Wednesday, April 30, 2008

RIP Ari


(Photos will enlarge in another window)

Ari passed away this morning from a cardiac arrest. I received the call at 2:06am and although I knew it was coming, it was still very hard to accept the fact that he will no longer be with us. The doctor allowed me to come to the hospital right away to see him but advised me not to drive on my own and to get someone to drive me there. My mom was kind enough to drive me as I had called Rhoda over and over but she must have been in a deep sleep. Once I arrived, the nurse brought Ari out to me, he was nicely cleaned and wrapped up and his body was still warm. He looked as though he was just sleeping and I couldn't believe he would never lick my face again. Although I am completely heartbroken and devastated, I know that his suffering has ended and no dog (or person) should ever have to go through what he had to. Thankfully, he was not in any pain because he was heavily sedated when he passed, I knew that the condition he was in, we would not have much time left with him but I could not bring myself to put him down. We loved him with both our hearts and soul, we miss him dearly, our lives will feel empty without him but we will never ever forget the happiness and joy he brought to our lives. The last 8 months with him have been wonderful, joyous, loving, and full of life. He was our best loyal friend and his life made our life. I would not have it any other way.

WE LOVE YOU ARI.
YOUR PAW PRINTS WILL BE ETCHED INTO OUR HEARTS FOREVER.

I never knew I could hurt like this
And everyday life goes on like
"I wish I could talk to you for awhile"
"I wish I could find a way try not to cry"
As time goes by
And soon as you reach a better place
Still I'll give the whole world to see your face
And I'm right here next to you
It feels like you gone too soon
The hardest thing to do is say bye bye

Bye Bye - Mariah Carey E=MC Squared

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Ari


Ari is not doing too well, he seems to be under the weather and is def not himself. The spark is gone from his eyes but we are hoping he just has the flu......

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Congrats!

Tonight, I missed out on the monthly dinner with Trav, Lisa, Grace, Rhoda and babies. I feel terrible that I did cos there was some good news to share! Grace and Sheldon are expecting! Yeah! Second baby on the way!! Plus Tristan has grown so much since the last time I saw him but then babies change weekly! So happy for them and there is now another baby in the group :)

Sunday, April 20, 2008

Trout Lake Park

After dim sum, we headed home and while mom ran her errands, I managed to do a little bit of housework. It was a really nice sunny day (although it was hot and cold!) to be outside. Rhoda sent me a text earlier in the afternoon to see if I was interested in taking the dogs out for a walk, she had to run some errands first and would drop by right after. I thought that was a great idea and Trout Lake Park isn't that far from where we live. The walk is not too far or long and if Ari gets tired (which I know he can get pretty tired easily), I could just carry him home :) She arrived a little after 4pm and we went for our walk, I never realized how dog friend Trout Lake is! There is an off leash area and a leashed area on either side of the lake. Although, the park wasn't well kept probably due to all the dogs and dogwalkers, it was still a really nice park to take our little boys to. They quite enjoyed the walk and both were ready to pass out when we got home! Rhoda stayed for dinner and we went upstairs to eat cos mom and grandma had made dinner for us. Of course, we brought our own brown rice cos we don't eat white rice well we actually limit our white carb intake. I wasn't really that hungry at dinner cos we had so much at dim sum but everything on the dinner table was yummy and all our fave dishes! It was a great day with family and BFFs :)

