Welcome to America!

Two years ago we went to HK and met a wonderful family who are the aunt & uncle to Emily's former classmate, Shawna. Levan and Wendy have two sons, Marcus (15) and Nathan (10). Marcus was planning to come to America that summer for the first time to stay with his cousin, Shawna. But his brother Nathan was battling liver cancer and the trip was postponed.

This month, Marcus finally came to America to visit his cousin and other family members.

And I wanted to make it a memorable time for him here. So....

Matthew's boss graciously and generously allowed us to stay at his vacation home in Pacific Grove. It is a beautiful home, perfect for our long weekend of entertaining this first-time visitor.

In front of the PG vacation home

Sitting area right outisde the front door

The home is located right across from the golf course and down the street from the beach.

The beach is located at the end of the street

It has three bedrooms and two baths.

Living room

Dining Room

Kitchen

Master bedroom

Another bedroom

Master bath

 NEXT ADVENTURE: Riding High!

30 Years

It's been 30 years since graduating from good ol' San Mateo High School. Time has flown by so fast.

Our official 30 year reunion will be this October. Throughout these 30 years many of us have stayed connected.

Check out my post: Oldies But Goodies

This summer, one of our high school friends was coming home from Down Under for a short visit and I thought, why not get together now while he's here?

Its so hard to gather nowadays.. Either we're too busy or we don't want to relive the past. That might be  an issue for those who don't want to see old friends… some do not want to go back and remember what we did when we were young... which were probably stupid things.

But to me, the past doesn't define you or make you who you are now... it's what you do with your past that makes a difference.  Either we forget about it, dwell on it, or accept it and move on.

Well... we've accepted it and moved on.

(L-R) Greg, Betty, Tam, Shari, me, Chris & Dave

Dave graduated CAL and is now a pastor at a church in Australia. His is married to wife Leanne and they have a daughter, Kailani (age 16). Funny thing our girls played with Kai when they were little, and she never exhibited any accent at all,  but now she has the cutest Australian accent. Apparently Dave has one too but I have not heard it. Kai says he can turn it off and on. (Yeh right!) Leanne, being an educator and teacher, has not changed her accent, enunciates and speaks proper English! LOL!

2007

2014 (Leanne, Kai and Dave)

Chris is one of, if not the smartest of our class who went out of state for college, University of Washington. I would have thought he would be a shoe-in for CAL. But God has a plan. Chris is now a professor of Asian American Studies at CAL. Go figure, he ended up there eventually.

Shari went to Chico State, is in marketing and has 3 girls. (ages 5, 7, 9)

Shari and her adorable girls! Who knew this tomboy gets all girls!!

Tam is home (like me) and busy taking care of her boys, hubby Barry and high schooler, Tyler (age 15).

Tam, Barry and Tyler

Betty is a OBGYN for Kaiser in San Mateo. Her husband Al has his own medical practice and they have 3 boys (ages 11, 14, 16).

Greg, a pediatrician, also has his own practice. His wife, Mendy, is a nurse and they have 4 kids, 3 of which are Greg's (ages 9 mths, 3, 5). Yes he is a very tired father.

Many others in our group were unable to come but we hope to reconnect with them in October at our 'official' 30th reunion!

Bye Bye Cocoa

Alas.. on the day of wedding celebrations we also wept for the passing of Cocoa, one of Rachel's bunnies.

Emily meeting Cocoa for the first time.

Rachel got Cocoa and Coconut from a Rabbit Rescue Center.

Cocoa was a black dwarf bunny.

 She and her sister Coconut were inseparable.

But they both got sick. Angela said  is was the same sickness that BunnYee died from. Something about their GI tract getting blocked.

 They had the funeral service for Cocoa in their backyard.

Emily made a video for Rachel the last time we bunnysat them.

Rest in Peace Cocoa. We miss you!

25, 50, & 55

After we witnessed the new union of my cousin Henry to his new bride, Josephine, we zipped over to the Yee home to witness their union of 25 years of marriage.

They both don't look they have aged in 25 years! It's those youthful Chinese genes!

Angela got back into her original wedding dress and her and Michael renewed their vows and recommitted their lives to each other continuing to make Jesus the center of their lives.

Can't wait to be at their 50th wedding anniversary!

Their kids were their attendants and it was a very beautiful ceremony in their backyard!

We were a little 'overdressed' for this wedding but we hope we gave it a 'classy' feel even though it was a casual affair.

They also celebrated their birthdays: 55 for Michael and 50 for Angela. (You would never have guessed their ages right?)

After giving them our well wishes, we were off to Henry & Josephine's wedding banquet.  It was a very FULL day of celebrating!

An Ow Got Hitched!

My cousin Henry got married!

Henry is to the far right. He is one of my baby cousins.

