Best Cities to Live, Work and Play

No. 8: Sacramento, Calif.

Population: 2,067,117
Population Growth Since 2000: 13.1%
Percentage of Workforce in Creative Class: 34%
Cost-of-Living Index: 121.7 (100 being national average)
Median Household Income: $56,953
Income Growth Since 2000: 19.1%

Everyone who knows me know that I love the community that we live in. Sacramento has so much to offer... it's like a hidden treasure! And most people who finally come and checks it out leaves with a warm & fuzzy feeling. So imagine how happy I was to see someone else, especially a nationally respected business magazine, agree with what I've been saying all along! Every year Klipinger picks and publishes the ten best cities in which to live and work. They look for places with strong economies and abundant jobs, then demand reasonable living costs and plenty of fun things to do. I just like the place... it feels so right! People are warm, so much to do outdoors, two rivers cross the city, beautiful Lake Tahoe literally in our backyard, quick drive to some of the most beautiful places in the world; i.e. San Francisco, Napa, Monterey as well as handful of National Parks such as Yosemite, Mammoth Lake... list can go on and on.

Anyhow, see the complete article the top ten list at the following link http://www.kiplinger.com/money/bestcities/

Sacramento may be at #8, but it's also the only city in California that has made the list. Now you see, it's a wonderful place to live. Don't you wished you lived here too?

A Day in the City...
... San Francisco

As you know, kids are out for the summer. Eddie usually takes a week off right after kids get out for the summer for a much needed R & R as well as spend some quality time with the kids. This year as we tried to plan for our "vacation" we realized how much more difficult it has become. We now have to look at their schedule as well. Anyhow, instead of "going away" this time, we decided to take a day trip out to San Francisco and do R & R later at home. This way Eddie will go back to work fully "rested". It also helps that we are so close to many wonderful places. San Francisco is only an 1-1/2 hour drive from us which is great since it is one of Eddie's favorite place.

Our first stop... Conservatory of Flowers. We didn't actually go in, just admired the landscaping & flowers in the front.

rare photo of just Eddie & me
in front of the Conservatory of Flowers

We didn't go into the Conservatory of Flowers because our plan was to go to the Japanese Tea Garden. Believe it or not for some reason I had never been to the Golden Gate Park... thus have never been to many of the wonderful places. Well, it is about to change... one venue at a time. First on our list... Japanese Tea Garden.

Here's Eddie with the kids
We lined them up by height...

Here's Lizzy & Rachel in funky yoga poses

rare family photo in front of the
"japanese temple"

one of the many Japaneses bridges at the Tea Garden
notice how steep it is?

One of our favorite sights... Golden Gate Bridge

I thought it would be quite interesting to post & compare pictures of our kids when we first moved back to California. We moved to Sacramento from Cleveland, Ohio in July of 2005. One of the first place we visited was San Francisco. Here's some picture from that outing.

kids with Alcatraz in the background
July 2005
they look so cute... and small

Eddie & the kids on Pier 39
notice how short Chris & Jeff looks next to Eddie?
family photo with Golden Gate Bridge background
kids really grew during the last 3 years
(mom & dad also aged quite a bit in those years)

Swim Season Has Begun...

Time Trials, May 2008

All four of our children has been swimming since they were very young. But it wasn't until three years ago that they joined a swim team. Although the swim team is a "recreational" team, our children swim every day and take each meet very seriously. We have had the pleasure of watching them grow in many ways through this sport. They are by no means ready to sign up for the Olympics, or even think about sports scholarships, but they all have come a long way. They are very strong swimmers, and above all enjoy the sport. To them swimming comes naturally and they gladly sign up every year.

The swim season officially begins in April but the meets actually start at end of May/beginning of June every year. This weekend was our first dual meet against another local team. It was not our conference meet, which means it's more for fun (practice), so for our team it was to be our "time trials", meaning we use the swim time on this meet as the gauge in which we measure ourselves against. With four kids in different age division, you basically have to be on the deck all day long. Between all four of our kids they swam over 20 events!!! Fortunately for us, Uncle Curtis came up to see them this weekend which explains the beautiful photos displayed below. He took soooo many pictures... hundred of them! But not to worry... I've only displayed few. There are many more pictures of our oldest, Christopher, because he had to swim EVERY SINGLE EVENTS... 8 events in all. He was exhausted by the time the meet ended.

