Passion fruit = Lilikoi

So we leave to Hawaii today for Darrell and Susan's wedding. I'm looking forward to the relaxation. No wedding planning for 5 days. No work. Just some sun, snorkeling and fun.

How far in advance do you start packing for a trip? My mom usually starts about a month in advance. I guess for our parents' generation, this is not that uncommon. Going on a trip used to be an event. I don't even think about a trip until maybe that week. I usually do it the night before which I think is kind of pushing it. Edwin, though, he's got nerves of steel. He can wait 2 hours before leaving to begin packing for a trip. Granted, it depends on the length of the trip. For a longer trip, we would probably start a little earlier. Just curious because I'm sure that it varies.

Going to the chapel and we're gonna get married...

So I have to admit, it's been a lot of fun planning our wedding. I thought that it might be stressful, but I think that we have been pretty lucky or maybe Edwin and I are on the same page when it comes to event planning. We're about ready to put down a deposit for a reception place. That would pretty much seal the deal for what will be the biggest cost factor of the wedding.

We knew that we wanted a Chinese banquet and so that limited the number of decisions we needed to make when it came to venue. I mean, there are a ton of Chinese restaurants in San Francisco, but not that many that can hold over 200 people. In fact, there are about 5 or 6. 2 of them were not available the month of October and another one was over our budget. That leaves 3 options. We have eaten at one before, so we tried the final 2 last week. When you put that into perspective, you don't really have to make a ton of decisions, right?

As I mentioned before, I already have my dress, but I thought I would post a picture of my wedding dress shopping posse- Sin Yen, Kaori, Michelle, and Matilde. Thanks for all the help, girls! Matilde was the winner who chose the dress that I eventually selected. I tried on a dress that I probably would not have picked out for myself and really liked it. So my advice for anyone dress shopping- try on things that you normally wouldn't, you might like it!

Hawaii Here We Come!

So I realized this week that we are going to Hawaii next week. It's not that I forgot, but I didn't realize that the trip was coming up so quickly. We are going to Honolulu for Darryl and Susan's wedding. Looking forward to having a break and a nice vacation. We'll be going with Matilde, Sujay, Nikki, Ed, Chris, and Corinne. We're looking forward to some relaxation, snorkeling, and lots of eating.

Wedding News: We now have a wedding website. See our link in the sidebar or click on the link: http://www.theknot.com/ourwedding/MichelleFong&EdwinLager

We also are trying to finalize the reception venue. Went to taste 2 different venues this week. Hopefully, we can wrap things up before we leave, but my guess is that there may be some negotiation involved and it will be a little while longer.

Birthday Bonanza

Well, I guess that there is a lot that is special about October 20th. I got 2 emails from friends that both have their birthdays on that day. So I guess that there will be a lot to celebrate.

Hope everyone had a Happy Easter. We had a lot of fun at Jamie, Kaori, and Maika's with a traditional Easter brunch, Easter egg hunt, and egg dyeing. Kaori was utterly grossed out that we ate the eggs after we had dyed them. Is that so bad? It's just food coloring, right? We made some pretty yummy egg salad sandwiches. I haven't heard of anyone getting sick from it yet...

What's so special about Friday, October 20th?

Well, I bought my dress off of ebay yesterday and we decided to have the ceremony in Treasure Island (off the Bay Bridge and in between SF and Oakland.) Treasure Island is an old military base and has gorgeous views of SF. Take a look at my pics!

This week has been so much better in that I feel a lot less stressed than I felt last week. Though I can't believe that it's only been 2 weeks since we got engaged because I feel like we have gotten a lot done. Next up- we want to lock down a reception place. By the way, the wedding date is set, so put this on your calendars- Friday, October 20th is the BIG DAY!

Love is in the air...and raindrops keep fallin' on my head.

We received a very cool engagement card today from our friend Pablo that said, "Love alone is capable of uniting living beings in such a way as to complete and fulfill them, for it alone takes them and joins them by what is deepest in themselves." Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Isn't that lovely? What makes that quote so cool though is that I can picture our dear friend Pablo saying these words. He's always been very poetic.

