shower of happiness

On Sunday I attended Charlene's bridal shower. Her great aunt hosted it in North Vancouver. The party was very sweet. Even the folks from the Island were able to come over for the day. We chatted about the wedding, plans for the future, opened some presents and ate some great food. Kate was a cutie and helped her Auntie Charlene with gift opening. I took a few pictures for Charlene as keepsakes. I can't believe she'll be a married woman in a couple of weeks! How time flies. :-) Then it's off to Paris for the 2 of them. I'm looking forward to hearing about the wedding and honeymoon in a month or so!

cool down

On Saturday I slept in till 1pm. It was much needed sleep as this week has been so hectic and I haven't been home at all! Crawling out of bed still groggy and feeling like I could use another 10-12 hours of sleep (that's what you get for having just 6 hours of sleep during weekdays) - I managed to gather my clothes and do some laundry. There were a lot of chores that had to be tackled as they were left over from the weekend before (when I didn't do them). By the time it was 5pm - I had gotten a good handle on the chores and was on my way to pick up my mom from work. Chicky came over, we cooked dinner and ate it. After that we headed over to Chris' place for a visit. He's moving this week so his home is full of boxes. Cindy's excited about the move and hopes her baby won't come during this week as she wants to just concentrate on moving. :-) We'll all keep our fingers crossed for her. I didn't get home till late though - as Cindy and I were chatting about motherhood, parenting, family, in-laws, etc for a few hours. I think I drank too much tea. I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to sleep and miss out on Charlene's bridal shower the next morning.

La Rocco

On Friday night Tanya, Tracey, Shannon, Nicole and I went to La Rocco on Commercial Drive to celebrate Tracey's engagement. We all had a stressful week at work so were glad that we could vent to each other about it over some good wine. It took some time to settle on a restaurant and for everyone to get there (we had a few obstacles in our search for food). It's been awhile since the girls have sat down for dinner. It was nice to hear how everyone was doing, talk about the engagement and other girly stuff. :-) Hopefully we can do it again soon! I'll have to start up the dim sum thing after I get back from Malaysia.

golf & country club

On Thursday night I had dinner with Mary and Siew Kim at the Vancouver Golf & Country Club. The food and location was wonderful. Thursday night is all-you-can-eat-pasta night. The chefs prepare everything fresh for you. Mmm...so good. Plus you also got pick from a salad bar and a desert bar. I even befriended the Chef so I found out what the "secret" was to the delicious desserts. :-)

I enjoyed the evening with those ladies. It's always nice getting to know the "cousins" better. Most of the time I attend weddings from Chicky's family and am lost in the names and faces. I see the usual few and try to remember who they are and what they do. :-) Too bad we couldn't wear name tags! Before we knew it - 3 hours had passed by and it was time to go home.

night field trip

Tonight I went up to Burnaby Mountain with my photography class for a night field trip. When I got out of the car I instantly regretted not wearing my snow gear! It was FREEZING cold (at least it wasn't raining!). I went to my trunk - dug out whatever gym clothes I had in there (thank goodness I live out of my car!). Put on nearly 3 layers of clothes and still felt the crisp breeze. :-) Polyester work pants just don't cut it. I was feeling mighty sexy with my work pants tucked into my socks so that my sweat pants could fit over top. I wasn't planning on being infront of the camera tonight so it didn't really matter what I looked like - as long as I could still feel my fingers after half an hour then I'd call it a "good" night. I did use my camera bag as a fanny pack (for the first time) tonight as it was easier to move the tripod/camera around with it like that then having it continuously slip off my shoulder.

It was nice being up there and learning how to take pictures at night. I think that's one of the biggest challenges most of us have. Trying to get the right lighting. Most of my classmates were frozen after half an hour of shooting. We can't really wear gloves and fumble with little buttons on our cameras. It was so cold that some of us tried so share whatever toques/gloves we had with those that didn't have any. :-) Peter (the actor) sang show tunes at one point while some of us danced around to keep warm. He even lent me his toque for a bit so that my ears wouldn't fall off. Oh - the fun times! Actually it's fun hanging with them as we're all bending, crouching, crawling, etc in attempts to get the "perfect" angle for a shot. Plus we all have our own styles of photography so it's nice to look at other people's interpretation of the same scene. Too bad I didn't take any pictures of them "taking pictures" - as it's amusing watching people set up equipment or cope with the elements.

Here's a sample picture from tonight. See more here. In this picture my instructor is actually walking around under that tree and flashing it because it's REALLY dark outside (though you can't tell from the pic). You can't see him in the pic because he's moving. :-) Cool camera trick eh?

friends & family

Last night I had dinner with Chicky's family (without him). We celebrated Brandon's real birthday. The food was good and we talked about the upcoming Malaysia trip. Chicky's parents are heading out next week and we follow the week after that. The plans are coming together. Chicky booked our hotel in Singapore (it was fun deciding if we wanted to be cheapos and stay on the "red light district" or pay a bit more for a "normal" hotel). We went with the normal hotel. His parents booked us a 3 day tour to an island (Lankawi) which sounds really nice. Looking forward to that as well. :-) Where's my sunscreen?!

