April 29th, 2008 What age is Grace today?

July 9th, 2008 Goodbye, Old Friend

Thank you, Bonnie, for coming into my life, for teaching me how to love and to care for others.  I will miss you.  You will always be my first love.  Thanks for lots of great memories!

I love you, Bonnie-o!

Sept 3, 1995 – June 4, 2008

May 25th, 2008 Out for a walk in the neighborhood

A video of Grace out and about in the neighborhood.

May 24th, 2008 Grace and her favorite hat!

We finally captured a video of Grace and her “hat” and David added some background music.

May 24th, 2008 Out of Office …

Hello, All!

Sorry I haven’t written much in here since Gracie’s birthday.  I went down to Los Angeles (my old hood) for a weekend seminar called “Celebrating Men & Sex” sponsored by PAX (visit their website www.celebratingmen.com) and was the last of a 4 part series.  I had signed up for these series of seminars back in my single days four years ago and haven’t had the opportunity to complete them (dating, wedding, move to Seattle & baby) before I got married.  In any case, I learned a lot and have a greater appreciation for men and myself.  While visiting L.A., I got to see 2 of my friends from back in the days, Amanda & Liz.  They ALWAYS take me to the best Korean restaurants where I’m left with craving more Korean food like a mad-woman!  Oh!  The weather is hotter than a sauna … in the upper 90’s!!!  Ugh!

I come back from my weekend of learning to a Baby Girl that just wants to shower me with her love and snot.  Hence, I caught a very nasty cold and have been laid out for about 6 days!  The sun finally came out today after a very longgggg winter so we took a nice walk out on Greenlake along with the rest of the folks of Seattle.  The weather is finally looking better here, so come out and visit us!!  I’ve loaded my current Calendar of Events under “Peekaboo” to see who is all visiting us in the next couple of months.

Finally, I want to put in a “plug” for Amanda’s daughter, Allyson Park’s, first book.  Allyson wrote this when she was 6 years old and won 1st place at her school.  Amanda was inspired and thus illustrated this book.  Check it out!  My Favorite Place 

May 15th, 2008 New Uses … Ariel-Style

Have you watched “The Little Mermaid” – Disney’s animated movie? It is one of my favorite Disney films, mainly because the soundtrack was so great.  In one of the scenes, Ariel discovers a treasure chest and invents uses for items she’s picked up, such as a fork to comb her hair. Although Gracie hasn’t watched the movie, she’s figured out creative, new ways to use a couple of her favorite things right now.

Toothbrush – After speaking to my sister, Jeanie, about my concerns for Gracie’s breath, she immediately asked me if I was brushing her teeth.  “Yikes!  I have to do that now?  She barely has any teeth!” was my response.  So I rush to the drugstore to pick up a toothbrush for her.  From the moment she held this toothbrush in its package, she started to use it as a sword and was attacking her enemy (me) with it!  So I opened up the toothbrush in the car and while holding it firmly, she fell asleep.  Finally, she is playing with this Dora the Explorer toothbrush as a back scratcher!  Seriously, she holds it by the handle and uses the bristles to scratch the back of her neck!!  I tried so hard to capture this image, but it was really difficult.

Swim Diaper – These days, trying to change Gracie’s soiled diaper has been a HUGE task!  It’s been really hard to have her lie still just to get the diaper off.  I’ve been doing a lot more laundry on my spare time due to all this!  We try everything:  playing her favorite songs, stuffed animals, books, photobooks, CD’s, musical toys … EVERYTHING!  Well, I have discovered that she’s got this fascination with her swim diapers that are piled next to her diaper container.  It’s colorful, frilly and lightweight with pictures of Winnie Pooh and Tigger, too.  She’s decided to carry it around everywhere after her diaper has been successfully changed.  But the best use of this swim diaper is to be worn as a hat!  Yes!  That’s right!  She wants to wear it over her head!!!!!  Again, many attempts were made by me running over to get the camera; however, it has been unsuccessful.  You can use your imagination instead!

May 15th, 2008 Happy Birthday, Grace!!

Today’s Gracie’s first birthday!  She’s doesn’t have a clue, but she is enjoying her day with her nanny, Ginger and her buddy, Finn at the house right now.  I had to wait until my parents in Korea and in-laws in Scotland received their framed photos of Grace before I could post them onto the blog.  

Here’s my beautiful baby girl in her traditional Korean dress called a “han-bok”.

Click Grace’s Birthday Song for the video.  Happy Birthday, Gracie-poo!  We love you!

May 12th, 2008 1st Mother’s Day

Happy Mother’s Day to me!!  We got up early and both got dressed “up” for the special day ahead.  Auntie Jeanie sent over a lovely “pink” dress for Gracie and I finally tossed out all my maternity dresses and donned a printed brown, flower pattern dress for this special Sunday.  Where’s David, you ask?  He’s on his way home from Des Moines, Iowa on an early flight back to Seattle.  He is expected to arrive close to 3 PM, just in time for our dinner reservations at my favorite Seattle restaurant called Chandler’s Crabhouse overlooking South Lake Union.  

Grace in her fancy dress:

While we hung out at the house, Gracie allowed me to read her more books (she’s really getting into books now … thank God!)  and also loves to play with my iPhone.  I pulled up some photos for her to view and described the people in the photos to her.  She noticed a photo of Ollie (bright blue octopus chair) and quickly looked over to the living room for the real Ollie.  Returning to the iPhone, we came across a photo of Daddy with Grace.  She got all excited and grabbed the phone and kissed the photo!!!  This was really exciting and very cute because we all know that Grace isn’t too affectionate.  So I flipped the photo back to her and Ollie and she grabbed the phone again and planted another kiss!  Finally I flipped to a photo of Grace and I together and she wasn’t interested any more.  Of course, I forced her to plant a kiss on my photograph, but she wanted none of it and moved away to another toy that caught her attention. Oh well, I tried.

