massive Pennsylvania picture update

sorry i'm so late with these pictures.  i got the super fun opportunity to see my PA people the weekend of Aug. 19th for Anh Loi's wedding.  we drove up that Saturday morning and left Sunday noonish.  twas a blast to see everyone, including my grandma Ruthie and most of my old church family .  keep in mind most of these were all actually taken in one day.   twas a busy day.

alexa doin homework in the car on the way up

the not so exciting view of 220N

ryan and i in the car

we pulled up to Grandma Ruthie Longenecker's house first!

no one answered the door so we walked right in....to see my grandma shucking her homegrown corn on her backporch!!!  how adorable! 

my grandma's corn

her beautiful flowers from her garden....

Grandma's new Fritzie

a teaset from Vietnam

me and Fritzie

katie and tien, katie with my MARVELOUS present which she wrapped herself (and made the bow!)  sadly, i'm a goober and tore it open and left my CRAYONS AND ACTIVITY BOOK at the wedding.  as the night wore on i frantically tried desperately to get it back and somehow it ended in katie's older brother's car.  thanks khai.  sigh.  and katie apparently refuses to smile with teeth because of her BEAUTIFUL braces.  silly katie pham.  but i do love you, thank you for your kind thoughts.   sorry i'm such a poo poo head. 

minh and ryan, reunited after so many years apart! 

um...tony and wayne a BIT scary.

aw...alexa and nhi.  they LOOK cute.  but nhi.... seriously...thumbs down to her.  beware.  j/k, of course.

the boys popped the confetti poppers DIRECTLY at me.  all up IN my hair, in my drink....they're just lucky i thought it was pretty while it happened. 

liz, lan and me. 

lam, me and michelle.  yeah i like how lam def tried to sneak in the picture....ahahah

omg.  i'm so old.  and so white.  alexa, nhi, me and julie.

me, khai and dita.  so sneaky.

posin with the boys: wayne, hiep and chanh.  mmm hiep's impossibly large mouth complete with uneaten food and chanh's stunning good looks......i'm such a lucky gal. 

james, me and crystal.  sure, james may look innocent, but you shall soon see the digression...

lan, liz and baloon.  i think lan was a bit...how you say...hyper?

me and vi

me and mah girl, katie.  future BRIDESMAID!!! 

omg ahhaa SUCH THE THIRD WHEEL.  boo.  whatever katie and tien.  whatever.

lam, me and liz. 

I WAS SOOOO excited to see TERRY HUYNH again!  it's been so so long!  he and his brother, Tony, ONLY call me Jennifer.   their sister, chi Diep, used to babysit me!!!  so much history with this cat!   

awww...julie and chanh by candlelight.

lan and tina, one of the beautiful bridemaids.  awww, Tina...SMILE!!! 

me and kim, lady in red!  i know, i only have the flower in like 3 of my billion pictures, but Bac Tiet was givin me some heat about it (callin me Hawaiian girl) and then it just wouldn't stay in.  I gave up.

ladies in black: crystal, betty, and julie

one of my fave pictures....look how PATHETIC dina looks as she's tryin to sneak in the picture!!!!!!   AHAHAHAHA!  L2R: me, crystal, doan and dina.

so we did a take 2 and let Dina join in.  yikes, chi Diep looks scary!  (tony and terry's sis and my former babysitter!)

me and terry's mom and sis....IT'S BEEN SOOOO LONG!

me and mah girl, Tina...she's such a sweetie, she lent me her shirt for the night!!!  FUTURE BRIDESMAID NUMERO DOS!

Liz, crystal and myself split from the wedding and went to Wal-mart in search of comfy flip flops and cash. 

Crystal shakes her head at the sad selection.

Liz, equally disgusted.  no flip flops that night.

so we bought 50 dollar waters....

Crystal slips on the not so nice floor at Wal-mart

downtown HBG at night....yeah not too clear, but you can see the capitol building!

we met up with carolyn!  

missy, carolyn, me, crystal and liz

missy, me, betty, carolyn, liz, crystal,and michelle

the boys minus wayne and james: lam, scott, dogg, and sam

i've known these girls for fooooorever. 

carolyn's gotta drag her boy away from the bar....

michelle and sam......cuuute couple! 

