Faith

Literally my first time at the rodeo

We have family from Korea in town visiting for the summer and I’ve been racking my brain trying to think of typical “American” things they would enjoy. Every year our town puts on a rodeo and I thought it doesn’t get much more “American” than that so last night E and I took them.

I haven’t taken a lot of photos with my dSLR lately but I took with me and it was fun to take some photos.

I think that last photo might be my favorite.

I thought for sure that 5-year-old E would be captivated by the exciting events but he was much more interested in following the rodeo clowns’ (somewhat dirty) banter. What can I say? The kid loves jokes.

Even though I grew up in Washington state and have lived in Utah for 10+ years I hadn’t seen this side of the American West before in real life. I did feel a bit out of place (our group of Koreans was a little conspicuous) but over all it was interesting and fun.

The Lehi Roundup continues tonight and tomorrow if you want to check it out.

How about you–have you ever been to a rodeo before? Would you want to go to one?

K-pop: Crayon Pop

I have a new favorite K-pop group: Crayon Pop is ridiculously cute, quirky, and talented. Their songs and dance routines are great and I adore their fresh, dorky style.

Matching track suits? Matching track suits WITH SKIRTS? Yes, please.

The giant pompoms on their hats slay me.

Sometimes it’s hard to get a good view of their dance routine, but check out this video of a practice. It must take hours and hours to learn one of these routines.

My favorite exercise gear

There’s a bit less than a month left of the weight-loss competition I’m participating in. I’m going to be bummed with it’s over–I love working out with my team and having such a great support system has been a big help.

Above are a few of my favorite pieces of gear. This post isn’t sponsored; these are just things that I bought myself and like a lot.

Polar FT4 Heart Watch – This comes with a transmitter that you wear on a chest strap. When you set up your watch you enter your height, age, weight, etc… and it calculates your heart rate and calories burned. I like being able to track how hard (or not hard) I’m working. And it also syncs with the fitness machines at the gym which is nice if you want to keep your heart rate at a certain pace. The only con I’ve found is that my model doesn’t have a stop watch function which would be useful for running.

Enell Sports Bra – I always thought I hated running but it turned out I mostly hated being busty and running with a crappy sports bra. I remember doing laps in junior high with my forearms pressed against my chest to minimize the bouncing–ugh! This last time when I wanted to get into running I researched options for full-busted women and the Enell brand kept coming up so I bit the bullet (they’re about $60) and ordered one. It’s not the prettiest bra but once it’s on I’m locked and loaded and can run and do jumping jacks without any uncomfortable bouncing. Love, love, love.

Compression Sleeves – Since I’ve started running my shins have been bothering me and these help a lot. A friend at the gym who runs marathons recommended them. I’ve only had them for a week but I wore them when I ran 5k with my team last Saturday and afterwards my shins didn’t bother me like they normally do. I actually enjoy how they feel and would happily wear them all the time but even though mine are a sensible black I don’t think I’m quite ready to go down that road yet 🙂

Ice cup – If my shins are bothering me after a run I’ll take one of these and use the edge to massage out any knots. It hurts like a mother but really helps. To make one, fill a styrafoam cup with water and freeze it. Next, take a knife and score the cup all the way around the middle and peel off the styrafoam up to the line–voila! A giant ice cube complete with a insulated handle so your hand doesn’t get cold.

So there you go. These are a few things that have been useful to me in my get-in-shape efforts.

How about you? Do you have any fitness tips or gear that you love?

We were on Korean TV

Way back in 1999, before we were dating or even very good friends N and I went on a study abroad trip to Korea with our professor Mark Peterson…and a Korean film crew followed us around and made a documentary!

I have a VHS tape of it somewhere, but our professor just uploaded the whole thing to Youtube so N and I just watched it again for the first time in over a decade.

I’m not in the documentary that much, the narrative focuses on my friend Carol who was on the trip with her fiancé Doug (romance!) and on an adopted Korean-American girl, Mischa, who got appendicitis and had to have emergency surgery (drama!) Ironically, the crew actually missed the whole appendicitis incident so they later took Mischa back to the hospital and had her reenact lying listlessly in bed wearing a gown so they could get some footage (!)

The scenes I’m in include

19:15 – I am separated from the group and get lost at a Buddhist temple on Buddha’s birthday and stumble over “rocks and stuff”
21:15 – Me praying at a Buddhist temple
27:30 – We take a traditional music class (this was one of my favorite parts of the trip)
37:15 – I summarize my feelings about the trip and then N talks for a bit. We’re sitting next to each other so that must have been filmed during the few weeks of the trip when I started to get an hunch that this N guy might be kind of awesome 🙂

I’m so thankful that this documentary exists. I am fascinated to see how very young we all were–I was only 18 at the time and in the process of figuring out who I wanted to be and what I wanted out of life. Our trip changed my life: it helped me figure those things out and connect more with my Korean heritage.

