hurricane

so it seems like our friends and family are safe. without power for a few hours, but safe nonetheless. mom and dad said it's barely raining over there right now. sarah and i stayed up late watching cnn last night but ended up falling asleep on the floor downstairs. kinda crazy how what happened two weeks ago turned into pandemonium at home. as for my friends in galveston, i hope everyone got out okay. i can't imagine what it was like to stay on that rock last night. hopefully everyone's picking up the pieces all right.

if anyone wants to keep dry, there's always room at our place!

crash

great film. seen it twice already. wonder why i didn't see it earlier.

i don't really know what to say about it. didn't scare me, move me, or really change me... it just was. the scenes are raw and real, prejudices and stereotypes are blatantly there. you want to laugh aloud at things, but at the same time you feel like you shouldn't. you think the worst evils about someone, then in a twist of events you suddenly feel compassion for them. funny how life is so ironic sometimes.

META

Meta Retreat 2005 - West Houston Chinese Church

So we went back to Trinity Pines for Meta's Annual Retreat. What an awesome time to see what God is doing back home, how the community is growing, and hug all our old friends again. Pastor Ryan Kwon came down from LA to speak some truth to our community about being authentic and living out the gospel. Josh and I had the chance to think more about our church in st. louis and begin to make some committments... so the word was good. also, we did some canoe racing, swimming, singing, running around, and non-stop eating. what fun!

eric, this picture is for you. (for those of you who don't know, eric is the cute guy in the brown shirt. who is married to that cute girl in the green)

yvonne, can't get enough pictures with you :) thanks for helping us get up there, and letting us sleep along the way.

hannah and philbert snuck back to the houston area while we were away. it was great to see you guys again. thanks for leading our small group!

my old small group!! man, i miss you guys. top: kat, christine, me, rebs. bottom: palm, yvonne, susan. best of luck to christine - fearless leader - as they begin another great year.

and then there were the kids...

sorry, we kinda went picture crazy. evan turned 5 on saturday. ching made him this adorable crown... and he celebrated by jumping off the diving board all by himself! what a brave kid.


baby lauren here on the left is like a little max, only with sideburns. what a chub! she is sooo cute.

josh can't get enough... he's a kid magnet. the youngest one here is justin wei. he's only a few months, but oh my, he looks so big already. we didn't manage to get any photos of caleb chiao or mia law!! i can't believe that. i'm sure grace & amy will post pics of their adorable angels from the weekend. sarah, as you can tell, sure loves the camera. she's growing up so fast.

SUMO THIS

ARGH. 500 lbs. of pure massiveness. Let me tell you, it sure was a sight to see. This guy was so big that he needed help getting up and down to do his stretches. The fights only lasted like 10 seconds, but we got to see them go at it a few times. basically, it's a fight of balance and strategy- whoever puts their hands down or gets pushed out of the ring loses. although i was worried the whole time that his blue thong would fall off. that would have been horrifying.

Who knew we'd be so cultural in one weekend? We went to the Japanese Festival at the botannical gardens. it was awesome. food, crafts, street performers, drummers, martial arts... the best part, of course, was the sumo wrestling. we had two wrestlers pictured above from Hawaii come and do some demonstrations. I tried to get Josh to go up there when they called for volunteers, but he declined. too bad, it was a once-in-a-lifetime chance!!

greek festival

OPA! (fun to say, but does anyone know what that means?)

just down the street from us was a greek festival... lots of greek music, gooey nutty pastries, kabobs of all sizes, and of course, the gyros. i did try a sour rice thing wrapped in grape leaves, it was pretty gross. elma and i opted for the gyro salads, loaded with lots of meeeet. we didn't do much else besides eat.