Dim Sum at Imperial Restaurant

Grandma treated us to dim sum this afternoon cos I helped her with her yearly taxes and filed them online for her. I have been wanting to try out Imperial Restaurant for the longest time cos it is suppose to be the best Chinese restaurant in Vancouver. I didn't suggest it but grams remember that we had all wanted to try it so she wanted to take us there for dim sum. Although some critics (friends or friends of friends of mine) have stated that it is overrated, I found the dim sum was exceptionally good! What really impressed me was all the different kinds of steamed dumplings like tobiko scallop shrimp dumpling! Mmmm... that is now my fave one so far! Beats the har gau (shrimp dumpling) which has been my fave since the very first time I had dim sum. Also very yummy was the siu mai (pork dumpling topped with roe) and I usually don't like siu mai cos most restaurants don't make it very good. Kay and I were quite impressed with the tea cups cos the little tea cups had handles on them which I have never seen at any dim sum restaurant! Another really neat gesture is that all the dim sum were small porportions like how it's suppose to be. I know you are not getting as much for your money when the portions are small but dim sum is really about sharing small little plates. Most dim sum restaurants serve huge portions, to give you the money's worth but that usually means they use a lot of filler in the food which leads to not so good taste and how can you try every dish if every dish you order is large? Plus it is well know that dim sum may fill you up after you eat but all the grease and msg doesn't stay long in your system and you can get hungry soon after dim sum! Surprised but not completely is when the bill arrived! I couldn't believe how much all the little dishes came up to and it would have been much cheaper for my grandma to have paid for the tax software instead of taking us out to dim sum but I think she quite enjoy going to the restaurant and getting all dressed up for it. Before leaving for the restaurant, I went upstairs to check to see if we were all ready to go and noticed that grams and mom were all dressed up for dim sum so Kay and I quickly changed from our denim to some dress pants! It was a fun morning filled with small treats! Click the above photo to enlarge to see our treats!

Saturday, April 19, 2008

Reunion


Today, I had lunch plans with some old highschool girlfriends whom I haven't seen since highschool! We all found each other on facebook and one of the ladies was in town visiting relatives so last month, she sent out a message to some of us and wanted to know if any of us would be interested in meeting for lunch for a mini reunion. We had messaged each other back and forth for a month or so and it seemed that it was tentative with everyone except one of the girls. I really wanted to see her and so I decided to take a chance to see if anyone would be there. Curry King on Kingsway is not the best place for little ones but I think it was somewhat in the middle for everyone and Curry King is right on the main road, Kingsway and easy to spot. When I arrived, Densie and Victoria were there with their little ones, gosh, how much has changed even though I thought they both look the same from highschool! It was so great to see them and I'm so glad I came out. Victoria could not stay too long cos it was nap time for her little girl plus her husband was waiting for her. She stayed a bit to chat and before she left, we all agreed to do this again the next time (hopefully, the weather will be nicer) and we should all meet somewhere like a park so the kids could run around while the adults caught up on each other. Perfect! Denise and I stayed to have lunch and catch up. Her little man is so handsome and her baby girl is so beautiful! Looks just like her mama! It was so great to catch up and we are going to try to do this again, we have been trying to meet up for the longest time since we found each other but as life gets busy (esp when you got two little ones) we never got the chance. It was such a lovely lunch and I'm so glad I got the chance to catch up with Denise. Enjoy more photos on my flickr account!

Friday, April 18, 2008

Shopping and Dinner

Tonight, I headed out with Rhoda and Jas for a bit of $2 (Daiso) shopping and dinner at a new Singaporean restaurant in Richmond. We decided to hit Richmond Centre first before Daiso or dinner cos those two weren't quite hungry yet and I wanted to go to Richmond Centre to pick something up. There is a cute brown capped sleeve jacket at Costa Blanca at a pretty reasonable price. I saw it a few weeks ago and was debating on whether I should buy it or not. I decided to pick it up cos I have a few items in my closet that would work with it and I have a pair of brown shoes to match the jacket! Lucky for me, it went on sale and I got an additional $5.00 off! It's already a pretty good price but hey, I'll never say no to a discounted item esp if it's something I've been eyeing for a while. I almost bought a 3/4 length black linen jacket but decided against it cos the jacket was 90% linen and 10% cotton which means it will wrinkle really easy! I hate wrinkles in my clothing! After walking around in the mall, we decided to head over to Daiso, I had a list of items that I needed but didn't find all of the items I wanted and ended up picking up extra items that I could use but didn't really need! I love that store, there is so many cute items in there! I think I drove Rhoda a bit crazy cos she could not put up with my browsing and taking my time to look at all the items in the store. The store has 2 floors and Daiso stocks so many cute items from housewares to food items. I think she got a little bit stressed from the 15 minutes she thought it would take to about an hour or so. After Daiso, we were all getting very hungry and decided to head over to the new Singaporean restaurant on No. 3 Road called Kelong. I had seen some pretty good reviews online and it was mentioned that this is truly Singaporean cuisine. I love trying to South Asian restaurants cos I am always trying to find a true to taste and authentic one! It was pretty good and reasonably priced. We choose 3 main dishes with an appetizer and it only came up to $15 each. It def tasted like homestyle Singaporean cuisine! After dinner, it was getting late and we decided it was time to head home. Wow, what a sight! It was snowing!! We could not believe it, it was a snow storm!!! It was also super cold and it felt like winter, snow and winter weather at the end of April? Can't believe it! What strange weather we are having in Vancouver!

