One Year Anniversary of #JanelleGetsRich

Hello dear friends and family,

Can we all agree that time flies so quickly that we blink and it's already a year down the road? Indeed, though we wanted to take a moment to THANK YOU for all your kind notes and phone calls this weekend. Yes, we celebrated our one year #JanelleGetsRich anniversary last Sunday and wow oh wow did time fly.

Richard and I are deeply thankful that we've made it through a full four seasons and even more thankful to have you walking alongside us (literally and in spirit) through it all. While we may not get to see each other as often as we'd like, you're definitely on our hearts and minds often.

Many, many belated thank yous for joining us at The Ruby Street one year ago to celebrate our union and MANY BELATED THANK YOUS for blessing us with gifts and love abounding. Your generosity was appreciated through our numerous visits to Target, Amazon, and saving for a home, which we continue to scour the region for! We also continue to learn a ton about - and from - each other every day...and may even prove it by playing another scintillating round of Grace's trivia game again!

Since then, we have experienced seasons of joy and challenge. Janelle's dad, Papa John Hu, was diagnosed with what turned out to be very advanced stage four pancreatic cancer just weeks before our wedding day. Even so, dad and Janelle boogied for our father-daughter dance, dad met his grandson RJ (my brother Patrick's and Hana's son), and celebrated his 76th birthday. Dad passed peacefully four days after his birthday, free from pain, surrounded by loved ones, and confident in his love for the Lord. Sounds like a good way to go. Can we get an amen?!?!?

We are enjoying time with our doubly large family and are especially relieved that Richard's mom, Veronica, has been stable and remained out of the ER in recent months. Phew! We're also celebrating the incredible news of Richard's father, Charlie, who was also diagnosed with advanced stage four lung cancer last year. After multiple rounds of chemo and battle with immunotherapy, his test results just revealed that he's now cancer free. Yesssss, cancer free! We heard from the nurses and doctors that his case is an absolute miracle. They shared that they have never seen a patient - or anyone they know - go into full remission after battling stage four lung cancer. For this, we praise the Lord and are incredibly thankful...especially when a few of our dear family and friends have been waging their own battles this year. Most continue to fight on, though a few have succumbed. We continue to pray for and love into them and their families. We welcome your prayers for them, as well. 

Also, many of you know that we started a food truck @TacosLaTehuanita, which has recently grown to include a few more, Tehuanita2.0 and now @RockinHotChickun. Suffice it to say, life has been a sleepless blur. Nevertheless, we've been fortunate that folks throughout the southland enjoy Richard's scrumptious offerings. In fact, some have driven from Santa Barbara, San Bernadino, Simi Valley, Victorville, and San Diego for his tacos and vegan fried chicken sandwiches. We have a few regulars who live in Dallas, San Francisco, Chicago, and Paris (yes, Paris!) who make it a point to visit when they come to town. We're so proud of Richard, as is Roy Choi (pictured above), who served as a celebrity judge during last year's Best Vegan Taco contest, for which we made 1,100 chile relleno con mole tacos. Richard won the "Judge's Choice" honor from a blind taste test and we are still beaming with pride given all the hard work everyone put into the event, and into this business, every day. Every. Dang. Day. We work day and night to build something meaningful...and we humbly thank everyone who has visited the trucks / contests / festivals and supported a dream of bringing love and cheer to people through delicious food.

Janelle continues to work with Asian Americans Advancing Justice - Los Angeles (Advancing Justice-LA), though she recently shifted from serving on the grants team to supporting individual donor development and events. Pictured here, you see her and fellow Advancing Justice-LA teammates donned in blazing “Advancing Justice-LA” orange t-shirts at the LA City Council meeting where Councilman Ryu proposed a designation of September 21 as Advancing Justice-LA Day! While we celebrate these honors, we also recognize the many leadership and staffing changes taking place in our office. Change is good, and while change can be challenging, we know these shifts will help the organization grow stronger through it all. One fun fact is that Mama Hu visits the office every week...as a volunteer! She has been keeping busy her mind sharp by working, and our Advancing Justice-LA team is incredibly thankful for it all. Thanks, Mama Hu!

Ollie (left) finished his first year at Pomona College, where he received a full scholarship (thank the Lord). He kept busy with cross country and track, studying for exams, adjusting to college life and crept in a few scares as he was rushed to the ER two times last year for pneumonia and an allergic reaction (which we learned, was to seafood...who knew!?!). Between these trips and visits for our parents, we have been racking up the miles at our local hospitals. If only we got a free punch card for each visit, we'd probably get an emergency department named after us! Eddie (right) plowed through Junior year of high school and is continuing his music pursuits. He has been writing songs, rocking out with his band, and enjoying guitar lessons from one of our friends who promised to teach Eddie in one year what took him four to learn at CalArts. We'll take the tuition savings, thank you!

Finally, we thank Mama Hu for all her support through the wedding process and all our friends who helped us pull off the most beautiful party we've ever thrown. We couldn't have celebrated without your sweat equity and assistance!

Lastly, for anyone who might be interested, we have a video to share! Feel free to take a looksie here https://vimeo.com/279184315 and thank you to @evanrogersfilm for capturing our special day! 

Additionally, if you'd like to take a look at (or download any of) the wedding photos, please feel free to go to our friend Josh's @premakemyday photo library: https://joshpremako.pixieset.com/janelleandrichard-1 

You'll need a PIN to download photos, which is 2145. 

Please know that we love you, miss you, and hope to see you soon!!!