Tag: Team Wilson Gang

A Letter to My Mom

Posted April 13, 2021 by Rowena in Personal | 10 Comments

Dear Mom,

Today marks the tenth anniversary of your death. I miss you so much and I think about you a lot, especially lately. We’ve been through a lot in the last ten years but I want you to know that Dad is doing well. He’s still faithfully going to the same dialysis center that you went to. He’s still golfing every Tuesday and Thursday with Eric and Lucky. He’s still eating everything he’s not supposed to be eating and drinking Coke, instead of Diet Coke. He’s still the same happy-go-lucky man that you married and though he’s getting older in age, he’s still a young kid at heart and we love him to pieces (as does everyone that comes into contact with him). He turns 80 this year so that will be a big celebration for the family. I talked to him this morning and he was getting ready for golf and still cracking jokes with me and Ingrid about everything under the sun. I know that he misses you as well and he plans to visit your grave today after golf to spend some time with you.

I won’t make this a sappy post about how much I miss you and can’t live without you but I hope you know that you are missed and you are still loved by everyone left behind. Lots of things have happened in the last ten years. You have 25 grandkids and 3 great-grandchildren. Yeah, your grandkids are adding to your legacy and I know that you would have loved to hug all of the kids close so I’m sad that you’re not here to see all of your babies all grown and some, with their own kids. After the ones you knew and loved, Lillian was born then Caleb came not too long after Lily, then finally Rockne joined the family. After Rocky was born, then came Caiden, Chloe’s oldest, and then Jax, Jarred’s son, and last but not least, Princess Lasi.

In other news, I moved to Vegas so I’m not in California today to sit with you and the rest of the family at your gravesite like we normally do on the anniversary of your death. Pete and Delene talked about going to the cemetery this morning so I’m sure you have loads of flowers to decorate your resting place. We’re in a pandemic right now so the world is a lot different from when you were here with us. Everyone wears masks (or well, they’re supposed to be anyway) when they go out in public, public places can’t have more than 25% capacity though certain places are starting to open up again. It’s been a pretty rough few years for everyone around. We’ve lost so many friends and family that we grew up with to a pretty devastating disease that spread through the entire world. The world got angry and is being mean to our Asian friends because they’re being blamed for the hard times we’re facing right now and it’s been pretty devastating to wake up every day to more unfortunate news from around the world. So it’s been hard and pretty scary too but we’re getting through because what else can we do? We’re a strong bunch though so I’m sure we’ll weather this storm as best as we can.

I miss you, Mom. I miss everything about you. I miss hearing your voice, laughing with you over everything under the sun, and I even miss doing your dialysis stuff for you every single night. Remember the first time that Dad left us alone for the weekend so that he can be the Priesthood representative for the Youth Conference and I forgot to clip one of your dialysis tubes so it flooded your bedroom and you were so mad and I was so scared that I called Dad at midnight, crying because I thought I killed you? It didn’t make a lick of sense since you were healthy enough to yell the house down but I was so scared that night. Do you remember when we laughed and laughed and laughed about it when Dad got home? You’ve left behind a lifetime of memories that I cherish now. You’ve taught me a lot about life, about how to live, and though I’m not perfect, I’m trying to be the kind of daughter that you’d be proud of. I’m strong-minded just like you and stubborn as all get out but I promise I’m working on it. LOL. I love you, Mom and I hope that you’re resting in paradise because you deserve it. Even though you were meaner than all get out, you’re still my favorite and I miss you every day.

Rest in peace, Mom.

Love you always,
Ween

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5 Things I Did During Quarantine

Posted July 15, 2020 by Rowena in Personal | 6 Comments

Hey guys!

Since it’s been a while since I’ve blogged on the regular, I thought I’d share some of the things that I’ve been up to lately. I’ve had a lot of time on my hands since quarantine first started and because most of my family is high risk, we’ve stuck close to home and tried to keep our exposure to just..each other.

So, here’s what I’ve been up to since March.

1. Had Korean BBQ at home

There’s a small Korean BBQ place near our house that our kids LOVE going to. Every time our Colorado family, or our Utah family come into town, the kids will always make time to hit up Furusato while they’re here. Nobody cares that the servers at Furusato are mean as hell and nobody cares that it’s such a small place that we always have to cram ourselves in because you can eat as much as you want for half the price you’d pay for the same food at big chain KBBQ spots like Gen. With Furusato and all of our other favorite restaurants closed for quarantine, we decided that we were going to have KBBQ at home. We hit up SMart for meats, got everything to make our favorite Korean side dishes and we even got our own little grills and single burners for our dumplings. Haha.

