Dad's Funeral

I've been having a hard time deciding how to write this blogpost. I have so many things to say but don't quite know how to say them. 

My dad was on home hospice care for about a month before he died. We're glad that he was able to be at home in his own bed surrounded by family and friends his last days on this earth. 

It's been a roller coaster of emotions for all of us since he was put on hospice care but especially the last few days before he passed. It was tough (and still is). Sometimes I'll see something that reminds me of my dad and it'll make me teary-eyed or I'll think of something that my dad might like to hear and want to tell him about it but then realize that I can't anymore. It makes me sad. I know it'll get better with time, but it's still hard.

 

My dad's viewing was on a Monday evening. It had rained quite a bit that evening and when we all got back from the viewing, there was a double rainbow greeting us. (The view from my parent's neighborhood.) (It's hard to see the double rainbow in this picture, but the next picture shows it better.)

 

 

The view from my sister's neighborhood about a mile or two away. Isn't it gorgeous?! I like to think that the double rainbow was my dad pulling some strings on the other side to say hello/tell us it'll be okay.

 

The next day (Tuesday) was my dad's funeral. It was a beautiful service and I learned some new stories about my dad that I had never heard before. 

There's one story I'd like to tell about the service. My niece, Cami, gave the closing prayer at the funeral. Before she gave the prayer she announced that she would say the prayer in French (since she served in France on her mission) because she thinks that's what Grandpa would like (since Dad spoke French too). She proceeded to say the closing prayer in French and I'm pretty sure there wasn't a dry eye among our family at that point. (And I think it is exactly what Dad would have wanted.)

At the gravesite, my brothers, brothers-in-law, and uncles (my dad's brothers) were the pall bearers.

 

Since my dad served in the military for a few years, he had a U.S. flag draped over his casket and then the flag was given to my mom.

 

They did a 21-gun salute and played taps. I'm pretty sure there wasn't a dry eye at the grave site as this was all going on.

My dad was a huge BYU sports fan. So we thought my dad would appreciate a BYU casket in true blue color. :)

After the burial at the cemetery, my parent's ward provided lunch for all of our family members who were there. The food was delicious! They had funeral potatoes, salad, fruit, rolls, jello salad, and desserts. Since my dad loved Mountain Dew, they also had some of that there. Although I'm not a big soda drinker, I drank a can in honor of my dad. :)

My mom and those of us staying at her house received a lot of flowers after my dad died. Here's a picture of a few of them. They're beautiful and they really made the house smell good.

I got teary-eyed when I saw who some of the flowers were from... some of my friends from Virginia. Thank you friends!

My parents at a family reunion in Virginia in 2019.

 

My parents and all of my siblings in 2019.

 

I love you and miss you Dad. Until we meet again.

My Dad

My dad passed away peacefully yesterday morning at home. It was really really hard to see my dad take his last breath on this earth, but I'm glad that he's no longer in pain. 

I've been crying on and off since yesterday morning and I'm sure I will continue to cry at random times over the next little while. 

I love you Dad and will miss you dearly! 

 

My dad and I at Chepstow Castle, Wales- February 2016. (I feel like I look a lot like my dad in this photo).

My parents- June 2022

My parents on their wedding day!

Giant's Causeway, Northern Ireland- February 2016

Dad and Mom- October 2021.

Dad, Mom, Heather and I in Miami, Florida leaving port on our Caribbean cruise- September 2018.

Kristina, Dad, Mom, Heather and I at a beach in southern California- April 2017.

Dad and Mom visiting Virginia in 2012.

All of us in 1988.

 

All of us in June 2022.

Dad and Mom- July 2019

Thanks for being my dad! I'll miss you a lot Papachka.

Korean Dramas

I really enjoy watching Korean dramas. One of my former co-workers introduced them to me a few years ago and now they're basically the only thing I watch. :) I've been keeping track of the ones I've completed and will give them a rating out of 5 stars once I've finished them. 

I now have a tab on this blog that I will keep up-to-date of the Korean dramas I've seen and the ratings I've given them. If you ever feel like watching one, I will happily give you a recommendation. :) (Also there are all different kinds of dramas so I bet there's a genre of them you might like).

