Mimi

Valentine’s Day in Philadelphia

February 16, 2015 By Misono in Family and Friends, Foodie Love, Recreational Fun, Seasonal Celebrations, Wanderlust Tags: art, art museum, Audabon Bakeshop, day trip, Debbie, Deborah, friends, girlfriends, Jen, Julianne, Kanella, Mimi, museum, Philadelphia, Philly, snow, soup dumplings, The Barnes Foundation, Valentine's Day, Valentines

On Valentine’s Day, a bunch of my high school girlfriends and I drove up to Philadelphia for a day trip to visit our dear friend Debbie! (Dan was a great sport about watching the girls while I got to spend time with my friends, and we had already had our own Valentine’s celebrations in the days prior.) Jen, Mimi, and I headed out in the morning, and got to Philly in time to enjoy soup dumplings for lunch with Debbie! Juli flew in to join us afterwards for post-lunch dessert at Audabon Bakeshop!

Mimi & I at lunch — Mimi and I at lunch right before.

Dessert at Audabon — Neat signage at Audabon Bakeshop

Delicious macarons from Audabon Bakeshop

strawberry brick toast at Audabon Bakeshop — Strawberry brick toast at Audabon Bakeshop

Walking to the Barnes museum — Walking to The Barnes Foundation museum as the flurries fell around us.

The Barnes Foundation museum — The snow made everything look so romantic!

Cool crystals hanging from the ceiling of the museum.

Juli, Debbie, and Jen! — Juli, Debbie, and Jen at dinner

Dinner at Kanella — We enjoyed dinner at a Mediterranean restaurant called Kanella. We didn’t realize that we’d be dining off of their Valentine’s menu, so it ended up being quite a meal!

Shepherds Pie from Kanella — shepherd’s pie

chocolate cake with lavender ice cream — Chocolate cake with lavender ice cream. My favorite dessert there!

dessert from Kanella — This was also delicious.

post-dinner group photo — Our day trip to Philly was quite eventful! It was a fun and memorable day, and it was so enjoyable getting to spend Valentine’s Day with these amazing ladies!

We got caught in a bit of a blizzard on the way so it took us a while to get home, but thankfully we made it back in one piece around 2 in the morning. Can’t wait until we are all reunited again!

Pumpkin Carving Party

October 26, 2014 By Misono in Family and Friends, Seasonal Celebrations Tags: baby, Chwan, costume, costumes, cupcake, dan, ebi, Halloween, Mimi, Mio, Mirei, nigiri, party, pumpkin, pumpkin carving, pumpkin carving party, pumpkins, raven, sake, salmon, shrimp, spider, Stephanie, sushi

Last Saturday, we were invited to a pumpkin carving party with the Lee family! There were lots of Halloween-themed treats and games for the little kids, and our whole family had a great time taking part in the festivities with friends. Stephanie and Chwan were wonderful hosts and really threw an awesome Halloween party full of fun for all ages!

spider cupcake decorating station — A decorate-your-own-cupcake station! Such a great idea.

Shrimp Mirei — Mirei loved exploring in the new environment!

Mio's decorated cupcake — Mio’s decorated cupcake

Mio with her cupcake! — Mio with her cupcake that she decorated!

There were lots of cool Halloween games that Stephanie set up for the kids.

My girls dressed as sushi! — Our girls dressed as sushi! We’ll have to post better photos of the costumes later.

Mio playing with the hammer toy — Mio loved playing with Danny’s hammer toy

Mio's decorated pumpkin — Mio decorated her pumpkin with these cat face foam stickers.

the carved pumpkins! — The carved pumpkins! Everyone did such a great job carving!

Mimi & Alden’s Wedding

September 28, 2014 By Misono in Family and Friends, Videos, Wanderlust Tags: Alden, bridal party, ceremony, Charlottesville, Early Mountain Vineyards, first dance, Korean, Mimi, reception, video, vineyard, wedding, wedding cake

We got to be a part of our dear friends Mimi and Alden’s wedding celebration when they tied the knot on September 28th! The wedding was held at Early Mountain Vineyards near Charlottesville, and it was a gorgeous place for a beautiful ceremony and reception to celebrate the couple. We had a lovely time — Congratulations, Mimi and Alden!

