Life is Beautiful

Motherhood, Sewing, Family

BFF…Boop Friends Forever

~ Etc.

BFF…Hmmm those 3 letters denote serious commitment. I’ve know Brennen Lopaka Chosei Owan for almost a good 20 years of my life and after watching this AMAZING clip from Superbad (which I haven’t seen, except for trailers, but this clip is HILLARIOUS.) I decided to do some investigation to see if B was BFF, Best Friends Forever material, or as we now call it Boop Friends Forever! So what entitles somone to be BFF status you may ask???
Best = Of the highest quality, excellence, or standing; in or to the highest degree; most fully
Friends = A person whom one knows, likes, and trusts; One who supports and sympathizes with
Forever = Continually; incessantly; always; without ever ending; eternally
So basically somone who is a high quality grade A eternal support system.
Boop means = To poke something cute in the nose.
Which now implies BFF means: Quality Grade A Eternally Cute Nose. So indeed…B does fit the BFF protocal: nice physique, eternal companion…I mean friend, and very cute nose. From barefoot elementry school, to riding on the bus everyday to thee prestigous private school of Kamehameha, down to the book studying years of college rooming together, over to the SYL days of the MTC and off to the FOB lands of Asia on our missions, back to our wives homefront of Utah and onto checkmark gym rats, through the fat and the skinny, B’s been there for me. In the best of times and the worst. I’ve laughed so hard with him, I about pee’d my tight pants and I’ve cried rivers of tears upon his broad shoulders. We own a plethora of the same clothes (and even cordinate on certain occasions without any prior pre-meditated planning), if I go to a good restraunt and tell him to order something there, he ends up LOVING it just as much as I do. If he watches a movie and raves about it, I know I’ll like it just as much (he’s the one that showed me this clip!) There is no secrets between us and basically, it’s a good thing that we’re both boys, otherwise as much as we love and adore our wives- Sarah and Amy would have some SERIOUS competition!!! Lets just hope Paka and Adalie have the same chemistry as their fathers… 😉
So since I’m declaring this Boop Friends Forever Day, go get your BFF, take em’ to the rooftops, boop em’ on the nose, and let EVERYONE know just how much you love em!!! Cause in the end…what would the world be without a lil Boop?

Curse of the Chang….

~ Etc.

This is one of my FAVORITEST pictures of Adi. She’s getting so big and I can’t believe how much she’s growing each day. I weighed her on the scale last nite and she was 12.1 lbs (she was 5 lbs 13 oz. when we took her home from the hospital.) We went shopping for new clothes for her on Saturday. Sarah always gets mad at me when we go shopping because I always get WAY excited about buying new clothes for her, but as soon as I see how much baby clothes are, even on sale, when they just wear them for a couple months tops…I freak out and get all grumpy. Besides that I never know what size to get her. I try to get her bigger sizes, so she can wear them longer, but then their just not as cute when their baggy you know? I need INSTANT gratification. I love to shop, but I guess the true Chinese Chang in my has come out and its hard for me to spend money on clothes that she wears for not even a couple of months. Typical in-store convo from me and Sarah:

Sarah: “Oh this is CUTE!”
Jay monotone: “How much is it?”
Sarah: “It’s on sale for $8, normal price is $16.50”
Jay being Chang: “$8??? Ugg, what size is it? A sale is not always a sale Sarah!”
Sarah: “6-12 months”
Jay rationalizing: “She’s not even 3 months yet!”
Sarah: “But she’ll be able to wear it longer…”
Jay grumpy: “Whatever…get whatever you want…”

But I will say that my wife does pick the cutest clothes for Adi and I always feel bad for how hard of a time I give her. And then to top it off, she always goes and takes all these cute pics and I can’t help but always want my daughter to look like a Baby GAP model! Curse of the Chang…what is this daddy to do???

chEErs to my wifeY!!!

~ Etc.


