random notes

I get notes from my kiddos all the time.  Here are two of my favorite ones from this week.

Thanks for the warning, kid.

     

She's even got my hairstyle right! My hair is always in a bun!

I have the sweetest kids, ever. :)

for the refined palate

Our school is lucky enough to have a small school garden! Thanks to some amazingly generous donors, a committed teacher, and helpful students, we have the freshest veggies and coolest plants growing right on our campus.

It's really helpful for my lil kiddos to see things like broccoli growing to understand that we eat the "flower" part of it. I kill every plant that I bring home, so I do not even try to help, but sometimes I'll just walk in to see what they're growing.  This week, I walked in while the teacher and the kids were working and scored some amazing swiss chard!

I've tried it once at the Bratchers, but I have never cooked it myself.  Since I had some fresh, grown-with-student-love-swiss-chard, I decided to give it a try.  I looked online for recipes and couldn't really decide on one and as always, I didn't have all the ingredients listed in one, so I just blended two together. I married this one here and this one here.

The results were pretty tasty.  The swiss chard was yummy but another added ingredient made it even tastier - anchovies!

Here's my blended recipe of the previously linked recipes.

Ingredients:
1 tbsn olive oil
1 onion, thinly sliced
3 cloves of garlic minced
1 can anchovies - about 8 fillets
4 swiss chard leaves, stems discarded, leaves chopped
1 tspn red chili flakes (I love spicy, so I just dumped in a bunch)
1 can diced tomatoes with juices (preferably a brand that does not add salt, like this one here)
1/2 bag of Trader Joe whole wheat fusilli pasta
* Salt and pepper to taste. Anchovies are pretty salty so you may not need any extra salt.

Directions:
1.  Bring a large pot of water to a boil and start cooking the pasta according to the package directions.
2.  Sauté the onions in the olive oil until soft.
3.  Add in the garlic and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute.
4.  Add the anchovies.  (I bought the Ralph's brand and the fillets were in olive oil, so I just pulled out the fillets and discarded the oil). Stir with onions and garlic until the anchovies have melted away.
5.  If you want, throw in the red chili peppers now. If not, just add in the swiss chard by the handful.  It'll wilt quickly like spinach.
6.  Add the can of tomatoes, juice and all. Cook until tomatoes are heated up, about a minute.
7.  Throw in the cooked pasta and mix together.

Sprinkle some parmesan cheese on top and some tabasco and you're good to go!

I didn't tell John what was in it and just kept on asking, "Do you like it?" I don't know why I didn't just tell him right off the bat, this guy eats anything and everything. I just wanted to see if his self professed "god-like palate" could pick it up.  After I told him what the little secret ingredient was, he said, "Yes. There is a subtle hint of anchovy. It has a very refined flavor." WHAT THE HECK?! If you know my Johnny, you know how ridiculous this sounds coming from him.  He usually lets me know it's good by grunting.

I don't know if it's a refined flavor but I do know that anchovies get a bad rap. It doesn't smell that funky and it tastes great!  Swiss chard and anchovies are yummy together!  I promise, give it a try!

momma's weekend

First things first - thank you for all the encouraging words on my previous post... but, after reading the bff's post, I realized I should be (even more) grateful that I have amazing friends, siblings, and cousins that allow me to "mother" my little nieces and nephews.  Thank you for letting me mother and smother them!

To celebrate our amazing momma, we hung out with her all day Saturday and Sunday. It was pretty tiring but I haven't seen my momma that happy in a while, and in the end that's all that matters.

Most of Saturday was spent in the momma's garden, bbq-ing and s'moring.  Here are some instagram shots from my lil & big sis.

We decided to arrange our own vase with flowers from the local wholesale florist.

Best s'mores ever. EVER.

Sunday was a busy day too!  Per my momma's request, lil sister and I went to church with her, where John picked me up (he had to work), then off we went to eat lunch with my MIL and John's family. Then back to my momma's house, so we could go to dinner w/ the big sis and bro-in-law at Mastros.

My cute momma, the most delish butter cake, and my mouth watering pork chop.

My mom is an amazing, strong, stubborn, loving, smart, motivated, caring, hilarious person. You will not meet anyone like her.  She's bossy as heck and likes things done her way, but that's her charm. I really think she should have her own reality show because, seriously, there is no one like her! 

Mom,

Thanks for being your crazy self. You are amazing. I love you and can't thank you enough for all you do for me (and our family). And to close, I'll quote my favorite poet, Tupac, for you - "... there's no way I can pay you back but my plan is to show you that I understand. You are appreciated."

Too bad she doesn't read my blog...

10%

We are the 10%.  According to my doctor 10% of infertility problems are due to inexplicable reasons.

After months of hesitation, John and I went to the doctor to figure out why we haven't been able to conceive.  People always ask us why we waited close to 2 years to check, and I really don't have an answer to that.  We just assumed if God wanted it to happen, it would have happened, right? Maybe a little afraid to find out the results? Or maybe it's because Kaiser makes you jump through burning hoops of fire to see an infertility doctor?!  Just straight up laziness on my part, I guess.  All joking aside, we are excited and content with foster/adoption so we didn't really find the need to go.  But with the 2 year mark approaching I was just so curious, I had to go!