Quarantine really made us learn how to cook our favorite restaurant foods. We ate a lot of yakisoba too! It’s been a lot of fun learning to make food from different cultures and I’ve enjoyed the hell out of learning how to make them and eating the hell out of everything we make.

2. Discovered my local Asian Stores

I’ve never been one to grocery shop anywhere but the big chain grocery stores. Sometimes I go to the Mexican grocery store, the next town over to get carne asada but for the most part, all of my grocery shopping is done at Ralphs but during Quarantine, I became a regular shopper at SMart and H Mart, my local Asian grocery stores. I shop there more than I shop at Ralph’s now and they never run out of toilet paper, hand sanitizer, paper towels, or rice. Total score!

3. Several Home Projects

Quarantine brought all of the kids home from school. When their schools started shutting down, all of our college kids came home to quarantine together and we spent almost 10 weeks fixing up the house. We finally got a bigger TV for our living room, we got rid of old stuff that should have been thrown out years ago, we cleaned up our backyard so that we’d actually want to hang out back there and I set up my official home office. Each week, we tackled different things and spent a lot of time working from home, working on our home and in the end, it was all worth it. Our house is finally rid of so much clutter, and it’s open and just the way that we’ve always wanted. I made my home office in my bedroom so that everyone didn’t have to tiptoe around me while I was in zoom meetings and on work calls and I’m very happy with the way that my home office turned out. It’s super pretty. I’ll think about sharing pictures of that soon..maybe. 🙂

4. Made a 40 Years of Friendship Collage for my Best Friend

So my group of friends and I turn 40 this year and it’s pretty crazy how my main core friends group have been friends for 40 years. Our families grew up together so we were all at each other’s first birthday parties, our siblings are all friends and our families are still really close. My best friend Therese was the first to turn 40 and while trying to figure out what to get her for her birthday since our birthday plans were shot because of the Stay at Home orders, I decided to make her a 40 years of friendship collage that she can hang in her home office. We were both setting up our home offices before her birthday so I thought it was the perfect gift and I got her some other little Naruto fangirl things that she can use to decorate her office. I made this photo collage that heavily features ME so that she can look at us over the years while she’s working and laugh at how freaking stupid we look in a lot of these pictures. Haha. But it came out great and I’m actually low key mad that I didn’t make one for myself.

5. Discovered Korean Dramas

As I’ve mentioned quite a few times, I discovered Korean dramas during quarantine and I have not come up for air where they are concerned. I have graduated from binge-watching one show at a time to watching a couple of shows at the same time. One show I binge watch (an older release) and one show is a new release that I have to wait for new episodes to release each week. It’s a good system for now. One of the main questions that I get when I tell people that I’m obsessed with all things Korean drama is, why do you watch them? And well, aside from them being good and the romances being super sweet, I also really love a lot of the Korean actors. Park Seo Joon and Gong Yoo top my man crush list these days. Talk about swoon-worthy.

It’s pretty funny because, before quarantine, my man crushes were these guys…

But now? My man crushes look more like these guys…

So yeah, that’s why I watch a lot of Korean dramas these days…haha.

How did you spend your quarantine time?

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Happy Halloween 2019!

Posted October 31, 2019 by Rowena in Personal | 6 Comments

Happy Halloween, everyone!

I hope everyone has a safe and exciting Halloween tonight. We’ve got a full house for our annual family Halloween party and…CAIDEN IS HERE!!! It’s our first Halloween with Caiden so we’re super excited that he’s finally going to share in the good time that we usually have without him. He’s been going back and forth on what he wants to be for Halloween but I’m hoping he sticks with his Hulk Smash costume because I want to paint his face green and walk the neighborhood with him while he trick-or-treats.

Every year, my sister goes all out for Halloween. She loves hosting her Halloween party and dressing up to pass out candy. The last few years, we’ve been watching the Dodgers in the World Series on Halloween or Lakers basketball but this year will be different since we don’t have any games to watch. I guess we’ll actually go trick or treating with the kids. We’ve made the teenagers take the kids the last couple of years but with Caiden here, it’ll be different, I’m sure.

Here are some pictures from our previous Halloween parties. Yeah, we really get into the holidays and Halloween isn’t even my favorite holiday.

However you guys are celebrating Halloween, I hope you’re doing it safely and that you have the best night. Happy Halloween again everyone and I’ll share more pictures from our Team Wilson Gang Halloween party later. 🙂

Hugs!

