I was soooo excited on Friday evening when I received an e-mail from our wedding photographer that our wedding blog and bonus slideshow is ready to give us a sneak peak of what’s to come. Until the rest of the photos are ready, here’s a short and sweet preview of our big day (feels like so long ago!!). Enjoy!
http://sakuraphotography.com/blog/gloria-rey-slideshow-2011/
http://sakuraphotography.com/blog/weddings/gloria-and-reys-wedding/
We’re about to board our plane in about 10 minutes to our first destination…..Singapore (with a long layover in Shanghai)!!
Then next on our itinerary is KL, Malaysia then off to a cruise from Singapore to Nha Trang (Vietnam), Sanya (China), Hong Kong, and then Shanghai as our final destination.
If anyone wants anything in particular from any of our travel destinations, please leave us your comments. Suggestions for interesting things to eat, see or buy would also be appreciated!
G
This week was one of many joys and sadness for us. My best man and childhood friend, Aidan became a father welcoming his daughter Ainsley to this world on March 30,2011. Glo and I are extremely happy for Aidan and his wife Angela for their blessing. Yet, this week was also a time of sadness for us. My great uncle, Ricardo, passed away on March 27th. Although, I never felt close to him, I feel saddened by his passing. He was someone who loved his family and was a great man who achieved many things in his lifetime.
All in all, experiencing a birth and a funeral has been something that’s really made me think about how we all tend to take for granted the short time we have on this planet and the people who matter most to us. It’s probably something that doesn’t need to be said, but life is short and it’s up to eacdh of us to make the most of it.
Rey
For the past two years or so, Glo and I have been looking for a house in Vancouver… Unfortunately, looking for an affordable house in Vancouver (that isn’t a crack shack) is like looking for a crack shack that isn’t… well a crack shack! Basically, despite what we thought was a high budget all we could afford was crack shacks. We did look outside the city, in neighbouring areas like Burnaby and Coquitlam, where the situation was a little better, but since the real estate market went crazy over the last two years, it was very difficult to buy a place. In the only place we bid for, we were the back-up of the back-up offer for a house… in Coquitlam! Houses that we were interested in Vancouver were even crazier. One house we looked at had something like 20 offers on it and went $100,000 over asking price! Anyway, the good news is things aren’t as crazy anymore… or at least it seems like it. The bad news is that house prices are even higher now with the average single detached home in Vancouver at $1,000,000.
With all that said, we’re still looking. We’re hoping prices won’t skyrocket again when spring rolls around, but that may be just wishful thinking. Our strategy is to either find a home with an income generating suite or stay where we’re at now and just buy an investment property. Either way, the debt load we’ll be incurring is a little unsettling. But, sometimes you have to take risks in life.
Here are some interesting articles and a fun guessing game related to the crazy housing market in Vancouver:
http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/04/20/in-vancouver-logic-has-left-the-housing-market/
Crack Shack or Mansion? – C’mon test your knowledge ! http://www.crackshackormansion.com/
Rey
There’s another baby on the way! … For one of our friends, I mean. 
Over the past year or so it seems that everyone’s been poppin out little ones left, right & centre like they were tic tacs…. which basically makes me wonder if we’re on the cusp of another baby boom?
So far we know of 4 couples who are currently pregnant with their first child! It really is wonderful news for all the happy, soon-to-be parents! Glo and I are super excited and happy for all of you ‘preggers’ out there. We wish you a healthy pregnancy and we look forward to seeing the new additions to your families soon!
Rey & Glo
So… one of the ways we were trying to save money on this wedding was to make our own wine. Now, don’t worry it’s not like we got some grapes and started stomping on them barefoot in our bath tub. We got a Groupon for this place called Winemasters in Vancouver ! It was a really awesome deal and you don’t really even do any of the winemaking. They do it all for you. All you have to do is come back to the store a few months later and bottle it. Now, everything was fine until yesterday when Glo finds out that the restaurant is refusing to serve our Groupon wine because it’s actually illegal in B.C. to bring your own wine into restaurants. I think most other province in Canada allows you to BYOW (Bring Your Own Wine) into restaurants. We may be the only one to have this law!
Apparently, a few of the Chinese restaurants in Richmond were recently busted for breaking the law since the cops had started enforcing the law more stringently. So, the restaurant manager is now refusing to serve our Groupon wine. Instead, he wants us to buy the wine from them as required by the law. Initially, I was quite mad about this as this feels like we’re getting gouged/tricked into paying for wine. But, as we started researching the situation further we found out that this is the law and restaurants don’t even get wholesale price on liquor. So, what can we do? We’ll just have to add this to the list of awesome surprises we’ve had to deal with during the wedding planning process. …Also, since I’ve just revealed to all of you that we have Groupon wine, it actually sounds tacky. So, luckily for y’all you now get better, commercially bottled wine! Merlot, anyone?
Rey
Tags: wedding wine
Happy New Year to everyone! Needless to say, 2011 is going to be a big year for us. The wedding, of course, is going to be taking up most of our attention for the next 5 months or so. In fact, we’ve started looking at everything that we need to do and there’s still so much that needs to be done. First, on the list (still!) is getting the wedding invites out. We still have about 50 or so to mail out/hand deliver and we should have all of our invites ready within the next week or so. After that we have to work on the program, planning the mini-reception, figurin out the honeymoon, etc… The list is almost endless.
While doing all this I’m planning to take a publishing course at SFU and have started volunteering as a social media coordinator for a place called the Compassionate Eye. I’m also looking at making a stronger effort to make a career move into communications, which is going to keep me busy learning how to make webpages, use various forms of social media, write articles for various sites/publications, etc… As well I MAY be writing the LSAT in February and going to Law School in the Fall term. However, I’m not sure if I really want to pursue the latter as the opportunity costs in going to law school at this point in my life are quite high. Of course, depending on what does happen with my career/school situation, we are also looking at buying a place in 2011. But, we’ll have to see since everything is still a bit uncertain.
Anyway, right now, 2011 is looking to be quite a busy & exciting year for me and hopefully a year of positive changes not just for myself, but for the two of us.
Rey
