trading spaces

Change seems to be the word of the day for Kel and I. With a new baby on the way and a new home to move into - I've put together another website for "us".

Disclaimer: (for Kel who is reading this) Kel provided the structure of the site and I provided content.

We've taken the KKYEE brand (used for our wedding website) and redone it so that you can keep up with what's going on in our lives. My current blog site had always been about me and what keeps me amused. The new site is more dedicated to our life together as a family. Check it out when you have the chance. Better yet - update your links to the new site as I'll be posting in there from now on.

Kim & Kel's Universe

June update

I'm getting really terrible at updating this blog. :-) Blame it on the pregnancy. Things have been hectic in the KKYEE household. Here are some of the things that's kept our noses to the ground...

House
The ongoing dream of living in a house continues. It seems like we've been looking for a house for years. Maybe we have! Kel and I put the condo up for sale 2 weeks ago and have been spending our weekends hunting down a new home. My sister Carol is our real estate agent (nurse by day). Sometimes it's nice to have your sister as your agent as you can say things straight up without worrying about being political. Plus it makes it easier when we send her into the wolves's den with super low ball offers! We decided to live with Kel's parents as one big happy family. That meant that instead of meeting our own criteria for a new home - we also had to consider theirs. This was the problem last year when we started house-dreaming...the 4 of us couldn't agree on a home. This year is more successful. We found a few homes that were good and suited our needs. We even made some offers on them but alas - the offers fell through as the sellers didn't see eye-to-eye with us. The value of a home is so subjective. Good news though. We are now in the midst of clearing the clauses off of a current accepted offer. If all goes well - we could be the proud owners of a Port Moody house this weekend. :-) Keep your fingers crossed! Now if only someone would buy the condo...

Baby
I'm now 6 months pregnant. We're done with all the testing and ultra sounds - everything looks great. We even found out the sex of the baby! Think BLUE. :-) As I head into the final trimester, the feeling of being pregnant is more real. The summer heat is not helping at all. My feet have swollen up to the point of not fitting into shoes. Boohoo. I've resorted to wearing flip flops to work - not very professional but at least I can move around. I just have to work till the end of August then I'm off for a month to "relax" before the big day. As the heat rises - my desire to stay in the condo diminishes. The baby is getting pretty big now and when I waddle around I look even more prego then ever. It's a very fascinating feeling having the baby inside of me. He's kicking more so now and appears to respond to sound and touch. Kel and I enjoy bugging him while in the womb by pressing down on my belly to see if he'll respond to us. :-)

Work
What's there to say - Kel is a workaholic and I have crazy shifts. The super early morning shifts leave me more tired in the afternoon and I feel like dozing at the wheel. Bad combo: tired preggo and driving. Needless to say my car has suffered from my drowsiness - I scraped into a post while trying to park. Aiyah! I was too tired to even care. On a tech note, Kel got a crackberry from work (about time since his other work phone was ancient). Now his work can bug him 24/7. Joy.

that tropical feeling

Today is such a beautiful day. The sun is shining and the condo is a nice toasty tropical temperature. :-) It's making me and my new orchids happy! They're thriving in the humidity of the condo so it's making me super happy to come home and see new blossoms!

G-spot

Just wanted to say that I love my Snoogle. Chicky got it for me for my birthday. It's an overly priced body pillow but who cares. What makes mommy happy makes daddy happy right? With my expanding belly - I'm finding it challenging at night to find a comfy position. I cuddle Snoogle and it cuddles me back. What a perfect relationship we have - I drag it around the condo and it never complains. It's quite a big pillow so it takes up a lot of room on the bed - I think Chicky is getting jealous of how much time Snoogle and I spend together. :-)

updates

It's been awhile since I've blogged. Life has been hectic with work, etc. Here are some updates:

Attended Joshua's birthday party and had a great time catching up with friends and seeing how big the kids have grown. I can't believe he's 2 already - where does time fly?

My baby bump is getting more noticeable. I've finally told my coworkers so its public knowledge, which is a relief as I can wear my maternity clothes in freedom. On the downside - sleeping is getting difficult with the growing belly and my stuffed up nose. I find that my allergies have worsened ever since the pregnancy. This only sucks because I can't take any medication for it. So I have to suffer - boo!