Scott and crystal.  oh crystal, good times. 

betty and missy.....

lam and james.  omg james is so funny.

checking to see if carolyn's ok....

i love this picture, carolyn looks so goofy

scaaary.

james lookin rough....

strugglin....

ahahah omg this was tooo tooo funny...my fave picture ever from that night!

wow, nhi bui is so attractive in the morning.  rawr.

the mommas: missy's mom, my mom, and betty and michelle's mom.  wow we've got good genes. 

baby tai and me....

dex and missy came to eat pho with us....

my momma and baby tai.

wow.  that was alot of pictures.  hope it was worth it for some of you.  peace out.  thanks for a fantastic weekend. 

the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day...

er...week. 

i love that book!  but seriously, this is how i've felt all week...like a huge pile of doo doo.  i've been really ashamed of how i've been and what i've felt and it's because i've tried to rely on my own pathetic, shameful little self.  and i suck.  no like seriously.  i've totally hurt people's feelings and been completely not nice.

what was wrong with me???!!!

to find out, i sat my sorry tail down and decided to brainstorm what it was that i loved to do.  here's what i found:

color with crayons.  eat reese cups.  drink apple juice.  sing extremely loud to marvin gaye and the temptations.  dance.  badly.  watch cheesy movies and laugh and cry.  loudly.  headbang to some rock song i can't understand.  (usually smells like teen spirit).  quote lines from zoolander with my sibs and crack up.  sing disney tunes.  take hot showers.  SMILE.  laugh.  stretch my toes.  talk to my friends.  laugh at my friends.  laugh at myself.  stop, look around, and just say AMEN to ALL that God has blessed me with.

EUREKA!

i have done little to NONE of the things above in the past...oh....couple months.  LIKE SERIOUSLY!  what the HECK is wrong with me????!!!  aiyah!!!  problem!!!  panic!!!

ok so i took a breath and decided i had my work cut out.  well, i somehow misplaced all my cds so i had to REDOWNLOAD the entire GREATEST HITS album of the TEMPTATIONS. 

after belting out personalized renditions of "my girl", "Ain't too proud to beg" and "ball of confusion" (complete with my own mo-town ready moves!) i was exhilirated. 

what to do next????  OMG I'M SO PUMPED!  well, i'll hafta wait on the apple juice and reese cups at least till tomorrow.  hmmmm....

I PULLED OUT MY CRAYONS.  YESSS, my crayolas were feeling dusty.  but then i couldn't find any good coloring books.  i was not feeling my powerpuff girls.  yeah, i dunno.  so i guess that'll hafta wait too.

so i head downstairs to see the sibs.   we all start quoting Zoolander movie lines and laugh hysterically as we all try our own impressions at Jacobim and Katinka.  *wipes tear here*  my siblings are so funny.  we really are.  and if you dont' get it, then we're probably laughing at you.  HAHAH ok not funny.  that was mean.  but seriously, funny kids.  and Ryan can remember like EVERY SINGLE LINE from EVERY SINGLE MOVIE he's ever watched more than once.  kid's a genius in his own right!  alexa's the true genius of the family, but yeah, i'd put Ryan's Zoolander and Wedding Singer knowledge up against just about anyone. 

seriously, it felt SO GOOD to just LAUGH until we were all choking for air.  

time to move on to something else on the list.  CHEESY MOVIE time!  Ryan had come up with this BRILLIANT plan to watch every single movie we had in our living room (about half our collection) once this summer.  i'm mad that i missed out for most of it because of work.  but today had the be the cheesiest of them all.  i'm semi-embarrassed to say this, but we watched.....

ok i couldn't even say it.  I KNOW, we were given this movie as a gift and it happened to be sitting downstairs and not stored in our dusty attic cabinet.  and i watched it with the sibs.  in its entirety.  ahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha....with lovable characters named jesse, nadine, randolph, elvis, and of course, willy....how could this not touch one's heart???? 

ok, so there was one thing i left off of the list of things i love to do.

I love to xanga.  it calms me.  it makes me laugh at myself.  hopefully, it makes other people laugh at me too.  and i noticed that i haven't done that in a LOOONG time, even after THE MOST EXCITING THING IN THE WORLD.  this clearly tells me something was wrong with me.  so here's the much awaited update. (if not by you, certainly by me!)

*ahem* I'M ENGAGED. thank you.

thanks to ALLLL the congratulations (from everyone, everywhere), especially to Katie and Jerry for the EXTRA special shoutouts on their own precious xanga spaces.  all the facebook messages, the phone calls, the emails.....i feel so loved and so lucky, especially by my new fiance!

i know.  we matched the day he proposed, and didn't even plan it! 

first he took me to my most favorite place in the world....

...and then this is where it happened!  he got all mushy and pulled out the ring, and the first words out of my mouth were.....

"you're such a dork."  yay for me and my eloquence when it counts.

um, please excuse my elephant like hands.  i was just using my zoom. 

so pretty!  (the ring, not my wrinkle-ridden fingers ahahah)

so yeah that was muy exciting!  this summer since then has been a blur.  met some lovely girls from russia and czech republic. 

went to carowinds with cristina, olivia and amy (yay housestaff alum!)

went to an AMENAAAZING church retreat this past weekend up in MD.  got to meet some swell new people and meet up with some old sweller people.  was so blessed and honored to be the group leader of my FAMILY FAITHFULNESS (winners of 2nd overall thankyouverymuch!).  you guys were awesome!

chi sue. (future sis in law!)

bya sistas.

bao and sammy (both amazing talents in their own right!)

aw.  tuyen.  so pretty.

hang, my roommie for the weekend.

scott being emo. 

sammy on drums!!!