We met his girlfriend, Josephine, in August 2013. A very lovely girl! I gave her a quick run down on our crazy family.

But she didn't get scared away! YAY! And they got engaged in December and married this July!

 The ceremony was beautiful and honoring to God.

 Henry's side of the family

I am thrilled to welcome Josephine into our big crazy family!

I know that my Uncle David (his dad) would have been very proud of his son today!

Their Han and Leia cake topper! Love it!

And yes they knew about the Rage.. they had a photo booth also but it was a self-service photo booth. Still so much fun. It takes 4 consecutive pictures and immediately prints out 2 hard copy strips for you to take home.

We were lucky and caught the happy couple to take a picture before they headed into the reception area.

The kids got to get all dressed up..

Emily & Hannah with cousins, Joshua and Zachary

...and cousins, Lauren and Jordan

Uncle Gow Gow with Mandy

Congratulations to Henry and Josephine! We are so happy for you both!

Blues, Beaches, Boba, Boys & Buddy

My continuing guest blogger, Hannah's, last post (Editor's words)

Today we left the house around 4:00 and Dabby left the house at 1:30 because he had to eat lunch with his friend. When he came back we decided to go to a birdy park at Stanley Park. We went to see the blue herons. There were tons of nests. We saw families of them. We even saw some flying.

These heron nests were amazing. Supposedly there are about 50 nests up in the trees in Stanley Park right next to the tennis court, Country Club buildings, and restaurant.

If you look carefully up in the trees you can spot quite a few nests in this one.

With a closer lens, you can see that not one or two but sometimes three herons are sitting on one nest. Why? I have no idea. Maybe one is visiting the couple?

Nests can get up to 4 feet across and nearly 3.5 feet deep.

Herons can curl their neck into a S shape for a more aerodynamic flight and to quickly strike prey at a distance.

They can get up to 4 feet in height but only weigh 5-6 lbs due in part to their hollow bones, a feature all birds share.

The nesting period is 49-81 days. Incubation of eggs are 27-29 days.

We went across the street to another tree and saw that one nest on a branch fell down. We saw a dead fish laying on the ground from the nest. We think that the herons caught the fish and brought it to their nest to eat. It was really smelly because poop was everywhere. The tree, branches, and leaves were all white.

A fallen nest. See the dead fish next to it? The nest was huge!

I was in awe of the nests and all the herons nesting but could not stand the smell of the bird poop everywhere!

Next we went to drive around the park and stopped at this beach. We saw a second beach! Which was a huge swimming pool next to the beach. It was a second beach.

A public beach in Stanley Park....

...which was literally right next door to a public swimming pool. It looked very nice but no shade! :(

Pool or beach? Let's do both! The pool was very affordable.. around $7/adult for the day.

Then I wanted a boba drink so we went to Dragon Ball Tea House. We ordered a drink for Auntie Stacy and me and JJ.

Dragon Ball is Stacy's go-to tea place!

Then we went back to the house to rest.

We played with the boys some more. 5-Sook could not wait for us to come over.. reinforcements!

Tate playing in the kitchen sink. Yep.. Grandpa's idea of course! We just hoped he would not turn on the faucet!

I was entertaining Bryce by shooting bubbles into a container. He loved it! Oh the simple joys!!

Grandpa (5-Sook Goong) reading to Tate before bed. Who's that bothering me?

Of course it was Uncle Matt!

...and then went out to dinner at Golden Seafood restaurant. We ate with the whole family. We said good bye to everyone because we weren't gonna see them in a while.

Matthew was trying to take a panoramic picture from his iPhone. He set the phone down on the lazy suzy and turned it to capture everyone but he was too slow and couldn't get everyone in one shot.

Most of Matthew's Dad's side of the family.. some of our favorite people!!

Then we went back to the house started packing and went to sleep.

(The next day) we left the house around 9:30. We said goodbye to Buddy, 3 Goo Po, 3 Goo Goong.

The girls with Buddy

Then we drove to Seattle and ate at Din Tai Fung (again). The food was so so yummy. Then we went to the airport and dropped off our luggage and boarded the plane. It was the Alaska Airlines plane. We noticed that it was made by the Boeing company that we took a tour of.

This plane was way bigger than the other one. I sat next to the window that was near the wing and the engine. I liked watching the wings move. Then after the flight we picked up our luggage at claim 15 and went outside. Goong-Goong picked us up and we ate dinner at their house. Then we drove home! :(

-Mui Mui Blogs

And that is the end of my guest blogger, Hannah's recap of our trip to Seattle and Vancouver! 

On another fun note.. we found out that Matthew's cousin, Jason, (3-Goo-Jeh/Jeung's son) and his family were featured in Justin Timberlake's newest music video, "Not a Bad Thing". They're the Asian family interviewed. You can check it out below.