time to catch up!

i've been at a loss for words lately. it's been a very overwhelming 3 weeks, and i could never figure out how to start a blog entry. but now, for the most part, life is chugging along as it should.

it all started when my grandma was hospitalized for a week...she was having heart problems and had fluid around her lungs. it's not the first time it's happened, but at her age, a big big concern. after that my mother-in-law was hospitalized w/appendicitis...there were some complications that arose and the family rallied together. good news is that she's at home and recovering for the next 6 weeks. then we had to say farewell to keah :-( she was a good girl who lived a long happy life. i have lots of pictures and fond memories to look back on. and to top off the 3 weeks, my grandma is back in the hospital because she's having digestion problems now. we saw her today, and she's looking normal and happy, so hopefully she'll be discharged within the week. she's got a kick-ass view of downtown from her room, plus a tv and a phone! not that it helps her out since she can't watch the japanese channels ;-)

so needless to say, i really don't need to see any hospitals for a long long long time.

at least in-between all the chaos, chris and i got away to victoria for an overnight trip. i forgot that i had "won" a getaway to victoria at the benefits of caring fundraiser last year, so we quickly booked it before it expired on november 1. so the 3 of us hopped in the car and ferried our way to the island. nugget was an excellent dog on the trip - well-behaved on the ferry, he slept on his blanket in the hotel room, and he was well-mannered in the many restaurants we hit. while we were in victoria, we also bought nugget his halloween costume! he's going to be a football player :-) it was nice to get away and just forget about everything, even though it was only for 24 hours.

farewell keah, my puppy girl

i hope doggy heaven treats you well. none of my PADS puppies will ever replace you. i miss you keah-girl!

christmas 2002 - look at my presents! yup, that's my piggy :-)













moving day 2004 - don't leave me behind!










wedding day 2005 - our family together

"all in" for united way

here i am, stuck in the office on a beautiful friday afternoon right before the long weekend. it's just wrong! so, i'm gonna leave a bit early and take nuggers to the doggy park! fun times :-)

anyways, last week we had our annual united way fundraising campaign for united way. our 3rd annual poker tournament against our competitors was held last night. we had 40 people turn out for the event, and over $1,500 in pledges was raised for the united way. my 1st year playing in the tournament was nerve-racking...it was my first tournament. i missed the 2nd year due to a conflict. so last night i was all geared up and ready to win! but i didn't. i was the 2nd person kicked out at our table...only took 15 minutes :P my pocket queens got beat out by a girl w/ace nine off-suit...she ended up with 2 full houses. beesatch.

anyways, our firm was well-represented at the final table though and one of our own managed to win the tournament! yah! in her 1st "real" tournament, debbie came in 3rd place...not too shabby! and matt won the prize for most pledges collected :-) all-in-all, it was a fun evening, and everyone came out to support a great charity. i can't wait for next year's tournament...i think i need a bit more practice though.

happy thanksgiving everyone!

catching up, and why "it's all about ME"

i can't believe it's been so long since my last post. i'm not really sure what we've been up to that i don't have time for an entry. what's been going on...

• the start of regular dinner's w/chris' family
• angela's wine & cheese bridal shower, hosted by sandra, pauline, and amy
• dinner w/my family to celebrate our 2 year anniversary :-)
• dinner w/friends
• angela & ryan's wedding

so, i have to elaborate on my day yesterday. on friday night, nugget was picked up for a weekend away from home with a puppysitter. taking full advantage of my "freedom", i finally used my gift certificate for spa utopia...i booked myself the utopia signature facial (as usual, i fell asleep) and the exclusive utopia manicure - 2.5 hours of bliss for me :-) what could be better? due to some poor planning on my part, i'm actually having another facial in 2 weeks. it appears as though i let a few gift certificates slip through the crack, so i have to cram everything in before november 1!

enough about me! in addition to yesterday being my dad's birthday, we were out witnessing and celebrating angela & ryan's marriage. i actually didn't take too many pictures cuz my battery started to die (argh!), plus, my camera is old and slow, so nothing really worked for me (guess i really do need to upgrade soon). also it appears as though several other friends took lots of pictures, so i'm sure they'll end up on facebook soon enuf ;-) the wedding took place at the fairmont hotel vancouver - what a beautiful setting for their wedding. everything was so elegant, from the colour scheme ang (and ryan) picked, the flowers (elizabeth tse does AMAZING work, and i'm honoured that my own wedding flowers made 2 appearances on her website), the banquet room, and of course, angela was a gorgeous bride!

