2022

As I bid farewell to 2022, I say adieu with some bittersweetness but also with some relief.  It has been an amazing year of travel adventure for the family as we stayed at a oceanfront airBNB at Oceanside for Gabriel's birthday and went on an amazing cruise to Alaska.  It has also been a busy year for Liam as he has graduated from mommy homeschool Abeka curriculum and started kindergarten at Heights Christian Elementary school.  He has also had quite a busy year of extracurricular activities since the pandemic lockdown has lifted.  He finished a dance class, went to summer camp at Heights, went to Lego Camp for a few days in the summer, swam throughout the whole summer and is now in level 2 and hopefully he can continue on this summer.  Through church, he participated in basketball clinic, golf class and soccer.  He even took 6 weeks of yoga for children through the community center.  He also is finishing up his beginner's piano class and had his first recital at a hall in Mt. Sac College. Liam enrolled in cooking classes as well as Chess master through his school and we made tons and tons of Christmas cookies for the holiday.   Lucas went kayaking and paddle boarding for the first time and did great!  He has always loved water. For Halloween, Liam went as an angel and Lucas as Spiderman.  Lucas is on this last year of elementary school before starting junior high next year.  We are lucky he found a really great 6th grade teacher who is working with him and showing me things I didn't think he could do but is mastering in the classroom such as matching letters and numbers!  His seizures are still at bay with 1-2 occurring almost every morning as he wakes up. 

 Liam had his first school Christmas concert where he fell so hard as he tried to get down the steps that the whole audience gasped with concern.  Luckily, he was not injured and said his line "An angel appeared to Joseph" like a pro. He dressed as a cowboy for a school cowboy themed day and I am sure everyone thought he was just adorable, I know I did.  We spent Christmas with Gabe's parents and visited the Cathedral of our Lady in downtown for mass and surprisingly bumped into the priest who married Gabe and I.  We learnt that he has been promoted to Monsignor and is serving at the cathedral.  Seeing him was such a beautiful coincidence and it was the best Christmas present Spirit could have given me.  For dinner, we did something unconventional and had dinner at Spire76, the top of one of the tallest builings in downtown Los Angeles.  The lights illuminating the city was more beautiful than Christmas light shows we've paid to see and found it awe inspiring to see the city change so much (for the better) over the 42 years since I've been here.  We then visited The Bloc where they had some beautiful lights and show for free and took some memorable family Christmas pictures! After Christmas, the family went to Las Vegas and stayed at Paris hotel for some good food and relaxation.  We had an extravagant dinner at Gordon Ramsay's steakhouse and visited Bellagio to view their beautiful Christmas decorations in the atrium.  In the new year, the family had dduk-guk and went for a walk at the Sequoia forest at Carbon Canyon Park then went to Mt. Baldy for the kids to play in the snow.  New Year in 2023, we spent a quiet day with Gabe's parents and I took all the ingredients for dduk guk and made it at their house.   Liam bowed "sebae" and received money from his grandparents, a tradition I am trying to teach him every year. 

Overall, it's been a great and memorable year.  The only downside has been the mess in the cryptocurrency world where my investments totally tanked compared to the previous year.  There has been scandals and the collapse of reputable (or so we thought) centralized exchanges such as FTX and Celsius and I've lost money with the collapse of a certain stablecoin. Although not directedly tied to FTX, some of my investments are locked for withdrawal through its contagion.  But, I am still hopeful there will be an upturn eventually but not necessarily in 2023.  I have hope and conviction that cryptocurrency is good for mankind and that it will help humanity to be on a level playing field to get ahead.