On the weekend I stopped by the house and took some pictures of Tyson and Lily. Those 2 are growing up so fast too! I see Tyson often (as they live close) but Lily comes down once every other week so she's full of surprises when she's here.

busy little bee

Hi everyone,

It's been a while since I've had a chance to get to writing in this blog. Things have been pretty hectic as of late. If you don't know by now. We're pregnant! Yup - I'm 11 weeks pregnant (not yet 3 months) and am excited about the whole experience. The pregnancy has been ok so far. I'm mostly tired and don't suffer from nausea too badly (knock on wood). I've had one scan done but unfortunately the image is too blurry to post onto the website. The baby looks healthy and normal. I'm gaining weight at a steady pace and it's getting a bit hard to hide the pregnancy at work. I've had many people ask but I haven't confirmed with them. I'll probably tell the group next week though when I'm 12 weeks.

The baby is not the only thing that's occupied my time. I've been working like crazy. We've been understaffed for awhile so I've been working 6 days a week and sometimes that includes 12 hour shifts. Shift work is not exciting as it's unpredictable. There is one good thing that has come out of all of this. My hard work has enabled me to move up to the next level of analyst. Yah! More money, more responsibilities...DUH! The downside is that the shift bid came out last week and my new shift is Tuesdays to Saturdays. So my days off are now Sunday and Monday. This is sort of good as Mondays are the busiest day at work. Bummer is that my Saturdays are basically ruined. The weather hasn't been too good lately so I don't mind being inside on Saturdays. There are only 2 of us working on Saturdays (one in Victoria and me) so it gives me the opportunity to do things like blog! :-) It's a bit slow right now so I'm sitting here at work blogging.

Hopefully I'll be able to catch up with everyone soon. Miss you all!

too lazy to loadup

Time has flown by and I haven't done anything with the wedding pictures. :-) There's no excuse really - I'm down right lazy! The good thing is that Andy is on top of the ball and had loaded them to his website. Follow the link below...

http://www.andme.ca/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.ShowItem&g2_itemId=21238

home movies

Kim Anh sent me a funny movie that I thought I'd share with the rest of you. It reminds of the blockbuster buster that Chris, Chicky, Toshiki, John & John made oh so many years ago...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goix7jFXD9Q

uploads

I had some time tonight to upload pictures from Lily and Gregory's birthday parties plus a few more pics of the condo renos from August. See the my web album. Both kids turned 1 this month. How sweet that they're growing up so fast.

in need of a toque

This morning I went with Chicky down to Lasik MD for a consultation. He wants to get laser eye surgery. I've had mine done 3 years ago and can't imagine life with glasses again. If you ever get the opportunity to have it done - do so! The consulatation would take 2 hours to complete so I decided to walk over to Stanley Park and take a stroll on the sea wall. I brought my camera with me in case there was anything interesting to take a picture of.

The weather was very chilly (no sun till noon) and my ears/cheeks froze. I was in dire need of a toque. Luckily I had mittens so every now and then I would take my hands out of the mittens and put it against my face for warmth. Though it was brisk outside, there were surprising a lot of people on the sea wall. I saw many runners, bikers and families out for an early morning stroll. The park is still recovering from the winter blahs so there wasn't much to take a picture of (in my opinion anyways). I took one of the lookout lighthouse cause there was this seagull staking claim to it. There were a few people taking pictures of the Vancouver city skyline but that didn't really interest me. :-) I looked around the Yacht club to see if there were any interesting ships parked there today.

So if all goes as planned, Chicky will have his eyes zapped on Thursday and will be free from glasses as of next weekend. :-)

a year in review

Happy New Year!
Chuc Mung Tan Nien
Xin Nian Kuai Le
Manigong Bagong Taon!
Akimashite Omedetto Gozaimasu

2008 had been an amazing year for me full of many changes and new experiences. There's so much to remember and reminisce about. A few big one are...

• getting engaged
• planning a wedding or two
  
• getting married to the love my life!
  
• 2 new babies in the family (Lily & Tyson)
• more new babes (Gregory & Evan)
  
• 2 friends falling deeper in love: Shawn & Tracey's wedding
  
• a great academic accomplishment: Dr. Shannon Ho Sui!
  
• first time cruising
  
• first time in Greece & Egypt
• setting up a home
• a new cell phone (twice!)

We wish everyone a lucky, prosperous and happy 2009! We look forward to sharing in all your life-moments. :-)

See 2008 as seen through a lens:
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/12/the_year_2008_in_photographs_p.html

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...