Thursday, August 27, 2009

Our Korean Bulgogi Party

We have been so blessed to get to know and befriend one of the most awesome girls I've ever met, Hana K. We met her through our friend Stephanie at Bible study and just adored her from the start. Hana is from Korea and has been in Washington for a year studying at the local college. Sadly, she had to fly home to Korea today, and we miss her already! She was sweet enough to fix a Korean feast for us over the weekend before she had to leave. I can't remember the names of all of the food, but I will do my best =)


A table of Korean appetizers


The dish to the right is Bulgogi and the dish in the middle is Hea-mule Pah Juyne (seafood pancakes) These were Derek's favorite!


Specialty noodles and Kimchi fried rice, yum!


Special dessert number one...friend sweet potatoes


...and special dessert number two, rice cakes w/syrup


Our sweet friend Hana =)

Happy Birthday Again Derek!

So, in the last post I mentioned that I would have to do some updating. The reason for that is because Derek had a surprise birthday dinner at Red Robin Burgers, which didn't take place until after his birthday. I don't pull off surprises too often, so I was really glad this one went smoothly.


Here's the group who helped me surprise the birthday boy =)


After our fabulous meal, we invited everyone back to our place for more cake and ice cream!


A few days after all the original birthday cake disappeared, Derek had a special request for this homemade cake, and I just couldn't say no....


...so I made the cake and sang "Happy Birthday" again =)

And I should also mentioned that Derek's Maw Maw Gen and Aunt Tanya came in for a visit today and wanted to take us out to celebrate a belated birthday with Derek. Guess where we went? Red Robin =)

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Happy Birthday Derek!

It's a couple of hours early, but tomorrow Derek is celebrating birthday #23! If we were still living in central time, it would already be his birthday so it's okay to go ahead and say it

"Happy Birthday Derek!"

Derek and I became friends around the time he turned 13 and joined the youth group at church, and I am so so so incredibly blessed to have celebrated a decade of birthdays with the man who is still today my very best friend and partner in life. I love you Derek Thomas!!

We started the celebration a little early by having some cake and ice cream with our friends at Bible study tonight...a little surprise for the birthday boy. We still have some more celebration to come, so I'll be updating this post a little later on. For now, here's a little bit of celebration for you to enjoy...



Why red and black? Well, for anyone who knows Derek,
he's a huge Michael Jordan fan...what better way to celebrate
birthday #23? =)

Monday, July 27, 2009

This One is for July

Looking at our blog, it would appear that we've been hiding in a hole since our anniversary, but that's not true at all! July was an awesome month full of events and lots of fun times. I'll try to catch you up...

First, we celebrated the 4th of July by spreading the word about our church. We set up a booth at DuPont's July 4th event and passed out free balloons and bottles of water to as many people as we could. I guess you could say that this was Life Church going public...really just letting people know that we're here! We had a blast!


Here's Derek trying to untangle some balloon string =)


Balloons just waiting to be given away.


Our friend and fellow Life Churcher, Little Deb, giving this sweet girl pony ride.


Fabulous volunteers just keeping the balloons coming!

You can check out our website at http://www.lifechurchdupont.com

Next on our list of fun times in July was taking a trip home to see our families! My Daddy celebrated his 50th birthday on July 8th and we surprised him by flying in for his birthday party without him having a clue we were coming! He was indeed surprised and we were happy we were there to help celebrate. We were home for almost a week before flying back to Washington. It was so nice to see our family and friends, even though we didn't get to see everyone we wanted to see during our short stay. And for whatever reason, we didn't have the camera around very often, but I did manage to get a few pictures of some of our favorite people =)


Me with my aunt "G" and her boys
(who I also consider to be my boys) Jared and Zack


Me and My Moma

Another surprise we got to deliver while at home was a plane ticket for my Mom to come stay with us in Washington for a week. Some amazing ladies in my mom's life all got together and decided she needed a last minute vacation so they arranged for her to have just that! Thanks amazing ladies! You gave my mom and me some very treasured time together! So wrapping up July is my mom's trip back to Washington. Here are a couple of the things we got to do together.


We took Mom to her first major league baseball game
Mariners vs. Indians (the tribe was the victor)


We arrived early and got to enjoy some batting practice


Derek and I haven't been to a Mariners game since 2002
on our Seattle/Spokane mission trip.


We had a great time! Mom loves baseball and it was
great to share this experience with her.

Then on Sunday, Derek was gone to camp, so Mom and I took a trip down to Pike Place Market. Mom had heard from a certain passenger on the plane about a fish throwing place, so I just had to take her down there to see it. Actually, this was my first time to the market, too. Somehow in the last nine months, it just never made my list. We had so much fun just taking in the market experience.


We're at the market!


The "fish throwing place"
Enjoy a fish throwing video...



Very fresh seafood


Beautiful flowers...you can have your own bouquet for only $5!


Doesn't that fruit look yummy?


Where Starbucks began..the very first one!


It was a great afternoon to follow a great week! It is always sad to take her back to the airport. I'm just so thankful that God does give us opportunities to spend such amazing QUALITY time with our families. We are truly blessed!

Friday, June 12, 2009

Portland Anniversary Trip

What do you do when you want to celebrate a special occasion but don't have alot of time? Well, I don't know what you would do, but we took a trip down to Portland, Oregon! We went out of town last year for our first anniversary...all the way to Wickes, Arkansas...Bogg Springs Kids Camp! This year, we had Friday, Saturday, and Sunday free, so we decided to go down to Portland. To make it even more exciting, we decided to take the train to get there! We had a great time and just wanted to share a few pictures...


Portland here we come!


Derek getting on board the train.


Ready for our mini-vacation!


Our view of Portland from the hotel


We enjoyed a fabulous dinner at The Melting Pot...I think it's our new special occasion place. In Portland, the restaurant is underground, very neat!


Here we are right after our chocolate fondue course...yum!


Portland was wrapping up something they call "The Rose Festival" so we got lucky and happened upon a parade, how fun!


This is Portland's Waterfront District. There were lots of ships docked b/c of the Rose Festival.


Union Station in downtown Portland...we really enjoyed taking the train on this trip. Before this, my closest train experience was watching "The Polar Express." =)


It was a great trip...much needed...and we can't wait for the next one!