our fearless driver and amazing praise leader, anh dat (chi sue's hubby and dai's bro in law)

the ridiculously real sebastian.  an AMAAAAZING speaker. 

cute kids

justin (our star!) and donny (with a y!) from my wonderful group. 

the happy couple. 

amazing worship team!

my boy in pink.  yes, he does seem to always be in pink. 

two jennifer le's!  (our sad attempt at a JL.  if you look close, my arm is intertwined and i'm doing the J correctly.  just to clarify!   )

me, fred the frenchman and minh, awesome guys from my group

some of my group (missing luan, hieu)

we found hieu!

she thought we had the same name.  turns out we don't.  i'm Y-nhi and she's Yen-Nhi.  close enough for a photo opp!

me standing in between the pillars: jenn and gabby.  love these girls!  (and no they're not related!!!  crazy how much they look alike!)

funny sunny girls!

the north carolina crew + chi uyen

the boys. hard.

we are so mean.

lady and the tramp.  u guess which one's which.

well i've finally reached my limit of pics for the month.  so sorry, until next time.  and now you're ALL in on my summer.

and you've helped me cross something off my list!  hooray for xanga updates! 

smell ya later. 

back to the grand US of A

hooray!  back from Vietnam with only a few scratches...generally all good!  Been running tons of errands and all that in preparation for....

(drumroll please....)

WORK STARTING ON MONDAY!  i'm a big girl now, officially doin the 9-5 (or in my case, 8-4ish) thing...payin bills, saving money, paying for my own gas and what not.  fun times in my own little cubicle.

crazy how quickly time flies.

i miss carolina.  just the other day, i received a dvd labeled "Memories of Carolina" from the alumni association in response to the gift i made to Kenan-Flagler.  i'm saving it for a particularly rainy day to pull it out and make me smile.

how is everyone's summer turning out?  i must say, i'm so thankful and blessed to have been given the opportunity to go to Vietnam for a month with my family.  I'll admit, the idea of exclusive family bonding time for an entire month scared the heebie jeebies out of me, but it's been fantastic.  I feel like i've made up some time from the past 4 years of being away, getting to know all about the lives of my younger sibs.  i'm actually very blessed to have such a great family.  and OH MY GOODNESS, all the 2,098,564+ cousins, aunts, uncles in Vietnam were SUCH a blast to meet (ok i exaggerated a LITTLE).  it's a bit creepy though to know that these people know sooo much and remember all these details about me, but i don't even know anything about them!  i'm really looking forward to seeing them again. 

these are just the cousins on my dad's side. for everyone in this picture, I am their "chi" (big sister) because my dad's the oldest of the family and i'm the oldest of his kids. 

almost everyone on my dad's side: (missing 14 people)...HUGE.

the women of my mom's side (minus my grandmother)

asking for everyone's prayers as i go in and start work next week (Monday the 17th)....i'm just scared i'll trip and fall in my new business-y, closed toe, pointy, high heeled shoes on the first day...a terrible beginning to a new chapter in my life! 

aiyah.

vietnam update:

I DID IT!  I STRAIGTENED MY HAIR!  won't be curly jen for at least 6 months. hmmm...

mosquito bite update: 5

caraaaaaaaazy.  it's hot here.  fruit is soooo good.  air conditioning is a blessing.  family is always good, especially cousins and second cousins you just met.  motorcycles are a blast. touring = tiring. 2 more weeks left until the US and starting work!

me and the sibs with my ong noi (paternal grandfather)

me, a few cousins, and my ba noi (paternal grandmother)

omg world cup fever..an actual shoe that's on sale

me and my cousin's freshly straightened hair.....it's SOOO good to finally discover where your curly hair is from....MY DAD'S SIDE cousins all have big frizzy hair too!  PHEW.

me, alexa, and my cousin van nhi with my ba ngoai (maternal grandmother)

beach in Nha Trang

on the way to An Giang

leaving Ha Tien

that's all i have time to upload now, i've taken 900+ pictures so far, with 2 more weeks left to go! 

miss ya guys, hope all is well! 

massive photo update...before VIETNAM

even among the asians i am short. 

peekaboo!

me and my sister at thao nghi's hs graduation....congrats on being valedictorian!!!  (and a future unc alum)

my dad found this turtle

we named him edmund and let him go.

my family went to visit charlotte and visited here; we took a picture because at least SOMEBODY wants my boyfriend to croon. har har har

um, i don't know.

my brother, ryan looking goofy

awww...joshua....

he loves me!

me and thao nghi on graduation Sunday

HP church's class of 2006

just the ladies: thao nghi, me and thuy vy

saying goodbye to co ha

here comes trouble

just kidding

quang, thuy vy and me (ha, it only took me a couple DAYS to post this, quang!!!)

co huong and her boys, daniel and bryan

me and minh

thieu nien girls

I leave for VIETNAM on Thursday!!!!!  Only 2 more days!!!! 

Hope everyone's doing well!!!