And in case you need an extra reason to watch them, here's a picture of one of my favorite actors, Lee Dong-Wook. :) (I got this picture from google).

And a picture of another one of my favorite actors, Park Hyung-Sik. (I got this picture from google).

Job Interviews

As I mentioned in my previous post, I am currently without employment. Honestly it's been tough not having a job. It's demoralizing and frustrating and I've done my fair share of crying during this time.

Even though it's been hard, I've been learning stuff as I've been searching for a job and having interviews. This blogpost will be dedicated to the things I'm learning as I have interviews. (This post is just for me and my future reference).

1. Prepare for commonly asked questions. Some companies will ask the commonly asked questions and some will not. I think that having answers to those questions (even if they don't ask them) will help you gain confidence in your abilities to answer questions in general.

2. Be confident. It's hard to talk yourself up but just do it (but be honest at the same time)! You only have one chance to make a good impression.  If the way you're talking is showing how little confidence you have in yourself, the company interviewing you is not going to have much confidence in you either. I know this is much easier said than done, but just try.

3. Ask questions. Ask questions about the position you applied for as well as about the company that is interviewing you. A job interview is not just about the company seeing if you're a good fit for them but also to see if you feel like the position (and company) is a good fit for you. Ask questions about the position (such as work-life balance, what's the work environment like, what does day-to-day for the position look like etc). Also ask questions about the company to show that you know what kind of company it is and that you have some interest in the type of work they do. 

I've had five interviews so far and every interview has been so different. Every single one of them has asked different questions. Some have been formal while others have been more conversational and less formal. Some I've had to start the interview while others they start it.

I know there's nothing new or groundbreaking in the lessons I've learned but I just wanted to share and help myself remember for future reference. I'm sure I'll learn more things as I continue searching for a job and having interviews. 

Do you have any job interview advice?

Job, Cherry Blossoms and Big Blue Rooster

I haven't mentioned this on my blog yet but I am currently without employment. My most recent job was funded through grants. We didn't get a new grant so they couldn't pay us any more and had to let us all go. I worked for that company for 10 years 10 months. I loved my job and I liked the people I worked with so it was hard to lose that job.

Since I lost my job, I decided I needed to be back in Virginia because that's where I want to be long term. So I flew from Utah to Virginia (I left my car in Utah for now) and have been staying with friends and family spending my days looking for a job, watching Korean dramas, hanging out with friends, and trying to stay sane. (I'll probably write another blogpost about job searching and being without a job).

One evening, I decided I needed a break from my regular routine of applying to jobs etc and planned a little field trip for the next day. I texted one of my former co-workers and invited her to join me the next day. (Although I have no pictures of Heather, she did come with me downtown.)

 

Although I knew the cherry blossoms were past their peak, I wanted to walk around the tidal basin and see what was left of the blossoms.

They were still pretty even if past their prime. :)

I like this shot with the cherry blossoms, the Martin Luther King Jr Memorial and the Washington Monument!

After walking around the tidal basin, we headed towards the National Gallery of Art East Building to see the big blue rooster statue on top of it.

We saw this fountain close to the art gallery and thought it was kind of cool. :)

The art gallery was closed for renovations and we couldn't see the big blue rooster up close, but we got to see it from across the street. 

Isn't it awesome?!

As we walked back to the metro, we saw this awesome construction cover. The Hirshorn Museum is under renovation and has scaffolding up around it and in order to cover up the scaffolding in a pretty way they put up these awesome curtains.

We also walked passed this building on the way to the metro and neither of us had ever been inside before and so we decided to go in and see the exhibit.

It's the Arts and Industries Building and it actually has been closed the whole time I've lived in Virginia so we were kind of excited to see there was an exhibit there. 

Up close of the sculpture from the picture above. 

FUTURES exhibit, What do we imagine when we think of the future? 

An air taxi. According to the sign at the exhibit, this is a Bell Nexus self-driving, hybrid electric air taxi. Maybe in the future this will be common way to get around. 

A lady had a sensor put in her arm to vibrate whenever an earthquake happens anywhere in the world, no matter how big or small. The vibrations are different depending on how big the earthquake is. Crazy. 

I did a little research on her after the exhibit and learned that she had the sensor put in her arm to incorporate into her contemporary dance routines and is contemplating getting more put in later.

