Grocery shopping!

So today I was at work. And Edwin went to the grocery store to buy milk with our 2 monkeys...Jocelyn and Evan. Apparently, they had a lot of fun because our supermarket has "cars" attached to the shopping cart. So this is the pic they took for me from his phone.

Crop-share anyone?

So a friend of mine recently told me (and won me over) about joining a crop-share! There is a nearby USDA certified organic vegetable farm that is 10 minutes away. So I said, why not? If i can bypass the grocery store, I can cut out the middle man! :)

For those of you who don't know what a crop share was (I didn't), it is like placing an investment in that season of vegetables & paying on the front-end. Not unlike the stock market, it's kind of like putting money in a company and reaping dividends (if they gain profit). In this case, my dividends are a weekly harvest of vegetables!

There is definitely a slight risk though -- no one knows how great the harvest would be for that season until during or when it's over. So in the front end, you don't really know what vegetables you are going to get. However, because the farm grows a variety of crop, even if something fails, the odds are something else would be doing well. (Like say...if the Brussel sprouts didn't do well, maybe I'd get kale or cabbage!)

So with this being said, I committed and joined an 8-week Fall crop share. I figured I'd start small, commit to something short (like 8 weeks), and if it's too overwhelming or too crazy, it would be over soon. With my 8 week crop-share, I come to the farm once a week on my designated day and pick up my weekly share of crops. I never know what I will get until I come. Yes, I am SO living on the edge right now... (haha).

Nonetheless, this is a way I could support our local farmer, and not only that, we would get to eat organic vegetables. Every week, my challenge is to somehow incorporate all that vegetable into our meals. This is a good incentive to ramp up our vegetable in-take. Being a novice, I asked a neighbor to split the crop share with me. That way, it's not too expensive (averages to $20 per week) and I wouldn't have to stress if I had too many vegetables to deal with.

Here's what I got last week:

- leeks

- potatoes

- beets

- turnips

- buttered lettuce

- butternut squash

- broccoli

- red onions

I ended up making leek and potato soup for the first time. I also ended up roasting beets and turnips in olive oil in the oven. We eat the buttered lettuce with grilled chicken as a salad. We had butternut squash soup, and the broccoli and onion was made into a quiche.

Wow, maybe I am slightly biased...but I almost feel like the fall vegetables were bursting with flavors! Maybe it has to do with the fact that it was harvested literally a couple hours before I picked it up, as oppose to crops at the grocery which are transported halfway across the country. Or from out of country....like Mexico, Peru, or someplace foreign. Many of these vegetables had to be picked when they are green, so that they would ripen by the time they reach the shelves. It's different than vegetables picked at their peak.

Albeit, not all are not pretty (or big) like the vegetables at the grocery store...but they taste SO MUCH BETTER.

This week, I got cabbage, leeks, turnips, kale, acorn squash, purple lettuce, carrots, sweet potatoes...

Any ideas or recipe suggestions? :)

By the way, I think there are local CSA crop shares everywhere in US...check to see if there's one near you! :) It will be so great to support local farmers. Not all are USDA certified Organic Farms, but still, eating local is still waaay better than buying it at the store. It's also an educational experience (at least for me) to learn more about eating in-season (learning which vegetables are grown when).

There are also meat-shares, egg-shares, fruit-shares, etc.

But I'll just start with one thing at a time....

A re-cap!

Hello there, blogging world! It's been a REALLY long time since I even tried to do an update.

So here is my attempt to keep the few friends/family members who actually take the time to read this blog updated. It's a "thank you" for caring & actually trying to keep up with my life. =)

Here are some recent photos. I say recent...because I still have photos from this summer that I yet have a chance to sort through.

But, I need to start somewhere...or I'll never catch up. Here we go...

Mini-road trip

Right at the end of summer, we took a little road trip to visit some towns and cities nearby. Having lived in Great State of Texas all my life, we can drive up to 12 hours and still be in the SAME state (East to West). So imagine our big surprise when we realized that a 2-4 hour drive can bring us as far north as Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine...and even Canada! Here's a quick snapshot of a lovely quintessential lighthouse in Portland, Maine. The kids did really well on the road, and Jocelyn now looks for lighthouses everywhere she goes.

