i guess people do love us

ok. i gotta backtrack here. we had some visitors come in the last couple of weeks, made our usual rounds of the arch (yes, i went twice in the same weekend), soulard farmers market, university city, chocolate bar, forest park, city museum, lots of restaurants...

so here's our shout out to: sonya kooboo - good 'ole college friend who just matched in SanDiego for her residency! wooo!! mmm. fitz's...

rocky & laura tsang - cute couple from arkansas... they drove over 6 hours just to see us, so we let them steal our favorite spot under the arch. ever met a chinese guy with a southern accent?

paul & karen chong - awww... they would make a cute couple too, but they're my (sarah's) brother & sister. the one on the left is taken, the one on the right is available.

3 weeks later...

wow...either we've had absolutely nothing to post or we've had too much to post. i think it's more of the latter. you know how once you get behind on something you're always too lazy to try and catch up? maybe that's just me...

anyways, we've had countless visitors here in st. louis and travelled a bit ourselves over the last three weeks. i've been working in the ER, and no, it's definitely not like the TV show. or like scrubs, or house, or grey's anatomy. please.

congrats to the lovely couples married this weekend: john and michelle mao (austin) and roger and karen lin (st. louis)!!!!!

try this

check this out! ... probably one of the coolest places we've been in st. louis. they took junk from all over the city and built a giant playground for adults, including lots of coils, caves, and caverns to contort your body through. a true test of agility & heights for the adventurous. not to mention the aquarium, two airplanes suspended outdoors, giant slides, and a bus overhanging the top of the building. bizarre, yes. but we had a blast. knee bruises, rope burns, and all...

showers galore

two showers in one weekend -- phew! things couldn't have been more exhausting! but it was so good to see old friends. a drive with carol up to austin, a lot of funny hats, tea bags, memory keepsakes & tears, quiche, a drive back to houston, a lot of hugs at church, mini tiramisus, a giant poster of gordon, and literally an overload of food. congrats, michelle & yvonne!

flowers, food, fun

here's an ode to gloria's post - our eventful week, mixing in a couple sleepless nights in the hospital:

a quiet dinner date at home on tuesday - yes, that is steak. my wife really is pretty amazing. did i say that on the last post?? but i lit the candles, thank you very much. and yes, i did get her something too.

and later during the week the guys cooked an awesome dinner for the ladies. in return, we got to sit on the floor. =) wayland and wendy got to show off some of their licorice-eating skills too. nothing like a friendly battle of the sexes!

ok, no pics from me during the weekend...i was alone in the hospital catching the flu from sick kids. i'm sure sarah will post the fun from her weekend in texas...

more fooood

man, i feel so spoiled. and full. tonight i went to a valentine's ball with my mom. she wanted me to come back for this weekend. she hadn't gone the last couple of years because my dad usually took her, but she may be retiring next year, so she wanted to attend. so gladly, i accepted the offer -- i was, of course, her "date" and got to enjoy all the schmoozing around (yes, i like that word) with doctors and hospital people... the high life, man, that's all i can say. carrying on conversation with strangers about random things for hours was tiring, but the food was worth it. i've never had such fancy hors de vors, including endless crab legs with the meat just hanging out! at the open bar, introduced my mom to the sour amaretto... which she loved (heh) and then when the plated entree comes out, of course it has a huge stuffed lobster tail & filet mignon. i only ate most of the filet and half of the tail. pity.

but nice way to start out valentines week, right? well... i have a feeling it will only get better. especially since i will get to see josh again tomorrow. :) i've got some planning going on, and josh has some planning going on, so this should be an eventful week. i think i'll be happy with a quiet evening with my hubby, i already can't wait to go back to st. louis and be with him. ok, it's late. signing off from chicago...

disappointing...

hello?? anyone else think last night's episode of 24 was disappointing? can you say 'predictable'? man...i guess after all the excitement of the first four hours there isn't much left for the writers to do. i hope it gets better from here...

mmmm...

try this - grilled pork tenderloin stuffed with spinach, roasted garlic, and italian sausage; served with pan-fried asparagus and creamy polenta. recommended wine - coppola merlot 2002.

sounds like a restaurant menu, doesn't it? well, if you were at our place the other night, you'd be eating it too. the wine was my only contribution, and sarah really outdid herself this time. she's pretty amazing, i must say. and i am one lucky guy, i must say.

those of you who haven't come over yet, you don't know what you're missing...

soon-to-be mr. & mrs. wu

had this cute couple come visit this weekend... they braved the cold air and we went out all day to spend some Q time together. soulard farmers market, mobot (those poor fish), forest park (where we saw 3 brides!), white hot chocolate (+ naps), setting up our dvd burner (woo hoo!), eleven eleven, chocolate bar...







good talks, good times. best birthday present ever! thanks guys.. we miss you already :)

Season 5, bring it on.

Finally! just finished watching the 4th season, gearing up for sunday's premiere. considering we got the 1st season for Christmas last year (thanks dave), I'd say we packed it in pretty good. we are offically and unashamedly 24 fanatics. Josh has a conspiracy theory that the Chinese government is gonna want retribution this season, and we've been brainstorming up new names for Jack Bauer, since he's no longer Jack Bauer. (Billy Chong? Pancho Rodriguez? haha.. likely, fox will come up with some other boring alias.) In any case, we can't wait. Although, I detest that sneering, weasel of a man, President Logan. we know you'll run to join the 15 million other viewers this Sunday and Monday for the 4 hour extravaganza... or at least you what we'll be doing :)

sidebar

...as if we don't all waste enough time blogging, i've posted links down the side for your perusal. shout out/email me if i missed you, or if you want to be taken off :)

bang!

