wendl922's Xanga

Monday, August 27, 2007

Mon, 27 Aug 2007 02:03:45 GMT

today i led worship and held a guitar for the first time in almost a year. what was once a weekly responsibility that i fell into is now something i miss a lot.
i started leading worship by accident back in college. i had learned guitar b/c of some people at fellowship but never took it seriously. in my senior year, the person who was supposed to lead worship left the fellowship and i felt i had to take it over since i had brought that person to fellowship and i didn't want to leave people hanging. so the summer before senior year, i compiled songs and practiced hard. i came to enjoy it and even though i'm not a skilled musician, i had a lot of passion and that's what brought me through each time. i would eventually lead and coordinate worship for retreats.
at vision, i joined the team as a vocalist and enjoyed working the sound board. at a worship committee meeting over 7 years ago, i learned i would be put on the fast track to lead worship at sunday service as several of our worship leaders were going to be leaving for california. i still remember the 1st sunday i led... i totally bombed. i did a lot of things wrong and got a lot of "feedback". it would be like this for many years to come until i met a certain someone who inspired me to improve my guitar skills and musical knowledge.
i also realized i needed to take voice lessons so i could lead more effectively without worrying if i'd hit the right note. i learned how to use my voice as my main instrument.
then i worked on my guitar playing but would not lead with guitar till much later.

this week, ernie had such a long week that he didn't get a chance to prep for worship. we were on our way home yesterday and i offered to help w/ the set. then i asked if i should just lead and while he cares for the baby during service which is what happened today.

i really enjoyed leading today. i have no idea if people were following or how it went but i enjoyed it and i sang with all my heart to God. i wasn't stressed which i had often felt in the past and i got to play guitar which i couldn't do when i was pregnant. today brought back lots of memories.

off to sunny california...

Mon, 30 Jul 2007 19:22:37 GMT

... for 7 days (leaving later this week)

got lots of family and friends to see AND it's van van's first plane ride

let's see how he fares with the plane ride and jetlag

random thoughts on vision

Mon, 09 Jul 2007 14:01:55 GMT

this coming sunday we're celebrating our church's 10yr anniversary and i was there on day one.
it's been interesting to see the newer peeps gather random trivia from some of the older peeps.
there are so many who've never even stepped foot onto the 2nd fl. fellowship hall @ ocm where this all began.
or knew about that crazy big mixer that we used to roll around and that dusty snake that we had to coil a certain way to get it to fit inside.
or when we used to have chinatown bakery goods for all those congregational meetings rather than dunkin donuts (and at one point, krispy kreme).
or when we had a pastor who didn't have frosted tips.
or when we didn't even have a name.. just the "afternoon service"
or when we had to fold up the chairs (OCM) or stack the chairs (Ceremonial hall) after service
the list goes on and on...

a bunch of us were asked to go through our old photos of vision peeps/events for the anniversary dinner. as i looked back on each one, all these memories came back. i think the hardest for me was seeing the many people who have come and gone through our church.. all for various reasons. in fact, yesterday 2 of them came by for a visit and for a brief moment, it felt like old times. i miss M.Y.'s worship leading with guitar, sometimes piano... all with a heart for God. i miss L.Y's wisdom and leadership. i guess i never told them this while they were here.

i was asked what i'd like to see in 10years for this church. - well, this is what i'd really like to see - the old faces (come back!), the current faces (who we've come to know and love) and new faces who will be used by God to bless this church and bring it through to the next stage.

good times... good times

i never thought i'd commit to anything for this long AND still have a heart to commit for longer

Monday, June 11, 2007

Mon, 11 Jun 2007 13:11:01 GMT

fun fun...
on 6/3, Donovan turned 6 months! i can't believe this little guy has been in our lives for half a year! it has been awesome watching him develop. he started out just laying there. now he's on his playmat, grabbing the duck chime and sucking his thumb. we take so much for granted and it's easy to forget that we had to learn how to do all these things.
the rest of the week was filled with wedding related stuff for c-1 and c-2 including a dinner meeting of the parents and the rehearsal dinner. then came friday when the Lai family added to it's number with carol. all the time ernie put into practicing guitar (that bach piece was not easy!) and best man speech paid off. i just hope donovan didn't steal too much of the thunder :)
then came Erniecon 2007 on saturday. we weren't sure how much of a showing we'd get since the wedding was the night before and people were probably tired from all the activity. but non-wedding people were invited to come too. so it was great to see so many people weave in and out of our apartment! several games were going on in each room except the baby room where jeremy and emma took their naps.