My beautiful friend Thursday:

For this special day, my dear friend Thursday has graciously offered to watch Grace while David and I go out for dinner.  We jump at her offer for some much needed time together.  Ha-ha-ha!  Most of you know that David and I are together for like, um, 24/7!!!  In any case, going to a fancy restaurant sans teething infant was pure excitement!  So Thursday gets here, takes over watching/playing with Grace as we rush out to meet our reservation time.  So tonight was the night that I get a break from my diet (hurray!) without feeling guilty.  We get there, order our drinks and when the waiter brought my glass of white wine, he immediately knocked it over and it spilled all over David’s newly washed and ironed blue shirt!  Of course, everyone was apologetic, and they offered to pay for dry cleaning but David opted for a free dessert!  The manager showed off a 12 layer chocolate cake, which I immediately accepted!  The evening was wonderful and it felt like we were on a date again!  The rest of the evening was, let’s say “magical”!

Thank you, Thursday, for allowing me to celebrate my first Mother’s Day romantically with David.  Thank you, David, for being a wonderful husband, father, friend and lover!  Thank you, Gracie, for allowing me to be your mom!  I love you all!

May 10th, 2008 A Visit to the Seattle Aquarium

This is the weekend that David is out visiting Alexandra in Des Moines, Iowa.  We thought a once-a-month Tour of A Seattle Attraction was much needed.  We invited our friend and neighbor,  Allison Friedrich & her son, Wilson (who is 2 1/2 weeks older than Grace) for our trip out and about.  I thought by going on a weekday and at an early hour would avoid the hustle and bustle of tourists.  I was completely wrong!  I was thrown off by all the young school kids that were there for their annual field trip to the Aquarium!!  

Our kids did great and stayed awake the whole time.  I thought Grace liked the bright colored fish tank as she lightened up when I brought her close to the glass.  Afterwards, Allison and I headed for the cafe upstairs where caffeine was MUCH needed and a walk along the waterfront under the sun called to us.  Overall, it was a pleasant afternoon and I got to hang out with an adult!!  By the way, Wilson and Grace will be going to the Peacebuilders Academy in the Fall together.  Allison is already referring to Grace as Wilson’s “girlfriend”!!  Watch out, Wilson, you’ve got a lot of competition!

Here are some photos from our visit to the Seattle Aquarium.  When we got home later that afternoon, I pulled out her “Goodnight, Seattle” book which had a photo of the Seattle Aquarium and she got all excited and started babbling.  So I stayed on that page and babbled along with her.  This was the first time she’s allowed me to read 3 books, back-to-back, and all the way through without getting bored!!

Oh!  I forgot to mention that on Thursday morning, something must have clicked for Gracie.  While she was having her breakfast, she looked squarely into my eyes, pointed her index finger (something she is very good at and runs in the family) and said, “Mama”!  I then pointed to her and said, “Baba”!  Grace repeated the word.  A couple of other words followed … Ball (Baaw), Momo (Finn’s dog), Dada.  She stopped at “Lucky” (our dog) … guess I was pushing it! Very fun!  I’m seeing my little girl grow up very fast!

May 5th, 2008 Interview with Grace @ 4 months

Here’s my favorite video of Gracie.  This is an interview with Grace taken on September 15, 2007.  

May 5th, 2008 Limping Right Along

I slept a good 3 hours after my ½ marathon yesterday.  The important thing to note is that I FINISHED the race!  It wasn’t my best time, but nonetheless, I completed the Vancouver Half Marathon.  The Start/Finish Line was about a 20 minute walk from our hotel.  Once I got there, of course, I had the pre-race jitters so I was on the hunt for a toilet.  While I was waiting in line with the “Full Marathoners”, the gun for the Half marathon start went off!  The race apparently started at the bottom of the stadium and I was no where near it. I really did start running as soon as I got out of the port-a-potty so by the time my chip crossed the mat at the Start of the race, I was about 1½ miles ahead of the actual marathon mile markers (so sayeth my Nike+iPod gadget).  In any case, I ran over my Half Marathon goal.  Now I am limping. 

Here are my results:

Female 35-39  #7356  Gun Start 2:50:02  Chip Time 2:39:38  7:34 KM/Pace  Yulie Law                   Seattle             WA

I’m going to go back a couple of days here.  The Expo is where you pick up your race number and all the goodies from various sponsors of the race. I tried something by this company whose scale not only tells you your weight, but it also tells you your body mass, bone density, fat … basically EVERYTHING!!!  What a wake-up call!  I’m sure it’s not 100% accurate, but it was an impressive scale.  My numbers were horrible; however, I will put it up here so that it will motivate me to lose weight.  David also did this scale and he was EXTREMELY proud of himself for being in great shape and based on his physical health, it gave him a Metabolic Age of 23!!  Mine was 42.  For those of you who weren’t aware, he was on the SCD (Specific Carbohydrate Diet) diet for 6 months before finally going in to get a full panel screening from the IBS clinic to test for allergies.  He must have dropped over 20 pounds and was just skin & bones!! 

While we were in Vancouver, we met up with our PEPS group friends Alyson, Cor & Rosa for dinner.  Here’s a photo of the two girls playing sword/chopstick fight.  It was a fun trip over the border and we walked a lot in the city of Vancouver!! I’ve also started my diet today!  Wish me luck!!!