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Shoe Sale!!!

It's amazing what shoes can do to a woman.... every morning, it's really tough to get up when my alarm rings at 6.30am esp on the late nights like not getting to bed on time or staying up to watch a TV show or trying to prepare for the next day. But this morning, I got up at 5.30am on the dot with no problem even though I went to bed late the night before. This morning, I had to be out the door and at the train station by 6.30am cos Rhoda and Jess were invited to a pre-sale (before opened to the public) at the Army & Navy yearly designer shoe sale! How could I pass this invite up? The pre-sale was at 7.00am and we had to go through the back alley cos the store manager did not want us to be mugged by the hundreds of women in the line up. The store opens to the public at 8.00am so it was such a treat to be one of the very few inside the store an hour earlier to pick out your shoes. Wow, there were so many shoes and it seemed that an hour would not be enough time! Yesterday, I downloaded the pdf advertisement so I got a look at the shoes that were going to be there and I def knew what styles of shoes I was looking for. The one thing I couldn't find (in my size) were the evening sparkly sandals. It's really a hit and miss when it comes to this shoe sale, seemed to be no evening sandals in my size but tons of cute ones in the smaller sizes. I started off with probably 30 pairs of shoes in my basket and it came down to six pairs but I decided to let two go cos they were over my $39.99 budget per shoe. The Naughty Monkeys were so funky and would have been great with dark denim, also those Italian made flats with the gold would be perfect too but I knew the Steve Maddens would go better with my career wardrobe and those were the colours I wanted for this season. At the very last minute (as I was checking out and paying for my shoes), I found the SM open toes in Teal on the bottom shoe shelf in my size!! What luck! I had gone through my section quite a number of times and didn't find them but the staff continues to place shoes on the shelf as shoes get bought or picked out. We are thinking about heading back next week some time to see what else they will have. Plus Kay wants me to pick up a pair of cute flats for her cos her two pairs are falling apart! Only if they are $19.99, I will buy them for her. She's got so many pairs of shoes! It was def a treat and love those two for inviting me, thank you so much girls! Check out Trishaopholic for my new shoes :)

Sunday, April 13, 2008

The Drive

The nice weather carried over from yesterday so Kay and I decided to take a walk down Commercial Drive. We needed to pick up some dog food for Ari and I had a coupon for Mr Pets on Commercial. It was such a nice walk and so much going on and so much to look at. We did a stop at COBS to pick up some bread cos I had a coupon for there as well! We picked up some dog food and new treats for Ari cos he's running low on treats. He is such a funny dog, he kept barking and chasing after the pedestrians on the sidewalk, I think after a little while he got used to all the people and decided to just walk. Hopefully, this week will be nice and sunny!

Saturday, April 12, 2008

Granville Island and so much more!

