Kims – Page 6 – thosecoolkims

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!

Christmas Eve with The Kims!

This year was the 2nd annual Kim Family Christmas Eve Dinner here at our house, and we had a blast. We really enjoy putting on dinner for our family and we like seeing how excited they get over our preparations. :) It was nice and cozy – a party of 6. Ed’s Dad, Mom, Aunt and Uncle all were in attendance and it was a really nice time.

First, we got the table ready. We like to make make it look Christmas-y, but still in our signature modern aesthetic. Here’s this years table setting:

Then, off to the kitchen. Both of us enjoy the cooking!

Carrie works on her signature antipasto salad …

The final product!

Ed prepares the scalloped potatoes … (thanks to Carrie’s mom for the recipe!)

About to go in the oven!

Tonights menu consisted of:
Ham (we’ve never made a ham before, it turned out pretty well!)
Scalloped Potatoes
Garlic Green Beans
Antipasto Salad

and …

Peppermint Chocolate Sundaes for dessert!

Afterwards, we enjoyed lots of coffee, a great political discussion, and of course – the gift exchange…

Dad is happy about his digital photo frame/clock/calendar/radio combo!

Aunt Grace got a pretty hip shirt …

We had a lovely time and are so happy to have our family enjoy the holiday with us in our home.

Merry Christmas!

Go Mom!

Everyone knows about Ed’s mom’s way with people and the impact that she’s made on so many people through her work at the Stramski Center, a part of Miller Children’s Hospital in Long Beach. Tonight, she was awarded with the very prestigious Geraldine A. Stramski Spirit Award – and she and her associates on the Cleft & Craniofacial Team were recognized in a big way tonight by the Steel Magnolias at their huge annual gala.

This was the real deal – a fancy black tie affair complete with silent auction and martinis that flow through ice blocks!

We had the pleasure of spending the evening with a bunch of family and family VIPs. Ed’s mom, Ed, Carrie, Shannon, Ed’s aunt and uncle, Elder Yang (a dear dear friend of Ed’s grandmother), and Ed’s mom’s best friend Kathy and her husband were all present.

Ed is real proud of Mom!

Us and Elder Yang!

Carrie and Shannon

It was awesome to see Ed’s mom get this recognition – she got some good screen time on the short movie they made about the honorees, and her acceptance speech was wonderful – plenty of people complimented her on her words afterwards and she was quite an eloquent speaker!

Way to go mom! We’re so proud of you!

Some more pics from tonight…

Uncle is at his post capturing every moment!

We won carwashes tonight at the silent auction!!

The award and the bouquet we got for mom:

See the complete album here.

Korean Cooking Lesson, number one.

Yesterday we went to Mom’s for a wonderful lesson in Korean cooking. The goal was to learn how to make bulgogi, which is a most scrumptiously marinated, thin, flank-type steak. It’s delicious. We were anxious to learn – Carrie’s gotta know how to make the husband’s comfort food, and Ed enjoys cooking too! In true Korean-mom fashion, she prepared an enormous lunch first before the cooking began – but we certainly weren’t complaining!

Bulgogi ended up being a lot easier to make than we thought…it’s basically onions, sesame oil, soy sauce, sugar, and more green onions! We made so much that mom insisted we take home 2 large tupperware boxes full of individually bagged portions. We’re knee-deep in bulgogi now, so ya’ll come on over and try it before we end up with record setting cholesterol from eating red meat everyday! We had a great time though and we really enjoyed the lesson.

Here is tonight’s dinner:

That’s the bulgogi in the bowl, on top of rice. To the right, we have bindedduk, which are Korean pancakes made out of egg, onions, kimchi and seafood…and the green stuff is our favorite: sauteed spinach.

Look at Ed…so happy!

Carrie feels pretty proud of herself – yum!

We’re Grown Ups!

We hosted Christmas Eve Dinner for the Kim Family last night. It turned out awesome. We were so excited to have everybody over and do some serious entertaining with all of our fancy new wedding gifts!

Here’s an aerial shot of the table:

Carrie wanted to be fancy so she made little placecards with candles for everybody. :)

The food even turned out good! Thank goodness for Carrie’s mom, she helped out by doing a trial run with us on Friday night. Both Mom & Dad came over and they were our food tasters! Here’s a pic of the finished birds, we can’t believe we made these, it’s way too adult-like. Look out next year, we might be making the Thanksgiving turkey!

The menu:
Mixed Green Salad
Cornish Game Hens
Wild Rice
Ed’s Special Garlic Mashed Potatoes
Steamed Asparagus w/Bearnaise Sauce

Here’s Ed excited in the kitchen:

One of Carrie’s family Christmas traditions is having mom’s Ribbon Salad for dessert. It’s made out of lime jello, cherry jello and a middle cheesecake-like layer with lemon jello, crushed pineapple and cream cheese. Usually mom makes it in a jello mold, but we used our fancy-schmancy wine glasses for everybody to have their own individual dessert. They were a hit!

And finally – the family.
Top Row: Ed, [future bro-in-law] Mani, Shannon, Mom
Bottom: Dad, Imo, Uncle
Yay for Christmas Eve ’06!