home

earlier today, mikey sent me these pictures of home. apparently, a winter storm hit portland and dumped 6 inches of snow on the city. i haven't seen snow like that in awhile. and seeing the pictures made me miss home more than i have in a long time. mikey got a snow day and didn't have to work. this is a picture from his room window, looking at our neighbor's house. it is so much snow! i've been complaining about the cold temps here and i realized that i've indeed become wimpy and grown accustomed to warmer weather.


this is the backyard covered in snow. if this had happened while we were all still living at home, i'd have dragged mike and andy out to play. i'm pretty sure we still have our old sleds in storage somewhere in the garage. and secretly, i've always wanted the pool to freeze over so we could slide around on it like an ice rink. picture it - it would be so much fun!


mike sent me this last one he took from his window. the school bus is directly in front of my parents' house and apparently, it started sliding backwards down the hill and slid right into the truck! mike said the truck eventually pushed the bus up onto flatter ground. i'm not sure what that bus driver was thinking with 6 inches of snow. most cars can't make it up that hill when there's just a light layer of snow on the ground, let alone 6 inches. and i found out my crazy father decided to go to the bank - he made it there and back just fine, but still...

when i was in high school, maybe college, it started snowing as my dad and i were driving back home. when we got to our neighborhood, the snow was just starting to make a visible layer on the ground. my dad, in his troublemaking humor, decided to swerve all the way up the hill, leaving tire marks everywhere, making it look like the hill was extremely slippery and treacherous when it really wasn't that bad. a couple of hours later, we all went out to eat and we saw 4 or 5 cars parked at the bottom of the hill, where my dad's tire tracks started. he had a good laugh. it was pretty funny.

and speaking of funny, here's a link to a video that both mike and kristie sent me about the craziness: bumper cars


there is a group of oregonians that have moved here in the last few years. every now and then, we try to get together for dinner and catch up. it's been awhile since we hung out - i think the last time was at the end of september. since ruth was in town for work and dan is getting ready to move back to portland, we had bbq in cerritos and hung out at guppy teahouse to catch up afterwards. the picture is missing john and hannah, plus jane and friend. they left before i remembered that i had my camera. usually, getting together with oregon friends and catching up doesn't make me homesick, but today it did. it's probably because i just spent a few weeks up there, but i haven't missed portland/seattle like this in awhile. i tend to miss home when i get confused or feel sort of lost.

i'm still on vacation, so i suppose i'll have lots of time to ponder my sudden longing for home.

frozen over

it's been really cold the last few days. i know it can't compare to the snow in seattle and portland, but by LA standards, it's pretty darn cold. last night, i was going to my car and the sprinklers had been going. there were droplets of water frozen to my windshield all over the passenger side. in my experience, that only happens up north. it was so cold that my roommates even turned on the heat in the apartment.

and sadly, the seahawks just lost to the bears. BOO!

you know you're sick when...

• ...you start to hurt everywhere.
  
• ...your snot turns green.
• ...your snot randomly liquifies and drips out of your nose without warning.
• ...you have to roll up balls of tissue to stuff up your nose as a snot plug.
• ...your nose matches that of rudolph.
• ...you can't remember which meds you took when and when you can take your next dose.
• ...you feel both unbelievably cold and hot at the same time.
  
• ...you can't sleep through the night because you have a fever of 102 degrees.
• ...you drink airborne and theraflu like water to something dying of thirst.
  
• ...your voice turns gravelly and you sound like a dude.

put all of that together, i'm telling you, it's attractive.

cold season strikes again

how is it possible, that even on vacation, the plague of teachers everywhere - the common cold/flu, still managed to find and infect me? i was feeling absolutely peachy until dinner, when i started to feel a little off. two hours later, i realized the chills and body aches were caused by something other than the weather and traveling.

boo.

revisiting the past for thought

every now and then, i'll reread old blog posts. sometimes, i cringe. once in a while, i find something good i'd forgotten about, like this:

"i heard a friend say that the more in tune you are with God, the more the things that you want will only be what God wants - so all the things that you used to want for yourself will be replaced by infinitely better things that God desires for your life. in short, all you'll want is what He wants for you."

i think that's from about 4 years ago. am i more in tune with God after 4 years? i sure hope so.

good-bye 2006, hello 2007!

happy new year!

after sitting in the car on the way to light illegal fireworks when the clock struck midnight, shooting each other in the face with nerf darts at close range, and watching little miss sunshine, i got home to see my parents in the kitchen. it's moments like sitting up in the middle of the night and snacking and talking about random things and hearing stories about my parents' childhoods that i really enjoy. it doesn't happen too often. and while my mom continues to try and throw every available chinese boy with remote potential at me, i have my dad on my side to get my mom to chill out and leave me alone.

while at home, i've been introduced to two new games - bohnanza and dutch blitz. playing games with the cousins has been fun. even better, we like ganging up on andy because it's highly amusing.

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it usually takes me awhile to adjust to being at home and with my family. and just when i'm used to being here, it's time to leave again in two days.

adventures in puppy-sitting

yesterday, i got together with ruth and her dog athena, a hungarian vizsla. russell and athena had a playdate at the dog park near ruth's house. russell is a small dog, as evidenced by the photo. that is only half of athena. they had a fun time at the dog park running around and playing around with the other dogs. russell was definitely one of the smallest dogs, but he played really well with all the big dogs, until this one short-legged dachshund-looking jerk dog kept biting at russell as russell tried to play with him. the other dog was pretty aggressive - though scrappy russell held his own. we promptly removed russell from the play area and took him for a walk. since we was insanely dirty, i dropped him off at petsmart for a bath. he came back all clean and no longer stinky. love it.


i've been taking him around my neighborhood for walks. it is amazing how total strangers will just come up and introduce themselves to you when you have a dog. seriously, i think i've met more people in the neighborhood in the last few days than i have in all the years i lived here. here he is sitting on a rock near my parents' garage. right behind is his potty lawn.


russell is a face-biter/face-licker. when you play with him, he likes to jump up at your face. my brother andy likes to play around with russell. earlier this evening, he was playing with russell and getting him all riled up, knowing that russell likes to go for the face. sure enough, he suddenly jumped up and bit andy on the nose, making a small puncture - circled to the left. i felt like it was an "i told you so" moment; andy was not so amused.



with all the activity, this is what russell looks like around 9pm. pretty darn cute. more pictures can be found here. the only thing that is not cute is when he farts in his sleep, which he does a lot. then he is back to stinky russell.