Day 365: The End

I can't believe I am coming to an end of my goal to do a picture a day. It has been a fantastic experience. I think it has opened my eyes to seeing the good in everything. Posting daily has made me feel like I'm accomplishing something even when I felt like I hadn't done anything that day. Having to post made us go out and do things, rather than sitting around, so I would actually have something to write about. It has made me appreciate living in Ohio. I went from hating everything about Ohio to loving everything about Ohio. I'm pretty sure that the next time, or anytime for that matter, we move I will have to start a daily blog again, just to appreciate my new surroundings.  I have seen myself change, hopefully for the better. I am proud of myself for setting such a lofty goal and sticking to my goal and actually getting it done. Looking back I think my photography has improved by leaps and bounds from taking so many pictures (also with the help of some photographer friends). I started this blog hardly photoshopping my pictures. In the middle I actually took the time to edit all my picture I posted. Towards the end I got lazy again and now they are back to square one, straight out of the camera, although much improved since I have now learned to use my camera.  I am grateful for a husband who has helped me reach my goal on those days that I just couldn't post. Part of me is sad I won't be posting daily next year, part of me is relieved. I will still try to post regularly because I love looking back and seeing all the fun thing we have done. Who knows what the future has in store, all I know is that I will be writing about it.

 

Last year I made a list of goals I wanted to accomplish.

 

Goals:

• Post a picture a day for one whole year - Check
• Finish my independent study class  - Check
• Loose weight - Check (Lost 20 lbs this year)
• Have a baby - Maybe next year
• Get out more  - Check
• Go and do fun things - Check
• Go to:
• The Melt - Chec
• A polish restaurant - Maybe one day we'll find on
• Find a Romanian store  - Check (Boyd talked to the lady who owned the store for 45 minutes
• Thurman’s café - Next temple tri
• A show -Check, saw Les Miserables, it was incredible.
• Air Force Museum - Someday. Maybe in 201
• D.C. - We'll get ther
• New York - Before we leave this is a mus
• Chicago - Almost. Our friends did.
•  Disney World - We will this coming March! (I'm so stoked
• Camping  - Chec
•  Amish Country - Chec
•  Find the covered bridges - Ran out of tim
• Indian’s Game  - Chec
• Columbus Crew Game - Check (Thanks for joining us Carrie and Kelly
• What about Bob’s - Sandwiches, someday I will taste you
• The Cleveland Zoo  - Chec
• The Columbus Zoo - One da
• The Cincinnati Zoo - Still have to go see those penguin
• The Akron Zoo - We're so lame, it is so close
• The Toledo Zoo - Maybe our next road trip will take us there.
• Buy the Nikon 18-200 Lens  - Check (LOVE IT!)
• Buy a piano - Meh, the piano goal turned into a keyboard, which I will purchase in the near future to finish my upcoming piano class.
• Buy a sewing machine  - Check (did a bunch of awesome/fun projects this year)
• Buy a new TV -  - Check (Thanks Santa! We got a 46" LED 3D TV for Christmas)
• Get a new job - Check

I took this picture while I was at my parents house. This sunset was stunning. (minus the haze) Do not mind the cheese factor, but I felt like this was an excellent parallel to by blog. After a long day (for the sun) and a long year (for me) it ended beautifully.  

 

Day 364: Holiday Lights

The other night Megan and Tom came down and we went to Holiday Lights. It was a lot of fun. You stay in your car and drive around Thanksgiving point looking at all the sweet light displays. Thanks for being our chauffeur Dad. 

Ok. I apologize this  picture is blurry, but I just had to post it. The reindeer was getting a bath and the bucket of bubbles was behind the reindeer. At first all of us thought that the reindeer was p___ing into the bucket. We sure had a good laugh out of this one until Tom said, why are the drops of p__p going upward. That was when we realized they were bubbles coming out of the bucket.

Holiday lights has to be one of the best activities you can do during the holiday season. It was dog friendly too, which meant that Lily could come.

She had SO much fun looking at the light. She went nuts every time we drove by a new set of lights. I'm pretty sure that she had the most fun.

When we first arrived at Holiday Lights we saw this Santa backwards. At first I couldn't figure out why Tom kept saying "OH Oh OH Oh" then I realized he was saying Ho Ho Ho backwards. Ha Ha

As an added bonus we got to see live reindeer! We were pulling away from Thanksgiving point when I spied these reindeer! It was a quick drive by with me whipping out my camera at the last second but I caught them!

Day 363: St. George House

My dad has always wanted a house in St. George. A few months ago he bought in on one. He and my mom went down with their friends and they were looking for another partner for the house. My dad said he wanted in and now we have a nice warm place to go. 

Doesn't Nging Nging look awesome with her shades?

What do we do for the 4 1/2 hour drive?

Play family feud on mom's ipod. 

Until we all fell asleep.

 We had so much fun playing mahjong all night with Nging Nging. The first night I won almost every round. The second night Nathan won almost every round. We found out the secret is to sit on the right side of Boyd. Who ever does apparently wins.

p.s. we didn't plan our white outfits. 

