My lovely friend treated me for a delicious dinner in town.

Kids had a fun playdate. 🙂 I made them:

Mentaiko spaghetti & miso marinated black cod for dinner.

My hubby made pasta for dinner for the family while I enjoyed a nice glass of wine reading with Shane.

My friend sent me a beautiful bouquet of flowers for my birthday! I feel so special!! What a lovely day I had. I got nothing to complain today. 😉

We are heading out to the city today for a fun family time this afternoon. But first, boys got haircuts and we had Korean BBQ. So good.

Comparing to see whose teeth are whiter.

Frittata two ways, one with smoked salmon and goat cheese for adults, the other one with ham and gruyere cheese for kids.

We’ve been under the weather for last couple of weeks. I had a cold, both of my parents were also sick and Shane had a flu. He missed three days of school and stayed home with me. Though it’s not good that he was sick, I enjoyed spending much time with him at home.

This morning, I got to catch up with my mom while we were running errands and I shared with her about my next step, my new adventure I’m about to embark…

Since I made the decision to resign from my work and stay home two years ago, it’s been a lot of ups and downs emotionally. I’m very thankful I’m able to stay home and be there for my family but I cant’ help wonder if I’m done with my career… Often times, I felt lost and sad… then what’s worse was that the fact that I felt guilty about being sad. Then a close friend of mine who is also my prayer partner told me that I’m going through a grieving process and that it is ok to sad because the truth is that a part of me was gone. It’s not so much that I was regretting my decision, I was missing what I had let go… because it has been part of who I am for so long, and it made sense to me. After that realization, I was still sad but without the guilt factor. 
Then I stared to pray to God to open doors for me. If there’s anything left in me, in my life as a designer, I wanted to work. I asked for my heart to be in the right place and that I want to do it for His glory, for His wills, not mine. I kept having to ask myself where my motivation and this passion is coming from. Why is this so important for me and why I couldn’t just let it go. I persisted in praying that God will show me his way when it was the right time and right circumstance for my family because I still want to make my family my priority above all.

I’ve been SO blessed with women in my small group Bible study in town, my church family growth group and my prayer partner/friend/sister in Christ, Susan who are all praying along side of me. I feel this time of being home was my much needed time to feel revived and refreshed. I feel confident that God is opening doors to this opportunity to use my talent, my education, my work experience to do something again. It almost feels like all of the above came down for this point, my next step. After almost exactly two years of being home, I’m excited and so grateful to start this new journey in my life.

After sharing this with my mom, we looked out the window and noticed rain has passed and a beautiful, vibrant rainbow showed up. We both immediately felt like God showed this rainbow as a sign to me! As a sign of his promise and faithfulness to what my future holds. This took us both to the uncertain time and struggle I had with my mom about deciding which college for me to attend. Right after I graduated high school, my family and I were suppose to go back to Korea but I wanted to stay in U.S. and go to RISD instead. They never thought and dreamt in million years, of leaving their 17 yr old daughter by herself after just living here for 3.5 years. If I went back with my parents, I could’ve gone to any prestige college in Seoul I choose to with the privilege of being a diplomate’s daughter and my grades but I was being stubborn. I was upset at them for not letting me prove myself for something better and decide my own future. My parents thought that idea was absurd.

I begged my parents, at the very least, to take me to the college tour and they reluctantly agreed. When we drove up there everyone was in a bad mood, and no one talked the entire tour. To make things worse it was raining and windy and because RISD campus was located in hills, it was physically very tiring… But to our surprise, right when the tour ended, we saw a beautiful huge rainbow sitting right over the college building, and my mom’s heart began to softened. We had a nice dinner afterwards, and she said she felt like God showed us the rainbow as a sign. Not as a sign that this is the college I could go, but it reminded her of God’s Promise and his faithfulness, that he will watch over me no matter where I was….and that she could let me go. And then my parents really let me go. To my dream college.

We had a lot of fun celebrating this awesome guy’s 40th birthday!

Loved seeing these three singing together!