just another crack-head

Hallelujah! I've got a working cell phone now. Yesterday I bought a used Blackberry 8830WE phone off of some kid. I found his ad on Craigslist and decided that it was the cheapest deal on the market. I was a bit uncertain about buying a device from a kid (as I just don't trust them) so I had him meet me at the Telus store in the mall so that I could double check that the phone was legit before forking over the cash. Luckily for me (and him) - the phone was functional and ready to be activated.

The phone is now active. I've synchronized my Outlook life into it and have received a couple of calls. How exciting - I'm connected to the outside world again! :-) Now all that's left is to hunt down a silicone skin. I'm all about scratch-proofing my stuff. Time to develop my crack-berry-thumb...

Happy Holidays!

We wish you a very MERRY Christmas and a Happy New Year too! Stay safe out there! See you in 2009.

is it really that cold?

Chicky and I have been sitting inside gazing out at the flurries. We don't have any proper snow gear to be frolicking in the flakes so we're enjoying it from the comfort of my electric blanket. Our main concern is how we're going to get to work tomorrow. Neither of us are prepared for bad weather. We only accomplished to make a shopping list. Things to buy: boots, windshield scraper and a small shovel. Chicky figures he'll have to dig out his car at some point.

I checked the weathernetwork and it apparently is going to continue snowing till Christmas Eve. :-) This should make the drive to work even more interesting. As I was checking out how cold it is outside - I noticed that it's currently -34 degrees celcius in Regina right now. That's -40 degrees if you factor in windchill. They're HIGH for the week is -28. BRRRR!!!! And here I am wimpering at a mere -2 degrees! Lol - I've lost all my Saskatchewan blood and have become a westcoast-wimp.

winter wonderland

We woke up this morning to a beautiful white winter wonderland. The flakes are fluffy and sticking to the ground. I've got 104.3FM playing while I blog. This station plays "12 days of Christmas music" around the clock. It's so festive! I think I'm killing Chicky with my merry-ment. :-) I even brought home my santa bag of christmas hats so that we can take a family picture in them on the 24th. Yah! Lol - I think I'm the only one excited about it.

These are the times in which I wish we had TV. Channel surfing wouldn't be so bad right now. Oh well...that's what computers are for right? We're waiting for the Brick to come and replace my chaise. They weren't able to clean it so I get a new one! Yah! I can't believe their movers are going to make it up the hill today. That's really brave of them!

drowsy chaperone

Tonight Chicky and I went to see the musical "The Drowsy Chaperone" at the Vancouver Playhouse. I got free tickets to the show (one of the FEW benefits for the work I do with the Social Club). Chicky surprised himself and really enjoyed the show. We got great seats (3rd row) considering they were complimentary tickets. I thought the musical was wonderful and funny. But then I'm biased and love all forms of theater. :-) If you get the opportunity - I would recommend seeing this show, it's quite uplifting and just plain old FUN. The dance sequences make it even better! We had a fun date and drove home as the snow was just starting to come down. Time to put on our jammies and watch movies under my electric blanket!

lazy days of winter

This week has been quite enjoyable. Chicky took the week off work to bum around home and I had a week long of training downtown. We got to enjoy the life of a lazy student and a non-working-bum. We found it quite enjoyable not having to get up at the crazy hours of the morning and rushing to our responsibilities. I like just having to get up, get my backpack and get to school in time for the 9am lecture. Reminiscent of our university life.

As Chicky picked me up from the train station on the blustery wednesday night, I mused about how free we were to do what we want right now. Just the 2 of us doing whatever we wanted whenever we wanted. :-) No worries about getting home to let the dog out to go pee or having a baby to worry about. Ah...time to do nothing is such a wonderful thing. :-)

an early XMas

Christmas it a time for giving. In my case it's time to give ME something nice for all the stress I put myself through during the year. :-) This year's XMas gift to myself is a new camera. Thanks me!!!! *** pat myself on the back ***

On the weekend Toshiki, Chris and I went down to PhotoExpert in Surrey to do some shopping. We picked up some camera gear for discounted prices (I have a friend who knows the sales staff). Anyhow we pretty much made Dave's sales quota on Saturday. Toshiki and I bought the Canon 50D and Chris picked up a new lens. The Canon 50D camera is bigger than my old one so I'm still getting use to the weight/size. Chicky says the camera fits his hands much better now. I sold my other camera so I've only got this one now. No little-pocket-size camera for me! :-) I like the features and response on the 50D. I'm looking forward to taking more pictures with it. Maybe I'll even pick up a photography course in the spring - it's always nice to have dedicated days to go out and just shoot pics.

tasking turned tragedy

Alas I must say adieu to my beloved phone. It had an untimely drowning last week. :-) Note to self, DON'T try to multitask while taking a bath. Though I was able to revive it from it's watery grave - it just didn't act the same. The buttons didn't work which made making outbound calls next to impossible. I've been able to receive calls but lately it's been possessed and turning on/off by itself. Weird....

I tried to take it to Telus and plead death due to negligence but they were not empathetic at all and told me that there's nothing to do but buy a new one. I was frustrated that they wanted to sell me another data phone when this one was barely 1/2 a year old! Good god - data phones are NOT cheap either. Unfortunately I'm locked in the 3-year-prison-phone-term-plan with no chance of parole. I've been searching for a used data phone but nothing has caught my eye yet (maybe it's the prices that is making me hesitate). I think in the end when I have no more means of communicating with the outside world I will invest in a crack-berry. I like qwerty keyboard phones and that seams to be the "best known" one on the market right now.

did you know?

I went to a presentation this week for IT techs and was amused by one of the videos they played during the break. :-) For your amusement...

who am I?

Yesterday I embarked on the next step of post-marital bliss...the name change. :-) For most of you this process is simply taking your marriage certificate to everyone who would care whether you're a Le or a Yee. To me this presented an opportunity to get "me" reorganized. You see, when my parents came to Canada they didn't know the traditions here and gave Immigration the Viet version of my name. This meant that I'm legally known as "Hoang Dang Kim Le". I'll bet not many of you knew that Kim is actually my second-middle name. :-) Through frustration in early grade school from people not being able to pronounce my first name, I adopted a "known as" name. So unofficially I slowly changed my name to Kim Hoang Dang Le. This presented a problem because I ended up with not one ID with the same sequence of names. I was only able to rearrage the sequence on some IDs but not others. On the bright side I might be spared identity theft because no one really knows what my "real" name is. On the other hand - I can never prove that I'm really ME! A real pain in the ass when you have to show someone your drivers licence and a credit card for ID...I always have to explain why the names are all jumbled up. Did you know that your DL is probably the most secure piece of document you own? Next to your birth certificate or citizenship card that is. It's more secure than a passport as you cannot use your passport as a primary piece of document to obtain a DL.

I took the day off to go downtown to Vital Statistics to pick up my fingerprint, criminal record check and immigration papers. I rolled my eyes as the clerk informed me that after I get the cops to fingerprint me, run the criminal records check and the notary to stamp the rest of the documents, I would have to return to the office with the package and pay another $200 processing fee. That almost made me want to say "forget it". :-) Hoang isn't such a bad first name afterall! Lol...but Kim Anh reminds me that it's better in the long run to have one official name that is on all documents. So at the end of the long process I will become "Kim Hoang Yee" in the eyes of the Government of Canada. I have an appointment with the notary next week.

I've discovered that some agencies are easy (just need the marriage certificate) to change your name while others are much more difficult (need tons of supporting documents).

Easy = work, credit cards, banks, carecard, passport (you can basically be whoever you want on your passport!)

Hard = citizenship card, drivers licence, SIN

Your Song

Just for fun...what was the #1 song for any date in history? See below to find "your song"...

http://www.joshhosler.biz/NumberOneInHistory/SelectMonth.htm

Kim's b-day = "Don't Leave Me This Way"
Kelvin's b-day = "A Star is Born"
wedding date = "So What"

finding Nemo

On the weekend Chicky and I went to the pet store in search of love. You see, while we were on our honeymoon, all our goldfish went to the great bowl in the sky. Sadly enough we had to dismantle the tank when we got back in preparation for the move. In the pet store I stood by the puppies pointing at them in hopes that Chicky would change his mind about fish and get us a dog. I was disappointed.

Alas Chicky's need for his saltwater tank has come to fruition. He sacrificed his Subaru car and is now sporting a Honda Fit. To make up for a flashy car - he's invested time and effort into setting up this pretty tank. It's a whole new tank and supplies. It's now day 4 and he's still trying to get the ecosystem right. We've discovered that our floor in the cubby hole (where this tank has taken residence) is not level. It's too late to try to fix that problem.

What's in the tank right now is bacteria, sand, coral and a little crab. When the water temperature and saline stabilize - we'll begin getting the sea creatures. Where's Nemo?!

