Skip to main content

Happy Holidays 2022

By


Dear family and friends,

2022 was an amazing year. As we recovered from the pandemic, so many great and terrible things are happening in the world. In our family, our daughter returned from her missionary service, an exciting family reunion was held during the summer, and a great matriarch passed away.  We hope you enjoy reading our story this year.




 Earlier this year, Li-Fang and I had the wonderful opportunity of organizing the 30th year anniversary celebration of the Montgomery Chinese Branch in May.  With the assistance of the planning committee, we had so much fun with a reunion logo contest, creating reunion tee shirts, and publishing a 30-year history of the Branch.  Also, for the past two years, we had the opportunity to serve on two subcommittees for the Washington DC Temple Open House in April and May.  In July we enjoyed a family reunion and visited Arches National Park.  I felt so accomplished that I was able to survive the climb up to the Delicate Arch.  In October, my mother passed away.  We will miss her but are grateful she is in a better place free of pain.
Life is full of excitement. When one door is closed, another one will be opened. Although I graduated from UMD in 2021, the pandemic pushed the graduation to May 2022. I was honored to speak at the graduation ceremony. A diploma is quite useful. After graduation, I had a chance to teach music lessons at an elementary school. I will soon be teaching Painting and Sewing at a local art center, plus a great opportunity to be a museum guide at the Hershhorn in DC. I am so happy to enjoy all these opportunities.


It’s been a great year, the babies are becoming toddlers so it’s still crazy over here but they’re cute 🥰 😂 Blake has been a great helper 😊 we are able to go on a little bit longer trips and a little bit farther. We went to the Great Wolf Lodge in Colorado for spring break and visited Uncle Tim’s family in California for fall break. Oh yeah and also went to Maryland in the summer. So grateful we could see Grandma Jane one more time ❤️ Looking forward to what next year brings! Merry Christmas and happy new year!


This year hasn't been too eventful, but in a mostly pleasant sort of way. I moved back to Utah this year for a change in scenery and to be closer to my nieces and nephews. I've been taking an online cybersecurity course this year; not too interesting thus far, but hopefully it'll pick up in the future. And I got a new old car since my old old car was on its way out. Happy holidays to everyone and I wish you the best in this upcoming year!


I finally completed my first year of being employed! I spent this year getting to know the DC area again after not exploring it much as a kid. I wouldn't say work life is overly eventful, but everyone else has been doing it for years, so it's probably time I get used to it. Here's a photo of me with a macaw.


It's been another eventful year! Javi officially became a US citizen, and we were able to take a spontaneous trip down to Colombia. We spent about a month with Javi's family, before coming back to Utah and deciding to buy our first house! We were blessed to find a house in a great location and we've been happily settling in ever since. Sofia started preschool and loves learning and spending time with her friends there. Evelyn's hair has grown out almost as long as Sofia's and she has learned to boss us all around! We are loving our new homeowner's life and can't wait to continue to create new memories here. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!


2022 is already wrapping up! Just the beginning of this year I was in my last couple transfers in Taiwan. How has it been almost 10 months since I came home? School has been very exciting and I jumped into Summer Term knocking out as many classes as I could. Joining the Marching Band again has been a great experience as we performed a Top Gun show this season. Getting to know my new roommates has also been wonderful. I'm also really glad to have been able to spend time with my family and see friends that I haven't seen when I was on my mission. Hope you all had an amazing 2022! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Best wishes for the new year. We wish each of you prosperity and happiness and peace throughout this coming year.

Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year!
The Tsai family,
Ben & Li-Fang,
Jessica & Henry & Blake & Grace & Trey,
Jonathan,
Joshua,
Melinda & Javi & Sara Sofia & Evelyn Claire, and
Megan

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Happy Holidays 2023

By
中文版在英文版的下面 ↓↓↓ Dear family and friends, This year, many in our family had the opportunity to visit Taiwan. 2023 for our family included the newest baby, the passing away of a matriarch, and a blissful retirement. Li-Fang and I now have 6 beautiful grandchildren. We are grateful for family relations and blessings. Happy new year! We really enjoyed the visits from our two older daughters and their children. After Megan also came home for a month, we commenced a cross-country drive to Utah and California. We visited my brother, Tim, and his family, and San Francisco. Then we flew to Taiwan for a 2-week around-the-island tour, in which we visited over 100 people in over 50 places. By the way I retired from federal government service. While I do miss the amazing opportunities at NIST and the wonderful friends I made there, I am relishing my retirement, still teaching part-time at Montgomery College, keeping busier than before with more service, physical, and social a...
Post a Comment
Read more

Happy Holidays 2024

By
中文版在英文版的下面 ↓↓↓ Dear family and friends, In 2024 our family enjoyed a family reunion in St. George, Utah, and Christmas together. One grandchild started Chinese immersion school. Merry Christmas! Happy new year! 2024 was my first full year of retirement from full-time federal government service. However, I decided to continue teaching engineering classes part-time at the local Montgomery College and fulfilled a dream this fall in teaching a math class. In the summer, Li-Fang and I visited our children in Utah and returned to Taiwan. Post retirement, I have picked up pickle ball, worked on family history, and started other projects. I am grateful for life and its many beautiful blessings. This year in my calling as a counselor in the Relief Society Presidency at church, I coordinated almost weekly activities for the women. Among these were rehearsals for line dance, social dance, and Latin dance. I am still having fun teaching private piano to more ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Home for the Summer

By Josh
Certainly lots has changed since I left home in 2011. Since leaving, I've run to and fro around the globe, from living in Utah for school, to Australia as a missionary, or to Asia as a tourist and band member. I stayed here for a few months after my mission, but even then, that was three years ago, and this house still doesn't serve me the memory of the place that I had left to attend college. But it is tidy, it is quiet, and the people are fewer. As a matter of fact I may say they are all but vanished, save for the staunch few at church on Sunday. When I accepted an offer to intern at Stanley Black & Decker, I was uneasy about stepping back into the place that seemed the opposite of adventuresome, but at the same time I was more than curious about the state of things where I had grown up. Home is a strange phenomenon to describe— it seems to be something so precious that it must be the object of an unending search, while simultaneously is always there, in constant watch ov...
3 comments
Read more