Dining and wining

After a long week at work, the girls had a chance to unwind at La Rocca, a quaint little Italian bistro on Commercial Drive. We enoyed the wine, food, and girl talk. It feels so good to bond with your girlfriends.

We're happily ENGAGED!!!

We are extremely happy to announce our engagement :)

Shawn flew into town after a rough week. We decided to celebrate Valentine's at Café Pacifica which hosted an Italian Opera Buffet. We savoured the Italian cuisine while 'sopranos and tenors stirred our hearts with romantic operatic renditions'.

After dinner we stepped outside for a view of the city harbour. It was drizzling lightly. We stopped under the big, white sails at Canada Place. Shawn put the umbrella down. We were surrounded by night and the stars. He pulled me in for a big hug and kiss, got down on one knee, pulled the ring out of his coat pocket, told me how much he loved me, and asked me to marry him. I said, "Yes!"

I was surprised and way too happy to cry.

We celebrated with cocktails at Cascades Lounge, and I had a chance to look at the ring. What really touched me was that so much thought, time and effort went into its selection. Shawn custom designed the ring and I had no idea! It was really difficult for him to keep the surprise from me for two whole months, and he wanted to know if I liked it. I think -- it's exquisite! I don't know what I would have chosen, so I'm glad that he picked what he liked. What's more important is what it symbolizes for both of us.

I wanted to call our parents. He said that my parents already knew because he had asked for their permission back in December.

We're just thrilled to be engaged!

A tribute

Shawn's paternal grandmother passed away this week. Anita was an adventurous, witty and charming woman who was loved by many. Until her illness, she was still golfing three times a week and playing bridge with her girlfriends among her other volunteer commitments and black tie events with her loving husband. One summer when I visited L.A., she gave us a tour of the UCLA campus and outwalked us. She was strong in character and also kept her mind and body active. My recent memories are of her reading or working on the cross word puzzle beside the pool. We were really lucky to celebrate her 83rd birthday with her at Hillcrest Country Club with her family and friends. We will miss you dearly.

Baby Shower

This weekend we celebrated Cindy's baby shower. She is expecting a boy. We enjoyed an afternoon of food, games and discussions about pregnancy, babies and motherhood. Baby clothes are so cute, and there were also some practical contraptions that I had no idea existed -- one of them would be what I would call a 'snot-snatcher'. Chris and Cindy have so much to look forward to, and we're excited about the arrival of their little bundle of joy.

Celebrating birthdays

Happy Birthday, Mom!










To our cousin Kimmi








Happy birthday you're two!








Kylar - getting a kiss from the birthday girl

Catching up

Stephan was in town visiting from London, UK, for a week so we met up at the cosy Seymour's Pub to catch up.

He updated me on his recent trip to Japan, and it brought back lots of memories of the many places I visited when I lived there for four months. He also described how his first year of living in London has been, and it made me wonder how life would have been if I'd used my UK working holiday visa. Living in London would be wonderful because it offers opportunities to travel to so many other cities in Europe. Oh well, for the time being I'll have to live vicariously through others.

When we had finished our meal, an attractive brunette in her late 20s to early 30s approached our table (and she wasn't our waitress). She looked at Stephan and then directly at me and asked, "Is he too much for you? Because, I can take him off your hands right now!"

"Where are you from?" she asked. He told her that he lived in a different country. "That's okay," she purred. "My daddy's an immigration lawyer."

Then she provocatively leaned close to him and salaciously sniffed him (Mmmmm). I wouldn't have been surprised if she had growled (but that's just my imagination running away with me).

This display of 'affection' was so blatant. I tried to suppress my laughter because I could see how mortified Stephan was at her overt behaviour.

After her departure, I told Stephan to take it as a compliment -- but he commented that he was totally turned off. Obviously, some men don't find desperate girls attractive, no matter how goodlooking they are.

Hanging out with the girls

Liyang and Andreana were in Coquitlam today to get highlights in their hair. We ate dim sum at Kirin and enjoyed our quality time together, sharing stories and laughing a lot.

Happy Birthday Grandpa

Tonight, our family celebrated my Grandpa's 79th birthday. We ate at a Chinese restaurant in Port Moody. As always, there was more than enough food and lots of leftovers. Family get-togethers are always fun and offer a chance to catch up with grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.

I find the older I get, the more advice I find myself giving to younger cousins -- and I try to do it without sounding too preachy :). I also have to remind myself to try to be a good role model and not get too explicit when it comes to talking about relationships. Our conversations about driving lessons, career choices and proms gave us 'older cousins' a chance to reminisce.

My younger cousin is planning for her prom. So, we were suggesting hairstyles for the day. I was surprised when she said that she wouldn't be all that bothered about a hairdo for the prom, but she'd get her hair done for a 'friend's' wedding. "Who's wedding are you going to?" I asked. I thought, her friends are still in high school. "My cousin's wedding," she replied staring straight at me! "If you get married, I would write a speech for you." It made me smile and warmed my heart.

Fired for 'flirting'?

When I checked my email at work this morning, I was surprised to see a message from one of the senior managers that read, "It's sad to announce that _ is no longer employed here. We wish him the best."

The abruptness of the message made me realize that this was a situation where the person had been let go. But, why?

This is the same person that I had the 'uncomfortable situation' with.

It happened to be our monthly Town Hall on this particular day, when the whole company meets and all senior managers report on the status of their projects to let all staff know what their department has been working on. When it came to one senior manager's turn (the one that had sent out the announcement), she stated that she wanted to talk about two company policies:

1) Email Policy -
'Inappropriate' email is not permitted; we were asked to consider the content of jokes before sending them interoffice and consider who would be receiving them

2) Harrassment Policy -
Any complaints about harrassment are seriously investigated and the necessary action is taken to resolve the issue

The mood was speculative; we'd never had such stunned silence at a Town Hall before.

Afterwards, I approached the manager and asked her what happened: The person that was 'let go' had been warned on three separate occasions not to send inappropriate emails interoffice and especially not to the person (let's call her 'J') who he was managing. A complaint of 'harrassment' was filed against him because the content of the emails made 'J' feel uncomfortable. When the senior manager approached him and confronted him, he denied that he'd sent the email. He was shown the 'proof' which had been documented and was asked to leave, since he had broken one of our company's core values which is 'honesty & integrity'.

What a shock to the system.

On a positive note, our company just ranked among the top four entrants for best governed private sector organizations in Canada by The Conference Board of Canada/Spencer Stuart 2007 National Awards in Governance. Other finalists in the private sector category were Royal Bank, Talisman Energy and Nexen.

It's good that we have a whistle-blower policy so that employees feel safe to speak out. Also, people need to be accountable for their actions.