And it also introduced me to the charms of a certain wonderful guy. 🙂

Preschool Grad

E with his awesome (and very patient) preschool teacher

Last week E had his last day of preschool and so our summer has officially begun. E thrives on having places to go but by the time I went to register him for a summer preschool class at our rec center all the spots were taken so it looks like it’s just going to be me and the kiddos all day, every day this summer (gulp!).

The plan is to have some sort of structured learning/craft time most weekdays. I talked it over with E and he is interested in learning about the human body, bugs, and space so I need to get going and figure out a loose curriculum.

How about you? Have any plans for the summer yet?

Recent Snapshots

A few recent snapshots from my phone.

1st row L: Last week E finished his first session of swim lessons. We had a bit of a scare when he was bopping around in the pool before his class and drifted too far into the deep end and the water started coming up over his mouth but the teacher jumped in and towed him back to the shallow end. We had an extra lesson to make sure he wasn’t traumatized and he seems okay but now has a bit of a fear of going in the deep end by himself which is probably actually helpful for right now.

1st row R: My mom came to visit my sister Jan a while ago and while she was here they made huge batches of kimchi including radish, my favorite! I’m set for at least a couple of months now 🙂

2nd row L: E really wanted to get me some chocolates for Mother’s Day. I wanted to get some chocolates for my MIL so I just took him to See’s with me and let him pick a few out at the same time. He adorably asked the lady behind the counter for some “lemon chuckles (truffles), please” (!!!) And now I annoyingly tell the story to everyone whenever I get the chance.

2nd row R: My talented and lovely college friend Erica was great in a local production of Hello Dolly! She’s going to be in the Scarlet Pimpernel this summer and I’m excited to see it.

3rd row L: Earlier this week Mimi caught and nasty bug and is still recovering. Boo.

3rd row R: One day E woke up and was grumpy because I wouldn’t let him play video games first thing in the morning.

Hooray for Women!

I feel very grateful to have so many amazing women in my life, especially those in my family. My mother, sister, mother-in-law, and sisters-in-law are all incredible women. And my friends–my friends are awesome too! Thank you to all of them for all they do. I feel very fortunate to have so many caring women in my life.

I had a nice weekend with our family. As I predicted there were some cringe-inducing moments during one of the talks at church but two of the three were ok so I guess that’s progress. I think I would keel over from shock and happiness if someone gave a talk like this in our ward. I guess it’ll have to be enough to know that at least it’s happening somewhere.

K-pop: Do you want some tea?

I love the styling in this new Hello Venus song “Do you want some tea?”

The video is super cutesy but the song is actually about female desire and wanting to take things to the next level in a relationship but being unable to make a move.

On a vaguely-Korean-related note, an interview with me is up at Asian Mom Blog. Thanks to Sommy for having me. Check it out if you like Asians and/or moms!

Speaking of moms, I hope you have a nice Mother’s day–and if that’s off the table for one reason or another I hope you have a pleasant, low-key weekend. It seems like Mother’s day can be an emotionally fraught holiday for a lot of people. The cute kids at our church sing every year and I get a kick out of watching them but sometimes the talks really make me cringe.

Besides being Mother’s day, Sunday is also our wedding anniversary (12 years!) so, um, good luck with that, N.

Out and About: Hill Aerospace Museum

I don’t get to see my brother Steven that often; he has special needs and lives with my parents so when he and my mom visited a few weeks ago it was a treat.

Steven loves airplanes, trains, and trucks so I thought I trip to the Hill Aerospace museum would be right up his alley. We’ve taken the kids before and E always enjoys it. We all had a lot of fun.

I hadn’t planned it, but once we got there we noticed that E’s red pants matched his Superman jacket and really completed the look. So of course we took the opportunity to ham it up a bit 🙂

My first 5k

I ran my first 5k race on Saturday. The weather was lovely and it was a great day for a run.

Linnie and I sprinted to the finish line. I misjudged the distance and started sprinting earlier than I meant to and as we approached the finish I was almost out of gas and concentrating very hard on not falling on my face.

We did it! Around mile 2 I was very tempted to take a break and walk but I stuck with it and ran the whole way. It helped a lot to have Linnie running with me. When I was starting to feel like I wouldn’t be able to make it she would pick someone out up ahead and then we would focus on passing them. For me so much of running is mental and as a beginner having encouragement along the way makes a big difference.

The kids and N’s cousin made a very sweet sign and waited at the finish line to cheer for us.

So far I haven’t been able to bring myself to throw the sign away. Maybe I’ll hang it up in my sewing room.

My time was 32:52 which averages to 10:36 a mile. I’m happy that I set this goal and accomplished it. As someone who has never run before this experience has given me a boost of confidence that my body is stronger than I usually give it credit for.

My new goal is to get faster and improve my time. N says that if I want to do another 5k he’ll run with me next time which sounds fun.