Aren't my parents cute?

Day 362: Las Vegas Trip

My Nging Nging (grandma) has always wanted to go to Las Vegas.

So we went. Nging Nging is so cute. She brought her gambling money in a little plastic sandwich sack. She had a little over $2 that she was going to gamble away.

My family doesn't gamble. Period. We all felt like a bunch of idiots when we couldn't figure out how to work those dang blinking machines. It doesn't make sense! You put the money in, then suddenly a bunch of buttons lite up, but how are you supposed to know which ones to push? The next thing you know, the buttons aren't all lit up anymore and suddenly the $1 you put in is gone. Gambling is stupid. I'm pretty sure my dad and Boyd are trying to figure out what is going on in this picture.

So why does my family always go to Vegas? 

That is a silly question. 

To eat.

We sure do love our food

 All I could think about were crab legs on our drive down.

 Of course we had to stop by Belagio and see the water show.

 Do you see the cool arch? Well, it is actually a stream of water. 

Nathan couldn't resist. You can tell that he had already done this a few times based on the drops of water on his jacket.

You give that bear a high five!

If you want to know if that gigantic, gorgeous tree is real, it was.

I'm always so impressed with their displays. This bear was made out of 5,000 carnations. 

I'm not sure why Boyd took this picture.

Nging Nging decided to try her luck one more time on a different machine. 

 She spent a grand total of $3 and won a whole 10 cents!

She told us that she was done gambling. 

p.s. The lever really didn't work. She just wanted to pull on it.

I was thinking about it and I have come full circle. My blog started with Las Vegas and it is ending with Las Vegas.

Day 361: Practice Picture

This year the only thing I have wanted to get done is for my family to take a family picture. I'm constantly taking pictures of other families and thought it would only be fair to take some of my own family. On Christmas Eve Megan and I picked out outfits for everyone to wear. Then we arranged them accordingly. I wanted to get the set up all done the night before so we didn't have to stand out in the cold the next morning and freeze while I tried to position everyone. Everyone cooperated so nicely. (except for mom, she was asleep on the couch) These are a few of my favorites from the practice shots. If you want a glimpse of what kind of family I grew up with, this picture gives you a pretty good idea.

Notice how well Lily, the dog, sits. She pretty much sat on this chair, looking at the camera for a good 15 minutes.

Here is a sneak peak of our real family pictures the next morning. Megan had a great idea to do a few fun shots with balloon animals (since we had them sitting around anyway)

Day 360: Quiche Hog

Quiche is a family favorite. We have quiche for Christmas and General conference weekends. 

So. This one time, when all the Hong kids were living together at BYU, we had leftover quiche. Nathan loves quiche more than any person in the entire world. Normally we distribute leftovers evenly to avoid certain situations, however Nathan decided to take more than his "fair share." Megan and I were probably in a crazy mood and before we knew it we were running for the kitchen and grabbing the quiche. We then proceeded to take the quiche to our room and hide it, yelling "QUICHE HOG" at Nathan the whole way. Needless to say, it was a funny situation now that we look back on it. 

This year for Christmas I made Megan a t-shirt. Actually I made us matching t-shirts. I photoshopped this cute little piggy and added a branding label. It says "quiche hog" on the yellow part. Megan's face was priceless when she opened it up. 

p.s.Yesterday we spent Christmas day in the car driving down to my parent's new home in St. George. That is why I'm a few posts behind.

Day 359: Merry Christmas

Look how happy we are after opening all of our presents. 

Hong family tradition. We open our presents on Christmas Eve. It started when Megan and I were teenagers. We didn't want to wake up extra early on Christmas morning and put on makeup. We normally open ONE present on Christmas eve. That year we kept saying "one more, one more, one more." So now we just open all presents on Christmas eve. It is a great tradition. 

Day 358: Matching Presents

 This year I decided to make all the presents match the tree. I thought it was really cute. Here is what it looked like. Boyd laughed and told me he has never seen anything like this. Then he said, imagine having 9 kids in your family and trying to make it look this nice.

Day 357: Lily Roo Shoot

I love my little Lily Roo. We, my siblings and I, got her while we were all living together at BYU. She has such a fun personality. She thinks she is a person and loves sitting at the table during dinner time. Lily is adorable. She loves getting her picture taken. If only her eye weren't so googly. I can't wait to go home and photoshop these.

Day 356: Balloon Animals

Pat is my mom's best friend. She is such an amazing lady. I look up to her so much. She is practically my second mom. I have very fond memories of Pat being at my birthday parties. The reason why; Pat does clowning.She is an extremely talented balloon artist. I told Pat that someday I wanted to learn how to do a few animals. Today my wish came true! I had so much fun spending the afternoon with this lovely lady learning something so fun. Thanks so much Pat!

Today we made: 

Monkeys (Which are really hard!)

 Butterflies

 Mice

 Puppy Dogs

 "water" guns.

 Cats

 Even more mice

 To go with the cats

 And Boyd's favorite Giraffes

 Our pile looked like this by the end of the day.