February Update!

Hi Everyone! February brought on Sophie's second birthday, Valentine's day Love, Eden's wrestling matches, Emma's first visit to the Dentist, and snow that actually stuck to the ground!

Sophie's birthday started with her annual checkup at the doctor. For her birthday, she received four shots! Yay! Not really yay, but it had to be done. She was measured at 34 inches, which would put her, at age 20, at 68 inches, or 5 foot 8 inches! That's MY GIRL!

It also was Chinese New Year, even though Joy and I aren't Chinese. We decided to put the girls in some Chinese outfits to go with the holiday.

Emma has been super busy with preschool. She was ending her Traveling camp at the beginning of February, where she learned about the different cultures and continents of the world. She started a new one about Animals at the Zoo and is having a blast learning about all the different animals that you can find in the zoo. She's also doing very well writing her name, and the other letters of the alphabet. She can also write and count to 20, and can read numbers all the way up to 100! Joy and I have started working with her reading skills, and do flash cards with her almost every other night that help with her reading and writing skills. She's such a quick learner it's crazy! In February, Emma also had her first Dentist appointment! We helped calm her down by letting her watch "Caillou" on TV, where he visits the dentist for the first time. She began to understand how the process worked and was excited to go. I think I was more nervous for her than she was!



Eden began her second year of wrestling in February. She was promoted to the varsity class and wrestled in the 120 pound range. There were a bit of scary times though, as she had to wrestle some boys who were (in my opinion) MUCH heavier than the 120 pound range. She did get to wrestle some girls and won those too. Overall she did great, and finished her season March 1st.


Valentine's Day is always a special day for our family. Joy will go all out when it comes to dinner, which is better than having to go out, especially with the girls. It's tough to keep the girls entertained when we go out to dinner, so eating in is always the better alternative.

Joy gave me gift cards to Best Buy, Jamba Juice, and Regal Cinemas. I braved the ridiculous lines at the new grand opening of H&M at Washington Square Mall. I bought Joy a dress there, and ordered some shoes for her, which matches perfectly with it.

On the menu we had pork with an onion marmalade, mac and cheese, asparagus and biscuits! It was VERY DELICIOUS!


Anyways, it was a great month! Thanks for reading!

10 years and counting

I can start off this post by apologizing how we have done a terrible job at maintaining our family blog BUT I won't. 2011 is a new year and it is a new start. I changed out the background and threw in a new banner. 2011 is going to be great!


On January 8, Albert and I celebrated our 10 years of togetherness. Albert surprised me by whisking me off to Seattle for a weekend getaway... It turned out to be more of an eating smorgishborg. (see the pictures below)

For those of you who know us, you know that we met while working at Starbucks. The original Starbucks is located in Seattle and we started our vacation there. Awwwwwwwwww... <3 <3 <3

We strolled down to Pikes place and had a mini breakfast/lunch of Beecher's mac and cheese and Piroshkys. Delicious! We saw interesting sites and tasted every sample that was handed out.

We stayed right in the heart of downtown Seattle. Our hotel was across the street from H&M and Cheesecake Factory. I must have died and gone to heaven!

For dinner we decided to make a few stops. We started with happy hour at Hotel Monaco, then strolled down for yummy hot dogs at Dog in the Park, and ended with Red Velvet Cheesecake at the Cheesecake Factory.

The next day we strolled the International District which is the equivalent of China Town and Japan Town. We got boba and cream puffs at Beard Papas and then headed home.

 
We had such a blast and love spending time in Seattle. Next time we plan to bring the girls and show them the Space Needle.

I love long updates!

Hello! I'm getting so terrible at these updates. Life can be crazy at times, but then there are the times where it feels like you're just chugging along and nothing interesting happens. It's been over 2 months since our last update. Not much has really happened, but there have been some milestones.