and no wedding is complete without speeches! i swear, the only time i cry during weddings is when speeches are being made - it never fails - but i think this is the most i've cried at a wedding before. ryan and ang had me tearing up (that's when i discovered my mascara isn't very waterproof :P) and cracking up. i hope ryan's "oh shit!" remark gets edited out of the wedding video! also, i think this is one of the few weddings i've attended where both the bride and groom shed tears. i think that made me cry even more! next time, no mascara!

then came the drinking. and more drinking. it wasn't a pretty sight by the bar. but, it was all in good fun, and everyone enjoyed themselves and got home safely! and that's it for my 2007 weddings!


and now after a very busy week, it's time i resume cooking.

blimey! it's the never-ending week :(

sigh...it's been quite a week. i swear, the days go by slow and the nights just fly by.

it started out great on sunday with a visit from natasha. she came over to play with nugget...fortunately he had just been to the doggy park and was somewhat more laid back than usual.

monday night puppy-cuddling has temporarily resumed again, as 2 of the girls were taken from their puppyraisers and are waiting for new raisers. my girl cary is one of them :( she's so lovely, and i truly believe she remembers me. at least she has a playmate in grace...the 2 of them together are quite a pair! (i found out that one of the dogs gave birth on tuesday, so i'm looking forward to 8 new puppies at PADS in november!)

ah tuesday. what a day that was :P right before lunch the fire alarm went off (there was in fact a small fire that set off the alarms), and nugget and i had to evacuate the building along with everyone else. 19 flights of stairs w/me and the dog. well, of course a small disaster happened. the stairs were a bit slippery for my boy, so his paws didn't grip very well and he slipped, then i pulled him back so he wouldn't fall down the entire flight, and then sure enough i fell down myself. fortunately i only fell down 2 steps on my bum-bum, and i was even more thankful that i had some of my co-workers around me (god forbid anything bad should happen to me and nugget). the next 15 flights of stairs were fairly uneventul. of course, the pain kicked in later that day :( in the evening we took nuggers to class, where chris was in control cuz i was in too much pain by that point. i wouldn't have been able to control nugget w/his friends all around him.

it seems as though nugget is eating a lot of bark at the doggy park. it was only a matter of time before he suffered the consequences...yes, he threw up overnight :P twice. fortunately it wasn't as bad as the time we had fraser who peed, pood and barfed in one night. so on wednesday night after another trip to the doggy park, we threw nugget into our bathtub for a cleaning. boy, does he look young and handsome now!

onto a more "me" topic...i finally went to kin's tonight and i stocked up on fruit: green grapes, white peaches, organic bananas, and asian pears. tomorrow's going to be a kick-ass breakfast!

2 years of wedded bliss ;-)

hahaha! who am i kidding?! j/k!

it's hard to believe that it's been 2 years since chris and i got married. as i think back, a couple things haven't changed: the weather at 6 a.m. is the same as 2 years ago...wet and not really sure if the sun is going to make an appearance; and i'm sick...2 years ago i was just getting over a cold - i blamed that on wedding stress.

so, what has changed? not a whole heck of a lot i guess. chris and i are now responsible "parents", nugget's life lies in our hands whereas 2 years ago i owned fighting fish which died shortly after purchase :P i guess that's it. i don't feel any older, i don't look any older. well, sometimes i feel old...like when i go to bed at 11 p.m. on a friday night :P

ah well, happy 2nd anniversary to me & chris :-) to celebrate, we're doing absolutely nothing. well that's not entirely true...i'm going to play with the puppies tonight! then we're having nachos for dinner. maybe we'll dine by candlelight. on second thought...there's not enough room on the tv table for a candle :P

remedy for a cold

from what i can recall, this is my 4th cold of 2007. i haven't done anything differently from last year, so i'm not really sure why i'm always sick. at least this time round i haven't missed any work. yet.

we were talking about fruits and vegetables at work last week, and i realized i don't eat nearly as much as i should. so, starting tomorrow (or maybe tuesday depending if i get to the market tomorrow) i will try to eat at least 2 servings of fruits/vegetables a day (i guess i can't count the apple/custard danish from cobs as a serving? but do the green onions and tomatoes on the nachos count?). i'm not sure if my latte counts as a serving of dairy or not, so perhaps i'll increase my intake to a full cup of dairy a day (in addition to the cheese on the nachos). too much milk and i get "issues".