these last 6 months have been filled with lots of highs and some lows.
certainly donovan ranks as the highest high and now we can't imagine life without him.
then our move to queens. when people ask why we moved, we say simply to be closer to family. but this family isn't just comprised of Lai's or Wong's but our church family at Vision too.
then there is the low of job loss. when we got the news, we were shocked. but then we realized the timing was just right in light of the baby and the move. while we have yet to see this trial come to an end, we are blessed to have caring family and friends who have been so supportive during this time. a friend of ours shared this - that our marriage and faith will grow stronger as a result and i can see this already.

my first mother's day

Thu, 17 May 2007 15:20:55 GMT

when i went to get the boy sunday morning, he greeted me with a mother's day card!! somehow he managed to climb out of his crib, go down to the store and buy a card for me between the time i put him to bed to the time he woke up. how clever!

we had brunch with my family on saturday and then dinner with ernie's family on sunday. the only bummer was that i didn't have the right coupon for a free sundae @ cold stone creamery for mother's day :( but that's ok - the goodies from our church family more than made up for that thanks to the women's and men's gg, sunday school kids and well wishes from others.

here he is doing some tummy time. the outfit he is wearing is a hand me down of a hand me down... we bought it for my niece 3 years ago and then her little brother wore it until he outgrew it and now it's donovan's. even though donovan is older than his cousin by several days, he's a lot smaller cause he was early :) but that's ok - good things come in small packages (and is a lot easier to carry :P)

i can finally understand all the fuss made for mother's day after having carried and given birth to this silly one

5 years

Sat, 05 May 2007 11:37:26 GMT

yesterday we celebrated our 5-yr anniversary. we dropped the baby off @ grandma's and headed out...

first we went to catch spiderman 3 which was so good! it got somewhat mediocre reviews but i thought it was really good and i enjoyed the whole peter/harry friendship development. never really cared for mj though.
then we revisited our honeymoon memories with a trip to the city and dinner at Minca ramen factory. good but not as good as tokyo:

afterwards we took a nice stroll in the east village and indulged in some yummy desserts at Max Brenners.

ernie got the munchies waffles.

i got the warm melting chocolate heart:

we've been through quite some in the last 5 years and with every trial is an opportunity to grow stronger in our faith and marriage.

the end of an era

Tue, 24 Apr 2007 20:57:55 GMT

i have been the proud owner of 2 VW jettas for the last 8 years and today marks the end of that era...

i fell in love w/ the vw jetta at a winter retreat. i saw one parked outside one of the cabins and thought it was the coolest looking car. i bought my black jetta in 1999 and within the first couple of months i dinged it when i was trying to back into ernie's garage. (yes, i was spatially challenged).
i loved my first jetta but discovered one too many kinks with it and decided to trade in for another car.
i considered toyota and subaru but came back to vw after a friend of ours got into a serious accident and walked away practically unharmed thanks to the strong german steel of his jetta.
this time, i thought i'd upgrade to turbo and get a nice baltic green color. all was fine and dandy until gas prices soared and my turbo engine required premium gas. plus it was a gas guzzler compared to ernie's subaru and later, toyota.
then one fateful new year's eve while playing settlers w/ peeps on the upper west side, we heard a cars screeching and then a big boom! we ran to the window and saw a major car accident. it took 30 seconds for me to realize... "hey! that's my car!"
my poor jetta was in the wrong place at the wrong time. a taxi and another car got into an accident and the taxi veered off the road and up onto the sidewalk where my jetta was parked. a police report was filed, parts were replaced and the title on the car was tarnished. this totally brought down the value of my car.

we've had to get rid of a lot of things because of our move. all the excess stuff that we just don't need. the jetta was on the list of things to go.

today i brought it to this place that buys used cars. we went back and forth with the numbers. i haggled and haggled and got $1500 more than what he was originally offering. we shook hands and it was a done deal.

so long shelley - so long.

disconnected...

Sat, 24 Mar 2007 00:29:55 GMT

just a quick note to let people know our home phone in WP is disconnected.
we have MOVED but have not really moved into our new place yet as it still needs to be painted.

i guess no one really calls our home phone anyway but in case anyone was itching to, you'll have to try our cell #'s if you want to get a hold of us.

more on the move later...

Saturday, March 17, 2007

Sat, 17 Mar 2007 18:32:52 GMT

so we're prepping for our move and this time around, i'm getting even more brutal with getting rid of stuff ...
i was going through my bin of cards/letters/invitations.
in a previous entry, i wrote about find birthday $$
well, this time around i found another $10.
AND i found a wedding invitation that i didn't even know i had. all these years i thought to myself "how come so-and-so got invited and not me? oh well, i guess i won't be going then".
turns out they DID invite me!
aiyah!

mii mii mii...

Mon, 19 Feb 2007 16:53:53 GMT

i have the most fun creating Mii's on the Wii than anything else.

we even created one for donovan :)

that's supposed to be me on the left and ernie on the right :)

you can also go online and find celebrity mii's that people have put together.