Sophia has started to stand on her own and dance. She's been able to take a couple of steps but isnt' fully capable of walking, just yet. She's getting close, but I fear she won't start walking.... more like RUNNING! That girl is always on the move, and the faster she can get there the better for her! :)

Emma has been developing her mind at a rapid pace. She's able to say all the letters and also tell you what sound each of them makes. A couple days ago, she was eating some chocolate alphabet letters. Joy arranged them into a C, A, T. Emma looked at it, sounded out each letter, then shouted CAT! She's also been singing her ABD's (she doesn't like saying C for some reason, haha), and is getting better at saying every letter.

Eden took up wrestling during the January/February months. That girl has a heart of a champion inside of her! She wrestled with the best of them, be it guy or girl! It was pretty cool watching her take down her opponents and put them in holds! She did a great job!


Joy had a CRAZY BUSY month in February. Besides having to be on a search committee to find a new Dean for their school, she also had to help plan and setup for the Board of Trustees Retreat in Salishan! I got to tag along and "help" her out. I helped by staying out of the way and relaxing on the Oregon Coast!

Even though Joy and I aren't of Irish descent, we still celebrated St. Patrick's Day! The girls woke up to green pancakes and green milk. Yummy! It was followed by dinner at Mom and Paw's house that included corned beef, potatoes, and green jello!


At the end of March, we welcomed the newest addition to our family, Kyohey! He is a foreign exchange student from Japan. During the past week and a half it's been a blast to have him in our house. We learn a lot from each other about the difference in culture from Japan and America. He is teaching us just as much as we are teaching him! It's been great to have him!



Easter was a blast as usual. Eden, Emma, and Sophie went to an Easter Egg hunt at Mom's church. Since it was raining, it was indoors. Even Sophie got some eggs!

Last but not least, Joy entered into a new TV show called America's Next Greatest Restaurant. It is supposed to air on NBC sometime soon. She did a great job on her pitch and her visuals. Only God knows if she'll be picked! Pray for her and for her dream to own and run her own restaurant!

That's pretty much it for us! I apologize for not having many pictures. Our camera is finally on its last legs and is having battery issues. I'll try to post more up later. Thanks for reading!

Sophia's Tol

 

We had a wonderful celebration in honor of Sophia's 1st Birthday. We threw a wonderful birthday party with many of our friends and family. We couldn't have done it without all of the help and support from the Weyand and Campos family!  Take a look at some of the photos from the party!

All of the Korean and Filipino food!

             In Korean tradition a child chooses from different objects to determine their future. The choices were an orange for culinary, pen for academic/writer, thermometer for doctor, calculator for math, and money for financial success. Sophie picked a calculator so she will be good in math!                                                           

 

Sohpie's first run at the cake! Boy did she like it and she stayed pretty clean except for her face!

 

Our family visited from California! Thanks for coming up!

Sophia's Birthday Eve!

Below are some pictures of Sophia's last day as an eleven month old! We will be celebrating her glorious 1 year birthday tomorrow! A year ago today Joy was already admitted in the hospital and I was settling into the couch right next to her. Ahh, good times!





I can't believe that a whole year has gone by so fast! This Saturday, we will be celebrating Sophie's Tol (Korean 1st birthday celebration) with lots of good food and good company! Sophia will have many items to choose from to determine her future. I wonder what she'll pick...

Thanks for reading!

Our November and December 2009

PLEASE CLICK ON THE COLLAGE TO ENLARGE! ENJOY!

Wow, It's been FOREVER since the last time we updated. As usual, a lot has happened, and we were too busy to update the blog since we were having so much fun! After our last update (back in November of 2009!), our wonderful family has gone down to the Bay Area for Thanksgiving, celebrated Eden's 12th birthday, celebrated Emma's 3rd birthday, celebrated Christmas, had family over for New Years, and LOADS MORE!

A couple days before Veteran's Day, I took Emma and Sophie with me down to the Bay Area. Since I'm able to work practically anywhere that has a computer, and the girls are not in a school or daycare, we were able to come a couple weeks early down to the Bay Area. It was very sad to leave Joy and Eden up in Oregon. We drove down... Yes, drove. It's a 10 hour drive, but it took us 11, just to be safe. The girls were fantastic all the way down! Sophie was a bit sick, so she slept most of the time, and Emma had a blast listening (and singing) to music and watching some movies. While I worked from my parents house, my mom and/or dad would watch the kids. Sophie took a little while to get comfortable with my parents, but after a couple of days she was her happy smiley self.