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Last Month in Pictures: June 2019

Posted July 9, 2019 by Rowena in Features | 4 Comments

Last month was pretty busy for me. The family came in from Vegas and Colorado to celebrate my niece’s high school graduation. They were all pretty much here for an entire week so you know what that means. Lots and lots of family time. We spent time running around shopping to feed all of our kids, laughing the day and the night away, visiting old family friends that we haven’t seen in much too long and eating cupcakes! Here’s a rundown with pictures of what I got into with my family in the month of June.

Maleah Graduates

Here is our final graduate of the year 2019. My niece Maleah graduated from high school last month and we were all in attendance. There are hella pictures going around from this day but they look pretty much the same as all of the other pictures that I’ve posted of my big ass family so for this post, you guys get a picture of our beautiful graduate. We don’t have to make any more candy lei’s for the rest of the year. Woo freaking hoo!!

Sibling Dinner

June marks probably the last sibling dinner that all of my siblings will be able to make it to until our next big family event but you guys!! It was the first sibling dinner that every single sibling made it to and we had such a great time together. We always have a great time together but there are usually a million kids running around, screaming and driving us crazy so it’s really nice to just get together and enjoy each other’s company without all of the extra noise.

Last month, we tried a new to us restaurant in Old Torrance called The Local Kitchen. It got 5 out of 5 stars from every single one of us. The boys enjoyed their beers and the girls enjoyed our desserts. We can’t go wrong with that combo. Haha, beers and desserts and it was all good. I liked it so much that I’m making my boss take our office there for dinner next week. LOL.

Team Wilson Gang Visits Grandma Lili

Grandma Lili isn’t actually my Grandma but she’s my best friend Theresa’s grandma and she was a really good friend of my Mom’s. When my Mom died, she grieved our loss right along with us because our loss was hers too. We used to see Grandma Lili every single Sunday at Church but when our Ward disbanded and our boundaries changed, we all got sent to different Wards and for the first time since I was born, I wasn’t in the same ward as my best friends. When my sister Ingrid came to town, she wanted to visit Grandma Lili and she made it a priority for us.

I’m not in this picture because while they were taking this picture, I was in the kitchen eating cupcakes with Theresa. Haha.

Caiden Visits…Again

Caiden came down with his parents for Maleah’s graduation and because we’re persistent, we begged convinced his parents that he should stay for an extra week so that his Mom can get some rest because she’s been sick a lot lately.

Father’s Day

Father’s Day this year we at our house because that’s where my Dad is but we didn’t take pictures or anything so the only picture I have from Father’s Day dinner is this one. It’s a picture of Brenna and Makenna wearing the exact same dress because they’re together so much that they think alike in all things….even in clothes and when to wear those clothes. Haha.

Kenna Turns 20

To end the month, our Kenna turned 20 and we celebrated her special day at The Local Kitchen. Brenna was away, camping with other friends and Meghan spent the entire day with her so it was just the rest of us and Kenna, celebrating her. I love this kid! I can’t find the picture we took at dinner so you guys get a picture of Kenna in her American Samoan uniform with her sister and her cousin.

How was your month outside in the real world? Outside of our reading world? Did you do anything fun and exciting? Feel free to share in the comments!

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This Month in Pictures: April & May 2019

Posted June 6, 2019 by Rowena in Personal | 4 Comments

I mentioned in my monthly recap post the other day that the last couple of months have been pretty busy for me and my family and I wasn’t lying. Starting in March, when I flew up to Utah to spend the week with Caiden at home so that he could spend his birthday with his parents, it’s been one thing after another for my family and we haven’t really slowed down. We have one more high school graduation in our family and then summer can begin.

So that you can get a better picture of all of the fun things I did over the last couple of months (since my blogging in May was freaking miserable and non-existent), this post will be mostly pictures from all of the fun times. Check it out!

April

Chance Graduates from BYU

The Wilson’s drove from California to Utah to celebrate Chance’s graduation from BYU and who knew that his boring ass graduation would make headlines! One of the speakers in the graduation came out as a proud gay man in the Church. More power to you, homie and that same guy was featured on Snapchat, appeared on the Ellen show and I was there guys! I was there and listened to his speech and was confused af when he announced that he was gay…at first, I didn’t get it but then my sister and I were like, “Did he just come out for the first time ever?” I guess he did.

Here are pics from that weekend. We made hella candy lei’s for this graduation for Chance and all of his friends. I’m so freaking over making lei’s.

Our Graduate, Chance

Our family stays turning up in our pictures, haha

The Wilson Siblings with Chance

This was such a fun trip, we celebrated Chance’s accomplishments at some Brazilian restaurant in Salt Lake City before Chance boarded his flight to Samoa for an internship that he got last minute. He had a blast in Samoa and I’m glad for him.

