Thankful

I just wanted to put in writing how thankful I am to have so many wonderful people in my life.

My wife, my parents, my brothers and sisters, my friends.  I've been really busy with all sorts of things but I'm always grateful that you're there a part of my life journey.

God bless to all.

Married

I'm officially married!

Wow, what a ride.

Phew!

Again, what a ride  :)

It was almost a year ago when I proposed and I can't believe how much has happened!

It's been a tremendous experience, one that's too big for words.  So many ups and downs and things that go sideways!?  Its something I wouldn't do again that's for sure!  But if I had a chance to change anything,


I would keep everything the same.

Engagement
A while back, I was driving home after I saw Anh and I was listening to one of my old CD's.

Ronan Keating's Bring you Home album.  Track 2 - "This I promise You" played.

I've heard the song many times before, but this time, it sounded like the song was for Anh.
That's when I realised she was the one for me, the one I'll be dancing the song with.

I know thats corny and all, but its true.  :)












A few months later I bought the engagement ring :)

Preparation
I think preparing for a wedding is the ultimate test for couples.

Its the biggest day of your life as a couple and everyone's got a different idea of how the day should pan out.

Then you're told that you should do this and that and you've got time, finance, and every man and his dog bearing down on you.  Its a mammoth of a task!

You try your best to satisfy everyone but you risk losing what you set out to do in the first place, having  you're own wedding!

But somehow, we managed. :)

Anh and I put a lot of hard work to our wedding and when we hear how much our guests enjoyed our day, little bubbles of happiness burst inside us.

Tea Ceremony

Our big day started with the tea ceremony at the bride's house.

Its Vietnamese tradition for families to offer gifts to each other.

My family brought gifts of fruits, alcohol, sweets and a roast pig for the bride's family.

The bridal couple then offered prayers to ancestors and tea to family for their blessings.

When I think about it, a few trays of food, alcohol and a roast pig got me the hand of a lovely girl :P

Bargain!


Church Ceremony

Our wedding ceremony was in St Michael the Archangel, a beautiful chapel in Leederville.  The church was really beautiful that day with the sun rays passing through the yellow glass windows giving us a golden tinge inside.

And our priest, Father Hong was the best!

He's been coaching us for a few weeks already in preparation for the wedding but his service was most entertaining.  He got his beautiful wedding message of communication and forgiveness with magic tricks and great humor.

I cried laughing when his wallet caught on fire!

Reception
After an afternoon of taking photos - we had our wedding reception in the Perth Exhibition and Convention Centre.

The room looked fantastic and Anh did a great job making up our centrepieces. We all enjoyed a generous banquet with the beautiful views of Perth city.

There's the beautiful cake my sister decorated.

And I really enjoyed the speeches.

There was crying everywhere!  The maid of honour had my bride bawling her eyes out halfway through her speech.  My brothers had me bawling my eyes out of laughter in their speech.  And I think we had a few tables bawling their eyes after our speech too!

We finished off the formalities with our bridal dance.

I'm not really sure how we did. In my head, I imagined we'd be waltzing like the pros, gliding across the foggy dance floor with spotlights following us.  Instead, I felt super clumsy, tripping a few times on Anh's dress.  I guess its karma for all the times I laughed at groom's tripping on their bridal dance.  :)

It was nicer than what I imagined because this time Anh was laughing with me.

All the small things that were not expected made for one memorable day.

After the reception we crashed into our hotel room and literally melted into our bed.  We were just so tired and the beds were super duper soft. Months of work, preparation and stress faded away.

It was the best feeling.

Season Ender - Flying Solo

August has flown and I have no doubt that September will fly even faster.

I'm getting married in September.  :)

So lots of activities and maybe another slow month blog-wise.

Its a really nice warm fuzzy feeling knowing that I'll be spending the rest of my life with someone I love and cherish.  because I really love being with Anh.

I look forward to having our puppies and walking them and going on trips and eating burgers and sleeping late.  We're really looking forward to the marriage - and not so much the wedding - yeeckz!

The wedding prep has gone relatively okay.  Some minor hiccups, but Anh and I seem to find a way.  Actually Anh's been a tower of power with the wedding stuff.  She's ploughing through most of the work, where I seem to be dragging my feet.  I do help - but I'd like to think I give more creative and inspirational help.  Whether or not its actually helping, thats another story :P

I'm just a boy, in front of a girl.. 