So we're trying to decide on venues and dates. Surprisingly, there are places left, but it will most likely be on a Friday or Sunday rather than a Saturday. We're checking out the Treasure Island chapel tomorrow. However, with the rain, it may not be the best day to go.

Rain, rain, go away. Come again some other day. Maybe if I say that enough, we'll get to see the views tomorrow. After Edwin proposed in the rain last week, I remember thinking to myself that rainy days are now going to bring happy memories. It only took me a week to get sick of the rain again. It's been raining all month. I guess those of you in the East and Midwest would say, "You have no snow. I don't want to hear it." Oh well. :) LOL

I love Ebay!

So, I spent most of my weekend shopping for a wedding dress. Went to 4 stores and tried on over 30 dresses. Had a lot of fun with Matilde, Sin Yen, Michelle, and Kaori. So I find 2-3 dresses that I really like and look good on me. People have told me to go to stores to try on the dress and look on the internet to see if you can get a cheaper price. Well, bridal shops are getting smarter. They don't let you take pictures of the dresses and some of them are cutting out the manufacturer tags so that you can't find the dresses.

So, I start looking at these wedding dresses online to look for the 2-3 dresses that I liked. I was able to find 2 of them in my size on ebay for less than half of what each store quoted me. So, at first I was a little skeptical because I didn't want to buy a used dress, but I found that there are a lot of people who sell new dresses on ebay. One of them was a sample dress that was being sold by a bridal shop. The other was someone who hadn't worn the dress, but couldn't fit into it because she was pregnant and couldn't fit into it anymore. I've also heard of some people that bought a dress and then found another dress and so needed to sell it. Anyway, it just goes to show you how people gauge you when you are planning for a wedding.

It's good to have smart friends!

So I want to start this post by announcing that I have the BEST wedding coordinator/bridesmaid- my friend Nikki. I am astounded by her organization and pure genius. She has put together this work of art in spreadsheet form that outlines almost every conceivable wedding location/reception hall in SF. It's got cost estimates, availability for dates in October, phone numbers, websites, and her comments on how the staff has answered her calls. I wanted to cry because it was SO helpful and because her comments were SO funny. Much better than my random website research. If you ever need someone to help you with your wedding in SF, boy, do I have a recommendation for you!

Secondly, so looking at one of the venues, I found a most hilarious statement on a church website, "Learn more about our commitment to gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning individuals."

So little time!

Time flies when you're planning a wedding. 2 days after the proposal and it seems like there is not enough time in the day. Thanks to everyone who sent notes of congratulations. I don't think that I got much done at work on Monday!

Things to do this week: determine a budget, wedding party, and preliminary guest list.

As any good modern day bride-to-be (hey-that's me!), I went to the www.theknot.com website. I have determined that they are evil. First, I enter in a date for the wedding. I put in October 14. (THIS IS NOT THE DATE- I am merely putting something in as a point of reference!) It tells me that I have less than 192 days to plan a wedding. Then, I look at their To Do checklist and it has a list of 179 things to do with 45 items overdue! We haven't even started yet and we're behind!

As most of you know, I am a Type A personality. I don't panic- I move. I start making lists ad nauseum. I don't think that anyone can call Edwin a Type A personality, so you can already tell this is going to be fun. Maybe that's why we're together- we balance each other out. I tell him to get his butt moving and he can tell me to chill out.

Everybody knows that weddings are money sinkholes. We know it's going to be expensive. But it still never really prepares you for the sticker shock. I don't think that either one of us has ever spent this much on anything. Maybe a car, but at least you get to pay that in monthly installments and use it over the course of a couple of years. This is one day! I know it will be worth it, but sometimes you have to wonder.

I'm already going wedding dress shopping. Crazy. Last week, I thought that I would have a nice, relaxing weekend while Edwin went snowboarding and scuba diving.

WE'RE ENGAGED!!!

