To make sure we included our West Coast family we had a second wedding in Vancouver. This affair was completely planned by my parents and catered by Dan Close. I didn’t take many pictures, but the ones I did take were of the food… which was amazing.

They are up! We have received our photos from our good friend Mavreen David who also acted as our photographer. A big thank you to her! We know we had bad lighting but we couldn’t be happier with the pictures!

If you want to view in Flickr, click here. If you want to download or print any of the photos feel free to. (I’ve always wanted to see my face on a Times Square billboard.) Simply click on ALL SIZES above the image and you can download the larger version of the pictures.

Also, all the photos are tagged so if you click on a name (at the right side of the page) it will show you all the pictures that person is in.

Have some time? Here is a video of our ceremony and speeches. It is divided into three movies.

After a difficult 9 month pregnancy of constant morning sickness, I was born 32 years ago on April 23, 1977 at Lyons Gate Hospital in North Vancouver. Mom didn’t have an easy pregnancy, I just found out tonight that she actually had to be hospitalized because she wasn’t keeping anything down. But she wanted to go home so bad that she would lie to the nurses and not tell them when she had been sick so that they would let her go home sooner. She says that I took everything I needed out of her, I sucked out all of her calcium to the point where she needed 12 fillings. That is probably why I’m big boned! While she was pregnant with me her main craving was lemons…raw lemons and she couldn’t stand the smell of Kraft Dinner. She would make my dad go out and get her lemons and when she would go out for dinner, she always took everyone’s lemons off of their plates to eat. One day she had 4 in one sitting. It was collagen of the 70’s. Her lips puffed up and looked a little beat up after that feast.

My mom went into labour at 6:00am on the 23rd, my dad had gone to work but had to turn around and come home. According to my mom, he arrived at the hospital in a beautiful mis-matching plaid outfit and plaid tie. He had to dress himself that morning.

After a very slow labour, I guess I was comfortable in there, I was born at 7:14pm that night. My dad almost missed the birth because he had to run to McDonald’s to get a Big Mac. My Pop’s (grandfather) always joked that I was going to be named Big Mac. (Maybe that is why I’m big boned). They gave my mom Demoral for the pain near the end of the labour, but apparently a little too late. She actually couldn’t see due to the drug so she kept on apologizing throughout the entire labour because she couldn’t see anything. I think she was lucky she didn’t see anything!

So here I am 32 years later…I’m a little bigger now.

Thank you to everyone who wished me a Happy Birthday. I woke up this morning with a headache, probably from a lack of exercise and an over abundance of work. Even though I spent the day working and napping, I was constantly celebrating my birthday via 41 Facebook Wall Posts, 10 Tweets, the 6 phone calls (Mom & Dad twice, Nana, Greg, Gavin, and Nicki),  6 Birthday E-mails, 5 paper birthday cards, 3 text messages, 1 e-card from Brad’s parents, a Carnival Cruise Birthday e-mail and various birthday mailings and e-mails from Casino’s in Vegas. And of course a big ol’ Happy Birthday right when I woke up in person from Brad.

I’m very lucky to have such good friends, family, and acquaintances in my life. Especially the cruise ships and casinos. I don’t know what I would do without them.

Til next year…

Arrived in Kelowna tonight after a brisk 4 hour drive. We were greeted by Nana, a tasty ham and a chocolate cake.

Looking forward to seeing Keri and little Ben for brunch tomorrow!

I have been in Vancouver since Sunday night and really haven’t had anything to report. I’m busy working (continuously) so time has just flown by. The weather here has been unusually cold and we have had some big dumps of snow, which is so unlike Vancouver. Although I do prefer the snow to the bone chilling damp rain that I’m normally greeted with at this time of year. Luckily there is nowhere that I need to be except home because driving on snow covered Vancouver streets is horrific.

I did make go for dinner with my mom in White Rock for some very tasty sushi. Even though Vancouver is generally known for having great sushi, I’m finding it harder and harder to find good eats. So many of the places that we have frequented in the past we no longer go to because the quality has gone down. And the last thing you want to eat is fishy fish. And I’m half Japanese, I have high standards!

Yesterday I went to Nicki’s house to hang with Val, Sara, Michelle and all the little kiddies. It was great to hang out with all the little tots and play around with them. They are all so cute!

My sister was googling her own name, like everyone does daily, and she stumbled upon a video that CBC was streaming from their archives.

What is cool for us is that we (my sister and myself) have never heard his voice. He died a couple of months 2.5 weeks after I was born in 1977. From what I have been told he was a wonderful man and very interesting. He was one of the first Japanese dentists in North America and well respected within the Japanese community. So this is kind of neat. It is very odd to hear them use the word Oriental so frequently. One word you rarely hear nowadays.

The quality isn't that good, we had to make due with what we had. He comes on about 3 minutes into it.

I haven't written anything, but for good reason. Last week my grandma, better known as Nana, came out from Kelowna. As a surprise I flew her out as sort of a gift, but also because I thought it would be great to have her visit me, since I'm always visiting her.

We had a great week with the highlights being Niagara Falls on Tuesday, CN Tower for dinner with Brad's parents on Wednesday and my aunt and uncle's house on Thursday for dinner. I truly enjoyed showing Nana around, it was her first time to Toronto and Niagara Falls. She was excited to see the tall buildings and how large the city is.

I took her on the subway, since she had never been on a subway (except the puny Skytrain in Vancouver), between College Park and Dundas and even though it was one station, she thought we had gone miles! If only she knew how far the subway actually goes! She was amazed that we could walk home after going so far on the subway!

It was busy with her and also all the work I have. I continue on getting new clients so the work doesn't stop! Luckily she was very accommodating and let me work in the morning.

So Nana is back at home, and the invite is open if she would like to come out again in another year.

P.S. It is flurrying downtown Toronto… the first snow I've see this season.

Since I am getting a lot of inquiries about my parents, I thought I would quickly give an update regarding their health and exactly what happened.

As some of you know, my father has been struggling with his health for the last 4 years, first with diabetes, second with a foot infection resulting in amputation (diabetes related) and lastly with kidney failure (again diabetes related).

So the journey begins…

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