In the end I'm sure it will all work out just fine.

It always does.

The Proposal

You just know

when you know.

And I know I love her

and

I can't wait for the rest of my life with her.

***************************

OMG!!!

HOW DO I DO THIS?!!

DO YOU GUYS KNOW HOW HARD IT IS TO PROPOSE THESE DAYS?!!!

Do you know how much PRESSURE there is to make it really special?!!! IT'S INSANE!?!!

Everything has to be perfect. Like perfect - perfect!!!

The ring, how its done, the scene - ALL HAS TO BE SUPER DUPER SPECIAL!

Like Big Mac 'special sauce' special?

No. More like how-you-proposed-will-be-told-to-everyone-including-your-neighbour's-great-great-great grandchildren special.

So not only must it blow the socks off of her, but it needs to impress five generations thereafter! Talk about pressure!!

It needs to be sweet, romantic, sentimental and funny (all the typically girly requirements which of course is nearly impossible to do).

It's crazy!! This world has gone nuts I tell you.

Nuts.

*************************

Three.

Four.

One.

or

Twelve?!!! WTFBBQ?!!

These are the month's salary I've been told I needed to save up for the engagement ring. I was like *choke* THAT MUCH?!!!! for an engagement ring?!!!

HOLY $&1)#!

Hahahaha

*DEEP SIGH*

It's the first real test of your love :P

But I knew I couldn't propose without a ring. This was something I needed to do.

I also knew that buying diamonds is really tricky. You can get really burnt if you didn't know what you're doing.

So I made sure I did a lot of research. I googled diamonds and learnt about the four C's. But most helpful was reading pages and pages of the Vogue forums. To catch a fish you need to think like fish!! Hehehe.

I also went on James-Bond-espionage-spy mode. I spied on her jewelery box when she wasn't looking (it wasn't hard, I've raided her underwear drawer many times). I checked the

type of rings she had and measured her ring size (her ring size = my pinky finger size! yes!)

Taking these into consideration, I felt I had enough material to go into a ring store without feeling completely lost. Power through knowledge!!

One Friday afternoon, I went to Tiffany's, Hardy Brother's and Rosendorff in the city. I think I spent a good half an hour on each store talking to staff and having a good look at what they had on display.

What made it easy was I knew exactly what I wanted, a beautiful solitary ring (to symbolise my one love.... awwwww.......)

The guy at Tiffany's was really nice. Really helpful and was really professional. I saw a ring there that I liked (I swear I heard music when I saw the ring).

Hardy Brother's were expensive. Even more than Tiffany's for a similar ring. Plus they made me join their email list which was very evil of them. Not a fan of the all-black interior look either.

The lady who helped me in Rosendorff was the best. She was very excited about my engagement and was very pleased to hear what style of ring I was pursuing. I actually liked what she suggested but when she started offering discounts for it, alarm bells started ringing. Suddenly I

wasn't very sure if I was getting a good deal or not.

But I didn't decide straight away.

I sat on a decision for two more weeks and I passed the shops a few more times.

In the end it came down to what felt right.

It was simple, it was beautiful, it was perfect.

The song by Deep Blue Something was one of the first guitar songs I learnt.

*******************

Taylor Swift's song Love Story is the inspiration for my proposal.

Its a cute love song and I really like it! Its about love, its got Romeo and Juliet (for which my girlfriend has seen the movie a gazillion times, drooling all over Leonardo).

But the song's best part is the surprise proposal in the end! The music turns slow and melancholic.... which then builds pace and then BAM!!! HE KNELT TO THE GROUND AND PULLED OUT A RING!! Great finish!

I wanted to use this to spring my surprise proposal :P

I was contemplating singing the song and popping the question in the end.

Last time I sang for her on the guitar she was in tears, either she liked it or it was really bad. But to play the guitar and sing, knowing a proposal was to happen in the end sounded risky! She'd pick it from my voice that something was up.

Plus my Taylor Swift voice is VERY unromantic.

Maybe I'd propose by YouTube? Pre-record a song then post it on YouTube? Then we watch the video and pop the question right in the end?! Awesome!!!! :P

Very nerdy though :(

But the idea of a video proposal did grow on me :)

I thought about it a lot more and after much brainstorming I decided to match the cute song with a cute cartoon clip that I'd make.

Now I've done some cartoon sketching a long long time ago, so I was really rusty with my drawings.