The days went by pretty quickly. Emma, Sophie and I would Skype with Joy and Eden every other day. It was hard to be in the Bay when it was Eden's 12th birthday. I don't like missing special events like that for our kids. She looked great in her dress though! Joy made Eden all her favorite foods, like Korean BBQ and Sinigang. The little ones and I would visit (rather frequently) the Rubin's house for some PS3, and NERF War action! Emma had such a great time shooting Ninong J-Lee. We were practicing and gearing up for the great Thanksgiving showdown! Finally after 2 weeks of being apart, Joy and Eden took the Amtrak down to the Bay Area. It was a 16 hour train ride! They were met by Emma, Sophie, Mama, Papa, Inay, and myself! It was great to have everyone back together again!

The week that Joy and Eden were in the Bay was probably our busiest yet! We visited all of our hangouts and literally pigged out on all the food that we were missing out on! We had our pictures taken for our Christmas cards by Jon's cousin Billy. He did an amazing job taking TONS of pictures of the family. Thanks Billy for capturing many wonderful memories for us!

Thanksgiving LUNCH this year was at the Rubin's house, and it did not dissapoint! It was food overload, with a showdown of sorts for the cousins. NERF WARS! Thanks to Inay (well really Sae for donating most of the guns). We also celebrated Eden, Emma, and my dad's birthdays there. After a semi food coma, we followed the Navarretes to Thanksgiving DINNER at RJ's house in Benicia. MORE FOOD!!! We also got to meet Logan, who was super cool and very adorable. He and Sophie had a wonderful time playing together!

Friday was "errand day". We spend most of the day in Fremont getting our van fixed and doing some Christmas shopping at Costco. Joy and I went and visited Jon and Billy that night for a late night snack at BJs (formerly Houlihan's at Sunvalley Mall). We ran into Norbert, Bobby, and Adel there! Random!

Saturday was TEATRO ZINZANI. First of, a huge awesome THANK YOU to Kuya Gerry. That night would not, could not, have been possible without you. Thank you for everything! We had a wonderful time and memories that we will take forever. If you ever get the chance, you MUST go and see Teatro Zinzani. Their performances are amazing, and the food is just ridiculously delicious! I won't spoil anything from the actual performances, but let's just say that it's definitely MUST SEE! After Teatro Zinzani, Joy and I headed down to Billy's house for a little get together he was having. We arrived right before Holman and Alesia were "leaving". They had been trying to "leave" for almost an hour. It was good to see them, and everyone else for that matter! Thanks to Auntie Jet and Billy for opening up your home to us. We probably arrived there at 1130, but had to leave about 1AM since we were leaving for Oregon the next day.

Sunday was going home day. Granted, it's not a fun day to begin, but it's a day that always has to get done. I hope that made sense. One highlight of this day was going to In N Out on the way up to Oregon. It's our last stop in California before hitting the border.

After being gone for almost a month, Oregon felt different when I came back. It was probably because it was FREEZING when we arrived. The next couple of days before Christmas, we had temperatures in the TEENS almost every day! If it warmed up, it only got to about 37 degrees as a high, and it would rain. Just a couple more degrees and it would be a blizzard, but it never came down as snow.

Emma's 3rd birthday party was so much fun! Joy always makes what the birthday celebrant loves to eat. For dinner we had Mac and Cheese (Kraft style), McDonald's Chicken Nuggets and Fries, and corn. Go figure.... Not the healthiest dinner, but it was still yummy nonetheless.