Mimi looking stunning coming down the aisle.

Beautiful ceremony at Early Mountain Vineyards

A video of their bridal party’s grand entrance at the reception:

…and their sweet first dance!

A toast by Alden's father. — A toast by Alden’s father.

Mimi’s Bridal Shower

March 29, 2013 By Misono in Family and Friends, Foodie Love, Kitchen Concoctions Tags: angel, bridal shower, Debbie, Deborah, Julianne, Michelle, Mimi, misono, Stephanie, Sujay, Vienna, Xiaolu

Last Saturday, my high school girlfriends and I threw our dear friend Mimi a bridal shower! After getting engaged with a very romantic proposal last October, Mimi and Sujay just tied the knot earlier this month in San Diego with a spur-of-the-moment, intimate marriage/elopement(!) ceremony. While some of our friends were able to attend the beautiful ceremony, half of us couldn’t make it because of scheduling conflicts, and we all wanted to gather to celebrate this wonderful occasion with Mimi! Our friend Juli rallied all of us together and assigned us different tasks to create a lovely and memorable post-wedding bridal shower for the bride.

My best friend Debbie and I were put in charge of cooking and baking all the food for the shower, and we had a great time planning the menu together and cooking together the day of. Thank you Angel for letting us use your kitchen and stepping in to help us with the cooking — we couldn’t have done it without you!

Mimi's Bridal Shower — I baked and decorated these sugar cookies for the shower in the days before. Mimi had had a henna night prior to her wedding ceremony, so I piped some henna-inspired decorations on the purple cookies. The amount of detail was challenging, but I’m happy with the result!

Debbie's amazing gluten-free chocolate cake with matcha frosting. SO GOOD! — Debbie’s amazing gluten-free chocolate cake with matcha frosting. SO GOOD!

I’m so happy we could come together to shower Mimi with love and wishing her the best! She looked so happy with a newlywed glow to her, and just seeing her and Sujay makes us so happy. They are such a great couple and are just so adorable together when you watch them because you can see how in love they are. With that, I’ll end with this breathtaking picture from their wedding that shows just that!

Mimi and Sujay — Happily ever after ♥ Congratulations Mimi & Sujay!

Whirlwind Weekend!

October 1, 2012 By Misono in Family and Friends, Music & Lyrics Tags: B'z, B'z concert, Blue Ocean, Blue Ocean Japanese restaurant, Cathedral of the Sacred Heart, concert, dan, Danny, Devin, live, Mimi, Mio, misono, Richmond, Silver Spring, Stephanie, The Renaissance Center, wedding

I can’t believe it’s already October! The end of September just flew by, as the past few days have been pretty busy. On Thursday evening, we met up with my cousin’s husband Devin who was visiting from Arizona on business. It was his first time meeting Mio, and it was great catching up since the last time we saw him two years ago, and hearing about how my cousin Yuko and their kids were doing. Hopefully we’ll have a chance to see Yuko, Beni-chan and Sakura-chan soon! I’m sure Mio would love them, too.

Devin was in town! Dinner with my cousin's husband last night. — Dinner with Devin at Blue Ocean Japanese Restaurant.

Friday evening, my sister and I met up with friends in Silver Spring, Maryland, to watch the Japanese rock band B’z perform live in concert!

B'z concert! — B’z concert in Silver Spring, Maryland

With Erri, Akira, and Erri’s friends.

They were great live! We got to see them pretty close up! (photo courtesy of Akira)

On Saturday, we drove down to Richmond to attend our friend Stephanie and Danny’s wedding! Before we left, we dropped Mio off with a family friend in the morning so they could watch her for much of the day. They have a daughter who is only 2 months older than Mio, so I heard that they played very well together while Dan and I were in Richmond!

What was supposed to be a two hour drive ended up taking longer due to a huge funeral procession that was on I-95, but we made it just in time for the ceremony, which was held at the beautiful Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in the heart of Richmond. (Apologies for the poor picture quality — I only had my phone with me to take pictures!)