Chris, keeping warm after signing in

Our children brings things to do to keep themselves busy between events
Here's Jeffrey with his Gameboy DS

My girls... trying to keep warm

Rachel getting ready for warm up

This is Rachel's favorite stroke - Butterfly
She was in a medley relay, and you guessed it...
she swam the butterfly stroke

Elizabeth during her freestyle event

Jeffrey was awesome today...
here he is during his freestyle event

Chris' least favorite stroke is the backstroke.
Unfortunately he had to swim it couple of times...
and Uncle Curtis was able to snap this photo just in the nick of time
pretty impressive abs, huh?

Besides swimming the butterfly stroke in the medley relay
Rachel also swam the "butterfly" event
For a little girl she has a strong upper body strength
She is able to bring her body way out of the water...

Rachel watching her siblings and teammates swim

One of the most beautiful stroke is the butterly
Done right it is just magnificent
Here's Chris during his 100IM
(100 meter Individual Medley)

This is the 3rd portion of the IM... Breast Stroke
This is Chris' favorite stroke

Lizzy with her friend
she was at the poolside cheering for her team all day

Jeffrey with his breast stroke

After the meet ... Chris was quite exhausted

SKSDA Yosemite Backpacking Trip
"Men (and little men) Vs. Wild"
Memorial Weekend, 2008

Over the long weekend, eight brave men headed south to tackle the wilderness also known as Yosemite. Among the eight brave men were three Choi men... two who are also known as the "little men", my two boys. This has been an annual event here at SKSDA. They backpack into Yosemite Wilderness for 2 nights 3 days, and hike up approximately 5 miles up to 6000 feet elevation. However, this year was made even more difficult thanks to mother nature. Despite grim weather forecast they decided to go ahead with the trip... and endured wet & cold weekend around their beloved campfire. When they arrived on their destination, they found ground covered with snow... soon to be followed up with scattered thunderstorm & night time lows in the 30's. You would think they would've been miserable, and be tempted to turn around and come back down. I would've... but they endured it and in the end really had a memorable time in the wilderness. I was told that my boys never complained once... and boys also told me that they want to go back again next year. WOW! My older son, Chris, even made a documentary-type video clips (I will post it as soon as it is ready). It was very well made... like the 'Men vs. Wild' clips on Discovery Chanel. Anyhow, click below to view photos.

CLICK HERE FOR PICTURES

Party-a-Thon

This past weekend we ATTEMPTED to host two birthday parties! My oldest & youngest child was born in May, and due to scheduling conflicts we ended up hosting back-to-back parties.

Chris had his 15th birthday party on Saturday. He wanted to just "hang-out" with his old friends from his Churchill MS days. Although he enjoys his current HS and has made many new friends, he misses his old friends dearly and wanted a chance to spend some time with them. Most of his friends from MS went to another HS in the area, so he doesn't get to seem them at all. Anyhow, about 10 teenagers (yikes) came over Saturday afternoon... and hung out until wee hours of the night. They swam, ate, walked over to the park, played musical instruments, and laughed all night long. You see, most of Christopher's friends are what you might call "nerds" and very gifted musicians... so it was a very pleasant to listen to their impromptu piano concerts.

Christopher's B-Day Cake
as I ordered it

Christopher's B-Day Cake
after his friends finished decorating...

Chris blowing candles out
Friends of ours also brought some cupcakes

Some of his friends...

Then on Sunday we celebrated Rachel's 9th Birthday. We decided to host it away from home... less work for mom! We went to "All About Fun", a bouncing place. It was great! It was a hot day, so it was great to be in an air-conditioned room filled with bounce houses, slides, and they do all the set-up and clean-up. There was even a lounge area with a big screen TV for my boys to watch. They didn't even have to miss the games!

Rachel getting ready to open presents

Make a wish Rachel!

Rachel and her friends

Rachel with her friends

Eddie & I even played this air-hockey game
I was winning... but decided to let him win!

