my battlefield

perhaps the best chance i'll ever get to talk to my family...
yet i get so discouraged cause it's been so difficult, and i want to please my parents so much.

but, i live my life for the Lord, please pray for me to not fear men, to love God, to share the gospel with my family, and for their salvation (one day)!


(just a sidenote, i wuv my soon-to-be-husband, he's pretty darn awesome =))

30-something days left

I think as the wedding comes closer and closer, I'm getting more anxious, with planning and whatnot, along with questioning if I'm truly ready for this (going back and forth, back and forth, seemingly arguing with myself...)

Having difficult conversations with J... saddens me that we have more of those lately, but I do know that everytime, I come out learning more about God (& admiring J more and more). This time around, I saw the true weightiness of my own walk. Though I always knew that my own personal walk with God very much affect every aspect of my life and all the relationships around me, it's the first time I come to see that... I'm going to be a HUGE influence to my soontobe-husband's life (sort of a duh statement, but.. shocked me). So, if I'm not doing well in my walk, then he's going to be affected as well!! {the bright side though, is that I'll know when I'm doing well, he'll be benefitting from it as well =D}.

 

Anyhow, I should be reminded of the following (taken from girltalk):

When I try to find fulfillment in anything besides loving Christ and serving Him, I will only end up more frustrated and completely unfulfilled.

{grace & roger} 06.04.2011 preview

thank you grace & roger for letting me spend the afternoon with you guys! I had SO much fun.

more to come... =)

Irvine Date <3

T-69 days! (I don't like counting b/c it makes me nervous, but we have a counter on our website, and so i know once in a while.. hahaha

I love dates <3

the ko fammmm

so so beautiful! overflowing love =)

thanks for allowing me to shoot you guys =)

see rest here

still alive =D

really haven't posted in so so long.
work has been really hard on my body =(

quick list of resolutions:
1. pray! pray for strength, pray for peace, pray for efficiency so i can sleep more/be more energized, pray for engagement, pray for family, pray for meetups, pray for my bridesmaids, pray for j ♥
2. read and actually comprehend. i think i sometimes fall into the checklist mentality and don't fully understand what i read.. =(
3. take more pictures --> bring my camera with me (i want a smaller lens ><)

i'm going to marry him!

PRELUDE..

{May 16, 2008 - LBC banquet}

This was my freshman year, back in '08.

If you were at our engagement party, you already know this. But since most of you don't... yes, I did have a crush on this dude even back then.

Of course, I wasn't saved, so my reasons were no good =/

I worked during the summer, and sorted out a lot of my own issues.

In the fall, he studied abroad in Japan.

{April 16, 2009 - fnf}

I was saved by God's grace earlier that year. j came back from Japan. Our interactions were sparse (we only met once that year, I believe), but... my respect for him grew even from our few encounters.

{May 2009 - LBC banquet}

Yes, we continued to take awk/funny pictures.

{June, 2009 - Hong wedding}

I attended my first ever wedding!

The story behind this picture is quite hilarious.

Dear c went up to j, insisted that he & I match, and we need to take a picture together. j was more like "whatevs, fake smile, good okay bye". I was pretty giggly. HAHA

{2009-2010 schoolyear}

The following year, I moved into Costa Verde with my beautiful girls (+ our unofficial roommate). Thus, I became his neighbor.

During the time, a friend and I wanted to gather people together every once in a while, so I started hosting our monthly Costa hangouts. --> more opportunities for us to interact/talk, though I don't remember us interacting/talking all that much..

{November 28, 2009}

j traces back to this date as the day he started to notice me.

THE DATING STORY..

{March 13, 2010}

Asked me out on Feb 18.

I didn't sleep the entire night

My roommates didn't get much sleep either that night (they were super excited for me)

{April 1, 2010}

We have lots fun together. Like, how I postit his car =D..

Did quite a few embarrassing/memorable things..

Got a season pass to Sea World

So we go play there quite often.

Okay, enough preluding (did I lose everyone already?)

On to THE PROPOSAL STORY..

December was a really hectic month for me. For the first two weeks, I was training for my new job AND studying for finals. Third week, since I was required to do 4x 8 hour shifts before leaving for home, I arranged my schedule to be M-Th, so I could play with John on Friday.

Our season pass to SeaWorld expires end of Dec, so we decided to go there one last time on Friday.

I worked 10pm-6am on Wednesday night, and 6pm-2am on Thursday night, so I was super exhausted and didn't bother setting an alarm for Friday morning (I'm usually pretty good about waking up). J texted me 930 saying he's up, which was super weird to me cause.. it never happens. I ended up sleeping through everything and didn't wake up till 1030. Drove over to his place, had lunch together with a few of his housemates (they later told me it was impossible to talk to me cause they didn't know what to say without revealing), and headed over to SeaWorld.

Okay, so a few (weird) thing so far:

-J asked me the day before if I'm sick of dating yet. I was like "NOO I don't want to break up with you". Yes you may laugh. No I admit I don't think like a normal person...

-S insisted on talking to me at 2am when I got back from work. I was thinking, okay yeah~ we can talk about your situations or whatever. But, we spent the whole hour talking about me until I fell asleep

-A, plus few other people, stayed an extra week in SD.

-Before I headed out to see J, S asked, "are you going to wear that?????" To which I replied, "YEAH! It's cold today, you should wear something warm too!"

But, I'm super oblivious, so none of it clicked.

I don't like rainy weather. The whole day was really gloomy.

We went to see our usual favorites and a few that fit our time. Sealion - we got to see the extra session of how to train =). the animal show - they have a kangaroo!! (which I thought... "kangaroo go, jump jump jump!"). and a polar express show (blah).

A few weird things at this point:

-J asked to bring his bag instead of mine

-J took forever when using the restroom

both which I dismissed, but thought it was weird.

At the end of the day, we were going to head out, grab the silver pass (thanks liz!), and go back into the park to get a souvenir. On our way out to the park, j asked if I wanted to get a picture in front of the big christmas tree, to which I was "YEAHH!".

We were talking about how we should ask someone to take a picture for us, and (coincidentally, but not really), the Yu's were there. I was super excited, and told j "hey, we can ask someone we KNOW to take a picture of us - awesome!".

Here's the picture S took for us:

{December 17, 2010}

Right after S took the picture, j turned around and said "hey mel" in a quite serious tone.

And in my mind, I was thinking "oh nos, we are going to talk about serious things now, dinner will be interesting..." (indeed, dinner was interesting).

The rest kinda went by like a blur. The end.

Just kidding.

j said something along the lines of "I really enjoyed dating you these past 10 months, and blahblabh (i don't remember).."

reached into his pocket (this is when it clicked in my mind)

got down on one knee

"Will you marry me?"

And you can picture me smiling/shocked.

after a couple seconds.

"YES!"

And then, there's people at SeaWorld clapping for us, and I saw our friends running to us.

C & S hugged me!

(before j did)

cause he was just shocked and lost.

and not sure what he was supposed to do.

but many thanks to T, who shouted "put the ring on!"

so he did.

we got engaged.

=) heheh.

and went to eat yummy souplantation.

Funny moments -

c.h.: so when's the party?

c.s: you mean.. the party at souplantation??

me: oHhh hey that's caroline's car!

j: well, maybe she's here.

more surprises? yay for friends.

so, yes, i got engaged!

and it was a very happy day.

I'M GOING TO MARRY HIM! I think we can safely say, I'm going to marry the man of my dreams!

=) heh.

(priase God for everything He has provided us with!)

(thanks to all our friends who made this day so special to me & j)