On Advent

I (Chau), think I understand the meaning of the advent season a lot more this year. For generations, the Israelites have been waiting for the Promise, the Messiah, the Christ, who will deliver them. The anticipation and the stories of their past are repeatedly told at each family gathering, at meals. They are reminded time and time again that the Lord is coming. And when He's here, all will be well again. That is the reason why the angels sing and Mary called herself blessed.

We are also celebrating advent of another kind. I'm 38 3/7 weeks pregnant today. The little guy is technically cooked, mature and full term. We are just waiting for his arrival. The anticipation has me tickled with excitement and apprehensive with the unknown of it all.

This is the 4th year that we are participating in Advent Conspiracy. We are trying to be more purposeful with our resources. Instead of getting caught up in consumerism that occurs around this season, we are joining our church in using that money in a more meaningful way: building wells in 3rd world countries, serving Portland, Kosovo, and Haiti.



Merry Christmas everyone! Hope you find much joy during this advent season.

Rachel's Baby Shower

Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice. That's What Little Girls are Made of.

I had the pleasure of throwing my friend Rachel, her baby shower today. Rache's baby girl is 3 weeks ahead of my little peanut. We are so excited for her arrival!!
It has been a while since I did anything crafty, so it was such a blast doing it. The theme was sugar and spice (and everything nice). Therefore, the focus was more on the desserts. But the sandwiches from Meat Cheese Bread were a hit too! I had to thank my patient husband who put up with my insane, detail oriented, OCD craziness at and while planning for this party. I really hope everyone enjoyed themselves as much as I did. Here are a few pictures, recapping the event.

The inspiration- the cutest cake ever!
My friend Krista (who's a pastry chef) did most of the baked goods shown here. Call me if you want her information.

The top was red velvet and the bottom chocolate. The shoes were made from cupcakes and icing. Adorable!

Onsies sugar cookies, lemon cupcakes and chocolate covered strawberries. There were buttered short bread cookies too, but I forgot to take that picture.
Strawberry, 2%, and chocolate milk
We also served Izze sodas and store bought Italian sodas from World Market.
I made little place cards and signs to coordinate with the pink and chocolate theme.
Home made garland
Savory foods were ordered from Meat Cheese Bread in Portland. Gotta thank Q. for picking them up.
Husbands hanging out
Checking out the food table

General goofiness and chit chatting. I realized by running around, I didn't get a chance to take any real portraits of the guests or of Rachel herself, aside from the top goofy picture. Sorry Rach!
Rachel's mom practicing with baby Ethan while waiting for Lilly.

Congratulations you guys!! It was really fun putting all this together. Quoc and I are really excited to meet her. Can't wait for our babies to have play dates!

Oh and here's a random picture of my sister, who visited last week and helped me make some of the decorations. Thanks, sissy.

Big News

Where did the time go? Summer is almost over! If you haven't heard, we're pregnant! We're 20 weeks today. We went for our anatomy survey/ultrasound today. I was holding my breath, as the ultrasonographer scan over his nuchal fold, heart, lips, looking for abnormalities along with him. Everything is normal and great, thank God. I'm just paranoid for nothing. Ah.. the trouble of knowing too much. And oh yes, it's a boy! We're uber excited. I'm feeling kicks and movements- it does feel like there is an alien inside me... odd and wonderful at the same time.
Things we did this summer so far: picked berries- a PNW tradition, entertained families of both sides, went to Maui for a conference/vacation and of course lots of hiking. Here are some pictures.

I guess we didn't take that many pictures when the Les were here. Above were just some of the better ones from Sunriver, OR. It was a beautiful house and we had great weather while staying there. Aren't the babies cute?
Snorkeling in Maui with Mom. Well, I snorkeled. Mom waddled in the water.
Here's all of us at the Old Lahaina Luau. More pictures on Facebook. Do you even see my bump?