Kids really enjoyed this huge slides!

Here's Lizzy climbing up

Here are our boys... relaxing & watching the B-Ball game.

So today I am attempting to recuperate from a whirlwind of a weekend. Although I did enjoy all the celebrations, I am also glad it's over... at least for now. I have two more birthdays coming up at the end of the summer... arghhhh! However, I can't help but be thankful for everything. I can't believe that my son is already 15 and my baby is 9 years old. I am thankful that they are healthy and doing well in school, sports and has many great friends in both school and church. We are truly blessed.

My Son, the Athlete!!!

My son's school puts out a school paper every month. For a high school paper it's rather good. Every month they feature bachelor/bachelorette of the month as well as male/female athlete. I am not sure how they determine who they will profile, but I know for certain that it is NOT based purely on their accomplishments. Few weeks ago when I picked up my son he told me that he was called into the "office" during the lunch hour. He thought, "here we go again... what did I do this time?" only to find out that they wanted to take a picture of him... to profile him as the athlete on their May publication. They also handed him some questionaire to answer. Well, here is the final result. I found it rather amusing... You see, although my son enjoys playing sports (all season), he does NOT excel in any particular sports. He is athletic, but we will not be holding our breathe for any type of sports scholarship. He did, however, make it to the championship in swimming this season... just not sectionals. Well, here... read it for yourself. BTW, the funny thing is the female athlete they profiled next to him, well, is VERY accomplished athlete. Hmmm.... do you think they did that on purpose?

Here is the cover of May issue of "the mirada"

There, on page 11, was a picture of Chris...
right next to the girl who is ranked #1 in the league

Monica & Michael's Wedding
May 3, 2008

Yes, believe it or not we attended another wedding over the weekend. It was a wedding of my cousin Michael at Pomona, in Southern California. It was a bit different from all the other weddings I've been attending in the past several months. It was beautiful, as was the bride, but it was a bit more Korean than we were used to. Michael is rather shy, so we were quite surprised when last fall he showed up at one of our cousin's wedding with his new fiance. She's more outgoing and full of life. She's adorable! I don't know her well at all, but I certainly like what I've seen of her. I think she's perfect for Michael... brings him out of his shell. I do wish them well. I will post pictures at a later date.

Ortho...

Additional Photos

Just wanted to add couple more pictures... one of Jeffrey with his retainer on (he has a fixed retainer behind his bottom teeth) and the other of his retainer itself. He chose to get a "watermelon" retainer. I thought it was cute.

End of an Era...

Orthodontically speaking

Unfortunately all of our children have inherited our small mouth and Eddie's underbite... thus they ALL needed some sort of orthodontic treatment at one time or another. One of our child in particular has been afflicted with so many dental/medical problems from early on... you know who I'm talking about. Poor thing... Jeffrey has endured many things in his short life, one of which has been going through orthodontic treatment. But before you say "what's the big deal?" I'd like to highlight the fact that our orthodontist's office has NEVER had a patient that has their braces on as long as he has. How long you ask? Well, he had it for 5 years and 2 months. Yes! You read it correctly! All of you dentist out there... this is NOT a typo.

He started phase 1 in January of 2003... in 3rd grade. He started palate expansion in Ohio. He was suppose to go through 1-1/2 year of phase 1, take a short break, then start phase 2. However, at the end of his phase 1 they decided to go straight into phase 2 because enough of his permanent molars have come in to start the process. With just about 1 more year to go we moved here to Sacramento. We found another wonderful orthodontist here in Sacramento where we "continued" phase 2. So what took so long? Well, his 2nd permanent molars decided to take its sweet old time coming out. It finally came out just last year, and after maneuvering a bit with all the wires we have FINALLY come to an end of his treatment. He's finally done! He was so excited today! He got a bag of goodies (chewy, of course) and thoroughly enjoyed snacking on them this afternoon. I had to hold back my urge to stop him from eating all that junk food! After all, I think he earned this one... at least once.

For all of you dentists out there...
here's Jeffrey's pre-phase 1 pictures
Jan. 2003

After Starting Phase 1

End of Phase 1
Feb. 2006

During Phase 2

Finally braces-free!
April 2008