We had a mini-vacation this weekend to go out dancing. Jenni’s parents were gracious enough to house us so that our daughters can sleep while we went to late night dancing—two nights in a row. It was so nice to see friends out on the dance floor and reminisce about our dating and dancing days.
Portland Dance Festival was Jenni and my kick-off dance that started our attraction. We had a great night of dancing together which ended with a dip and I found myself staring into her eyes. It was magic.
When Jenni and I returned from test driving a black minivan earlier this week, Kadie requested that our next vehicle be colored red. I told her that we don’t get a choice in the color since we were buying an used minivan. Funny how and when God gives good gifts to little ones, even something as small as color because now we own a red 2010 Kia Sedona.
We’re excited to be able to have passengers other than just our kids. And now we’ll have room for all the stuff for three little kids, a mom who carries along her own toaster oven for homemade, gluten-soy-dairy-and-egg-free waffles, and a dad lugging camera gear, computers, and gadgets.
When I married Jennilyn, I was also blessed to inherit a large family to love me. It has been important to us that we stayed near and involved with our parents, siblings, and extended families. Having their support gives us strength, hope, and courage for any challenge we face.
The beach is the background of many of our memories. We visit the beach as frequent as possible because it is one of Jennilyn’s favorite places and it provides negative ions that creates positive vibes. We fell asleep on a hillside of Cannon beach on Jennilyn’s birthday and I got a V-shaped sunburn from my Hawaiian shirt collar. We celebrated our honeymoon on the beaches of Maui. Our fifth anniversary at Seaside was a nice getaway, even though we had baby Violet on board. The sandcastle competition at Cannon beach was amazing five years ago. I’m thankful that the beach is only an hour away, so we can enjoy it easily as a day trip.
Beaverton Foursquare Church is our home church and where we committed our lives to each other before God. We’re very thankful for the bible studies, financial courses, wise preachers, great friends, amazing children ministries, and an energetic worship team.
I’m thankful Jenni indulges in my short-term obsessions with equal or more firepower.
I’ve always found full background web slideshows visually and technically impressive, but didn’t have the right use for them. After finding the jQuery supersized plugin, I was inspired to use one for my Mauritius, Réunion, and Paris slideshow photo set. I think it turned out pretty well as a slide presentation—so well, that I should redesign our photography site with it.
See the 288 hand-picked photos from Mauritius, Réunion, and Paris »
I think one of the sexiest things about Jennilyn is the fact that she’ll play games with me—not just simple games, but fighting games, racing games, first person shooters, and real-time strategy games too.
As we were walking through a park on our anniversary, Jenni smiled when she saw another couple that was an Asian male with a Caucasian female. I noticed them too and we were reminded that we’re a mixed race couple.
Our cultural differences don’t come up often except when we gather with our extended families. I’m often the only Asian in the room with Jenni’s family and Jenni is the only Caucasian when we gather with my family. Both of us are loved and accepted—never ostracized.
And, as a bonus, we both inherited more holidays to celebrate.
Just for fun, we looked at our heritage ingredients:
I think the ingredients mixed quite well as our daughters are very cute.
It was such a special trip to travel to where my father was born. I had heard about it in my youth, but never thought much about it, nor how my dad started there. It wasn’t until college, when my friends learned that my dad was born in Mauritius, that my family roots became interesting. From then on, my friends teased that I was part black since the island of Mauritius is 500 miles east of Madagascar, a larger island east of Africa.