The discovery of the ERGO!

At the end of summer, we discovered the joys of the Ergo baby carrier! My sister has been raving about it with her own baby (my nephew!), and so when we got a gift card, we spent it on an Ergo and Evan has LOVED it. Here's a picture of Jocelyn (having a bad day) wanting to be held, and with the Ergo, I can hold both kiddos... big and small!

(And no, I am not being paid by Ergo to advertise for them!)

A Glimpse of Fall Colors

Summer was finally over, and the leaves turned color. But this year, the Boston area's Fall Foliage is not as radiant as the years before.

But we still found a tiny little spot by the side of the road...

Jocelyn turning 3 years old!

So Jocelyn is turning 3! How fast time flies. We were tired and didn't want to plan a party...since she probably won't remember anyways. BUT, at the last minute, we decided that we should definitely do something to celebrate her! So we invited our lovely neighbors to the playground in front of our building and had an impromptu party. I googled "how to make quick pinata" and found instructions on how to make a one in less than 30 minutes out of a paper grocery bag and tissue paper! (How do I live without google!).

It was fun and she kept saying..."Happy birthday to ME! This is MY party!" So, I guess she DOES know... Here's Jocelyn hitting her pinata at her party!

Princess Jocelyn

So, for her 3rd birthday, my sister (thanks Aunt Phi!) sent her a princess outfit set, complete with dress, plastic tiara, and plastic wand. Since opening her package, she wants to only wear this...even to sleep.

Here is a photo of her being in princess bliss....

And yes, you guessed it...she was a princess for Halloween.

Happy Costume Day!

Here are some of our lovely neighbors all dressed up for Halloween. I love that there are like over 40 families in our building, and we don't have to go outside for trick-or-treating. We just go down the hallway..... barefoot if we wanted to.

(We inherited a free pumpkin costume someone gave away...so Evan got to be a pumpkin!)

All the kiddos in their costumes-galore...

And, last but not least, we had some friends visit from Houston (J.Lau, Jeremy C, Melody and Rachel). We took them to a seaside town called Rockport....15 minutes from where we live.

Here's a photo courtesy of J.Lau photography!

And believe it or not, J.Lau visited us exactly 2 years ago. And it was also during this time of year that we also visited Rockport! (We love Rockport!)

Here's a photo from 2 years ago below. Same location. Some photographer. Same subjects. Can you tell the difference?

Besides the obvious that we wore the same jackets and aged some...

Two years ago, Jocelyn was almost 1 year old. And Evan? He was not here yet. At the time, we just had moved here. Edwin just started his M.Div program, and I just started a new job at a nearby hospital. We had no idea what God had in store for us.

Now that Edwin is almost done with his program, where will God lead us next? What will our next 2 years of life look like? Only God knows and only time will tell.

As in Ecclesiastes 3:1, it is written....

"There is a time for everything, and a season for everything under the sun."

I wonder what the next season will bring...

(Our parents would sure like to know...!)

Winter came early!

Sorry blogging friends, I've been so MIA the past few months. I promise that I'll post a catch-up blog soon... but for now, I wanted to put it on record...

...this is crazy...but's it's snowing!!!

The first snow fall happened on the eve of October 27th. The next morning, I was scraping off a thin layer of snow at 6am in the morning as I was leaving for work.

And today, October 29th, a Nor'Ester is blowing through...and as I type this, there must be about 8 inches of snow on the ground already. Such is life in New England?

Maybe I am a Texan at heart....but when the heck!

So, in case you were keeping track....the we only had about 6 snow-free months this year.

April - October.

Time to take out that shovel. Winter is here.

unfocused...

That's been my state of being with this blog. I have many things I want to post, many pictures I've taken, many events to record. And therefore, I do nothing.

Absolutely nothing. How's that for inspiration.

One milestone of note...

Evan just started crawling!

