nd year partnering with them and they welcomed us with open arms. It is true that Jesus' church is His people not the building. And we had the great opportunity to work together to serve our community of the Tri-City area.

This year we had Donna Jones, a renowned speaker, author and pastor's wife to come speak on the topic of "Soul Care: Our Soles Don't Determine Who We Are - Our Souls Do!"

The eight workshop speakers introducing themselves and their topics to the audience

Along with our main speaker sessions, we were able to choose one out of eight workshop speakers each speaking on a topic that was dear to their hearts.

Topics were:
- Taming Your Family Zoo
- Bad Things Happen to Nice Girls
- Keeping God's Word Alive in My Life
- You've got Purse-onality
- Sex: The Gift that Keeps on Giving
- Welcome to Worry Warts Anonymous
- Let's Do Life Together!
- Who's Laughing at the Days to Come?

I attended the "Welcome to Worry Warts Anonymous". The topic not only spoke to me but the speaker also did too. She might look familiar to you too?

Yes.. it's Grace Lee, my Bondfire Buffet Club Vice-President. But she was not here on a physical eating opportunity, it was a spiritual feeding opportunity. She spoke on being a Worry Wart and how she has battled her worries through her 6-Step Recovery Plan.

Worry-holics Anonymous

In John 16:33 God said, "In this world you will have trouble..." That's just how life is. It is not easy and can be very overwhelming to handle all by yourself. We are only human.

And in "The Me I Want To Be" by John Ortberg, he says that 15-20% of people are born to be worriers. We are just wired that way. But we don't have to live that way.

Here are the 6 steps that Grace shared that will help us not be ruled by our worries:

Step 1: Word of God- we need to admit we are powerless over worry unless we are constantly and creatively in God's Word all the time to help us over come the negative thoughts (Psalms 119:28; Hebrews 4:12)

Step 2: Worship of God - we need to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity (Ephesians 2:10)

Step 3: Women -  we need friendships; admit to God and our friends the exact nature of our worries so they can encourage and support us

Step 4: Workout - we need to make a significant effort to exercise, it gives us the endorphins to take on another day

Step 5: Winks - we need rest, sleep, continue to take personal respite, to rejuvenate when we are exhausted

Step 6: Whimsical - we need to take an inventory of the fun things we see and like and just do it! Like your bucket list of things to do in your life.

My sister-in-law, Matthea, and Grace, my awesome friend and workshop speaker

This was the first time I got to hear Grace speak in a 'professional' capacity. And she was incredible!
She was organized, had well thought out examples, scriptural references, honest sharing of her personal experiences and funny! Boy was she funny! Some of my friends who attended other workshops had commented to me that they heard a ton of laughing coming from our room down the hall. Yes, they wanted to see what we were laughing about! She was relatible and real. That's what you want a great speaker to be. Plus she brought treats and souvenirs for us too!

I was so proud of her!

So Grace, no need to worry about how you did! You were fantastic! And I am not biased!