We hope to do more fun things before summer ends. It's so beautiful here this time of year. We also did several hikes but we didn't bring the camera most of the time. Here's a picture of the latest addition- our little guy...

Profile picture with the umbilical cord right at his mouth- looks like he's blowing a big bubble.

Empanadas

Hispanic food is one that I have hard time mastering. I've always loved empanadas when offered at restaurants, so I decided to ask my friend Anita to teach me one of her mom's recipes. Here's us making Chilean beef empanadas one Saturday afternoon in my fabulous kitchen :)
The dough is made up of all purpose flour (6 cups), butter (3/4 cup), salt (1 tsp), approx 1 cup of boiling water (adjusted to dough consistency similar to pizza dough). Using a wooden spoon, roughly mix altogether.

Knead and rolled out thinly- as much as you can.

Filling consists of 1 lb lean ground beef, 1 medium chopped onion, seasoned with 1 tsp of cumin, 1 tsp of paprika, 1 tsp. cayenne pepper (for extra kick), and salt, pepper to taste. Cook this on stove top with a few tbsp of olive oil. We also had raisins and pieces of hard boiled eggs before folding the dough.
Cut with a pizza cutter in half moons, making sure the edges stick (apply water around the edges and press down). Deep fry.

Anita among the yummy goodness. Thanks for sharing, lady! Your mom must be so proud. Maybe next time, I'll venture to make arepas... or just stick to tacos and burritos...

House updates & more

It started with a sink I saw on overstock.com on sale. Then before we know it, we're chiseling out the old, dirty and ruined marble tiles, brass hardware, stained sink and replacing practically the whole thing. Props to Quoc for doing most of hard work. I picked the replacement pieces and painted though. It was a team effort. We're really happy with the result. Below are some before and after pictures.

Before

After

I haven't put up a lot of food pictures lately, but I have been cooking- promise. But I want to share a picture of a meal that Quoc made for Valentine's day. Grilled lobster with lemon and chives glaze, broiled fresh asparagus, orzo and garden salad drizzled with balsamic vinaigrette. He doesn't cook often, but usually goes all out when he does. We paired it with Chilean Santa Rita Camenere. Yum! That was a good meal. Coffee ice cream- my favorite- was the dessert.


And here's one of mine- pan-seared salmon with capers, grape tomatoes vinaigrette.


I also recently went to visit my friend Kim in Phoenix, and had so much fun taking care of her 6 week-old baby girl. Here's Isabella Faith Mah. Isn't she precious?


And here are some random hiking pictures @ Angel's Rest and Hoyt Arboretum

Haiti

Devastating news about Haiti yesterday onto today...

10 miles outside of Port au Prince, the capital of Haiti, an earthquake of 7.0 magnitude hit, crumpling much of the city's buildings and structures, leaving thousands dead, wounded, and without shelter, food or medical care.

I watched the pictures in horror, fighting back tears the whole time, wishing I can be there among the volunteers, instead of here. My clinic day just became futile; patients' complaints felt irrelevant. Good news (small but made a huge difference) came about mid day. Pastor Delamy, who is our Haitian compassionate leader and gentle minister and his family are safe. Communication are still erratic. I can imagine- it wasn't great before the disaster hit. I can't imagine what it must be for the volunteers, for my dear friends, Joe and Linda, who will be flying there tomorrow night.

Haiti is a country of trials. Its people has been through slavery, wars, conflicts, internal and external, robbed of a normal way of life, surviving on foreign aid as its government seems to be helpless and/or dysfunctional. When I was there in March, I saw need- so much need. How much more can a nation of people handle?

However, I must believe that God is still in control. That He alone holds the future, ours, and my friends, the people of Haiti, as He has always been a faithful, good, and loving God. I can only hope that there is good in all of this.. chaos, destruction and turmoil. All I can do now is pray, since I can't be down there, for peace, safety and for my own sanity.

If you want to donate money, please go to medical team international's website.

From Chau's 2009 Haiti Trip