More pictures of the tank can be found in my web album.

pictures are up

I've begun loading some of the pictures from the trip. Check out my web album if you want to see them.

guise and ghouls

It's that time of year where our alternate egos get to come out to play. I've been thinking about what my costume should be for Halloween. It wouldn't be so hard if I didn't have to parade around the office in it. I'm looking for something funny and easy to make this year. I've checked out some sites and came across this one that had some unique and hilarious ideas. Incase you're in need of some inspiration...

http://www.costumeideazone.com/CIZ/CostumesByCategories.aspx?c=8

it's a boy!

Congratulations to Kim Anh and Michael! They welcomed their baby boy into the world at 7pm tonight. Tyson Chen came in at a whopping 7.4lbs and one week late. Mom, dad and baby are doing well. We went to see him tonight - he's as cute as button! By the looks of his measurements - he's going to be a tall kid! :-) I've got pictures but no time to post them right now. Will do so later....

settling in

Yah! - we're 90% settled in. Most of the boxes have been unpacked and there's food in the fridge. Kel and I spent the weekend sorting through the must-do vs the can-wait-till-later chores. Things are coming together nicely and we're enjoying the "buying new stuff" phase. The last week was tiring as it was our first week back to work after a month off (for me anyways). After work each night we spent time putting things into boxes. It was only till Thursday that we actually started sleeping in the condo (as we just put together the bed). There's still much to do with the condo but the bare essentials are in. As long as I have clothes, food and internet - then I'm fine.

We have this big TV but no cable. :-( So it serves as another pc in the house. :-) The good thing is that most of my TV shows are downloadable. We're getting use to condo living again. The neighbor downstairs is quite atuned to what we do. He's expressed his concern (in person) over our need to build IKEA furniture at night. He even came up once to tell me that his ceiling light feel down from all the banging we're doing. I was tired from work and trying to put together a dresser before dinner so I didn't have much patience for his complaints. I stood at the door and just stared blankly at him. What did he want me to do? Pay for the light? Jeez - if there was an earthquake - he'd be killed by his falling lights! I told him that he could blantenly see that we're moving in and have to do everything at night (after work). Therefore I can't help with the noise. I was considerate enough to build the dressers in the bedroom where there's carpet instead of the laminate floored living room. Kel says he's not going to be a prisoner in his own home. So what do we do? Trade "notes" with apartment 308. We're all on first name basis. So it's Kim & Kelvin against Terry and Jonathan. :-) Terry is not confrontational so she likes to slip notes under the door for me to read and I do the same for her. Jonathan on the other hand likes to complain in person. I joke about inviting him for coffee one of these days as he's up here often enough. Kel doesn't think my joke is funny... Oh well - that's all part of communal living. They actually are getting better. Since we've completed putting together the IKEA stuff - we haven't seen Jonathan in a couple of days. :-) Wonder if he's keeping tabs below us...

"going to the chapel and we're...

going to get married..."

It's been almost a month now since the wedding but I haven't forgotten about the big day. I meant to post a blog about it but things have been a bit hectic with the wedding, honeymoon, moving, work, life...blah blah blah.

I just wanted to say that the wedding was fabulous. I had a great time and found that the day zipped by so quickly. I hope you guys enjoyed it just as much as Kel and I. I have not seen any photos/video yet of the ceremony, etc but I'm sure they turned out great. :-) We haven't even picked up our marriage license (which is at Chris' house). Thank you again for all those that helped out!

I'll write more about married life later...

Cairo

We took a two day adventure through the desert visiting the spectacular Alabaster Mosque of Mohamed Ali, the National Archaeological Museum, then the Giza Plateau and a papyrus factory. The tour name was "Best of Cairo Overnight" and was the only tour that we felt we got the most for our money.

The trip was very safe. There were about 400 of us on this tour and each bus had it's own bodyguard equipped with a gun AND a machine gun "tucked" into their suits. The machine gun didn't fit so it stuck out. Kel was facinated by the artilary and wanted to take pictures of of our bodyguard. We also had police escort out of Alexandria to Cairo - just incase of terrorist attacks? :-) It was reassuring nevertheless.

Our tour guide has a masters in Egyptology. He is very vocal and full of energy. He gave our bus a nick name. "Habibi" (Arabic for "my beloved") - so everywhere we went, we'd here him shouting "Habibi!" and referring to us as his Habibis. Some of the people on the bus even started calling themselves Habibis. Lol -we were all getting brain washed.

When I think of the Pyramids of Giza - I have the Indiana Jones movie image of having to cross a vast desert on camel to reach them. In reality - we got off the bus at the base of the pyramids and I turned around to see the Hard Rock Cafe. So disappointing. I think in the next 5 years the city will surround site all together. The first night we saw a "Sound and Light" show at the Pyramids. It was basically a cheezy Vegas style laser light show on the Pyramids.

Kel and I got to ride camels. It's such a scary experience as they stand up. You don't realize how high up you are on them! Plus they get up with their back legs first so you get thrown forward. :-) I was screeching and nervous giggling the whole way up.

Admist the glory of the Pyramids is the dust of poverty. There are a lot of areas in which we saw garbage (including a dead donkey) in the ditches. Recycling is not important either as the area around the Pyramids are littered with empty/dried up water bottles.

The Egyptian Museum is large and over crowded. There's so much security in Cairo. We get scanned at every site and walk through many metal detectors. The streets are lined with armed guards. Some are even behind metal sheild type of things. I didn't bother asking what it's for. I figure it's incase there's an "incident" and they can safely shoot their machine guns from behind these barriers. The tour guides rushed us through the museum. Because of the lack of space - tour guides were shouting above each other trying to get air space. It only resulted in a night-market-style-screaming-match. Most of the time other guides were mad at ours for talking so loud. :-)

We stayed overnight at a 5 star hotel - the Conrad. The pillows were absolutely to DIE for - so marshmellowy soft! I was trying to figure out how to "borrow" one and bring it back onto the ship. :-) By now Kel and I are use to sleeping in our own beds - lol...not really a "romantic/sexy" honeymoon but that is life under "double occupancy" room layouts. :-) I was just delighted that we scored an "Executive" floor (20th floor out of 24 - the rest of the tour group was on the lower floors, 3-5). How cool is that?!? Jacuzzi bath here I come!!

the love boat

Life on the ship has been pretty good. The majority of the people on the ship are pretty old. I guess it's cause of the time of year we're going. The weather has been variable. Some ports are stinking hot and some are cold and raining. I regret not bringing many things with us - which I fondly remind Kel daily. The list so far:

1. conditioner - the water here is so hard and horrible for my hair. I've been stealing all the bathroom products from each hotel we stay at. The ship is cheap and has only a dispenser for shampoo.
2. laptop - Kel had decided when we booked this vacation that we would live in luxury while on land. Well - that means that all of our hotels are equiped with free internet...yet no laptop. Doh....should have brought it....
3. more ZOOM! - there were so many times when we needed a longer zoom lens for the camera....being on the ship - we're far from the things that I want to take pictures of. Plus there were occasions were having a smaller camera would have been good - like sticking a camera into the hole of a sarcophagus
4. another camera - having one camera between the 2 of us was sometimes futile as we struggled to capture what each thought was important
   
5. papyrus - in Egypt we went to the papyrus institute. Papyrus is that reed paper that Egyptions use to write on. Anyhow we had the opportunity to get one professionally made just for us. Kel thought it wouldn't go with our "Ikea" decor so he said no. We ran into a couple of other honeymooners our age and they got the famous "honeymoon scene" made with their names in cartuses and their wedding date. How romantic! Kel says "how cheesy!"
6. shoes - in the haste to pack - we forgot to bring more formal shoes. We only have runners and thongs. We celebrated our one-week anniversary at a swanky steak house. Looked kinda funny in our nice clothes and not so nice shoes. :-)

Overall the trip is going well. We're seeing and experiencing a lot of different traditions. We're trying to document most of it through pictures. :-) One thing we didn't get on the camera was our super-expensive spa treatment. We had a seaweed wrap and massage. It was Kel's first time wearing see-through underwear for a room full of esthetians. I think he was super embarrassed. I laughed as it was a "couples treatment" and I've reached the age where I alright walking around in my naked-flabbyness. You should have seen the look of horror on Kel's face when they told him that he would have to wash the seaweed off his body for the second part of the treatment. Less just say the see-through shorts became wet kleenex. Hahahha!!! We were feeling pretty ZEN after the massage - though I telling him he was disturbing my zen with his groaning and wincing (he had asked his girl to "beat him up" on the massage table as she was petite and didn't look very powerful). Oh did he ever get a beating! Lol...beware of what you ask for! Our zen dissipated when we got our bill. $600!! We blinked a couple of times and signed the bill. The thing about the ship is that we all have these magical cards that allow us to buy anything without ever having to pull out our wallets. The card also is our ticket on and off the ship, plus it is also our room key. They are are the only thing we carry so we never know how much we're spending as it all goes on our "tab". I think this is the point...

Anyhow - time to go find Kel. He's playing in another poker tournament and I'm left to amuse myself (again). The last time he got to the final table but didn't win.

