Hi All~

Been kinda busy lately with all the activities. Here are some photos. FYI-More pictures of hiking are coming for Summer is almost gone so Des and I want to do the most of it.

NEWS FLASH: As in August 29 2007, Viola can crawl…. (video will be updated soon)

One day while my brother, Stefen, was minding his own business at his school in Spore, he was approached by the school “bla bla” department asking him to join this Mr. Pageant. Being the risky boy he is, he said “for the heck of it, why not?” There were 5 male and 5 female who are seeking this Rock King and Rock Queen titles.

My brother won!!!!!! hhahahahah unbelievable. I was so happy for him because in these short 2 years, he has changed a lot. He has tons of friends, and become outgoing. Way to go, titi!!!!!!

I do not miss the night market. But Elisa does. And she dragged me to go. Being a good husband, of course, I agreed to go. Gotham’s family joined us there. Miles is so cute. He actually let me hold him for a fraction of a second before jumping back to his dad.

Who said camera on cellphone is useless? Most of the time, Elisa and I do not have my camera with us but she does have her cellphone which comes with pretty neat camera. Mine is a total crap.

Do not put $1 in this kiddie ride. It ate the money and do not move the bloody plane. Oh well, there was music and Viola seemed to enjoy it.

Elisa and Viola self shot when they are bored.

And of course we did not bring camera to the playground when Viola was swinging. Elisa’s cellphone came to the rescue again.

I felt so tired recently from doing nothing. So, I decided to join the hiking group this time to Lynn Canyon Park. There were 8 of us. Viola was the oldest and the heaviest babies. About 15 minutes into the hike, I started to feel the tension on my shoulders. But seeing other moms chatting away as if they were in a mall, I let out a long breath of determination. I could not believe I did not give up half way there. I did not dare to look at the steps above. I just kept my vision down, concentrate on the path I am hiking instead of the big picture. Viola was so happy all through the hike, kept on mumbling. Good day for a hike and good workout for me.

After eight years at McKesson, I finally decided to leave my comfort zone and look for another opportunities. I joined ALI when it has 80 people. I experienced ALI grew and acquired by McKesson and blossomed to 800 people. You may call my crazy, but I left a stable and huge company to a small and risky startup. I am employee number 12. Am I excited? I am passed excited stage. I don’t know what to feel. But I am ready to step into this new environment and learn and be challenged.

Between jobs, I have one week off and we decided to take a mini vacation to Portland and Oregon’s coast. The trip was a blast. We put on 1300+ kms to our car in four days time. From sightseeing in Portland, no sales tax in Oregon for all shoppings, seeing Viola discovering sand, et cetera et cetera. This trip, I am the one who spent the most on shopping – which usually not the case at all.

Anyway, enjoy the photos.

Viola and I decided to watch DVD (the Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron) while waiting for her dad to come home. This was the first time that Viola concentrated for the first 10-15 minutes watching a movie. Look at her facial expression, those are when the Spirit, the wild Stallion runs freely. The last expression was when the Spirit was caught. She started screaming and crying. Do they really know what is going on?

Viola’s uncle Len came and visited us on Friday. Viola was so happy playing the red ball with him. See-she does like you, Len!!

I decide to cut Viola nails before our road trip and for the last nail, I accidentally… short said, she was bleeding. Caffe, our dog, had this same incident before (not by me by the way). We called our vet and he said that flour can stop the bleeding so Desmon fetched us a bowl of flour (bad move). Viola grabbed the bowl and showered herself with flour. Now, my bed is filled with flour. Bad bad bad….

I was so thrilled when Viola started to mumble. I hear more and more along the line of “mum-mum” or “mama”. Couple times, I caught her said “pa—-pa”. Desmon heard that too.

But, is it just our feeling because that is what we expect to hear from our own child or she simply just babling away. Either or, I will catch her actions on videos more.

These past two days, Viola has been giving me attitudes. She would scream when she does not want to eat something. Like mad scream. She would place her fingers to her mouth after each feeding, I pulled her hand out, and not only that she resisted but also screamed on my face. I wonder where she got that from!!!

British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada’s provinces and is famed for its natural beauty, aka Splendour without diminishment. It was the sixth province to join the Canadian Confederation and residents are referred to as British Columbians. The capital of British Columbia is Victoria while the largest city is Vancouver, which is also Canada’s third-largest metropolitan area, with its population of 4,113,487 in the year of 2006. (Wikipedia)

Anyway, good to have another long weekend!!!

I recently just joined a hiking group and my first meeting was at Buntzen lake that usually takes about 2-3 hours to hike around the lake. I did the hike couple times with Des before. And, that was before I had Viola. So, I thought hei-maybe this would be fun and I invited Serene and Lucas as well since they live very close by to Buntzen Lake. I was so excited that I got to the location 45 minutes early (the meeting is at 10am). At about 9:55am, everyone started to arrive and introduced themselves.Everyone was very equipped with their backpack baby carrier or their baby bjorns. We started to hike or rather walk, I think about 30 mins more or less, my shoulders started to heat up from Viola’s weight and my backpack. Luckily, Serene saved me and suggested that maybe we had enough. So we had back and drove to McD for drive-thru fast food for our lunch. Ha ha ha ha. Here are some of the photos!

P.s. Your house is LOVELY, Serene!!!!