It was a rainy day here in SF. I fell asleep in the car thinking that we're going shopping, but when I woke up we were parked at Coit Tower. I was a little dazed and very confused. Edwin told me that he wanted to see the Parrots of Telegraph Hill in the Filbert Gardens. (We had just seen this documentary about wild parrots that fly around in SF.) I'm like, "In the rain? Can't we look for them when the weather is nicer? But OK, whatever."

We get to a landing and Edwin starts telling me how much he loves me, and I don't remember much more because I think that's when I realized what was happening. So he proposes, I say yes, and he pulls out a ring box. As he's openning the box, the ring pops out and there's a look of horror on Edwin's face. For those of you who have never heard of/seen the Filbert Gardens, there are a series of wooden and brick stairs embedded in LOTS of foliage. So, there was a distinct possibility of losing the ring in a very wooded area.

Luckily, it didn't roll and it was right at our feet. Above is a picture of us right after the proposal. (Notice the ring!)

We'll post updates to this blog when we have more details, but we're thinking of having the wedding in October in San Francisco. In the meantime, here's a close-up of the ring.

Japanese Paper Light Parade

So on the first day of my visit to Japan in November, Kaori and Maika took me to a local parade that they have in Okegawa. It was really cool in that all of the "floats" were painted by hand and lit up from the inside. Don't even get me started on all the food stands.

Here is an example of one of the cool "rotating" floats. Most of them were pulled by hand and a lot of them were being pulled by kids (child labor!) so I guess they couldn't have been too heavy, right? There was even one float that had a real cherry tree on it.

Woo Woo!

This is an actual news clip from Oakland. I admit that I haven't seen these whistle tips on any cars in the Bay Area, but I believe that it exists! This video makes me laugh every time I watch it!

Hot Pot at Koi Palace

So we went to dinner last night at Koi Palace. This is one of our favorite dim sum places, but on week nights they have a hot pot dinner that usually leaves us with more than we can eat. Case in point- we generally go with 8 people and order for 6 and we are still stuffed when we leave. It's about $25 per person including tip, but it includes a LOT of seafood like dungeness crab, lobster, sea bass, scallops, and shrimp balls. Of course, they also give you a lot of veggies and some beef and chicken, but I consider that to be pretty standard.

Here's a picture of Mike and Mihu from dinner last night.

Funny T shirt

I saw this T-shirt while I was shopping on Saturday and I just thought it was funny so I took a picture using my camera phone and sent it to my blog. Ah, the wonders of technology!

Let's Fly!

So right before my hand surgery, I was going to take a trapeze class. However, the hand surgery and rehabilitation kind of put a kabosh on that. I'm starting to get that itch though and I think that I may try and arrange a class again now that my hand is fully healed. In the meantime, here's some photos of my last trapeze lesson in NYC near Chelsea Piers. (Yes, that's really me!)

Annual Tahoe Trip

So we've kind of started this tradition of going up to Tahoe for a weekend and renting a cabin. We had a group of 17 crammed into this 3 bedroom house. While most of the gang went snowboarding and skiing, I stayed and hung out in the cabin with Jamie, Greg, and Bhavna though we did meet up with everybody on the slopes for lunch.

Even little Maika was having a fun time in the snow. "Snow! Snow!"

It was a fun time since we also got to celebrate MiHu's birthday. Hmm... how many candles are there on that cake? LOL. Yummy!

As you can see there was also a lot of eating.

There were lots of games played that weekend too. We started with Nertz. Then, a very violent game of spoons- where was Sujay hiding the spoon? Under his leg? Taboo long into the night. And, of course, Boggle. Show Lan was definitely the one to beat. A good round is defined as a round where you have the same number of points as Show.

Happy Birthday, Hannah!

Hannah is turning 2 today. I can't believe that it's already been 2 years. It seems like she was just born yesterday. Does anyone remember what happened to them on their second birthday? I'm having a hard time remembering what I did yesterday...

Oh wait- it's coming back to me now. I sent out this email announcement about the launch of this blog to almost everyone I know and I forgot to include the link. Yikes! Well, now I know who cares about blogs because most of you emailed me to say, "Where is it?" If you found this site on your own, can you tell me how you did it? It's not supposed to be "public." Only to my closest 100 friends... :)

Just reminiscing

I was looking at some old pictures and thought that I would share some of my favorites with you.