An interesting sculpture at the exhibit.

Read this sign to learn about the sculpture in the previous two pictures.

I loved these vintage looking futuristic signs! How Kids Got the Vote, November 3, 2071.

I liked the FUTURES exhibit and thought it was interesting! I'm glad we happened to walk by and see that it was open.

Overall, I really enjoyed my field trip downtown this day! It was a good day and I'm glad Heather could join me on the adventure.

Ukraine

My heart hurts for Ukraine right now. It is so heartbreaking to me what is happening there right now. I don't really have the words to express my sadness and anger and helplessness I feel about the situation.

I'll just share some pictures of people I met and places I visited while living in Ukraine as a missionary. (I lived there from February 2005 to June 2006).

Beware this post is kind of long. 

I've been looking at pictures from my mission and reminiscing about the people I met and the experiences I had while living there.

I lived in two different areas in Kharkiv and this was in the second area I lived in, Novwe Doma. (I lived in 4 different cities on my mission but 5 different areas (2 in the same city) but I'll only talk about Kharkiv in this post).

The girl getting baptized in the picture above (Alisa) had friends who were members of the church and when my companion and I moved to the area, she was ready to hear the lessons. We taught her all of the lessons within a week and a half (we did it in a hurry because her family was moving to Russia and she wanted to get baptized before they left. We got special permission from the mission president for her to be baptized so quickly.)

She was a teenager at the time and although it took her dad a little bit of time to warm up to his daughter getting baptized into a church he knew nothing about, he eventually allowed it. Actually after the family moved to Russia and the dad was still in Ukraine tying up some loose ends, he ended up taking the lessons from the elders so that he could know more about the church that his daughter had joined.

This was also in Novwe Doma, Kharkiv. This was outside of the school building where we had church on Sunday. The members of the church in Ukraine are amazing! There weren't a lot of members in most of the branches I served in, but the ones that were there were strong and steadfast.

I met some awesome people while living in Ukraine and hope they're doing okay, but I have no way to contact most of them.

A street scene of Kharkiv near the apartment we lived in in Novwe Doma.

This was in my first area I lived in in Kharkiv, Severnaya Soltavka. 

Antonina and Dima, mother and son. Such a kind and good family!

Oleg and Natasha and their two children, Tanya and Alyosha. This family is awesome! The whole family has a really good sense of humor and loved to sing and play musical instruments for us when we visited them.

Severnaya Soltavka, Kharkiv. 

Ira and I don't remember the dad's name and their two children, Vitalek and Yulia.  

A good and awesome family and strong members of the church!

 

 The Rinok near our apartment in Severnaya Soltavka where we often bought food.

 

A church building they were building in Kharkiv, the first in the city at the time. It wasn't finished before I left the area, though, so I never got to meet in it. In both areas I lived in in Kharkiv, we met in school buildings for church.

Annunciation Cathedral in Kharkiv. Isn't it a pretty church?! (Us, missionaries, affectionately called it the candy cane church and you can probably tell why).

So my passport was stolen while I was on my mission. Although Kyiv was not part of our mission, my companion and I had to travel there so I could go to the US embassy and get a new passport. 

We ended up being able to do some sight seeing while in Kyiv so my companion and I walked around some of the popular sites there. 

This man was playing outside one of the churches we visited. He was a very nice man and played his instrument really well (I don't remember what kind of instrument it is).

I don't remember the name of this church, but it's somewhere in Kyiv. 

Liberty Square in Kyiv, where a lot of the Orange Revolution peaceful protests happened in 2004.

Another view of Liberty Square in Kyiv.

I was going to keep this post short and sweet, but that ended up being harder than I thought. Once I put the pictures up, I realized I had a lot to say. I just wanted to show some faces of Ukrainians who are living through this nightmare that is happening in Ukraine now (assuming they still live there and are still living). I also wanted to show what it looked like there 17 years ago before Ukrainians' hometowns started to be destroyed.

I cannot even imagine what kind of emotions the Ukrainians and other people who live in Ukraine are feeling right now. I hope and pray that this stupid stupid war will end soon with Russia leaving Ukraine alone and the Ukrainians getting their homeland back.