To make a whole video required a lot of work. The whole exercise took four nights of brainstorming, sketching and storyboard planning. And it took a full day to put it all together.

I made a total of 140 animation cells for the video

In the end I finished with a very cute proposal video clip.

I'm really quite pleased with how it turned out.

It was cute, romantic, sentimental and special.

****************************

We had breakfast at Monza that cloudy Sunday morning.

We both ordered dishes with eggs covered in Hollandaise sauce.

How come something so bad could be so good!

The big breakfast got us completely stuffed and so we went to Kings park to walk it off.

Kings park was beautiful that day.

All the flowers had bloom.

There were colours everywhere.

She was in a happy mood that morning (because I've fed her and she's had her coffee hehehe). and were sharing jokes and talking about random things.

Like what we always do.

After going down and up the Kokoda track, we found ourselves a tree to rest under.

We had a view overlooking the city.

The sun had come up and just being under the cool shade was really nice.

It was perfect.

*****************************

On the 18th of October, 2009, under the shade of a tree,

I proposed to her.

After she wiped away the tears, she said yes.

Tres Lecciones del amor

I was having one of them long days. 

I got up at five and had to do stuff for my house before the electricians came.

Then traffic to work.

Took ages to find parking.

I got to my desk and looked at my diary. 

Three meetings, internal audit and phone calls to make.

What a fun day this was turning out

 

*sigh*

 

I needed to ZHHHINGGG my day, anything to make it more special.

 

ZHHINNNGG!!!!!

 

I re-discovered my Christmas KK present!!!

 

It was hidden in the bottom drawer of my desk!  Its a hot chocolate pack which has everything you need for a nice cup of hot choco.  Its got a mug, choco powder and the best part - Mini-marshmallows!

 

I was grinning from ear to ear.  

With this, I could take over the world!  I could be the most popular guy in the tea-room (just for one day!).  

Power through marshmallows!

 

But when I looked at the marshmallow pack, I realised it wasn't a resealable.

Once opened, left over marshmallows would be left to dry up and harden. 

 

I only need about five or so for my first cup, but if I open the pack now, the remaining thirty or so would have to go stale!

 

The economist in me said 'no deal'! 

So I ended up having my choco with no floaties.  :(

What an uneventful day.

Love Lesson: Love can end before it begins.  Jump in when the oppurtunity arises.

 

*********

 

Went to Karaoke last Saturday. I had a good time because I got to hang out with FC and co.

 

But I couldn't help this uneasy feeling around the place.   

Partly because I've been privy to information that's exposed the complicated web tying the friends together.  There's so much complication and history left unresolved. 

And the idiosyncrasies which, I would have otherwise missed, have become all too apparent.

 

It would have been a much happier time if love, and life turned out differently.

If only.

 

Love Lesson:  Love is like a roller coaster.  It goes up and down.  And sometimes, you even throw up.

 

*********

 

Me and three boys had our monthly man dinner last wednesday.  

We met at Shimizu Grand.  The $42 fee got me a glass of wine and all you can eat Japanese buffet. 

It was alright.  Good value if you like sashimi and eel sushi.

  

We got to talking about what we were getting our partners on Valentines day.

 

One was not sure.  His original plan was to do nothing.  But he's now upgraded to a card.  Apparently its complicated.

 

One just came back from his honeymoon so he assumes his exempt from Valentines day duty.   I don't like his chances.

 

One is taking his girl to a special dinner. He admits that he's playing his last remaining romance cards.  He's taken her to all the swanky places in Perth.  So its getting harder and harder to impress her.  I'm guessing it won't be long before he finally gives in and plays the Ace of diamond.

 

Me, I'm hanging off the girlfriend's Day Spa pampering birthday present which she awesomely booked for Valentines day.

 

My gift for her is me.

 

See I created a demand for me by making her miss me.  

I only had short conversations with her this week. Hardly any emails and little texting.   And on Saturday I will give her the thing she wants the most - me!!

 

Haha! One point - me, Valentines day blues - zero.

 

Love Lesson: love is blind, because its unconditional - doesn't matter lame we are

3Willings

1) I've just started playing Syberia.  I bought Syberia I and II for $24. Bargain!

2) Currently hooked watching Skip Beat on Crunchyroll.  Its just hell funny.

3) Chris Brown took "No Air" literally didn't he? Chill with "Flo-Rida feat Keyshia Cole - Right Round" instead