Corfu

Corfu aka Kerkyra

The weather was windy and raining today. Luckily I had a hood on my jacket. Kel and I joined a tour called "Timeless Villages". We were suppose to visit all the small villages on the island. What we ended up doing is spending 6 hours on the tour bus driving around. Kel was very disappointed and wanted to cancel all future tours with the ship. The highlight of the bus ride was that the driver is spectacular and can maneuver through super thin streets with ease. There were points where if I could open my window - I'd be able to touch the window pane of the house beside the road. We had a near miss though - a car came swiftly down a hill and didn't see us. He plowed into the side of the hill and the bus driver screeched to a stop. Luckily no one was hurt.

We visited the Monastery of the Virgin Mary where many cats reside. The town appears to be littered with kittens. The tour guide said that in Greece they rarely spay/neuter their pets and that at the end of the tourist season - the cats get euthenized. So sad - but it's the tourist that keep them healthy and strong during the summer with all the scrap food. Haven't seen many stray dogs though...too bad as I'd love to see a puppy!

Katakolon

We didn't join any "shore excursions" for this Greek isle. Figured we'd explore on our own - or follow one of the tour groups. *wink* Kel and I met a fun Mexican couple named Alejandro (pronounced "Aliandro") and Gabrielle. We shared a cab with them to Olympia to see the birthplace of the Olympic games. English is their second language but Alexandro managed to keep the conversation going - he's very outgoing for a 50 year old. :-) We found out Gabrielle was only 36 and his second wife. Lol - we could tell he's the thrill-seeking type.

We listened in on a few of the louder tour guides and got a bit of history from the place. Did you know that they use to create huge statues of the cheaters from the first Olympic games and placed them at the entrance to the stadium for all to ridicule. :-) Boy were there a lot of cheaters! The weather was really hot so we ran around and took pictures of the highlights before heading back to meet up with our taxi driver. People in Europe drive like mad men - it's just like Asia where the safest seat is the back seat (with your eyes closed).

Spending the day with Alexandro and Gabrielle - we got to know them better and they became one of our buddies on the ship. It's so much fun meeting new people!

Athens

The hotel Kelvin booked - Classical Baby Grand - is quite funky and in the downtown core. This makes exploring by foot much easier. We had a very busy sightseeing day. Visited some monuments and bought 2 outlet converters. The one Kelvin's dad gave us didn't fit into the hotel's wall. The hotel even gave us a "love" room when Kel told them that we're on our honeymoon.

Things to do in Athens

Acropolis (Akropolis)

• this was a spectacular site to visit - a MUST do while in Athens
• the acropolis was within walking distance from the hotel so we went up to see it in the morning and then went back to Plaka to have dinner while watching the sun set over the acropolis, very romantic!
  
• the crowds are horrendous during the daytime but we managed to get some pictures with no people in it

Ancient Agora

• more columns, ruins...I'm beginning to think we should have done some research or reading before hitting all of these ruins to find out what so great about them...
  

National Archaeological Museum

• lots of traditional types of statues - with or without heads
• would probably take half a day to go through it word for word - we didn't have that much time so we ran around a looked at the highlights
  

Parthenon

• I like the symmetry...columns in rows is becoming a photographic theme :-)
  

We managed to crap a lot of the Athen highlights into the day and end it with a wonderful dinner overlooking the Acropolis.

freestyle cruising

This is the first time Kel and I have gone on a cruise - let alone one to Europe. How exciting! The ship is called the Norwegian Jade. It's quite a large ship so I can't wait to see what it has to offer. This is our home-away-from home for the next 2 weeks. We'll post more pictures later on. I must say, "freestyle" cruising is much different from the conventional cruise ships. Everyone is so laid back. I love our room stewards - Micheal and Zaldi - they're always so cheerful! Plus they call us "Miss Kim" and "Mr. Le". That hilarious as the minister at the Church had also pronounced us "Mr & Mrs Le" on our wedding day. :-)

The ship is super germa-phobic. They spray us with antibacterial stuff at every turn. We're not allowed to touch any food at the buffet either. Everything has to be handled by them. I guess it's for our own safety. Last thing we need is an "outbreak" aboard the ship. It's only a pain in the butt when you have to wait in the buffet line for the staff to scoop something into your plate. If you dare reach for the anything on the table - you'd get scolded at. :-)

Where are we going for the cruise? Here's the itinerary:

• START = Athens (Piraeus)
  
• Katakolon
• Corfu
• Alexandria (and Cairo)
• Iraklion
• Mykonos
• Izmire
• END = Istanbul
  

honeymooners

Thank you everyone for the SUPERB help and support on our wedding day. Who was tired Sunday?!!! KEL AND ME!!! My god - we left the reception - went back to Kel's house to entertain the out-of-town guests. Barely had time to take a shower and skirted off to Seattle. Kel was to drive to whole way but nearly killed us along the path so I pumped myself full of caffeine for the last leg of the drive. We got to our crappy hotel (Econo Lodge) where I hesitantly gave them keys to my car. I pray that it's safe in their crappy-used-car-sales lot they call a "secure garage". I was not impressed when the driver dumped our luggage out of the van and hitting me in the process. I was also checked by security at the door to the plane - quite surprising as they were mostly checking the middle eastern looking men. Kelvin wasn't there so he got off scott free. We boarded the plane but didn't get to sleep as we were squished in with a bunch of foreigners. Of all the seats to get - we get the only 2 with non-working video monitors. So being crazy-movie fanatics - we complained. They gave us $10USD (between the 2 of us) to spend at the next airport - there was a "work around" so they couldn't compensate us for the seats. The work around was for Kel and I to sit in different sections of the plane. Kel wanted to do it but I said no as this was suppose to be our HONEYMOON - meaning he can't start it off by sitting in another section of the plane for 10 hours. Once we flew over Europe the time/day changed - meaning we had very LITTLE sleep. We transferred in Amsterdam and were getting to the point where nearly 36 hours of being awake was starting to affect us. We arrived in Athens in the afternoon. Got to our lovely hotel with enough time to check the view, unpack and pass out. We woke up the next day. Duh! The next day we crammed in all the sightseeing possible.

reminiscing

Guess where I'm blogging from? The condo! After 2 crazy weeks of renovations, we've finally finished transforming this place. If it wasn't for the help of our families - we would have never finished on time. Big thank you goes out to our dads! They slaved away in this place more than we did. :-)

As I sit in this empty space and admire the finishings, I can't help but recount the memories. The first time Chicky and I moved in (almost 8 years ago), we were so excited and nervous. We had just made a major purchase and were literally moving onto another stage of our lives. It's come full circle and we're back to where things started. This time around it should be much better. :-)

Thanks to the folks in the building that have not secured their wireless connection, I'm able to hop onto my laptop and blog. :-) I've begun moving some of my stuff into the condo as KA is prepping her baby's room. We'll have to have everyone over to the condo after we get back from our honeymoon.

DIY

It was a do-it-yourself long weekend for Chicky and I. We finished painting the condo and began laying down the laminate flooring. Saturday was spent at the Miracle Flooring on Austin selecting and negotiating prices on various types of flooring. I'm surprise how much time it take to select the color and type of laminate that you want. Of course price was a big factor for us so we couldn't splurge on the engineered hardwood stuff. We hummed and hawed over carpet, tiles and countertops. There so much that we can do with the condo but it would mean living there longer to fully enjoy it.

While elbow deep in the renos - we haven't thought about the wedding at all. The only wedding task we completed on the weekend was getting Chicky's blood test done and buying the marriage license. We didn't realize that you can buy at at London Drugs - who figured. Thank you Betty for the advice!

It's now September and the busiest month for the Help Desk. I'm swamped with work and the tasks are adding up. Chicky and I meet Rev. Sandra Nixon on Wednesday. It'll be the first time meeting her so I'm looking forward to it. I have my wedding dress fitting on Thursday. I didn't have time to look around for shoes so I rushed out today and bought a cheapy pair at Le Chateau. They felt alright in the store but only time will tell if they'll last me all night! My family has been great help with running some of the wedding errands. Kim Anh picked up my favor bags and guestbook today. It looks better in real life then what I had selected from the websites. As you can tell Chicky and I rely heavily on the internet and computers for the wedding tasks and communication. :-) My excuse is: we're being environmentally friendly and saving trees!