this is all in advance of my annual health test at work on tuesday morning. i did an online survey questionnaire, and my results weren't too good (as i well expected). but it's not like i do anything w/the results. it's just a good thing to know. at least i've been forewarned, right? ah well, 2008 is just around the corner. perhaps i'll consider starting something next year.

as if.

mochi....be damned!

well, i've met my match in the kitchen! after 2 disasters w/the mochi flour, i've run out of the stuff and i've given up. i don't care how much i loved nobu's mochi ice cream, the failed effort is just not worth it anymore. i give up, and i'm not gonna bother for awhile. sorry girls, you'll just have to fly to new york or las vegas or wherever and try it for yourselves.

plus i'm still sick, so i just don't give a damn anymore.

i'm sure my 3rd try will be better. after all, i did progress further on my 2nd try. maybe by the 5th try, i'll actually have a dessert put together. whatever. i don't give a hoot.

we screamed, we danced, we had a "sexy back" time

after months and months of waiting, sel and i finally went to the justin timberlake concert on wednesday night. after patiently sitting through good charlotte, his opening act, jt finally hit the stage at 9:15. from that point on it was absolute insanity! this guy deserves props. not only does he sing, but he's a musician (he played the guitar and piano) and a great dancer (which is a far cry from britney spears' performance on mtv last night)!

about an hour into the show, he took an "intermission" while timbaland (who i also love!) did a solo performance for about 15 minutes. his "performance" was a little different...a compilation of music from artists he's worked with (nelly furtado, aaliyah, missy elliott, etc. etc.) as well as a visual show on the curtain screens. very interesting. of course he performed "the way i are", which i love. then justin returned to the stage for more booty-shaking excitement! of course, he saved "sexy back" till the very end of his show, and everyone was singing and dancing along. the concert was ridiculously fun!

i have to say that i enjoyed this concert a lot more than christina aguilera's. it's probably because sel and i had lower bowl seats, so there were less high-pitched screaming young girls w/their mothers. perhaps it was because the stage was in the centre of gm place, and i could actually see jt up-close-and-personal. good times :-)

holiday weekend

Wow, what a crazy busy week we’ve had!

On Thursday afternoon, my team headed out on a colleague’s boat for a cruise to Snug Cove on Bowen Island. I can’t believe I’ve never been to that island before…it’s super cute! Nugget was a very polite guest…once we hoisted him onboard, he slept for the entire trip at the back of the boat. On the return trip he was a bit curious, so I brought him to the front of the boat to enjoy the view. He seemed to like the wind whipping through his fur :-)

As if a boat cruise wasn’t enough for my NuNu, Chris and I took him to the off-leash doggy park for the first time! There were about 8 other dogs of different sizes already in the enclosed area, and Nugget couldn’t wait to get his nose near them for a good’ol sniff! The park is his little doggy heaven :-) What a tired dog we had afterwards!

As the weekend approached, we just kept getting busier! On Friday, Sharon & Travis hosted a bbq at their place, and they were kind enough to let Nugget join the fun. Asides from poking Matt in the bumbum, our boy was very good. He’s adjusted very well to condo-living, and for a large dog he manages well in small spaces.

On Saturday, Sandra, Angela and I resumed our “cooking” group. This time we tackled Japanese food…miso soup w/wakame, tofu and enoki mushrooms, make-your-own-sushi (for fillers we had: egg, bacon, enoki mushrooms, salmon sashimi, tuna sashimi, cucumber, japanese pickles, avocado, and teriyaki beef), black cod in miso sauce (fujiya has marinated fish), and black sesame crème brulee for dessert. Yum yum! I’ve discovered I still have a lot to learn about kitchen “stuff”…apparently I bought the wrong type of fuel for my kitchen torch :P

After living in our condo for 1.5 years, we finally used our common room and bbq! We invited a bunch of friends over on Sunday for some good eats. I put my domestic skills to work and made spinach dip (always a favourite!), pasta salad w/a dill, olive oil and balsamic vinaigrette, Caesar salad (with the Earl’s secret recipe!), and an apple crisp w/homemade vanilla ice cream. Chris was the bbq-tionist, and he had the lamb chops, boerwors, and maui ribs grilled to perfection!

To end our busy holiday weekend, we joined Geoff & Sunny (and family) for a delicious hotpot dinner in Richmond. We were “cooking” up a storm…prawns, lamb, beef, enoki mushrooms, noodles, “balls”, wontons, assorted veggies! So, so yummy! Makes me want to do hotpot at home again…but I think I’ll wait a few more months.