“My most brilliant achievement was my ability to be able to persuade my wife to marry me.”
-Winston Churchill
As young as I am, I KNOW that nothing I do in life will affect me as much as Sarah has. Some call it fate, some call it destiny, some say it’s just pure luck. Some people even believe that there is only one person in the whole wide world that you could possibly marry and be happy with. And despite life’s paths and choices- as twisted, rough, bumpy, and painful as they are, you both will inevitably get thrust together at some point in time. Sarah and I have a peculiar and long history together and call it whatever you want…but when it comes down to it, we both can’t deny that we feel we are meant for eachother in every possible way. I just helped her celebrate her 24th birthday and with my sister Kat’s wedding, Christmas, New Years, Crazy slave Work, and her brother Michael’s Wedding, I barely found time to get her a much needed jewlery armoire to hold her plethora of jewlery. I was all happy I found it for such a good deal (I love Target) and also happy that she’d organize all her jewlery and won’t have to ask me everytime we’re walking out the door if I saw this set of earrings or that bracelet, since it should all be in one place now! But when I gave it to her, she was sad that I didn’t get her a birthday card. 🙁 Crap…I lose again! So in honor of her 24 years of life, in no particular order are 24 things why marrying my wife Sarah, is my greatest achievement~CHEERS:
  1. She is my Best Friend(BFF), my true loves kiss- she makes me laugh, she’s made me cry and everything in between!
  2. She’s the beautiful mother of my beautiful daughter…and a great one at that!
  3. She’s Korean, hence she cooks AMAZING Korean food for yours truly (hence the increased BMI) such as my personal fav’s: Kalbi, Bulgogi, Bi Bam Bap, Sam Gyup sal.
  4. She loves the gospel and inspires me to be a better person just by waking up in the morning.
  5. She’d live in Hawaii (She already tries to speak pidgeon…hahaha whoop whoop) We’re still working on getting her to say “slippers” instead of flip-flops though. tsk tsk
  6. She went on a mission to San B in Cali
  7. She helps me clean up and take care of the house…fo’ real! “I tamed her” -as spoken out of the mouth of Soo-Young Choi
  8. She lets me think that I’m the neck and not just the head.
  9. She lets me just stare at her beautiful self in complete and jawdropping awe!
  10. She shares and consoles in me about everything that’s on her mind.
  11. She goes and watches chick flicks with me, then usually sheds a tear or two and tries to hide it! hahaha (she cried in “Enchanted” and even “Christmas with the Kranks”? what the?)
  12. She went from social butterfly to stay-at-home mom…nothing short of a major sacrifice.
  13. She’s a GREAT listener and ALWAYS gives amazing advice to not only me but many of her friends.
  14. She constantly helps me to overcome all my bad habits and never gives up on me.
  15. She always gets me lunch and/or dinner ready to take to work so that I won’t go hunger.
  16. She lets me watch all my sports and if I’m playing, she comes and is my #1 fan!
  17. She has the most amazing voice and I get mesmorized when I hear her sing…especially when she sings “Lullaby River” and “My heart will go on”
  18. She dries pretty much EVERY single flower I’ve ever given her (and its a lot)
  19. She takes care of Adi at nite and sacrifices her sleep so that I can get some decent sleep since she doesnt want me to be tired when I slavelabor each day.
  20. She reads her scriptures and prays everyday-it’s the little things that are hardest! Trust me…I know.
  21. She has the two funniest stories about potty training her cat and her first day of school in the US of A that make me crack up EVERYTIME I hear them!
  22. She doesn’t judge me on my past but loves me for who I am
  23. She loves to cuddle!!! Boop…
  24. She truly is my better half! She married me and I heart my Sarah! Boop…

Are we really doing a blog???

~ Etc.

Alright,

 

So I set this up a couple days ago, and I guess I’ll be the first to start posting stuff, even though I have no clue what I’m doing or what’s going on. I like to write and people usually like to read what I write, so we’ll give it a go…even though who will really read this you know? I’m at work right now at Nu Skin where I’m a Commissions Account Analyst (that sounds important, and FYI…I’m a big deal) over all of Korea (I think it’s because my wife’s Korean and I’m proud of it!) and Indonesia. Sarah’s been a TROOPER taking care of baby and I couldn’t ask for a more loving wife and mom to be home with my Adalie. The anxiety of her being a stay at home mom and me being the breadwinner wasn’t exactly what I envisioned happening so soon, but I guess you take things in stride and you count your many blessings. Sarah’s recovering amazing from giving labor and it almost seems like she never gave birth since she’s so petite and tiny compared to my Oreo loving, hate running, fatboy self. The finnancial fears I think loomed high over our heads, but holding to the rod and paying our tithing and being hard-core budgeteers has really casted those fears aside. I think both of us have never been so finnancial worry free which is a weird feeling but a feeling that I think is priceless (no pun intended).

 

Adalie is a couple days over a month old and wow has time flied. Its crazy to think that she was born almost a month ago and even more crazy to think how we’re still functioning on so little sleep. It’s funny cause we almost take shifts with her. I wake up in the morning if she’s up and take care of her while sarah sleeps in a sec if i don’t have to go to work till later. Sarah takes care of baby while I’m at work crunchin numbers for peeps and then when I get home I take care of her until bed time and then Sarah troops it out and gets up with baby whenever she’s up at nite! I really have no clue how she does it, but “amazed” doesn’t even put the cherry on top when I say “WOW” she really is super mom and I just stare at her in amazment because she’s so loving and so great. I have no clue how she finds all the energy to go about the mundane day to day task of taking care of a small infant, needless to say as stubborn as I am, I really don’t think I’d be able to do what she does!

 

Adalie’s being more alert everyday and being a dad is the most amazing feeling in the world. I was hardcore against sleeping with my child, but I think I’m a bigger softie than Sarah cause every little whimper breaks my heart and I HAVE to pick her up. It’s sad that in barely a months time, she got daddy wrapped around her lil finger that Sarah laughs is a mini jay finger, long, slender, toned-almost like a hand model! She does poop alot and sometimes, she has so much projection that no matter how tight the diaper, it shoots out the leg sides and up her back. Kay that only happenend twice, but man-that was twice to many! She’s adorable though and its funny because my mom was telling me how when my dad was bishop over the married student ward, they went to go visit a couple that just had a baby and when they got there, the couple was just sitting there in silence with the baby in the middle and they were just staring at her…man why do new parents do that??? hahahaha

 

Well I don’t wanna drag this on too long for a first post on a “blog” I hope granny doesnt find out about this or he’s goina tease me almost as much as he teased cheryl for making a blog. But i figure with Sarah and my family in Korea, California and Utah and my family in Hawaii, it’s nice to keep record of our happenings.