Celebrated Josh's bday on the 4th... with a big pot of chili, may's cornbread, lots of chicken, mango salsa & guacamole, red vinagar/orange salad, chocolate dipped strawberries... and of course, a winning game for Texas. The highlight for josh, though, was teaching our friends to play BANG!

30 oz. porterhouse

Okay... who forgot to call?? haha.. just giving you a hard time. :) Josh was post call, so we had a quiet evening out. Dierdorf
& Harts proved to be a winner. Although, as you can see, josh outdid himself this time. yes, that is one big piece of meat - larger than his head!! more to come on josh's 27th birthday...

New Years in Houston

ok, you regulars. sorry for the hold up. we had so much fun, but 5 days was just too short. sarah got to meet jocie for the first time, lots of wedding gab with the girls, josh got 2 green sweaters for christmas, the taos had a winning comeback in screwy louie (to be preserved in yvonne's book forever), and of course, some awesome houston friends and food to top it all off. here are some more highlights:

family time with the Taos.

three brothers. my, they're growing tall.

dec 31, 2005

gametime 6 pm

guess where??




Our words of the evening: Rockets Suck!! But hey, they always put up a show in the 4th quarter. too bad they couldn't pull through. we had a good time, though... as you can see josh is a little excited here...

Onto the party at Mike's!!

here are some of our favorite people! makes us remember what we miss most about being in houston. we played some games, caught up with old friends, talked about the past year and looked forward to 2006 together. drank champagne at the countdown... and also caught a lot of people kissing on video - look out!

michelle catches a little casino action with the boys.

before the night was over (at like 3 a.m.) we decided to finally pull out our wedding cake for our 1st year anniversary. check it out! the roses on top were flat, but still frozen white. for those of you who were wondering how it tasted... well, it tasted a little like sweet sawdust to tell you the truth. i think it got a little dry over the year, but it was fun to get it out.

what a great way to end the year. family, friends... and year-old wedding cake. happy 2006 everyone!!

Merry Christmas from St. Louis!!

Back to school!

ok, so new news yesterday... I (sarah) was officially accepted to a Ph.D. program in education at Saint Louis University!! so if you've been wondering what i've been doing down here besides taking care of joshy, now you know. i've been walking down this road for a few months now, but unsure of where I was going. so now I just wanted to share the good news with all of you out there in blog-o-land.

Please pray for me as I decide to pursue this program. SLU has a pretty large College of Public Service, which includes educational leadership, public policy, and other courses of that nature. so the avenues from which I can choose to study/do research are quite endless, which is exciting. I spent the last few months taking classes for fun (yes, it's true). I was hesitant about going back to school, but pleasantly surprised. God has really opened doors and made the journey very smooth so far, so I'm inclined to keep going... Josh calls me a nerd all the time, so I may as well accept it - so far, it's been a nice diversion... and hopefully it will be for the next 3-4 years. I'm thankful that my husband has been so loving and supportive of me and what i hope to do with my life. we figure now (a.k.a. before children) is the best time for me to be in school, yeah? so we'll see how things go, starting in January.

the white elephant

we went to 2 christmas parties over the weekend, and we came back with a random collection of objects you'd probably find at a garage sale. next time we're gonna think twice about what we bring to a gift exchange. =)

things we brought: picture frame, serving spoons, travel sequence game, and bath foam soaps from bath and body.

things we got: used snugli (with cobwebs), strange-looking candle holder/vase, bathroom decoration of girl sitting on toilet, open water dvd, and yes, bottled water.

careful, you just might see these gifts again someday...

monday again

i think we play so hard on the weekends, we feel totally exhausted by sunday night, and mondays are quite challenging to get through... anyone else feel like that??

this weekend, we had some visitors from houston (evelyn & emily), both taking a look at WashU... hopefully we'll have some more friends from houston here next summer!! we had a jam-packed weekend:

late night games at the taos
blue elephant thai food (YUM)
chocolate bar (and chocolate soup)
sisterhood of the traveling pants (don't ask)
touring forest park
dim sum at lulu's
christmas party #1
worship practice
chronicles of narnia
church
christmas party #2

what fun. sigh... tiring, but fun. i think we need another vacation.

oh the weather outside is frightful

we woke up tuesday morning to a fresh layer of powder everywhere. looks like the next few days are going to be pretty chilly - today it was a frigid 12 degrees outside. notice the lovely message i left my wife.

wicked!

went to the historic fox theatre just down the street with some friends from church last weekend. thanks to wynne for getting us tix well in advance. anyone else get a chance to see this amazing show? your comments on the flying monkeys and whatever else you found interesting are welcome...

Firsts

Our First Christmas in St. Louis... and our first real Christmas tree together! we chose the tree from Ted Drewes, a famous frozen custard place that happens to also sell all sorts of Christmas trees in the winter. Here we are, choosing just the right one...

we strung on the lights, and thanks to my friends annika and becca, we have beautiful new ornaments, too...

come see our pretty tree!!!