So, after 12 vials of blood drawn, an ultrasound, HSG, $$$, and several other doctor consultation visits, the doctor figured out there is nothing medically stopping us from conceiving.  According to the doctor, John's soldiers are great too! I joke with John all the time that my uterus is where his swimmers go to die! But nope, the doctor said everything is fine!

HSG test was my least favorite! 

A lovely shot of my uterus and fallopian tubes!  I know, it just looks like a blob.

So we are the 10%.

The doctor suggested that we go ahead with IUI also known as artificial insemination.  An appointment was made ... but we cancelled.  We decided to try for a while longer, the old fashioned, natural way! After a few more months, we will reconsider the IUI.

With Mother's Day approaching, I want to go back on that decision and go to the doctor, like ASAP! To be honest I am a tad bit sad. Sad that I am not able to celebrate Mother's Day as a mom yet. Last year, I was super duper sad so I guess I can say it's getting easier.  But I am reminded of a blog post by John Piper's wife, Noel Piper, appropriately titled "When Mother's day isn't a celebration". I was so encouraged from the first two words, "God knows..."

In my dream world, the Park house would be bustling with noise from kids, adopted and biological.  But in God's perfect plan, that is not what He has called for us at this time.  So until then, we will continue to hold on to the hope that is in Christ, seeing that this time is a gift from God, and pray that God hears our cries and allows for me to celebrate Mother's Day as a mom, some day.

park family time

Last Tuesday, John and I went out to the San Bernadino area to say goodbye to his grandma.  She had suffered a stroke several years ago and had been living in a nursing home since.  After years of being bed ridden, God called her home.  We were grateful for the chance we had to talk with her, encourage her, pray for her, and say goodbye.

She went to be home with the Lord last Thursday, April 26th.

But with every dark cloud, there is a silver lining. With her passing, the Park family was able to spend some rare quality time together.

Let me introduce you to some of the next generation of this family that I so lucky to be a part of...

Meet Emma. She is John's older bro's daughter. We just die when we see her. She is one smart cookie, has the cutest trick, and seriously the cutest FOB you will ever meet.

Showing off one of her many tricks with her Uncle.  This guy is putty in his little nieces hand.

Have you met Jamie? This is John's cousin's youngest son.  Since their family of 5 lives in Virginia, we do not get to see them often as we would like.  Though we did get to visit them last year when we vacationed out in the East Coast. So while they were here, we hogged up their time here and hung out with them as much as we could.

I DIE! They are so cute!  

Being part of this family is pretty dang awesome.

brunch in bed

Brunch at a cute restaurant is nice but brunch in bed is even nicer! Who doesn't love loungin' around in PJ's?! And as an added bonus - I can drench my food in Tabasco sauce and not worry about strangers judging me.

 I love love love love love lazy Saturdays! Gotta get through this week, Open House, craziness of life, and then, IT'S SATURDAY AGAIN! Praise the Lord!

restin' and relaxin'

We originally planned to take a mini vacation last weekend to celebrate our wedding anniversary, but due to some unforeseen drama, there was a slight change of plans. We spent the majority of the weekend at my mom's house but we did have a few hours away to spend some much needed alone time!

Saturday afternoon, we went out to J-town to exchange my anniversary gift that my hubz bought me. He's not really great with surprising me, but he managed to secretly go to the jewelry store where we got our wedding bands to get another band for me. So I could stack my bling! They didn't have the exact ring that I got for my wedding band so he got a loaner ring to surprise me with, but we got to go back on Saturday and I picked out something shiny and new! Another super-thin band, this time in rose gold.

Then we were off to Spitz, a few blocks down. John tried this place before, but it was my first time!

I loved loved loved the fries! The wrap was also yumz, but sweet potato fries are my favorite and this place made them just right!

We had to kill some time before we headed out to meet some friends so we found a nice little cafe to hide out in.

They had some crazy fancy coffee and it for sure wasn't a Starbucks! I asked for the sweetest drink they had, it was not sweet at all! ... I drink my coffee wayyyyy too sweet. I pretty much get a cup of sugar water with a side of coffee. John, on the other hand, is a crazy coffee drinker. His drink of choice? Coffee with shots of espresso in it! Who does that?! At his coffee place, he had some Colombian coffee, brewed with a crazy siphon. Fancy Shmancy!

Finally, it was time to meet our friends for a surprise engagement party!

We got home, slept in, then off to a brunch date!

Yelp is my best friend. I found Starling Diner, with great reviews on the food and service. It was in this random residential area, and pretty crowded with the lunch crowd. We waited, and seriously, the food was worth the wait!

Too early for mimosas and screwdrivers?

We ate super fast, like crazy Koreans do, then we were off to the Long Beach flea market! The last time we were there, I practically furnished our entire house, but no such luck this time. We didn't leave with a single thing. But we still had fun oohhing and ahhhing at the random stuff.

We finished the night at the BFF's for a dumpling party!

This weekend wasn't what we originally planned, but I still had tons of fun! It was a tough week for us both, but we praise God for giving us times to just rest and enjoy each others company.