The next couple of weeks will be very tight with trying to complete all the renos and finishing off some of the wedding things. I'll post pictures MUCH later...

renovating

Chicky and I are moving back into the condo. We got possession of it on the weekend and began thinking about what kind of renos to do. The weekend was busy with work and materials shopping. I worked on Saturday so it didn't leave much time to go out and buy paint, etc after work. Luckily we've had the help of Chicky's dad and my dad. In the past 3 days we've moved furniture around, dismantled, spackled, primed and painted a couple of rooms. Tonight we cut out some of the carpet and removed the baseboards. So for the next 2 weeks or so we'll be spending all our free time over there painting or fixing something. To spare myself some complaints - I wrote some of the neighbors a card thanking them for their patience and understanding while we bang our way to harmony. During this DIY project we've learned that picking out a color scheme before seeing your place is a bad idea. Yup - grey looks cool in books but just didn't go with the condo. So midnight on Saturday we had to go through our paint samples and figure out a new color scheme. I ended up choosing more "earthy" tones to go with the hunk of wood that we call the mantle. So the condo will have 3 primary colors and 2 types of flooring. There are so many things we want to upgrade but due to a lack of funds - we can't do it all. Plus we don't know how long we'll live in the condo so there's no point in upgrading the kitchen cabinets/counters or tiling the bathroom floors. We'll just stick to the basics of painting, new carpets and hardwood floors. The lights in the kitchen are way too hot so I'm going to change out the light fixtures in whole place as well. I enjoy looking at the home renovation books as there are so many nice fixtures to splurge on. :-) I want Santa to bring me a restaurant grade sink faucet! I like the look of the "industrial" kitchen. Larger sinks, counters, etc. Oh well - maybe some day when we get a house....

trial and error

On Saturday I had my hair and makeup trial for the wedding. Chicky was fabulously patient and waited while I had myself beautified. :-) Knowing in advance that this would be a great opportunity to test out some picture poses. I asked one of my cowoker photography friends to come out and do some prewedding pictures for us. I managed to squish myself into Kim Anh's gorgeous wedding dress. This was quite the feat and if it wasn't for Chicky's excellent wedding-dress-lace-up skills, I don't think we would have been so successful.

After a couple of hours primping and prepping at the salon, everything was done and it was time to meet Mikie. He was coming across on the Seabus so we had 1/2 hour to kill. I was wearing the wedding dress top (as Kim Anh's dress is a 2 piece) with my bright lime green yoga pants. It was quite the site to see. Chicky and I sat downtown in our outifts and gobbled down some Macdonalds. On lookers were curious about us and some even said "congratulations".

We met up with Mikie and walked down an alley in Gastown. Both Mikie and I thought about utilizing Gastown's unique textures and buildings. Plus it's a fun location for "urban" types of photos. I was starting to feel self conscious with having to lug some of wedding stuff through Gastown. The streets were busy with 2 cruise ships docked at Canada Place, a bike race and some kind of prep for a motorcycle show. I don't think my bright lime green pants were helping the cause. :-)

We found an old alley that was deserted and a building with windows. Mikie and I looked at each other and said - "this is perfect". So we dropped our gear. Mikie prepped the camera equipment and I got into the rest of my outfit (the skirt). I kept my pants on underneath as I didn't feel like undressing on the streets. The location that we found was the back alley under the seabus terminal. The skytrain tracks were there and the reflection on the windows were wonderful. At a certain angle you can even see the Canada Place sails in the window reflection. So Mikie had us climb onto the window ledges. This was quite the feat as my outfit made climbing anything challenging. The good thing was that I know Mikie's style and wore flats yesterday. Poor Mikie had to boost Chicky up onto window sill as well. Now - I have to explain that Mikie is built like our Toshiki, but shorter. Ah - these Japanese guys...all so petite! Once onto the window sill - I looked through the pane and said "oh crap!...it's a restaurant!!!". Fully expecting the restaurant manager to come out and give us crap about climbing all over his building - we shot some pics and ran off. A funny moment when there was a bum in the back alley who wished us all the best while we clutched to columns and he ran over to steal an aluminum can near our stuff. We were more worried about him taking off with our purse and gear while we were stuck on the ledge.

The photoshoot was really fun. Mikie's creativity and our willingness to climb all over things made the time go by quickly. The weather was SUPER hot and I think both Mikie and Chicky were sweating through their clothes. I commend the brides that have super hot wedding days. I could barely breathe in that outfit let alone look "natural" in the pics. After 2 hours we called it a day as we had to attend Billy & Kim's wedding and had missed the ceremony part already. I hugged Mikie and thanked him for coming downtown to do this for us. Got out of my big skirt, picked up our gear and ran back to the car in hopes that it wasn't towed (the parking meter had also run out). Mikie sent over one picture by email today - I'll post the rest when he gives me the disk.

another beautiful wedding

Congratuations to Billy & Kim!
The happy couple was wed yesterday. Chicky and I had a great time at the reception, which was held at Meadow Gardens golf club in Pitt Meadow. I especially enjoyed the "photo booth". The photographers that she hired had an area where you could put on some props and take some pictures. The pictures were printed right away for you to take home. What a great idea for the guests! Kim looked wonderful in her one-of-the-kind-hand-made-dress. The girl has talent. :-) Being a fashion designer, Kim not only sewed her own wedding dress but also the bridesmaid dresses. Lol...makes me look like a lazy bride!

To see some other pics from the wedding - go here.

Respondez S'il Vous Plait

The wedding is fast approaching and we'd like to remind everyone that if you have not had a chance to RSVP yet, please do so. Thank you!

Ever wonder what "RSVP" stands for?

• Respondez S'il Vous Plait (French for "reply if it pleases you")
• also an Internet transport protocol (yes - I had to throw something geeky into this mix)

Our website has been redesigned. I built the first one but this week Chicky decided that it was too plain so he built one to replace it. I'm quite impressed with his creativity. Yah Chicky! If you haven't seen it yet - go to http://www.kkyee.com/.

stuck inside

It's such a gorgeous day out and I'm stuck in the office. Came into work as one of the weekend shifters is on holidays. Ahhh...this bites! Oh well...I can work on Social Club stuff or just surf the net during the slow periods.

Last night I met up with Tanya, Shannan, Tracey and Nicole for dinner at My Greek Restaurant in Coquitlam. The food was filling, the conversations funny and the restaurant was packed so it made hearing difficult. Thank goodness Shannan had called in earlier to make reservations otherwise we would have been waiting a long time for a table. It was nice to see the girls and chit chat. Everyone's lives are so busy now that we're loosing touch with who's doing what. We all came straight from work so everyone was dazed. After finishing as much as we could on our plates we all started to lose focus and were getting sleepy. :-) Signs of age...

falling for nature

Early Sunday morning Ian, Mike and I headed towards Squamish for a refreshing hike. We wanted to be up and down the mountain by noon. Giving us 3-4 hours of wandering time. We didn't make it out to The Chief but stopped by Shannon Falls. The boys brought all their camera equipment and just wanted to wander around and take pictures of nature. :-) I was ok with not going up the Chief as I packed too much into my backpack and it was SUPER heavy. The hip/waist straps weren't helping. Chicky said I looked like I was going camping instead of a 4 hour hike. Mental note to self - bring the fanny pack next time. I think I've climbed down plenty of slippery slopes in the pursuit of a "better angle" this weekend. On Sunday, I stepped on a rock that looked stable to find out that it wasn't. As I screeched and clutched the camera - the boys looked up and didn't do anything. They were climbing tentatively down the river bank as well and didn't want to risk their gear to save me. Duh! Luckily my foot went through the rocks so I didn't fall down the embankment. I did have cuts and scrapes though. Should have worn pants but it was too freaking hot. That's the problem with hikes - when you're in the dense trees, it's freezing cold. When you're in the fields - it's freaking hot. So I kept putting on and taking off my layers. It was nice walking through the fields and looking for eagles. The boys had super long lenses so they were taking pictures of mountain tops. I focused on the closer stuff.

Here are some pics from Shannon Falls.

paddling strong

On Saturday morning I went out to Richmond with Chicky to see his dragonboat team compete. It was a small race on the dike. Chicky's not officially on the team this year due to other commitments (such as the wedding). But he paddles when there's not enough people to do so.

The weather was spectacular and the crowds excited. We stayed till 1pm then had to take off so that we could clean up and go to some open houses back in Coquitlam. I spent the morning climbing up and down the dike trying to take pictures of the paddlers. Ugh...these are the days when I wish I still had my longer lens. :-)

Here are some pics from the race: Richmond Dragonboat Race

doctors without borders

I attended an outdoor yoga class for the first time today. My Yoga Online hosts these classes to raise money for different charities. One of my coworkers thought it would be cool to check it out. The donations benefit Doctors Without Borders, which is one of the few charities that I like.

It's been such a long time since I've done yoga and it felt great being down by the water with the wind blowing in your face and the sun beating down on your skin. Because the location was infront of the IMAX theater at Canada Place, it was not as serene as a yoga studio that I'm so use to. Plus there were 2 cruise ships docked at Canada Place today. There were about 40 of us in the class and we provided quite the show for the cruise ship patrons. Many took pictures of us while we did our poses. I don't blame them as the image was unique. A mass of colorful yoga mats strewed on concrete with people in awkward poses against a background of a setting sun and stunning mountains. If I had my camera I'd probably be on the upper deck taking pictures instead of doing yoga!

The best part is that because the class is "by donation" - they do draws at the end for gifts. Whoohoo!! Amazingly I won a new yoga mat from HalfMoon yoga products (Granville Island). This must have been karma as I've misplaced one of my yoga mats and the one I brought today is normally used for hot yoga so it's pretty thin. I could feel every rock of the gravel ground today which made some poses almost painful. I'm cursed with not enough bum-padding and bony ankles. I think I'll have to double up the mats next week in order to make things more comfortable. Bummer part is that the class is so late and the seabus only runs every half hour. So it was nearly 9pm when I got home today, haven't even had dinner yet. Blah...hobbies hog up so much precious eating-time!

here fishy fishy fishy...

