Archive for the 'family' Category

folk ‘n roll

i was hangin’ out at my brother ryan’s house a few weeks ago — assisting his acclimation to the mac platform. his previous computer died on him and, by some bizarre occurrence, could neither hold a full charge or stay on while plugged in. so, in order to port over his boundless libraries of music we had to let it charge for an hour, transfer as much as we could before the battery crashed and start the process again. sounds silly but it actually took us about 6 hours.

anyway, after we ran out of DVR’d family guy episodes to watch, we decided to visit giacoletti music — the shop where we took music lessons as kids. we saw some old teachers, shook hands, recalled old times, the whole nine yards. of course, what we hadn’t expected, after 12 years of not visiting, was inherent power that our instrument-lust still had over us — as up in the corner were a couple of brand new, never been played, freshly strung, mandolins.

of course, after about 5 minutes of staring in silence i asked the inevitable question.

“what d’ya say we take these mando’s off their hands?”
“i don’t know. which one do you like?” ryan platonically retorted.
“yellow, you?”
“red… you got cash?”
“no.”
“…”
“…”
“let’s do it.” he said, sounding defeated by the inevitability of his costly decision.

to make a long story shorter, my brother is the man and straight up bought me the mandolin - one of the radest gifts i’ve ever received. accompanying mine, he purchased his mando AND a ukelele ( long story ).

it set him back a bit, but it made the rest of the uploading sesh fly by!

thanks for a great fun afternoon bro ( and a kick-a mando! ).

“tate pit-cha”

in my opinion, the 24 hour travel day is a huge test of personal strength. many a men have cracked - missing connecting flights, sleeping through an important air-meal, or accidentally entering a women’s restroom in a bizarrely modest culture; we all have these unfortunate travel mishaps and most of us are better for them. however, it is the seasoned traveler that enters the last leg of this race with a euphoric and effortless ease about him - more cunning and creative then when he began.

as we hit our final stretch, in a busted down bus toward shanghai, we found such a fusion in time-passers. tired of practicing chinese conjugations, ryan wisely inspired us to evolve our technique and test out our chinese expressions. this type of genius might be baffle some of you less experienced travelers. do not worry, careful study of our art will help you channel your own delusions… genius.

** changing gears **

on a more serious note, God has been so gracious to us blessing us with safe travels and good rest thus far.

** back to the pictures **

based on the friendly asian expression, leave us a comment and cast your vote for the person you believe to leave this country with the most friends!



and we’re off!

to all land-dwellers

after hours of shopping, packing, and waiting in line for the latest harry potter we’re off to china. we will keep you as posted as possible, so please stop by again soon. feel free to send us some blog-love while we’re away.

new ways to celebrate

as long as i can remember, there has never been a “bad” 4th of july at the chan house. doubling as my aunt cherrie’s birthday, we’ve always managed to squeeze every ounce of fun we can out of the holiday. of course, as we grow older and married-er, we’ve dabbled in a few free standing traditions of our own. this year takes the cake as the most, well… “free-standing.”

thanks for the hours of ingenious fun with the yoga-ball. i only hope that next year you pansies can can give my 5 minute record a run for it’s money ;)

happy independence day!

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zack + michelle - prom 007

a couple weeks back, nellie and i had a really fun opportunity. zack went to his first prom with his awesome girlfriend michelle. to commemorate the event and to culture our new-found enjoyment of photography, we took them out for a little photo shoot. we had a really great time with them and look forward to our next excuse to pull the cameras out.

btw… they the prom theme was “James Bond / 007″ in honor of it being the year (2)007. i think that they definitely looked the part ;)

enjoy.

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i absolutely love this shot that nellie took
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goodbye appa

tonight my family endured one of the most difficult things our family has ever gone through, for some of us the most difficult. four months ago we made a new brother. i don’t mean to say that we endured the effort of procreating a new brother, but rather gained one in appa - our brother from a canine mother. he was the cutest, spunkiest little west highland terrier that i had ever seen, with a heart ten times bigger than his body. in so many ways i saw him as the perfect addition to our clan, his sweet disposition and charming personality couldn’t long disguise the fact that he was a real brat at heart. he was born a chan.

i’ll miss most the way that he would jump up to great you, misjudge his landing, and face-plant into your thigh. whether or not he was being obedient, he was always a great dog.

appa was deeply loved by us and he knew it. i’m incredibly grateful to him for the way that he brightened up my life and the encouragement that the brought to my family. he knit us together in a way that only a puppy’s relentless love can.

nellie and i loved you, you silly pup.

appa’s graduation

today appa graduated “obedience training.” of course being a as west highland terrier as they come, obedience is a relative term. in any case, he’s one of the cutest little pups i’ve seen. here’s some pictures of him enjoying the “alumni” agility course.

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the legend continues…

back in march, i sold off one of the last pieces of my “rock” memorabilia. however, i am proud to say that the chan name will indeed live on in rock infamy.

to make a long story short, i found out second hand that my little brother was playing the bass in his first rock show without telling me - definitely not compliant with the brotherhood code. of course, i set him straight.

the band is “southern thunder” and i can honestly say that i’ve never seen a first time performance with so much talent and presence but don’t take my word for it ;)

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charlie vs. the alphabet

we came into the kitchen last night to this…

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i think that we had to locate and replace about 20 letters by the time he was done ;)

sharon’s - ride. run. walk

today was a beautiful day! today we had the privilege walking for “sharon’s - ride. run. walk - for epilepsy.” a three mile walk “around” mission bay was a lovely way to start off a sunday and turned out to be a great excuse to spend time with the family.

“team harley” steadily held down the rear with the best fun and conversation in the entire park ;)

here are a few of my fav’s from the day. starting with the motley crew…

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the lovely cassidy + appa chan

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and a big one of my super-hero’s harley + aunt colleen ;)

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