When my mom and I visited Rome, I couldn’t wait to visit the Pantheon. You see, not only is the building 2,000 years old, it also has a hole in its dome. When it’s sunny, light streams through this oculus; when it rains, water falls through. I could see storm clouds building in the distance. Maybe, just maybe, I’d be lucky enough to see it rain in the Pantheon? My mom said she was ready to go. I stalled. “Oh, look at those pretty engravings over there! Aren’t these crosses over here shiny?” Yeah. What I really wanted was rain, rain, rain. And finally, it came. And it was magical. The rain fell in slow, sparkling sheets. Most everyone stopped what they were doing and stared up at the dome. Flashes popped and cameras clicked. A couple umbrellas snapped open. A red-and-white chain kept visitors out of the direct path of the rainfall but many people still got wet. Oooh. Ahhh.

While at the Pantheon we were also lucky enough to hear a choir performing inside. A Catholic church group from Manhattan, Kansas (my birth city!) were walking from famous public building to famous public building in Rome and singing their hearts out for free. So lovely.

It was the first un-humid, un-sweltering day in weeks when P. and I decided to knock an adventure off our “Top 10 Things To Do This Summer” list: kayaking on the Potomac River. Oh, the gorgeous views we saw! Georgetown, the Lincoln Memorial and Roosevelt Island, a rainbow, ducks – I saw them all in a way I’d never seen them before. Still, I was disappointed to find trash floating all over the river. At first, it was just a bottle here and there. I actually picked up an empty Pepsi bottle, vowing to myself I would pick up any more trash we found. But then it became clear this task would be overwhelming. Ugh.

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!

(My mom patiently waited 20 minutes while I waited for the moment above to happen so I could photograph it. Oh, what is it like to have a child so intensely interested in something you don’t care about as much? Thanks, Mom!)

Assisi was by far my favorite stop on the Catholic Extravaganza Tour with my mom. The city is a landscape photographer’s dream: untouched by modern architecture, filled with winding medieval walkways and perched on a hilltop overlooking a vast, green valley. The city’s main draw is St. Francis Basilica, the 13th-century UNESCO World Heritage site that’s the final resting place for St. Francis, who founded the Franciscans. Walking around this old town I could imagine Francis and his followers (including St. Clare, or Santa Chiara, as she’s called in Italian) spreading the Gospel, much to the consternation of some family and friends.

Most everything in Assisi closed by 7 PM, so Mom and I had plenty of time to relax. For me, that meant attending vespers, taking pictures and wandering around. For mom, that meant attending vespers or evening services at one of the half-dozen churches. Mom and I wondered how such a small city – the population is about 3,000 – could support so many churches. Do they not have the priest shortage problem we have in the US? Or is the fact that Assisi is such a global tourist destination enough for the diocese there to keep all the Assisi churches well-manned?

One of the most pleasing and surprising parts of our Assisi visit was our stay at St. Anthony’s Guest House, which is run by Franciscans (of course). I booked a room only a couple days before we arrived, expecting something a step above a hostel. Indeed, the place was sparsely furnished but oh-so comfortable, friendly and pleasant. Every morning they woke up the guests for breakfast by pumping soft classical music over the speaker system. When I visit Assisi again I’ll definitely be sleeping at St. Anthony’s.

St. Francis Basilica

The start of my obsession with Santa Chiara plaza.

Santa Chiara Church, which I consider to be the most gorgeous of the many churches in Assisi.

Flags hanging from a building near Santa Chiara plaza

Assisi as seen from Rocca Maggiore, the hilltop fortress.

Playing with light in Santa Chiara plaza.

Even the grass near a parking lot was beautiful!

This was the start of my obsession with beautiful door knockers

Tourists sitting on a wall outside St. Francis Basilica

Mom standing in a perfect ring of light in Assisi.

Assisi is the home of St. Francis, founder of the Franciscans, known for wearing sandals

Red flowers like these hang everywhere in Assisi.

Sunset at Santa Chiara plaza

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.

Doesn’t my Mom look so cute in this picture? This is as close* as she and I got to famous Paris monuments during what I’ve dubbed our “Catholic Extravaganza Tour,” a 2+ week adventure through pilgrimage sites in France, Italy and Germany. At this point in the journey – the beginning, that is – my Mom was still oh-so willing to let me photograph her. By the end, she was tired of her personal paparazzi. But hey! She now has some of the most awesome and candid vacation shots ever. I’ll be sharing more of them over the next couple weeks.

*We had planned to use our five-hour layover in Paris to venture into the city for lunch. But Air France didn’t cooperate with us. Our flight left DC late and we had just enough time in Paris to transfer from one airport to another, where we caught our next flight.

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!

Playing outside with my niece on a warm spring day – what could be more fun?

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!