Tracey stopped by after work tonight. It was great to see her as I haven't seen in a couple of weeks an with the excitement of her engagement - she had to share the juicy details in person. She's such a sweetheart and it was hard not to share in the enthusiasm and delight in her voice/face. Shawn should be happy to have someone as caring as her for a wife!

After Tracey left, Thia stopped by to visit. :-) I had just gotten home and put on my jammies so it was nice to have the girls swing by. I've been trying to catch up with everyone as our lives are constantly changing and not everyone subscribes to blogging. Thia is doing well - she cut off off all her long hair. :-) I guess you don't need long hair after you get married right? We talked a bit about Nyah (as she went to visit Betty on the weekend) and also chit chatted about life in general. Thia is a very thoughtful girl too - always full of craft ideas! Hopefully we can have her and her husband over for another family poker game (cause I'm sure he'd love it).

Chuc Mung Nam Muoi

Happy New Year everyone! May this year bring you success in what you're pursuing, enough money to keep you happy and good health to keep you going.

Fu - Blessing, Good Fortune, Good Luck

Fu is one of the most popular Chinese characters used in Chinese New Year. It is often posted upside down on the front door of a house or an apartment. The upside down fu means good luck came since the character for upsite down in Chinese sounds the same as the character for came.

congrats Tracey

Congratulations to Tracey and Shawn who got engaged this weekend. :-) It's been a very good Chinese New Year. Lots of good news from all of the couples (an engagement and a new baby - who can beat that?!). We wish Tracey and Shawn many more years of happiness together! I'm looking forward to the wedding.

Happy Birthday Brandon

On Saturday Brandon celebrated his first birthday. The party was a success and everyone had fun. There was tons of food, drinks and presents for Brandon. It was great to see the cousins come out and play. Mary hosted the party at the Clubhouse complex in her mom's place. The Clubhouse is a great place to host a party as it's roomy but not not so spacious that people felt segregated. Here are some of the pics from the party.

Welcome Logan!

Congratulations to Michelle & Andy who gave birth to Logan on Saturday, Feb. 17th at 4:47am. Logan weighed in at 6.8lbs. Both mom and baby are doing well. Chicky and I went to visit with them this afternoon and got to take a few pictures. Not to worry though - Andy is a photo fanatic so I'm sure we'll get to many albums full of Logan, family and friends.

b-lated V-day

I spent a romantic Valentine's Day with my photography class and Chicky had volleyball. So in lieu of it all we went out for dinner and a movie on Friday night. Having been unsuccessful at getting into Cactus Club - we took our chances at Kefi. Neither of us have been there before. Plus we didn't want to wander far away from the theatre area. It was getting pretty late and I was starving! The greek food was good and the line up was not too bad. After dinner we went over to the theatre to watch Ghost Rider. I think it's about time Nicolas Cage retired from action flicks. I swear he had a body double in the movie! :-)

Nyah

Sunday afternoon we went over to visit Betty & Hanif. They had other guests at their home as well so it was quite the crowd hovering over little Nyah. :-) We all wanted to hold, touch, take pictures of her - and all got a chance to do so. Betty is pretty good with letting everyone handle Nyah - which is a good thing as Betty wants her to be an "easy" baby. Even when she's not feeling up to par - Betty still wants to be the good hostess and was on her feet trying to serve people snacks and drinks. She didn't listen to our protests and advice that she should be sitting and taking it easy. :-) Betty - the mini-Martha-Stewart.

Nyah loves attention - she was alert and awake the whole time. She's such a cute little baby! A good weight and a head full of hair! Nyah is doing well - eating tons and sleeping lots (well - as much as a newborn normally does). I don't think they'll have any problems keeping her a chubby baby! Here's a preliminary picture. Betty is doing well - coping with motherhood and side effects of having a C-section. She's got a good support system and many helpers (as this is the first grandchild for both her family and Hanif's). We wish Betty all the best for a speedy recovery! I'm sure there will be even more pictures in the weeks to come.

paparazzi

On Sunday morning, Chicky and I got up early and headed downtown with our camera equipment in tow. I had a photography field trip and Chicky was going to be my lens-and-tripod-caddy. The weather was not so idealistic (cold and raining). I was cold just walking from Chicky's place to the meeting spot (Vancouver Art Gallery). We found our group easily - just looked for the group of tripod set up on the street.

We spent an hour with the group taking pictures of various things. Because we were right across the street from the gallery, on-lookers stopped by to ask us questions about what we were doing or if a movie star was in town. :-) I think it was because most of the time our cameras were pointed across the street and there were some white tents set up at the Gallery (for the unveiling of the VANOC clock).