In another moment of spontaneous purchases - Chicky and I got a fish tank! How did this come about? Well - instead of enjoying the Canada Day celebrations we went to the mall in search of a honeymoon package. Feeling disappointed about not finding somewhere to travel to - we headed out to Petcetera to look at pets that we can't have. :-)

Walking around the store we figured if we ever get a pet - it'd have to be fish because Chicky's parents don't like animals. There goes the doggie dreams if we live with the parents. Walking back and forth for 1/2 hour, we talked about getting a tank and setting it up in Chicky's room. Both of us were hesitant but finally we said "let's just do it!" So we did. We got home with our purchases and Chicky's mom said that she knows a friend who could give us a tank for free. Chaching! That's perfect. So at 8pm we head out to Richmond to pick up the tank. Kay - free isn't always "free". The tank was used for salt water fish in the past and was heavily calcified. Chicky and I spent most of the night washing and scraping it. We finally gave up and put our stuff in. We're in it for the instant gratification. We had wanted to buy fish at Petcetera but they wouldn't let us. They wanted us to have the tank functional for 3 days before introducing fish. Boo to them! We got an underwater plant instead. :-) It's no fun having an empty tank. I think we'll go to a pet store during the week to get something. We want it to be a freshwater tank so maybe goldfish or koi?! There are still not enough supplies though. We had originally boughten a 10 gallon tank from Petcetera but was given a 20 gallon tank from the friend. So we don't have enough gravel or the correct gravel for live plants on top of that. I just hope we don't end up killing everything in the tank at the end of this little experiment.

more speed

Another episode of analysis-paralysis. My incompetent laptop doesn't respond fast enough. This prompted me to open up the internet and go searching for a solution. I can get so distracted sometimes...

For those few geeks out there that are interested - CNET has some registry cleaners and defragers that are "suppose" to increase performance.

CNET

damn interesting

Every now and then I stumble across interesting sites while surfing the net. Here's one that might raise your IQ. If nothing else - it might provide you something to say in those awkward have-to-be-social moments.

Damn Interesting
5 Minutes
Pick The Brain

OR 100 most useful sites on the web

getting smart

I finally bit the bullet and upgraded my phone. I'm the proud owner of a BlackBerry wanna-be! What is it? The HTC S640 smartphone. It's been a brutal battle with Telus and many empty threats from the both of us. :-) Haggling is not my forte.

I'm still getting use to using it. I enjoy the luxury of a battery that lasts longer than a day. Having the convenience of Windows Mobile 6 is exquisite. With my Outlook synching to the device - I do not have to manually manage contact information. :-) The phone is larger than your average cell phone but that's alright because I normally carry large purses. Plenty of room for the phone and other girlie-necessities.

May updates

It's been about a month since the last time I've written. What a long hiatus!

Here's what I've been up to in the last while:

My Wedding:

• the invitations were completed and international ones sent
  
• rental cars have been booked
  
• flowers have been selected and booked
• cake has been ordered
• bridesmaids dresses have been selected, booked and paid for
• hair stylist is booked - still debating about the services of the currently selected makeup artist

Tracey's Wedding:

• The bridal shower was wonderful - it was good to see so much family and friends sharing in Tracey's joy. It was hosted at Tracey's house. There was lots of delicious home-made food. The were fun games too!
• The bachelorette party was right after the shower. We went to Tantras for some pole and lap dancing lessons. PussyCat Dolls in the making. After that it was dinner downtown and back to the hotel for some girlie bonding time.
• The wedding day was spectacular. The weather turned out to be perfect - not too hot or cold. Tracey looked beautiful in her dress and Shawn wasn't too shabby in his outfit either. :-) The ceremony was in the garden at Westwood Golf & Country Club. There were some heartfelt speeches at dinner and the standard slideshow.
  
• I haven't had a chance to post any pictures from the wedding yet - but will do so soon.
  

House Hunting:

• this has been on hold while Chicky's parents were away for the month

2010

On Thursday we celebrated the first year anniversary of launching the 2010 license plates. I was preoccupied with work so I didn't get a chance to see the festivities. When a coworker came by to say that the mascots had just arrived - I made time to go down. :-) I was super excited about seeing them - so cute! The show was wrapping up so I got an opportunity to take some pictures with them. :-) Again - benefits of knowing the corporate photographers and being extroverted enough to push forward and ask for a picture. My 2 coworkers jumped into the picture as well but they felt a bit silly and didn't want to stand out so much. :-) Hopefully the picture with the camera that I'm looking at will turn out good! After that I was so hyper so I ran upstairs to tell everyone that I got to hug all the mascots. I'm such a kid! The Help Desk folks laughed and said I was so "asian". They asked if I made the victory sign in the pictures too. Of course! *wink*

the dress

This morning I woke up intending to take a day away from house hunting and concentrate on the wedding stuff. After a morning or running around doing errands, I picked up my mom after lunch and took her dress shopping. A spur of the moment thing.

We went down to Hastings street and viewed 3 stores down there. The smaller stores didn't have anything that I was interested in. I have an idea what type of wedding dress I want and basically needed to find a store that carried it.

The dress criteria was:

• had to be sold on the floor in my size (as I wasn't going to order a dress due to time constraints and a need for security - I want to hug "my" dress at the end of this venture)
• a-line design as I'm uninterested in the "Cinderella" looking dresses
  
• corsette back because they are much more forgiving then zipper backs
  
• detailing on top and bottom - simple is good but not TOO simple...

Hastings Street was unsuccessful so we headed to Brentwood Mall. Bryan's Bridal is there and is known to have a good selection of dresses for average prices. The stars must have been aligned because I found the perfect dress! What makes it even more perfect is that it requires minimal alterations - just have to hem the bottom up an inch or so. Very doable. I was even more estactic to find out that a brand new dress got shipped in 2 days ago in the style that I liked. So I said "sold!" The sales lady then asked me if I wanted to take a picture in the dress. I was dumb founded. Then I remembered that my camera was in the car. I normally don't carry the big camera with me but I guess it's fate. :-) I'm absolutely happy that I was able to find a dress and that I did so in one afternoon! Thank you to those that offered to go dress shopping with me. :-)

birthday surprises

Saturday was full of surprises. I got up intending to spend the day house hunting with Chicky's family. Instead he took me to Milestones in which I was greeted with good friends and family all wishing another year of success and happiness. I'm very fortunate to have such a caring group of people! Don't know what I'd do without you guys/girls!

After brunch was another wonderful surprise - a relaxing massage at the Syncopa Spa in Port Moody. I've been so tense the last month between work, wedding planning and house hunting that my muscles were aching for a rub down. Chicky has been absolutely sweet and supportive in the last couple of months. His enthusiam in all aspects of the wedding is endearing. :-) The idea of a massage is always alluring to him and I. We're suckers for pampering. Chicky filled out his essay length questionnaire and indulged in some massage therapy while I had my treatment.

Before I could fall asleep on the warm spa bed, it was time to go meet up with the real estate agents to view a couple of more homes. Feeling so limber and relaxed, I didn't want to go out looking at homes and get all bunched up in knots.

The homes we viewed were OK - nothing jumped out at us. I think the 4 of us are getting tired of looking and might need a break from this to rejuvenate our enthusiasm. Chicky and I even went up to Burke Mountain to check out the new development. All the show homes are stylishly build but the bedrooms aren't big enough for our needs.

The events didn't end there. For dinner we invited all of my family and Chicky's family out to eat at Jade Restaurant (where we'll be hosting our wedding reception). It was a good chance for everyone to meet each other and check out the venue. We got our own party room so it was easier for the kids to run around and for us not to worry. The food was delicious and the service was nice. From dinner we invited the whole gang over to my parents house for tea. Things went pretty well considering a minor language barrier. Ideally we'd like to be able to have both families over for more dinners, etc.

ones and twos

This weekend was a flux of birthday parties. Chicky and I got to celebrate Katarina's 2nd birthday Saturday afternoon and Nathan's first birthday in the evening. The food was wonderful and the company even better. Looking forward to seeing the kids grow up.

I've posted the pics into my album.

decade of memories

Are we not like two volumes of one book?

~Marceline Desbordes-Valmore

Yesterday Chicky and I celebrated a decade of knowing/being with each other. I'm happy to say that the journey has been worth it. Over the years we've shared love, laughter, heartache and tears. I've learned that our relationship is not perfect in the typical sense, but in it's own dysfunctional way - it's perfect for us. Our strong friendship is probably what kept us sane through all the trials and tribulations. ;-) In a way the drama kept the passion alive and crowds wondering what's going on with us.