Today was a great day to be outside! The weather was so warm and sunny, as high as 17 degrees in some areas! Vancouver has been pretty crazy with the weather, one week it feels like spring and the next week, it's fall with rain, hailstorms and low temperatures. But lucky for Val and I, it was finally a really warm and sunny spring day and we wanted to take Tracy (who's here from Nova Scotia, she's working with us for two months) to Granville Island. She's here for only a couple more weekends and we wanted to make sure she got all the tourist sites before she headed home. We met downtown at Tracy's apartment around 1:30pm and we walked down Hornby street to catch the aqua bus to Granville Island. It was a long but really nice walk with so much to see, we got to know a little more about Tracy cos it's kind of hard to get to know someone at work. Esp her job, she's super busy with documents! The aqua bus was quite a treat and thankfully, we were only on the water for a couple of minutes, I am terrified of the water and boats! We decided to have lunch at Sandbar and boy was it ever super yummy! I had ordered fish and chips, the fish was snapper, yum yum! The batter was light and the coleslaw and fries very refreshing! I also had it with a nice Rose wine, mmm....what a treat! We did a bit of walking all over the island and I ended up picking up a really cute top (on sale 50% off) for $21.50! After all the walking we did, it was time for some gelato (well I skipped the gelato since I had a very rich mocha before they hit the gelato stand). What a gret day for Gelato! Surprisingly, it was still quite warm on the island even though we were so close to the water. We expected the temperatures to drop a bit but it was still quite warm, inland was 17 degrees but it could have been warmer, it was so nice!! After the gelato, it was time to head back cos Val and I had dinner plans that evening. I was meeting up with Jas and we were going to catch a movie after dinner. She likes coming over for dinner which is really nice cos I like cooking for people and she always seems to enjoy any meal I make even when I throw it together last minute! There wasn't any good movies playing at the theatre so we decided to skip the movie and go for dessert instead. We wanted to try that new chocolate dessert place on Denman street called Koko Chocolate Creations which is located beside Cupcakes which by the way moved a block down the street, closer to the beach. We decided to take the train to Granville and walk down to the dessert place, gosh so much walking today! It was def worth the walk and the wait but I think I ate way too much chocolate! The night before, I had a lava cake at Joeys with Rhoda and boy did I feel a bit sick after the lava cake (and the side of french fries with it, sweet and salty!). But that doesn't stop me from having more dessert! After our dessert, we decided it was best to bus it back to the train station as we were all too full to walk back. We decided to take the Davie street bus instead of the Robson bus cos we knew it would take us twice as long to get there cos of all the traffic on Denman and Robson. It was a great day and night! Enjoy the photos, more photos on my flickr!

Friday, April 04, 2008

Tick Tock....

Madonna's newest album, Hard Candy, is due to be released April 29. I'm so excited, her new single, 4 minutes is pretty cool and she's got a countdown site.
A Rolling Stone's review dated May 1 2008. 4 stars of 5.

Thursday, April 03, 2008

Pin Up Moms Unleashed!


A friend of mine (Kat Laflamme) had an art exhibit launch of her newest work, Pin Up Moms. Jas and I decided to hit the Drive for some dinner before heading over to the opening. Since, it was a really nice and warm evening, we decided to meet at the train station and walk up the Drive. There are so many restaurants to choose from but we decided to stop in at Red Burrito on 1st Avenue to try out their menu. This place is always packed and I've heard good reviews on it. Boy was it ever delish! Truly Mexican as I could tell and the price is right for the amount you get, there is so much food packed into the one burrito! Yum yum! After the quick meal, we headed over to Libra Room which I didn't realize is a martini lounge with live jazz band after 8pm. We arrived around 6:30ish and decided to have a drink before heading home. The martini menu is so cute! They had a Pin Up Moms theme on the menus, very cute and I ordered a Leo (I am a Leo) and the ingredients were red alize, peach schnapps and lime. Also, a Leo is exuberant, colourful, proud, and vivacious which sounds exactly like me :) It was so yummy! Jas had a glass of the house red. After our drinks, we decided it was time to call it a night since we both had long day and it was a work night.