Happy 1st Birthday, Ella!


Today we celebrated Ella’s 1st Birthday. She had a “CinderELLA” themed party at the house. We can’t believe its been a year already.

Of course, Dad made the cake, and he did an outstanding job as usual. The cupcakes are always the biggest hit for all the kids, and they ran around with blue mouths afterward!

Family tradition is that on the baby’s 1st birthday, they always get the top tier of their cake – and they can go at it with no utensils!



Ella was a good sport, but she was pretty tired once it finally came time for cake time. We have to admit, it was pretty cute just watching her, even if she did get upset.

A few faves from the day:


Auntie Carrie & Grandma kiss the Birthday Girl.


Auntie Carrie shows Kendall how to be cool with the “over the glasses” pose.


Jordan & Ethan pose with Uncle Ed.


Papaw & the Birthday Girl.


Mommy & Ella hit the pinata.


Mikaya & Uncle Ed play outside.

Ella’s 1st Birthday

(Click on the thumbnail to view the whole album.)

Happy New Year – and Happy Birthday, Dad!

Today was Dad’s 69th Birthday, and a big New Years Celebration was held for all the local (and visiting) Kims at a cousin’s house nearby in Cypress.

Once we arrived, some of the traditional Korean New Years Celebrations began. First, all the younger kids bowed to the respected elders in attendance:

(Cousins on the left, Dad, Aunt Grace, Uncle Luke)

Wish we got a better picture, but here are the kids ready for their bow:

Little Luke and Jeffrey even donned their hanboks!

Then, Aunt Grace read an excerpt from the Upper Room and led the day’s prayer:

After some traditions, we sat down for another one: a great big lunch with lots of delicious Korean food, along with Ddukgook (only a way to spell this out phoenetically!) which is a soup filled with tasty dumplings, rice cake and eggs. We were stuffed!

Of course, after lunch came the birthday cake, and it was time to celebrate Dad’s birthday!


We got Dad a pretty cool art book for his birthday – 30,000 years of art. The book is HUGE! We told him the book could also double as exercise equipment.

We regret not getting more pictures, but we had a great day catching up with family and enjoying the New Year’s start together.

Happy Birthday, Dad!

Happy Birthday, Dad!

We all got together tonight to celebrate the infamous Lardog and his upcoming 59th year! The whole crew made it over to our house before heading out to dinner, and a good time was had by all.

We have to admit though that Miss Ella kinda stole the show (you know we love you though, Dad! heh heh). Come on – how can you resist this face?

We even got to see her new teeth!

You can see all the rest of our evenin’s shenanigan’s by clicking the album thumbnail:

Happy Birthday, Dad!

HAPPY 59th DAD!!!

Eric turns the big 3-0!

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We went out to Perris today to visit my lil’ bro & the family to celebrate his birthday. I can’t believe my little brother is thirty years old! It’s pretty amazing to think that he is appoaching his 10th wedding anniversary and has 5 children at his age! I’m an extremely proud big sister – he is a good guy and a great dad…and I am happy to see him so happy in his life.

It had also been too long since we got to spend some quality time with the kids. They were as cute as always. They just love their Uncle Ed:

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Ethan can be such a stinker. He runs and hides as soon as he sees the camera come out. But we managed to get a half-picture of him in the backyard:

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And Miss Ella is growing…she gets cuter everytime we see her!

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We also got a chance to look through Kendall’s sketchbook. At just 9 years old, she’s got quite a thick book, and she is so smart! We got a real kick out of this chart she made:

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We know its kinda hard to see, but she has listed that she is 50% white, 25% samoan and 25% “chinees thai”. That kid just melts our hearts. She really does.

Weekend Success

Back to reality now that the Palm Springs weekend has come to a close, and it couldn’t have been better. On Saturday, we went to a fantastic restaurant called The Falls. They’re known for great steaks and greater martinis, so it was an apropos place to have dinner on Carrie’s birthday. We were given a great tip the night before to request the table on the balcony with it’s very own firepit, and our wishes were granted! It was a very special dinner.

The dinner crew (you can just barely see the edge of the firepit in front of us):
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The view from the table:
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The next day we were off to take our very own Modern Architecture tour. We saw so many great houses that were absolutely drool-worthy. We decided that we wanted to move here:
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Or here:
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Amongst many of the houses we drove by, we saw Neutra’s iconic Kaufman House. This is as beautiful as architecture gets!
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The last of the bunch was driving by one of Mr. Frank Sinatra’s homes. We were shocked at how accessible this place was! Right off the street, no palatial gates or enormous barricades to protect it. You just gotta figure Frank wanted to stay close to the action.
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It was pretty modest from the outside, but you know it has to be slammin’ indoors. The only slight clue that it was something out of the ordinary was the fact that it had a small door to the left of the driveway saying “Service Entry Only”.
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But of course, we also had to fit in a ride on the infamous Sky Peoplemover, aka the Aerial Tramway. We’d always wanted to do it, but never got a chance. It was super cool! We wish the tram cars still looked like this one:
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Now the cars are all fancy and the floor rotates so you can get a view from all angles. We were not so prepared though – there was snow at the top! It was hard to imagine because it was sunny and warm down below! Guess we shoulda known better, but it didn’t stop us from going up anyway! The pics don’t do it justice, but it’s a magnificent view – and VERY high!!! This shows part of our path to the top.
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Now it’s back to the good ol’ LBC.