No celebration is complete without food! We went to the Boathouse Restaurant in Port Moody after work. The atmosphere was romantic and we were just happy to take a break from our crazy schedules and enjoy a private moment for ourselves. We've been so engrossed in wedding planning and house buying that we haven't really had time to ourselves to just relax and enjoy the good things in life. Deciding that we deserved this wonderful break from the hectic world, we ordered the biggest thing on the menu. Chicky and I are big eaters. The 'surf & turf' meal for 2 was the best choice for us. I sure wished I had my camera as the meal was worthy of a kim-food-pic-moment. The platter had 2 sirloin steaks that were juicy and succulent. The fire grilled jumbo tiger prawn skewers, Alaskan king crab legs and whole lobster made my mouth water! Toping that off was wild rice and grilled vegetables. The warm butter dipping cream sauce was also oh-so-yummy as it had a hint of lime. Unfortunately while waiting for our meal and appetizer, I succumbed to the warm bread and ate like a whole loaf by myself. Warm crusty bread is my weakness. I was full before I could really enjoy the main course. We talked about the last 10 years and how we've grown as a couple. It was fun reminiscing about the early years and how much fun it was getting to know each other. We're at the "old-married-couple" stage in the relationship. I like this better as it's comforting to know that I don't have to entertain him and that we can have our own interests. Not that I didn't enjoy spending 24/7 with him in the beginning. :-)

The service at the Boathouse was spectacular. We had a very enthusiastic waiter named Natalie. She saw Chicky eying the dessert tray after we finished stuffing the last morsels of our food down our throats. I literally was feeling sick from being so full - so was Chicky. I couldn't fit in dessert even if I wanted to. Chicky was too full to eat one on his own so he reluctantly passed on the tray. Low and behold she comes back with the dessert that he was eying and gave us 2 forks. Apparently dessert was on her. Cool! :-) We also had our appetizer comped by the restaurant as it arrived late (same time as our meal). The good times just kept coming. After dinner we took a stroll down the pier to walk off some of the food and look at the lights reflecting off the water. It was sweet - minus the group of kids smoking weed at the pier entrance - and a perfect ending to a fun night.

Before the days of internet, I use to keep paper journals. The ones pictured above document Chicky and my life together. Every now and then we take a peek into one of the books to see how I was feeling or what we were doing at the time. I was pretty sentimental in the beginning and tried to keep everything that was given or said to me. As the years wore on - the scrapbook/journals became sparse and became more like documentaries. Thank goodness for the internet! It's made expressing my thoughts so much easier!

moving along

I'm falling behind in blogging. :-) The last couple of weeks have been pretty hectic. What have I been up to? Engrossed in home buying and wedding planning. My weekends are literally spent talking to vendors or viewing homes.

Wedding:

• We confirmed our reception location - Jade Restaurant in Richmond. This was the easiest part of planning as Chicky's parents scoped out the restaurant for us and helped us book it.
  
• The ceremony site had been a struggle as we debated about an outdoor vs indoor ceremony. Last week we decided to do it at a Church. Chicky and I spent Saturday morning talking to a few churches and have selected the Richmond Chinese United Church. We're finalizing the booking this week.
  
• I'm really relieved to have these 2 major milestones achieved as I was afraid that Chicky was losing focus with the wedding planning in lieu of the house hunting. Now that the ceremony site is booked. We can order the invitations this weekend! Yah..one more thing to check off the list. The invitations was actually the second thing that Chicky and I picked out (after the restaurant and before the ceremony site). There's a bit of a time crunch on it as we're expecting some international guests who have a stop over in Vancouver in the middle of April. We'd like to give them their invitations in person...which means the invitations need to be printed in the next week or so. :-)
• I went to the Vancouver Wedding Show on Sunday afternoon with my mom. I didn't have much time to spend walking around as Chicky and I had to visit the grave site with his family for All Souls Day in the morning and I had to be back in a few hours for an house viewing appointment. :-) My mom and I made good time though and was able to look at all the vendors and watch a bit of the fashion show. I saw Lisa (Nick's wife) and her mom there as well. They were helping Lisa's brother's fiance pick out stuff. Though I didn't win the Grand Prize (a $56,000 wedding package), I did book the tuxedo appointment for Chicky and his groomsmen. :-) I got lured into a "one time only deal".
  

Real Estate:

• If I haven't told you by now, Chicky and I have decided to buy a home with his parents. We had discussed our living arrangement for after the wedding and this option was the best for all of us in the long run. The 4 of us have been on the hunt for a home for the last 2 weekends straight.
• On the long weekend we spent every day out with the real estate agent looking at potential homes. Not many met our criteria.
• This weekend we were out viewing show homes again - some more possibilities but nothing definite.
• I think we've short listed 2 homes and will make an offer this weekend.
  

mascot mayhem

"Here comes Peter Cottontail...hopping down the bunny trail..."

Yesterday was the Social Club's annual Easter Egg Hunt. I took the girls (Angelina and Teresa) with me on the Hunt this year. It was a good turn out - 180 people showed up. I was very impressed with Jo's organizational skills, she always thinks about the little details like coloring contests for the really little kids. :-) Takes a type-A to appreciate another Type-A's detailed work! Jo is one of the other super-assertive event organizers in our Club. She's sometimes hard to handle (too aggressive for the introverts in the group) but always reliable/dependable to take on large or unpopular events.

So on Friday I picked up my bunny costume from the costume shop. I've been fighting a cold for a week or more now and thought that I would have to enlist the help of Chicky for Sunday as I could barely breathe. So he willingly got into the costume Friday night to see if it fit. :-) It was too snug for him. Plus he was a SCARY bunny. Nope - definately not cute! I tried to convince him to wear the costume to surprise his parents - he refused as he didn't want them to have a heart attack.

If you've ever been a mascot then you can relate to the following. The bunny head was big and I couldn't see out of it. Knowing this well in advance - I enlisted a bunny-bodyguard. Her job was to keep the kids from stampeding me and keep me from killing myself as I "lead" the Hunt. The good thing about being a mascot is that you don't have to talk. Just wave in no particular direction, bob your head when told and try to look in the direction that your handler is telling you to. Some kids were freaked out by having a giant bunny staring down at them. Poor kids. I was having a really hard time with the head piece as it was too big and the apparatus underneath literally clamped my eyes shut. So I was bonking kids in the head as I have no spatial perception and tried my best not to molest them as I "felt around" for them. Half way through the gig I figured it's easier to just hold out my arms and hug whatever came between them. I think the worst part was that when I made my grand appearance - guess who happened to push their way to the front of the mob? The girls! And they were trying to pull on my costume to find out who was underneath. :-) I was unsuccessfully trying to kick them out of the way - hahhaha...what a bad auntie eh?

After 2 grueling (really hot) hours of picture taking, holding screaming kids, walking blindly around with baskets full of candy and trying not to knock over little kids or be beaten by the older ones (man...some big kids are just cruel to mascots!) - I was released from my bunny duties. It was a fun experience but I'm glad that I've put in my time and don't have to be the bunny next year! Hmmm...I might just pick up a larger bunny outfit for Chicky next year....

oh baby baby

I just wanted to extend my CONGRATULATIONS to:

Charlene and Scott who are expecting their first child this August. We wish them all the best and look forward to seeing the little one. Click here to read more about her pregnancy.

Art of Facilitation

I've spent the the last two days in a facilitation course. Basically learning how to lead meetings. :-) It was held at UBC downtown campus with the Sauder school of business. I enjoy "executive education" because it's POSH. For the price of the course (mucho mula), we got breakfast before class, a lounge with food all day long, a mini fridge in the room for drinks, lunches at the law court and great gifts. As you can see I'm all about the give-aways then the content of the course. Actually it was interesting as there were about 30 participants. Majority of which were managers, CEOs, team leads or some do some other type of leadership role. This course is part of a "leadership" series.

Day 1 of the course was centered around the Insights profiles. I've done a fair share of personality inventories in the past and it's always amusing to try the "newest" trend. There was nothing "new" about my personality revealed in this test. The results are consistent with those in the past - to summarize: I'm an extrovert, assertive and energetic. :-) The type to go-go-go-crash and repeat. I'm happy to have been able to learn, apply and challenge myself in terms of leading teams. The course taught me to be more aware of my leadership and facilitation style. With the tips and tricks provided by the instructors (we had a tag team of instructors) - I feel more comfortable with self managing my "red" energy. :-) The hands on learning was "Apprentice" style. One facilitator trying to manage a team. I volunteered to facilitate in Day 1 as normally with these courses - Day 2 tasks are usually harder! I got a team of people with personality types that were exact opposite of mine (greens!!!). That was the most challenging part - not the task itself - but the people management. There were many moments where I had to literally step back, be quiet and flip styles. I naturally want to be directive and push people to make snappy decisions. For some types of tasks/goals - this type of approach is all wrong. :-) Oh well - too bad for them! On a side note - a couple of the team building games were very familiar as I've done them in other management classes or have deployed them to my own department. So I found myself not volunteering for them as I know what the result should be and what the "lessons learned" are. Boohoo...itchying to be involved but standing on the sidelines watching. :-)

I'm hoping to be able to do more management/leadership courses to improve myself. Some day in the distant future - I'd like to play the role of a team lead or some other type of "official" leadership role. If your companies pay for training - I highly recommend this series of seminars.

