You Know What You Did...

Yeah you do. You.

We turned 30!

Despite my husband's emphasis on my turning 30, he actually turned 30 also this year, and only A FEW weeks after I did.

For my birthday:

Aaron tried to surprise with an early birthday present of stand up paddle boarding (which I've been wanting to do since the first time I heard about it), but the people he tried to arrange it with, never got back to him.  So we went to a horse race instead (unfortunately we lost those pictures in the water that destroyed Aaron's computer back in April.

We also stayed at one of the nicest hotels in the city....which was super nice (tv in English!!) until we woke up the next morning with Aaron's clothes soaked through because of a leak in the ceiling.

The night before that, though, we enjoyed a walk by the river, eating at one of my favorite restaurants, and having an Arrested Development marathon (since the new season had just been released).

the last picture of me in my twenties

In between my birthday and Aaron's birthday we went home to go to Isaac and Caroline's wedding!

One of our friends blessed us with buddy passes on Delta to fly home, and we ended up getting to sit in Business Elite on the long flight home!!

 In Business Elite, your seats fold down into beds, so I slept longer on that flight than I ever have before.

Thanks Lindsey!!

We came home for these two to get married.  The wedding was beautiful!

And then Aaron worked it out that we actually did get to go SUP, once we got to America.  And I think it was even better than the original plan, because we got to do it with almost all of his siblings.

Classy tanks.....and no Hannah's not really pregnant

And then again later with his parents and Josh!

At home we celebrated both of our birthdays with our families:

At the birthday party with my family it turns out I took more video than pictures...it involved a piñata, how could I not take video of that?

that's me dominating my brother in corn hole

with my grandparents

first time i've ever celebrated a birthday with july birthdays

At the end of our time at home, I surprised Aaron by letting him know that one of the other perks of the buddy passes that we received, was that on our way back to China we were stopping in Japan to hike Mt. Fuji to celebrate his birthday!

Pictures of Japan to come....

The Charcoal Chimney

When we were home this summer, nay even before that, my brother Micah was on a serious grilling/smoking (meat, not tobacco) kick. Apparently, he recently received a smoker as a gift and was thrust into the not-so-secret underworld of obsessed smokers.

From what I can tell, that smoky underworld is mostly composed of middle-aged men. And my brother.

Micah and me, swagged out at Isaac and Caroline's rehearsal

So, while we were home for 2 weeks, I had ample time to talk with Micah about his new hobby. Somehow, it came to light that one reason we don't use my grill here (the one we've used to smoke barbecue a few times) is because the charcoal here is too hard to light, Micah gave me a mini-lecture on the innumerable benefits of the "charcoal chimney."

In fact, he was so disturbed about the whole thing that he gave me some money to go get one. He also told me how I could make my own. I was not able to make it to a hardware store to purchase a pre-made chimney, but I was able to procure an empty #10 can (a big coffee can) which I brought back to Asia with me so that I could make my own chimney.

And for any of you that know me, making my own definitely suits me better than buying one. We'll see how long the homemade one lasts...

The Process

1) Get all the necessary items and tools together

2) Cut the bottom off of the can, so that you have a cylinder with no ends

3) Create a platform to separate the charcoal (which goes above) from the paper (which goes below). Usually, people use coat hangers or buy some sort of metal grate/screen, but I felt like punching holes in the recently removed lid to see if that would suffice.

Part 1 - Score the edge of the lid and remove about 1/4" so that it can fit easily back into the can.

Part 2 - Don gloves and bend the edges down so that I don't cut the fool out of myself on sharp metal every time I use the chimney.

Part 3 - Punch holes in the lid to create a surface through which the flames from the paper (below) can ignite the charcoal (above)

4) Punch draft holes around the bottom of the can, in order to allow oxygen up from the bottom. This will hopefully create the "chimney" effect that ignites the charcoal more easily. Or so Micah says.

5) Add brackets inside the can to hold up the "grate" that I created, and revel in my handiwork.

6) Continue to revel.

And that, my friends, is how it's done.

So much to say

Okay, yeah, we dropped the ball again. But since my last "promise to get this thing started again," so much has happened. Mostly, Stacy turned 30 and I hiked Mt. Fuji in Japan. But also lots of other things.

So, consider this a "renewal of blog vows." We're back. Trust us...

Some More Catch up: The Hot Springs

We went to some hot springs about 2 hours out of town in May with some of our foreign friends.

the drive there

the inside pool

underwater picture....it was super hot.  i wouldn't have done that.
in fact aaron didn't even get underwater when he took this picture, he just put the camera below the water.
smart man.

the wind blew the steam off of the outside pool 

another picture of the outside pool.

Lock the door first

This is what bliss looks like in my life right now:


Stacy surprised me and bought us a dart board, which is something I have wanted to have since I was a little kid. However, growing up with a number of younger siblings, my parents (wisely) opted to never equip us with sharpened, handheld arrows, lest eyes be lost.

So, alas, these 29 years have been spent wanting and wanting. And now, my dreams have become a reality.


You may notice the note written in Sharpie: Lock the door first. See, this is the door to our room, which we often go in and out of, and the last thing I wanted was to send a dart right into the face of an unwitting victim who opens the door just as I let one fly. So we have a new family policy: darts = locked doors.



I hate to say this, but I have been dominating my wife. Some of the beatings I have dished out have almost been criminal. I guess 29 years of desire is flowing out in the form of unfettered dominion.

Luther

I know that the last post was highly Calvinist, and I promise I'm not on a Reformation kick - this post has nothing to do with Martin Luther.

It has everything to do with John Luther.

He is the main character of a BBC tv show called "Luther." It's a pretty fantastic show, you don't know what you're missing. Unless you've seen it, in which case you're not missing it.

Season 3 comes out in September, and the great thing about the seasons of Luther is that they are only like 4 episodes long, so it's more like watching a movie than a tv series.

Plus, it stars Idris Elba, who is all-around tops (as they say in the UK). I'm a huge fan. Him making a Mumford & Sons video certainly didn't hurt his already strong case. But I digress...

Chief End

This was the cornerstone of the church where my brother Micah and his wife Virginia got married last summer. I grabbed a photo because it is one of the simplest and most powerful phrases I know.

For those of you who grew up Presbyterian, you might recognize it as the first lines from the Westminster Catechism.

Beautifully put.

Apology

So, about a month ago, I decided that our blog was barely holding onto life and needed to be revived. Plus, I like being outlandish.

Unfortunately, a few days after I firmly made that resolve, I poured water into my computer. And it turned about pretty much like you would expect.

This is pretty much what happened

Thus, now Stacy and I are sharing a computer (not that big a deal) and I am trying to run a travel website. The result is lots of sharing computer time and not a lot of time to blog. 

Apologies. I promise it hasn't slipped our mind.

Doing what I do. Haberdashery style.

Today, I decided to do something I've always wanted to do. I made myself a bow tie.

In light of the upcoming O'Hare-Peterson Nuptials and a quick trip scheduled to the US right around the 4th of July, it seemed only fitting to turn a pair of American flag boxers that I had into a patriotic summer bow tie. (Don't judge, the boxers were completely clean)

So many things I love, encapsulated in one (incredibly classy) piece of garb.

Here's another shot, in case you missed it: