Happy birthday to Mom, August and Eun!
I threw my mom’s surprise birthday party at the beginning of May. Organizing this from afar was quite a task.
First, I had to lie to my Mom and tell her I couldn’t escape from DC for the weekend to celebrate a banner year birthday with her. In truth, I woke up early on a Saturday morning, drove down to Newport News and spent the morning of her party day picking up food from KFC, Domino’s and Mona Restaurant, a Korean restaurant that agreed to cater the bash even though they normally don’t serve such small parties. My sister and brother-in-law brought the cake and drinks.
Then, my Dad and I worked together to invite people to the party. Dad focused on church friends and I focused on Korean friends, many of whom don’t speak English. Ah, finally putting my hard-earned language skills to use for the first time in a while! I ended up leaving funny voicemails for almost everyone because no one picked up their phones. Luckily, enough people got the message and showed up.
Finally, I had to decide where to have the party. I haven’t lived in my hometown in a while and I’ve definitely never thrown a party there. I settled on the Virginia Living Museum, my niece’s favorite place to see her fishy friends Nemo and Dori (as well as furry and flying friend such as owls). Jennifer Turlington, the museum’s events coordinator, was wonderful in helping secure a party space and even coming up with the ruse for bringing my mom to the museum: why not have my Dad tell my Mom he was taking her to a flower show there? Not to knock my Dad too hard here, but I was suspicious my Mom would fall for this lie since flower shows aren’t exactly my Dad’s thing. Nevertheless, it worked. Jennifer posted a volunteer at the museum entrance. My Dad went up to the volunteer and said, “We’re here for the flower show,” which were the magic words for the volunteer to lead my parents through a side entrance, then down a path, then into a building, then down a hall into a classroom filled with all of us. Surprise!
The look on my Mom’s face was fantastic! She later said she wondered why she was being led to a “flower show” in a classroom in a building. She also said this was the best birthday she ever had.
August’s 8th birthday party in the beginning of June was a maelstrom of laughing, screaming, sugared-up kids exacerbated by a thunderstorm that led to much indoor horseplay and rowdiness. At the end, when everyone was gone and Eun and Marty were sweeping up and wiping down after their son’s celebration, they said, “See? No one ever tells you about THIS part of being a parent!” Haha! Those two crack me up.
Eun started out as my Asian American Journalists Association journalism mentor over 12 years ago. Over time we’ve become good friends to the point that I feel I’m a part of the Van Der Kim family: Eun, Marty, August and Reid (my godson). So I was thrilled to be at her 40th birthday party in mid July. The best part of the night? When Eun’s sisters-in-law appeared at the front door – they flew in from Arizona to surprise her!
Outdoor climbing in Carderock, Maryland
After one year of intermittent indoor climbing, Angie and I climbed outdoors for the first time last month, in Carderock, Maryland (she’s wearing the grey shirt, I’m wearing the orange shirt). Oh, the vertical maze of tiny, rough and random footholds in real rocks vs climbing walls! I learned that I have to trust myself and my body. This is harder than you might imagine when you’re 15 feet up, clinging to the side of a rock, balancing on three toes on a small, jutting pebble and desperately scanning the seemingly-flat rock surface for another small, jutting pebble that spells salvation because it just might make a fabulous next step. “I don’t know where to go next. Can you help me?” was my oft-repeated request to folks on the ground. I slipped and slid many times. And I learned I’m not as brave as I thought I was, thus the yelling whenever I slipped and slid, and then the giving up a couple times before I made it to the top. Still, I enjoyed the challenge – and the fresh air – and look forward to climbing outdoors again.
Go, Go, Gadget!
What could be more fun than an all-afternoon trivia romp and scavenger hunt around DC’s famous and obscure sights? That’s exactly what I said to myself when I saw the ad for DC Challenge a couple months ago. So with help from friends and friends of friends, we cobbled a team together – Team Go, Go, Gadget! – and off we ran through downtown DC (with about 2,000 other trivia fiends) this past Saturday. The only rules were we had to use only our feet or public transportation and we had to take a photograph of the WHOLE team at each trivia location.
We searched for answers to clues such as: People say that the word “lobbying: comes from favor-seekers hanging out in this hotel’s lobby. It shares a name with a longtime NBC Today Show personality. Take a picture inside (if they don’t get sick of Challengers running through) or just outside.
Know the answer to that one? We didn’t. Tony and Ben researched the answer on their phones while the rest of us guessed aloud. The Couric Hotel? The Lauer Lounge? Ann Curry Motel? Thank god for iPhones and Blackberries, which gave us the answer: the Willard Hotel. And so we all ran over to the Willard Hotel, where a bemused employee to take a picture of us in the lobby. And you know what we found out? The scavenger hunt organizers didn’t tell the hotel – or anyone else/place on our clue list – that oh, 2,000 sweaty people might be dropping by on Saturday afternoon to snap a photograph.
Eleven clues, a few miles and almost three hours after we started, we crossed the finish line. It was a fantastic way to spend an afternoon!
Reid’s 5th birthday party
There’s nothing like the sound of about a dozen five-year-olds eating birthday cake and ice cream. They’re all “MMMMMMM…..” and “CHOCOLATE! CHOCOLATE!” and “YUM!” as loud as can be. They lick their forks and their lips. They laugh and smile and make you remember when you were five and your biggest problem in life was Mom not letting you eat a second slice of cake. Happy 5th birthday, Reid!
Women Photojournalists of Washington
My dear friend Abby at the Women Photojournalists of Washington exhibit opening at Honfleur Gallery in early November (I know – this post is way overdue!)
Miss Allison, photographer extraordinaire and super running buddy!
After the gallery opening, Jenna, Amanda and I took off to photograph as part of FOTOweek DC’s late-night photo contest. A few dozen Native Americans from across the United States set up teepees on the Mall to bring attention to their request for a Native American veterans day.
Crawling through the grass for a shot.
Amanda in “The Blair Witch Photo Project,” as Jenna said.
Warming up with jazz at Columbia Station in Adams Morgan.
Jenna’s happy with her late-night Jumbo Slice (which later fueled dancing at Madam’s Organ.)
Snow day!
Last weekend when the “Blizzard of ’09” blasted through DC, Angie and I were ensconced at the Rocky Gap State Park Lodge in Maryland. We’d planned a girls weekend several weeks in advance, knowing we’d need a break at the end of the semester. The snow made everything better! We snowshoed for almost four hours (which caused the lodge to send out two guys to find us), made snow angels and generally ooohed and aahed over the winter wonderland.
More Martina + Ben
Hooray for the recently-engaged couple! Their first set of engagement pictures is here.
Martina + Ben preview
My dear friend Martina and her fiancé Ben got engaged last month! I felt incredibly honored when they asked me to take their engagement pictures. These two were game for pretty much anything during our shoot around downtown Norfolk, Va., on Sunday.
Me: “Ummm…would you mind standing a little closer to the edge of the dock? Yes….a little more….that’s better….”
Martina: “How about I pretend I’m pushing Ben into the river?”
Me: “Perfect!”
I kid, of course. But not by much! More pictures to come soon….