workflow processes

Work has been quite busy in the last couple of weeks with projects coming up. There are days when I feel like 12 hours in the office is not enough. This feeling probably stems from the fact that I waste too much time in meetings. Aside from "real" work I've been trying to keep up with the Social Club event planning. I'm looking forward to being the Easter Bunny and the Dodgeball tournament. Lots of planning involved but as always - once the event happens - it's all worth while seeing the smiles on everyones faces. :-)

On the wedding front. Chicky and I haven't talked much about the wedding since the engagement last month. In the last couple of weeks we've been busy with family parties, etc. On the Sunday we went into Richmond so that he could go to work. Unfortunately his new office building was locked and we couldn't break in. So we took the opportunity to drive around Richmond and contemplate restaurant locations. We're going to do a Chinese restaurant reception so locating a venue is the top of our list of "to do" list. One thing we did decide upon was having the wedding this year. We made that decision last week after much discussion between a 2008 or 2009 wedding. Financially they would be equivalent. Seasonally - it's a whole other story. So we're aiming at a September/October wedding. I was hesitant about having a fall/winter wedding as the weather is unpredictable and frankly I like taking pictures in the park. A summer wedding would totally be out of the question for 2008. Too little time to plan. :-) I prefer to reduce "known" stressors when possible.

The last 2 days I've been in a Workflow Process Modeling course for work - should have taken this course when I first started my job last month...would totally have helped then! The material is dry so to keep myself from falling asleep, I would sometimes mentally visualize mapping out my wedding on a Visio drawing (with all the decision diamonds, swimlanes, etc). :-) Yes - I know...geeky!! My instructor loves post-it notes...makes me want to go crazy with post-it notes too. So many colors and sizes! Kay - back to my first thought.

Being unsuccessful at thinking of a restaurant to "pop into" while in Richmond. I convince Chicky that we should do something more productive - so we head down to Chinatown to look at invitations. :-) I'm not making my own. The one thing I learned from past experience with event planning is the "keep it simple & buy when possible" moto. If I have a September wedding - that leaves me 6 months to get all activities aligned. This is possible if I don't introduce any manual processes into the plan. :-) Ah...still in workflow process modeling mode...where's the critical path?! Anyhow we look went to 2 stores. One was run by a super old chinese couple - we weren't too impressed with their stuff. The other store had more potential. After 1/2 hour of sitting there we put together a design, selected various paper, layout, caligraphy, artwork and color scheme of the invitation we wanted created. After that we got the quote for the order of invitations - a bit more then what I budgeted for but still within scope. Because Chicky and I have a tendency to be "spontaneous" purchasers and often suffer from "buyers remorse" - we left our information and the design specs with the company and told them that we will confirm the order later. They only need a month to produce the product so we still have plenty of time to change our minds if need be. Plus we need a venue and date first! I'd prefer not to change our minds about the invitations as it's such a good feeling thinking that one thing has been "completed" for the wedding. :-)

Lily's shower

On Saturday we had Lily's baby shower at my house. Kim Anh did the majority of the planning - thank you!! I got the easy job of decorating, goodie bags, etc. My mom was in charge of coordinating the food. KA is pretty creative with her games. She even made Carol a cake of DIAPERS! :-) Here's a picture of it. I liked it - very creative.

It was fun having the kids and family over. The party started at noon but didn't end till 10:30pm. Wow - we weren't quite prepared (food wise) for guests to stay that long! It was mostly family left by that time at night so we played some RockBand and poker. What's a weekend without the family game of poker eh?

Next weekend is another opportunity to show everyone my kareoke skills! Lol...should be interesting. Here are the pics from the shower.

in mediation

Tis another unhappy purchase for Kimmi. I've been dealing with a stubborn and incompetent Ebay company (TriState Cameras) for the last 2 weeks. Due to some miscommunication and accounting errors on their side, I was charged twice for a flash that I ordered. I didn't find this out till I saw my credit card statement. From there it's been non-stop emails and threats of "legal action" on my part. Being an unhappy client I filed complaints against TriState with my credit card company and with Ebay. The manager of TriState Cameras has been in contact with me for 3 days now trying to resolve the issue, before that I had to deal with their "customer relations department". I was not happy with his pushy attitude and he was equally not happy with my inability to just withdraw the paperwork and deal with this on "our own". :-) I've learned through many experiences that you get faster results when things suddenly become "official". Unfortunately Michelle and her family had to witness one of my outburst to the manager at Brandon's birthday party last night. I was getting ready to go home when he called. The manager was not happy that I didn't return his calls as there is a 3 hour time difference between us so he was calling off hours. I'm not about to call New York everyday to fight about charges that they've made to my credit card so I let them call me. So when I finally did speak to him, he was trying to give me a "resolution" to our "little" problem. I was fuming mad at his version of a resolution and was not using my "inside voice". :-) Luckily the kids were not in the room. You see - the issue here was that he wasn't going to refund me the money because the second flash has not reached their company yet. I was furious at being held financially responsible for a product that has been in "transit" for over 2 weeks now. He had tried to convince me it was my problem because should the flash get damaged or go missing during transit, who would pay for it?! I think that's B/S as it's UPS problem if a shipment is damaged or missing. Technically I never received the second flash therefore they should have refunded the money right away. It was their accounting department's mistake in the first place! Anyhow he was trying to get me to sign a document that said all was hunky-dory and we're best buds now (to counter my documents to them that said all was NOT hunky-dory and we're mortal enemies). :-) Ah...he thinks I'm new to this legal game...

Anyhow he's filed with a mediation company and I was contacted by them today. I filed counter paperwork. No biggie to me as last week I was in a vendictive mood and wanted to blast out horrible messages on the photography forums. I let my mood pass and didn't do it incase I would regret it later (in the event that my own reputation - and chances at winning this - is wrecked by emotionally charged comments on the web). :-) TriState is suppose to be a reputable company. They're classified as a Platinum Seller on Ebay - meaning they have processed over 3000 transactions and have a 100% satisfaction rate. I'm sure they mean well but just because they're reputable doesn't mean they can make mistakes, expect me to say "oh well" and sit back and wait for when it's an ideal time for them to give me my money back. Anyhow we back to playing the waiting game. The manager is also refunding my shipping fee for the first flash as a sign of good faith. I'm willing to retract everything once I see a refund on my credit card. I'm aggressive/assertive but not totally unreasonable...

planning

I've been in planning mode today. For the last couple of weeks I've been burning out at work participating in this corporate project. We're in product design mode right now so it's weeks of 8-10 hour days sitting in a meeting room and hashing out interfaces and definitions. I'm literally wiped by the end of week and feel like I can't bear anymore hours with the programmers. Being on the core project team has given me some good experiences in the world of project management but as of the end of last week I spoke to a couple of my managers and requested to be taken out of the design sessions. I feel that my time there is wasted as I'm not an SME and can't actively contribute. It's getting to the point where I feel like it's endless hours of sitting in a dark room watching the vendor go over fields on a screen and listening to people debate. Sometimes the debates are ridiculous as people get trapped with tunnel vision and circular thinking. This equates to multiple instances where I've fallen asleep or have to duck out for bio-breaks just so that I can splash some water on my face to wakeup. Programming is a VERY dry topic. Deeming this as not very good use of my time, the project manager agreed to relieve me of the next series of sessions. Getting out of the sessions, I was given the opportunity to do some mini-projects. Happily I accepted a BCIT Computing Career Fair event from the Education Department. :-) Finally...Social Club type of work in my "real" day-to-day job. :-) Excited to be doing something that I truly enjoy, I happily met with 4 managers on Friday and was given some information on what they wanted out of this event. The good thing is that I got to build my own "team" (with some guidelines) and can control content, presentation, etc. The team is now complete (thinking of people to be on the team was fun as I wanted to represent all "looks" of IT). I'm excited about getting to hang out at the BCIT to promote our company and work with an outgoing and diverse team.

Feeling like it was going to be a productive morning. I took a break from the BCIT stuff and did some Social Club stuff. I finished confirming with the Burnaby School Board for booking the dodgeball tournament for April 6th. I find the process for booking gyms at an elementary school or highschool to be cumbersome. The system is inefficient. The next couple of months will be busy as I'll be hosting a couple of events for the Social Club. :-) Lol - I've always wanted to be a bunny...now my mascot dreams will be realized! Hahaa...just kidding...it's my turn put on a hot/furry animal outfit for the Children's Easter Egg Hunt in March. In the midst of setting up these events and talking to vendors, I'm also focused on rebranding the Club so that it aligns to the new corporate marketing strategy. Lol - I've got ideas but not enough hours in the day to look into them, so some of the Social Club board of executives have a been delegated tasks. I think I'm just going to run for the President position in the Club this year as I already manage 80% of operations/events.