Caiden’s 2nd Birthday Party

Caiden turned 2 in March but because California was coming out for Chance’s graduation at the end of April, Caiden’s Mom decided to hold the party until we were all in town so that we didn’t have to make too many trips or miss a celebration for our baby. The party was a lot of fun and honestly, my favorite thing about the entire party was our dessert table. It was a thing of beauty you guys. Here are some pics from that day.

Dude, check out my hard work on this dessert table. I worked my ass off on this table, with the help of my assistants who were too scared to not do a good job, haha. I’m so happy with the way that it turned out. The entire party was freaking off the chains fun and we got lots of compliments on everything so I was really happy that I could help Chloe and Markus put together a bomb ass party for our little Caiden. He had the best time too, he had so much fun that he knocked out at 5 pm and didn’t wake up until the next morning. Ha!

Chach Gets Engaged!

Lots of things happened on our family trip to Utah. We celebrated Chance’s college graduation, Caiden’s birthday and then Chach, who just got back from her mission in Brazil last year, got engaged to her boyfriend Thomas…at Caiden’s party. It was awesome and I’m glad that our family was able to be a part of his proposal. So cute!

Bren and Ken’s Basketball Banquet

Brenna and Kenna are officially done with basketball and we were able to celebrate their last season with their team at the end of April with some bomb af pizza and salad. Fun times!

May

Meghan Graduates from Vanguard University

My Meg graduated from Vanguard University to kick off the month of May. She graduated with her bachelor’s degree in Kinesiology and she hopes to work as a physical therapist to help kids with injuries. She has a lot of experience with being a kid with injuries and she wanted to understand what happened to her (two torn ACL’s, multiple cases of plantar fasciitis, some meniscus tears, etc…) and how to help others like her. I’m super proud of her and had a lot of fun at her party, even though my cousin’s son kept turning on the emergency alarm, hahahaha. Oh, good times!

Our Graduate Meg with her parents and siblings

Meghan stealing a kiss from Caiden before he ran away to play

Family Turn Up

The Girls head to Bakersfield for 18Hundred

My friend Foti has been hard at work trying to get his restaurant up and running. It’s been a long journey with lots of steps forward before taking some steps backward and after years of trying to get it up and running, his new restaurant is open for business and you guys, it’s such a great restaurant.

The day after Meghan’s graduation, my sister Ingrid and I drove two hours to Bakersfield with Bren, Ken, Meg and my best friend Theresa to support Foti and his wife Maya in their new business venture and it was sooo worth the drive and the wait. They’re doing such big things in Bakersfield and I couldn’t be happier for him. Here are some pictures from our trip.

Me, Foti, and Theresa…both of these guys were at my first birthday party. That’s how long we’ve been friends.

You guys, the unicorn milkshake was my favorite thing that I had that day at Foti’s restaurant 18hundred. So freaking good!

Team Wilson Gang Sibling Dinner

Back in February, my siblings decided to get together once a month, just us siblings for dinner to catch up and keep up with each other’s lives. It’s hard when two of your siblings live in different states but everyone came down for Meghan’s graduation so it was the first time in many, many years that we were all in the same place, at the same time. Of course, we planned a sibling dinner and even though my brother Henry fell asleep before dinner and didn’t hear any of the alarms he set and missed sibling dinner altogether, we still had a fabulous time.

Chach Turns 22

Chach turned 22 and we celebrated with cake and a green wall picture

The Wilson’s Take on Dodger Stadium

The Dodger’s Cutest Fan EVER!

L.A.’s MVP, Cody Bellinger

What an amazing game! We got a group together to spend Memorial Day at Dodger Stadium and the Dodgers really made sure that the fans were happy that day. A three-run home run from Kike, another home run from Chris Taylor and a whole lot of Cody Bellinger amazingness on both ends of the game (his 19th home run of the season and two defensive assists that we saw in real time was just flat out amazing) and we left that day, the happiest Dodger fans! We sat near the foul pole in right field where Cody Bellinger plays (he’s my favorite player on the team so of course, I got tickets on his side of the field) so we were up close and personal with him when he threw out those Mets players at home and at third. My nephew Luke is a huge Cody Bellinger fan now and had the best time ever. So much fun!

There are some other stuff that I did but this post is long enough so these are the highlights. I told you guys that I’ve been a busy bitch these last couple of months.

There you have it though, my April & May 2019 in pictures. How about you guys? Did you guys do anything fun in the last couple of months?

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