Summer time fun!

Summer is finally here. The long New England winter is finally gone. This is what we've been waiting for all year long.

Oh the simple joys of childhood...

Here are pictures of Jocelyn and her buddies (our neighbors) just having a blast out in the back of our apartment building.

Formal Complaints

Though there is no doubt that Jocelyn loves her little brother...there have been some formal complaints.

First complaint: Evan pulled my hair!

She goes to tell me (in Vietnamese). Then she goes to daddy to tell him too (in Cantonese). Apparently, she really wants to make this vexing issue known.

We tell her that little brother doesn't mean it. We tell her that she needs not stick her face in his face...and at the age where he's finally learning how to grab...

Then, second complaint: Evan kicked me.

Yes, Jocelyn. Like we said, don't stick your face or hover over him.

Okay, should we put him in time-out?

Jocelyn: YES.

Okay, so we take little brother and lay him in the corner for a bit (for time-out).

She's happy. Problem solved (for now).

(Lucky for us, Evan doesn't complain... he doesn't really know yet he was put in time-out...as a 3-month-old baby.)

The joke's on me

So I didn't get a chance to actually post this on April 1st.

Happy (belated) April Fool's Day.

The joke's on me.

Right after the last post (me complaining of snow in March)...Here it was, April 1st. And, it was snowing AGAIN. This time, it was enough where we had to actually break out our SHOVEL so that I could get my car out of the parking space to go to work.

dreaming of spring

Today it was snowing.

Not big blizzard snow. No shoveling required today. But it was snowing for sure. Large. Fluffy. Snowflakes.

HOWEVER. It is MARCH. And April is around the corner. I'm ready to go outside, fly a kite, take a walk, run in the grass.

Spring please come soon!

Happy 2 months, Evan!

And of course, how can we not include your life without including your overly zealous, dangerously-smothering sister?


Note: Evan's not smiling so much in this picture anymore.

Smothering Sister

Jocelyn's drawing

Our apartment building recently is having problem with ants (thankfully, not fire ants). Jocelyn is always pointing and telling me whenever she sees ants. The sad thing is, my eyesight must be bad because I can never find the ant she is pointing at.

She must be frustrated...because tonight, we found this drawing on her little doodler. We weren't quite sure what it was, until she repeated to us that she was drawing ants in both Chinese AND Vietnamese. She translated herself into both languages...and we were like OH!

Credits:

Picture by Jocelyn

Photo by daddy, who also wrote "ANT" on the side.

Congrats to Danny & Phi

I fell so behind in my blogging, that I don't even know where to begin catching up. So I decided to just go backwards... In November, I became an Aunt for the first time. My sister and her husband welcomed their first baby boy into the world -- His name is Joseph. He's Jocelyn's and Evan's cousin! Joseph is about 6 weeks older than Evan...they'll be perfect playmates!

Here is the first picture of them "together". Joseph and Evan meet each other via computer! This photo is actually taken by my sister, so the baby on the "outside" is Joseph, and the baby "in the computer" is Evan. Congrats Phi and Danny!

Jocelyn versus Evan (in Christmas stockings)

So I feel bad that I didn't post up too many pictures of Jocelyn when she was younger. I really had no system to organize my photos and all photos just got lost in the black hole of my hard-drive. We took just WAY too many pictures, and to dig them out and sort them was just too much work...so I fell behind.

Anyhow, my New Years resolution is to be more organized with my photos and update my blog more often! We'll see how that goes.... (haha)

Here are pictures of Jocelyn back in 2008 in a Christmas stocking. And below are also pictures of Evan stuffed in the SAME stocking his sister was in.

Can you tell who's who? This is for you, Amber! :)


Okay, below are 2 more shots...which will be given away, since if you look at the previous post, you will know which one is Evan.


Is it easy to tell who is who? :)

Okay, the answer:

First set: The top is of Jocelyn in 2008, the 2nd one is of Evan 2010.
Second set: Top is also of Jocelyn in 2008, 2nd one is of Evan 2010.

Pictures of our new little munchkin :)