Getting ready for Christmas was very memorable. I spent a good hour or so on the roof of our house putting up lights. Having Christmas in our first house is definitely a memory that will be with me forever. We had Christmas Eve dinner at Joy's parents house, and opened stockings. Thanks Mom, Paw, Lara, and Grandma Belle! The Night Before Christmas (the kid friendly and unrated versions) was read by Paw with Sophie and Emma sitting on his lap. Since it was our first year in our first house, Joy and I decided to have Christmas Dinner here. Paw, Mom, Lara, and Grandma Belle arrived super early Christmas Day to see the reactions to the girls waking up to Christmas morning. Emma's gift from Santa was a playhouse/dollhouse, and Sophie's was a buggy that she can ride and be pushed in. Eden got a digital camera and an MP3 player. My lovely wife gave me my ring that she restored. It was previously (and purposefully) cut off of my finger a couple of years back. (It's kind of a funny story, but a bit long to post here.) I have one word to describe Christmas Dinner... DELICOUS!!! We had pernil (pear-kneel, Puero Rican style pork shoulder), raviolis and gnocchis from Genovas in Oakland (which we took with us from the Bay), green beans (Leah and Nick style) and Joy's awesome eggplant parmesan.

A couple of days after Christmas, my sister came up on the train to visit us for New Year's. She said that she didn't care what she did while she was up here, as long as she got her hair "did" and that it snowed. She got both of that, on the same day... After having freezing temperatures and rain on opposite days, it finally happened. God was with us that day. My sister wished for it to snow because she wanted to see snow falling. It's one thing to see it on TV, but to see it in person is another. It's so quiet, that's the amazing thing about it. It's beautiful and quiet. The funny thing is, the snow FOLLOWED us up to Tualitin where Inay was going to get her hair done. It snowed a good 6 inches, with Eden and Emma in the thick of it! My sister got her wishes, a nice new hairdo (complete with purple streaks), and it snowed. The weatherman called it a "freak" occurance, because the next day you could barely find any snow anywhere.

The next day also happened to be the day that the Ignacio boys were coming up via plane. I drove up with my sister (she had to get some last minute touches done to her hair), and met them at PDX. It's always a fun time when Kuya Royce, Kuya Edsel, and Kuya Rodney are around! Even though they like it better when Joy drives, we drove them around Salem and Portland and showed them some of what Oregon has to offer. We went bowling, looked at houses near the golf courses, and watched Avatar in 3D. We celebrated New Years Eve by playing poker and watching The Hangover. New Years Day was TAX FREE SHOPPING DAY for the Ignacio Boys. They took advantage of saving an automatic 10% on everything they bought, and got even better deals when we took them to the Woodburn shopping outlets!

On January 2nd, we had to say good bye to all of our visitors. We had breakfast at the Stepping Stones cafe, a place that Adam Richman from Man V. Food visited when he came to Portland. They really weren't lying when they made MAN-cakes! We dropped off the three boys first, then went to IKEA for some shopping before we dropped off Inay.

Alas, winter break was over for Joy and Eden, and it was back to the daily grind of work and school for us. I just want to thank everyone for all the support that you have given my family. Your love, prayers and thoughts are all that we could ask for. Thank you, from the bottom of our hearts. God has blessed my family with a wonderful network of people who truly care and love us. We cannot be more grateful. Thanks for reading! Hopefully we'll be more dilligent in updating! :)

Our Halloween Adventure

Halloween was a full day for us. It started with a quick stop to HMart to fill up on all things Korean and then off to lunch. We found a great PHO place up in Beaverton and Sophie loved the rice.



After lunch we took the girls to the zoo to participate in the scavenger hunt. We had fun running all over the place and looking at the different animals. Our reward was a coupon for a free dozen Krispy Kreme donuts. We would have stayed longer but we had to head back to Willamette University so Eden could meet the author of the Heck books she was reading. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity.



After the book signing we came home to rest and then got ready for the big trick-or-treat night ahead. First we visited Gma Belle and then off to Grandma and Grandpaw's house. We stopped at some houses here and there and then headed back to our neighborhood to get more candy. The kids were pooped by the end of the night and they had a blast doing it. I have to say this was by far the most successful Halloween yet!