As the most visible Director for the Club, I'm sent/forwarded A LOT of vendor pamphlets/packages...aka junk. Most of the time I look at the stuff once and hand it over to Karen who is good with keeping track of our vendor information. I was staring at the stack of lower mainland golf course packages I got this month when I thought about my own wedding planning. I picked up one of the folders (for Redwoods Golf Course in Langley) because it had a bride on the cover so it sparked my interest. I looked at the maps, menus, pricing, etc and pondered about where I'd want to have my wedding. Getting distracted from "real" work, I went to my MS Outlook program and exported my contact list to an Excel format so that I can later on import it into Excel to populate the guest list. As you can see I'm easily distracted if I don't focus myself. After that it was back to doing "real" work and not playing around with planning.

Tonight I started my first "planning" type activity for the wedding. I went downstairs and dragged up a box of wedding magazines from the basement (my house had become a reservoir for wedding magazines, etc from all the weddings Kim Anh and I have been a part of over the years). I flipped through a couple of magazines, surfed on the web to see when the next wedding show would be, pondered about booking tickets but couldn't make the commitment so set the information in my daily planner for later. I also created my budget spreadsheet. I think I got more enjoyment from creating the pivot tables and formulas then thinking about what the spreadsheet will be used for. Lol - I'm such a geek! There are a couple of planners in the box but I prefer electronic versions of things (much easier to transport the info on my USB stick). I'm debating if I want to go to a wedding exhibit as they're all the same and we haven't really decided if we're getting married in 2008 or 2009. Oh well - doesn't hurt to have things planned/prepared early.

more birthday parties

Today Chicky and I celebrated Logan's 1st birthday. How time flies!! Andy and Michelle did a superb job of hosting the party. I love how Martha-Stewart-like they are. :-) The home was decorated with balloons, streamers and an impressive gallery of pictures taken throughout the year of Logan. Being a photo-enthusiast, I was especially interested in this wall display. Michelle created a Nemo birthday cake made of cupcakes. I would post a picture but didn't bring my camera to the party as Andy would be taking all the pictures with his pro-camera. :-) The cake was impressive and delicious. Kudos to Michelle's baking and imagination. At the end of the night everyone got to go through the gallery of pictures and select 2 pics to take home. Chicky and I had put dibs on a couple really cute images but they were snatched up by the elders. The ones we ended up picking were still adorable. I did notice that a lot of people aimed for the 6-12 month old version of Logan. I guess when you're a newborn - it's hard to portray your personality. :-) Most of his 1-6 month pics are of him sleeping.

On Tuesday night we'll be celebrating Brandon's second birthday with the family. He's growing up to be a very independent boy. :-) It's good to see that Mary's boys have their own very different personalities. It makes life more interesting when you've got a mix.

red egg & ginger

Lily's one-month party was on Saturday. We went to Pelican Restaurant on Hastings Street for the celebration. This is the same restaurant that they used for Angelina's one-month party 8 years ago. I haven't been to it in awhile so I was very pleased with the renovations and new menu. It's gone from a run-down-dim-sum location to a swanky all-about-presentation location. There was some mix up with the restaurant location and times but in the end everything worked out and we had a spectacular meal. Yummy - I was so full. After dinner we invited Minh's family to come over to our house to hang out. We ended up playing poker with the lot of them till 5am. There's been very little sleep as the main family had partied till 4am the night before and everyone was running on very little sleep. :-) Typical behaviour for our 'late night" family...

new beginnings

"The road of life twists and turns and no two directions are ever the same. Yet our lessons come from the journey, not the destination."

On Wednesday Chicky and I got engaged! It was a total surprise and very sweet. He wanted to celebrate Valentine's Day early so we met up at his place after work and he cooked dinner. After dinner I gave him his V-day gift (the Planet Earth DVD set) and he went upstairs to get me mine. He came down with a big bouquet of flowers. I was so happy as it's been like a decade since he's boughten me flowers. :-) They were so fragrant as "our" flower is the Star Gazer lily, also mixed in the bouquet was roses and baby's breath. He also handed me a midsize box. I opened it up and was confused by the car parts. I didn't know what to say as Chicky has given me car parts as a present in the past and I wasn't sure if this was my real gift or if there was another gift hidden inside (which he also likes to do). So I gingerly ask what it is and keep poking around for the possibly of a hidden gift. He said it was some kind of coolant thing for your car. I came across an envelope under some of the wires and a wave of relief washed over me. Whew! It wasn't a car part after all - maybe a gift certificate. I had been hinting that I've been overworked and in desperate need of a massage package. I opened the envelope and see a picture of a ring inside. I didn't clue in and looked over to ask Chicky what it was. He was down on one knee and held out a ring box. I was in shock and didn't say anything at first. Lol - it was awkward, romantic and amusing all at once.

We wanted to tell our family right away but his were out of the country and mine weren't home. It wasn't till last night that my family finally found out. I didn't really want to tell anyone till our family knew but I was bubbling with excitement so I told some coworkers the next day. Now it's time to let the rest of the gang know.

Thank you for all the well wishes! I haven't had a chance to talk to most of you in person and feel bad about that. I'm sure we can touch bases soon.

making the news

On Saturday I took my car into the dealership for it's regular oil change. On the advice of the savy technician - I opted for a coolant flush as well. This turned out to be a BAD idea. My family and I were on our way to attend Nyah's 1st birthday party in Vancouver when our car troubles mounted. The 5 of us were on the highway (big Mike was driving my car) when it started jerking. I was a bit startled - as we were going quite fast and the roads were slick with rain. After a few more jerks the hood started to smoke up. By this time there was another car honking beside us and pointing to our hood. Everyone in the car was surprised. Mike tried to maneuver the car over to the side of the road. This was a bit scary as there was heavy traffic and the car was continuing to jerk and smoke. The rain and smoke made visibility horrible. We finally got to the shoulder unharmed. The other car had pulled up in front of us and was trying to help out. Chicky hopped out of the car and went to the hood while Mike tried to turn on the hazards and pop the hood. We were making quite the scene on the highway. Not knowing what was going on with the car - I felt anxious. Should all of us had gotten out of the car incase it catches fire?! We took our chances with a potential fire because no one had an umbrella and didn't want to stand in the rain.

A few minutes passed by and a cop car raced past us with it's lights blaring and sirens on. It was in the far left lane and we were on the right hand side. All of a sudden it stops and backs up. Great - just what we needed...more attention drawn to our car. The cop car cut across 2 lanes of traffic and stopped everyone on the highway. It didn't stop there. As Chicky was leaning over to talk to the officer - 2 fire engines come blazing up. I think someone called 911 - not us of course. Confused and excited by all the commotion and hoopla, I thought to myself - this would be fun to take a picture of. Lol - I was riding in the back seat so only saw Chicky talking to the cops. When the firemen jumped off the fire truck and ran over to my car - I was sure sure that they'd make us get out of the car and thus face the onlookers. :-) Luckily Mike talked to the firemen. Apparently there was an accident infront of us that they were responding to and thought that we were the ones that were in trouble. Oh no...I taking up precious emergency vehicle response time! So they rushed off after confirming that my car wouldn't blow up on the road. :-) So we made it to News 1130 as the car that was smoking and causing a delay on Highway 1 eastbound. :-) Hope you guys weren't on the highway then!

I spent the next 15 minutes trying to get a hold of Nissan road side assistance so that I could get the car towed. It turned out that a hose had detached which caused fluid to spill out of the car and smoke up the way it did. Stupid dealership - this is the second incident in which their service department has caused me grief. With 3 of us on cell phones we managed to get Little Mike and Carol to come rescue us from the highway. I left my car for the tow company to pick up and went straight to the dinner party.

Nyah's birthday party was really sweet. Betty & Hanif hosted it at a chinese restaurant. There were 7 tables, our family taking up nearly 2 tables, and TONS of food. :-) Betty made some yummy cupcakes for everyone to take home and of course gift bags for all the kids. After dinner we went over to Betty's house to hang out. Chicky and I had to take a detour first to see if my car was towed to the right location. We couldn't find it at the dealership. I had to call them later that night to find out where it was. It's very difficult getting in touch with a call center after midnight. :-) So at 4am Chicky and I gave up looking for the car in Coquitlam and I suggested swinging by the Nissan Burnaby location. I had told the call center earlier that night that I wanted it towed to Nissan Coquitlam but since it wasn't there - I thought that maybe the tow truck guy got lazy and towed it to the nearest Nissan - which would have been the Burnaby location. Low and behold - it was in the Burnaby lot.

I have all day workshops so left Chicky to deal with the car situation today. Luckily after a long day of meetings, Chicky left me an email message saying that my car was fixed by the Burnaby location, brought back to Coquitlam and is ready for pick up. They're also refunding my money for the "servicing" they did on Saturday. So dumb. Anyhow it's all over now - I have my car back. I'll have to see how it runs tomorrow. I'm so happy that Chicky is there to take care of things like this. I was fighting with an Ebay company last week and was unmotivated to take on another annoyance. :-) Last week was a long week, with work draining me and dealing with an incompetent Ebay seller. But that's another story. Seems like my series of "unfortunate" events has not stopped. :-) Oh well - makes for good blogging....