Ko & Tracy

At our church, McLean Bible Church (http://www.mcleanbible.org/), Ko and I are the leaders of a married couples group called Connections. Our group meets each Sunday morning just like a typical Sunday School class but we are anything but "typical!" Every February the guys in our group create (or in some cases buy...) a special dessert for our Valentine's Day Party. It's the one time a year the ladies can sit back and enjoy the party without having to worry about what to bring (okay, so that is a little bit of a stereotype!).

Anyway, this becomes a competition of major proportion for the guys. Ko has set out every year to win this competition and he has done very well in the past. One year he won the award for "Most Romantic Dessert," another year for "Best Presentation," and this year he won for "Best Flaming Dessert." Yes, you heard me correct...flaming dessert! Ko made a wonderful bananas foster with ice cream. This recipe was directly from a restaurant in New Orleans that made the dessert famous and Ko learned how to make it over 20 years ago from one of his best friends who was a gourmand. It was very yummy!!

This year we purchased our first investment property in DC - a studio apartment on the sixth floor of a 13-story award winning building in the upscale neighborhood of Penn Quarter. Due to the purchase of our investment property, we decided to open our own corporate housing business and so, MyCorporateHouse.com (http://www.mycorporatehouse.com/) was born. Tracy is responsible for the daily operations of the business but Ko puts in as much time as possible given his full-time working schedule. If you ever need a place to stay while visiting DC, MyCorporateHouse.com is a quality alternative to a hotel. We currently have about 20-30 locations across the DC area.

This year we had the opportunity to go to some amazing events. Tracy was an invited guest to the First Lady's Luncheon. It was a wonderful experience to spend time with the First Lady and to be entertained by Ruben Studdard (previous American Idol winner). The theme this year was "Soul of the South" - how appropriate! Another amazing event was our invitation by the lead soprano of "La Boheme" to attend their final dress rehearsal at the Kennedy Center. We not only were able to go backstage with her but were one of only about 50 invited guests to the performance. We had the choice of any seat in the house! It was a truly wonderful performance. We also had the opportunity to take Joshua to his first musical theater production - "The Putnam County 25th Annual High School Spelling Bee Musical" (or "Spelling Bee Musical" as the cast likes to refer to it!). We were given complimentary tickets to see the show by one of the cast members. It was an extremely funny production and a real blessing to be able to see it for free!

Tracy continues to enjoy running and ran her second and third marathon (26.2 miles each) this year. In March, she ran the Shamrock Marathon (Virginia Beach, VA) and in October she ran the Marine Corps Marathon (DC) for the second time.

Being able to run the Marine Corps Marathon this year was a blessing in and of itself. For various reasons I hadn't been training for almost 2 months prior to the race and had given up my dream of running it this year. I had been continuing to run throughout the week but my longest "long runs" had only been 7 miles. The week before the race I began thinking about all that had transpired over the past few months and the fact that I was going to be there to run 10 miles with a friend who would be running her first marathon so I decided I would run the race. If I didn't finish it would be no loss because I hadn't trained. If I finished I knew it would only be by God's grace! Guess what? I did finish the race and persevered through it with God's help. It was truly an amazing experience.



Ko ran the Shamrock 8k race the same weekend as my marathon and was able to complete it with a decent time given only one day of training and wearing brand new running shoes. I was just bummed that his race shirt was much nicer than mine!

Ko was offered a position recently with Northrop Grumman in Chantilly, VA to work on the military healthcare system. Ko feels it is an honor to work to support our armed service members even as a civilian. Although Ko enjoyed his position as project manager in his previous company the hour-long commute was difficult. His new 15-minute commute has greatly added to his quality of life which, in turn has been great for the family. His new position has so many great benefits: free coffee, free soup, a cafeteria and best of all...a dimly lit room with comfortable sofas for an afternoon nap! You think I'm kidding??? I don't know if Ko actually uses the "nap room" but he sure does seem to have a lot of energy these days when he gets home from work!

We are so thankful for each and every one of you. Each of you have touched our lives in very meaningful ways throughout the years. As a good friend of mine says: some people we meet for a reason, some people we meet for a season, and some people we meet for a lifetime. There are so many reasons to be thankful at Thanksgiving time and we hope that each of you will find time to stop and celebrate it in a very special way this year.

God Bless you all!