season’s greetings!

i cant believe 2008 is coming to an end soon…and this is only like the 5th entry all year.  it’s been so long since i last updated that errol is probably right, there’s cobwebs all over.  so let’s recap:

mark and i got married in may! even though it was just a mere months away, that seems so long ago already.  guess we are really enjoying married life

after the wedding, we traveled to greece (santorini and athens) & london for a lovely honeymoon.  mark and i still reminisce about the awesome food we had on the trip…only in greece, not london

we stayed low key throughout the summer, just recovering from a hectic wedding planning period.  we snuck in a couple of weddings, including a weekend trip to pismo beach.

summer decided to extend its stay in san fran this year.  we have had really nice weather (unseasonally warm and sunny) even as we speak, and it’s already december!  mark and i have been taking advantage of it and spend a lot of our weekends out biking, rollerblading (mark only) along the waterfront, to the farmers market, to chinatown, even to the “ghettos” once.

another really cool thing that happened this year was our good friends jon & frank from seattle/detroit also moving to sf.  since then, we’ve visit jtown on average of 3 times a week  they only live a couple blocks away from us so that also means many many late nights of poker, big 2, mah jong, settlers, rock band 2…etc etc.  it’d be even more fun if the 2 of them started dating so i dont have to hang out with all boys

fall came even us even noticing.  we went on a fall wedding galore that took us to houston, san jose & nyc. we got to hang out with family, yvonne, judy, bonnie & vincent, erin, todd & kelly!  the houston trip was good timing because my parents had just moved so we were able to help them a little.  mark got a glimpse of all the crazy stuff from my childhood (school papers from elementary school my mom has been keeping, study materials, toys, pictures, clothes…talk about being packrats!) in new york, we got some awesome food like cheap japanese food, delish brunches, all-you-can-eat indian food, cupcakes and pinkberry!  overrated in my opinion, but it’s 1 thing off my to-do list.  another amazing sight was fall foliage in central park.  purrrty

this year wasn’t just about us visiting places, we got a lot of visitors in sf as well.  earlier this year, emmy dropped by during an interview stop in oakland.  yvonne came by to interview as well…and she’ll be back for good next year!  woohoo  mark’s friend jimmy was also in town for a school trip, so that meant breaking out settlers.  and that’s not even mentioning all the friends and family who came from all over for our wedding!

this holiday season, mark and i stuck around in sf and got to catch up with many old friends over thanksgiving break.  we have so much to be thankful for this year and being able to share those blessings with friends is really special.  we’ll be splitting our time between sf and houston (12/25-31) over christmas so hopefully we’ll be able to catch up with you in person soon!

we got a new espresso machine at work yesterday, which caused me to be just a tad overcaffeinated. as i was having trouble sleeping at night, i randomly thought of where i was exactly a year ago…2 years…3 years… and things have changed quite a bit. here’s my trip down memory lane:

1 year ago

i was living in mountain view, with a 7 min commute on a good day, 20 min commute in rush hour. i had a job where i still knew exactly what i would be working on the next day. mark and i were finally in a small group together for the first time, and spent most of our spare time serving in various ministries at church. in our rare pockets of free time, we loved biking to the numerous farmer’s market in the area. we needed a way out of domestication and complacency fast.

2 years ago

seattle was finally starting to feel like home. i was living in downtown seattle with no intention of leaving the city i had finally figured out the kind of job i wanted and fortunately i was dang good at it. doors were opening left and right and i loved every minute of my career fast track. personally, i was trying hard to get plugged into a community, while keeping in touch with my close friends from texas and also juggling a long distance relationship. biggest wallet eater: plane tickets. biggest time waster: webcam chats.

3 years ago

a year and some into my life in seattle, a whirlwind year into my relationship with mark. he was getting ready to move to san francisco. all the newness about california kept things exciting…little did i know i was about to enter the most challenging yet defining years of my life to date. living with 1 of my best friends from high school also means that we are getting to know the bar/club scene very well. at the same time, i finally had the courage to act on my realization that my first job ever would not become a fulfilling career so it’s time to start distributing the resume.

so crazy how things change. none of the snapshots into my life is like any of the others. where do i go from here? at times like these, i especially find jer 29:11 comforting because god is always faithful with his promises. mark and i talk and dream about the future, but for me personally i don’t think i’ve had clear confirmation of where i should go since college graduation…yet i’ve come this far. so i will persist in my request for divine direction.

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on a different note, leaving for tahoe in 3 hrs!!! better get some shut eye now.

i forgot to wear the engagement ring today and a number of people called me out on it.  oops!  (i actually realized too on the way to the train this morning but would have missed the train if i turned around..and then was secretly hoping no one would notice)

oh well, be more mindful tomorrow morning…hehe.  sorry mark!

after years of wondering why mark bought this domain, he finally set up a joint blog for us. i actually thought that he was going to use this blog to propose to me, so i used to check this domain regularly…just in case

we are still planning on blogging about our engagement and posting the corresponding pictures. stay tuned and come visit this new blog for upcoming details for our wedding!