If you want to see some of the pictures we took that day - go here.

baby shower

Saturday afternoon was Cindy's baby shower. Josie, Charlene and I organized it and it was a good turn out. We ate, played games and talked about all the womanly stuff involved in pregnancy, birth and parenting. It also gave every one a chance to catch up with each other. We're all excited about the arrival of baby-Lee! Hopefully not too soon though! :-)

Chris has been sweet enough to post the pictures for me. Check out the pictures here:
http://www.pbase.com/cindyandchrislee - password: elsa

how romantic are you?

I was just looking at the Womens Health website to see if there are any interesting articles about health and fitness. Came across a quiz and couldn't resist. I'm sucker for all those "what are you" kind of surveys/quizzes.

So with Valentine's Day pending - how romantic are you?

day off

I took the day off today to run some errands with Josie. Went out to Richmond to have lunch with Chicky. Took some time to find a location that wasn't too busy as he had the get back to work. We ended up having lunch at Tropika - food was alright.

After lunch I met up with Josie at her parent's house. Josie had been training for the Sun Run this morning so Katarina was hanging out with her mom in the meantime.

Each time I see Katarina - she's so much bigger. Right now she's so curious about everything and likes to crawl towards stuff and put it into her mouth. She's in that stage where everything she gets her hands on goes straight into her mouth for further investigation. :-)

It's always nice hanging out with Josie as she's chipper and speaks her mind. All good qualities. :-) Now to find time to meet up with the rest of the girls for more bonding!

it's a girl!

Congratulations Betty & Hanif!

It's a girl! Oh no - I had guessed it was going to be a boy. :-) That's alright though - girl stuff is so much cuter to buy!

B&H welcomed the newest addition to their family on Feb. 7th at 10:13pm. The baby's name is "Nyah" and weighed in at 8.5lbs! Wow - that's a big baby considering her mommy is barely 5 feet tall. :-) I haven't seen Nyah yet but hopefully will be able to visit this weekend. Pictures to come.

It's been a week and I haven't written anything in here. Duh - sorry about that. Nothing really exciting happened on the weekend. Just hung out with my family. The upcoming weekend will be full of events to blog about though. Check in next week for updates.

I do write in my photography blog though if you guys are in dire need of reading something from me. Most of it is about pictures, etc - nothing worth gossiping about.

I'm having fun with my photography class and really enjoy the class, student and teacher. My instructor cares about us (must be the fact that there's only 5 of us in the class). I missed last weeks class as I was so sleep deprived that I fell asleep before class and didn't wake up till the next day. Glen (the teacher) called my cell phone the next day to see how I was. I didn't have time to reply to his message (partially out of guilt as well). So on Friday he called back to see why I hadn't returned his call the night before. I told him the truth and he was nice enough to give me the whole photography lesson on the phone. It was strange but useful doing it that way. He didn't want me to be behind in class. :-) I'm always the (last) one walking in exactly at 7pm and everyone has to wait for me before the class starts. Ah...such a bad student. In my defence I attribute it to travel time from North Vancouver and not knowing where to park when I get to the school and not knowing how to find the classroom. :-) Thank goodness for the PDA (has all my class information on it).

khai

On Tuesday Chicky and went out for dinner at Khai on Seymour and Robson. It was Thai food with flare! The restaurant is nicely decorated in traditional Thai fixtures. The waitresses are pretty in their traditional costumes as well. :-) Yes - I enjoy my food more when it's presented to me by good looking people!

We ended up ordering an appetizer sampler. Spring rolls, calamari, fish cakes and an unknown purple-flower-looking thing (can't really see it in the pic). I made Chicky be the guinea pig. The purple mass turned out to be some kind of rice roll with a sweet filling. I would rank it as a dessert than as an appetizer. For our main course Chicky order "chicken with garlic rice". What he envisioned was not what appeared on our table. :-) Oh well...learning experience. I went with my usual "spicy green beans" dish. Can't go wrong with that...or can you?! The waitress asked me how hot I wanted it - so I said..."sure...make it hot". Ah...my version of hot and theirs is totally different. Chicky and I were in tears after a couple of bites. We frowned at our food (as neither of us was really satisfied) and managed to eat as much as we could. My dish was too spicy so we had to compensate with more rice, water and slurping down Chicky's MSG soup.

The food wasn't as good as Green Basil. I think I'll take Chicky there sometime so that he can compare. :-)

time flies

On Saturday we celebrated Chris' 30th birthday. I can't believe how fast time has flown by. It seemed like just yesterday that we were all gathered in Chris' basement and playing video games. Duh...wait...that was yesterday! :-) Well - some things haven't changed much. I'm happy to have been able to celebrate many of the big milestones in his life. Looking forward to celebrating your big 4-0!

Chris has been sweet enough to organize the pictures into one central location. Check them out here.

http://www.pbase.com/cindyandchrislee - PASSWORD: elsa