This one is from Greg's BBQ a few years back. I just love how happy and relaxed we all look in this picture. Just me and my girls. So sad that Elle and Jinn are now East coasters. :( We miss you guys! See how pretty it is in SF that one day of the year?

Yes, these are my friends. As you can see, they were sympathetic to my plight. And yes, they do have a warped sense of humor. I had to wear that stupid cast for a month! I just love this picture because it shows how crazy and funny you guys are!

No news is good news

Went to the hand specialist today. Nothing to report. Next appointment in 6 months- almost on the anniversary of my surgery.

You take the good, you take the bad...

I think that most people know that I had hand surgery last September. If you didn't know, it's not that I didn't want to share, it's just that it happened so fast, that I didn't really have time. I had discovered a bump on my right hand last May. I had my doctor friend Sujay look at it and he told me that since it wasn't hurting me, it was probably just a fatty deposit or a ganglion cyst. (Ganglion cysts are pretty common and don't necessarily require surgery.) So I didn't really think about it futher until...

In August, I noticed discomfort when I was writing, so I decided to go to my doctor who also thought that it was a ganglion cyst, but recommended that I see a hand specialist. I made an appointment with the specialist in September and he told me that I needed to remove it.

Me: OK, I can just schedule something in the next few months,
right?
Doc: No, I mean next week.
Me: (in shock) How long will I need to take off work? Like a week?
Doc: No, 6-8 weeks.
Me:
WHAT????!!!!

So, it turns out that it is a spindle cell fibrous tumor. Whatever that means... I kept asking him if it was cancerous and didn't really get a straight answer. (I'm guessing a lot of people tend to freak out when they hear cancer.) But I just wanted to know. Here was one of our conversations.

Me: So is the tumor benign?
Doc: No.
Me: So it's malignant?
Doc: Well, there are different kinds of tumors...

Prognosis: He did tell me that the tumor would not spread to other body parts. There's a possibility that it would return to my right hand, but it's unlikely.

After the surgery, it was hard for me to do the simplest things. Here's a couple of prime examples:

1. Wearing pants- the only pants that I could wear were the kind with an elastic wasteband. Sure, Edwin could help me button my pants if I was home. But if we were out and I had to go to the bathroom by myself, it could have gotten real ugly.
2. Writing/typing- Stupid things like signing receipts became kind of a hassle, but I did improve my ability to write with my left hand.
3. Eating- Silly as this may sound. I think I stained all of my T-shirts because I kept missing my mouth trying to eat with my left hand. (I could also only wear T-shirts for 3 weeks because they were the only clothes that could fit over my cast.) And forget about using chopsticks!

So, yeah, it was kind of a scary time for me, but also kinda good. There were definitely some positive things about this experience for me and it definitely reinforces to me that God does work in mysterious ways and that with everything bad thing, there comes some good. Not being able to use my right hand made me realize that I can and should slow down. I've always said that work isn't the most important thing in life. But having to stop work almost immediately, made me realize that the work will get done with or without me. You always think that everything will come crashing down when you stop working, but now I know that that doesn't happen. Life goes on. As I like to say at work, "No one ever died because we didn't get that survey out today."

It also reminds me of one of my favorite Bible verses- Matthew 6:34. "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

The other awesome thing that would not have happened if I didn't have a tumor in my hand is that I would not have gone to Japan for 10 days. I loved Japan. My friend Kaori had already planned to be in Japan to visit her family in Okegawa. She generously offered to let me stay with her family while she was there. Edwin donated his miles to me so that I could go for free. So, I had housing and plane fare taken care of, and I had the time off with nothing to do. Any objections? I don't think so! Anyway, I think that I will leave the tales of adventures in Japan for another day. To sign off, I think I will leave you with a picture of how my hand looks now that it is 95% back to normal. (Yeah! No more hand therapy!) For a picture of me in my cast, see our profile picture above.