Tsai Family of the Parklands

 On May 25, Li-Fang and Yvonne Spencer held their group piano recital at Woodfield Elementary School.  There were a total of 65 performances that evening.

I have been fortunate to have attended a third Youth Conference trip.  This time, the stake youth went to Kirtland, Ohio.  After congregating at the Potomac chapel beginning at 6:00am on May 29 with a short prayer meeting and breakfast, we rode on three buses all the way to Kirtland.  Our branch youth rode on the yellow bus.  At a layover in Hiram, Ohio, at a stake center, for about 3 hours, the kids engaged in games  of water balloons, Frisbee, and giant soccer.  At 4pm, we checked into the Fairfield Inn.  After dinner, we proceeded to the Kirtland Temple.  Group by group, we toured the awesome Kirtland Temple.  While we were waiting to stand in a group photo of the stake youth on the steps of the temple, Da and I saw Jack Shirts, who was coincidentally also visiting the Kirtland Temple but was about to return home.  Before the tours, Sister Julie Savage spoke to the youth about keeping journals. We participated in a testimony in the ...

This year, the list of concerts and performances seems to have grown longer.  Joshua auditioned and/or participated in the All-State Band, the Lion's Band, the Superintendent Awards performance, and in a competition at the Kennedy Center.  Melinda and Joshua performed in the 3 ASCYO spring concerts and in the DHS Spring Concert.  Melinda performed in the ADI recital.  Melinda and Megan performed in the Gaithersburg Ballet recital.  Mom coordinated her Group Piano recital.

Robert and Lynda Heaton invited some Chinese friends to their home for dinner on April 18.  We were delighted to meet some of our Chinese friends in Virginia. 

On April 12, we welcomed to our home Dylan Landeen and his mom, Jennifer, for the wedding of John Chen and Mary Lambert.  We were delighted to host the four of them in our home this week.  The actual wedding ceremony took place in the Washington DC Temple.  John and Mary were married and sealed by President Earl Tingey at noon on Wednesday.  Jennifer Landeen, Dylan Landeen, Li-Fang, and Meili Shen were also there.  Dylan and I served as witnesses.  That evening, we held a reception for John and Mary.  We ate hotpot and, of course, the wedding cake.  The elders came, along with Andrew & Charlotte Shen, Adam Fugal, and Helen He.  Congratulations to John and Mary on their wedding and starting their new family.

On April 8, we drove our whole family to Williamsburg for the Band Festival there that weekend .  After a good night's rest, at the downtown Williamsburg's Kimball Theater, we watched Joshua accompany three choruses.  He did a fabulous job.  Later that day, Joshua and Melinda participated in their Band Festival.  On Saturday, Joshua and Melinda toured Williamsburg and went to Busch Gardens.  That evening at Busch Gardens, they received their school awards.  Way to go, Joshua and Melinda.

After more than a decade of absence from the island, our family finally had an opportunity to revisit Taiwan.  It was Megan's first trip, but even for our teenagers they had forgotten the previous visit.  So with a lot of planning, our trip finally began on March 24. After a long plane ride, we were greeted by our old friends, the Pascual's.  Meeting the Pascual's again was like a reunion with family not seen for many years.  Sweet and memorable were our embraces.  We only stayed with Pascual's one evening before touring the famous Ali Shan.  The trip to Ali Shan was long and tiring.  When we arrived there, it was very cold.  Luckily the Pascual's had lent us jackets to survive the journey.  Despite these challenges, we were able to view the floating clouds at sunset and the beautiful sunrise.  The next day, Li-Fang was able to visit her old art teacher and walk onto the campus of her high school.  Although many things had changed...

On Sunday, March 14, we were privileged to have invited into our home some of the greatest missionaries to serve in Taiwan in the 1970s and 1980s, who live in the Washington DC area.  It all started when my wife was looking for the missionaries who served in Hsingying, Taiwan, during her high school years.  The two missionaries that she remembered were Elders Cunningham and Heaton.  Amazingly she was able to locate these two missionaries through the Kaohsiung Taiwan Mission Alumni web site.  We were able to contact Elder Robert Heaton, who is living in Northern Virginia.  Both Robert and his wife, Lynda, were able to come to our home Sunday evening.   In addition, we thought it might be fun to also invite other Taiwan return missionaries living in the area.  We were lucky to be able to invite all one in night our very good friends and returned mission aries from Taiwan: Tim & Robin Stratford (both are returned missionaries from Taiwan; Tim serve...

According to reliable sources, the biggest snow storm of the decade in Montgomery County commenced with some snow on February 2 and continuing for over a week.  School was canceled for almost 2 weeks.  I did not go to work for a whole week, and we had to cancel church two weeks in a row.  According to NOAA, record snow falls amounted to over 73" (at Dulles International Airport) for this snow season. Personally for us, this snow storm resulted in more careful and slow driving, getting stuck on the back roads, Joshua going out with Adam Fugal to help shovel driveways, more bonding time at home with the family, kids playing in the snow, and a lot of shoveling.  Half way through the storm, our shovels gave way.  It was very difficult to buy shovels during a storm, because they were all out.  Luckily, we were able to buy 2 new shovels before the end of the storm.  Hopefully, we will not have a storm like this for another decade.

Family & friends, Reminiscing through this year's events has reminded us of the bounteous blessings that our family has enjoyed. Here are some of the memorable events for our family this year: At the beginning of the year, our oldest, Jessica, embarked on an amazing adventure through a Study Abroad experience in New Zealand. In addition to an awesome journey in studying and touring the country, she managed to squeeze in some valuable introspection time to herself far away from the distractions of family and friends. Meanwhile in March, our youngest, Megan, chose to be baptized soon after she turned eight. Since this was to be the last baptism of our family, we were touched and very grateful that all of our children have entered into this path. Also, in March, we celebrated Joshua's sweet 16 birthday at Guapo's -- very apropos for the celebrity. This year we were fortunate to have at least 20 people grace our home with their visits: Cousin Larry and...

Taekwondo WOW! OOH! AAAAAH! OOH LA LA! Singles learn taekwondo from a taekwondo teacher. One girl and four boys are masters from the taekwondo class. There's a technique, a bad boy, and mostly breaking wood. They concentrate to bring power to break the wood. By Megan (We attended the Asian Thanksgiving Dinner on Saturday, November 21, at the Annandale Stake Center. After the dinner, there was a special demonstration of Taekwondo.)

It was cool, comfortable autumn afternoon, one of those rare Saturdays when it was warm enough to work in the yard and when it was not raining. I decided to perform the last rite of autumn by mowing the grass for the last time this year (hopefully). When what to my wondering eyes did appear, not one grandma but two grandmas did suddenly enter the scene with rakes and grass bags and gardening gloves and, yes, a small plastic trash container and a dust pan. Together they raked and gathered for over an hour. The result was 12, count them, 12 large grass bags, chock-full of leaves that had fallen from the three tree in the front yard by the curb. The work was definitely worth the clean cut yard and leave-free yard curb. Now, enjoy the pictures.