Baby Kesler One-month Celebration

This is my good friend's cute little one. His name is Kesler and he just had his one-month birthday on April 29th. Carol, my good friend, got everyone together for a really luxurious ten-course dinner at Top Chinese Cuisine in Vancouver. It was sure very delicious. What a great night of laughing, seeing old friends, bringing back old memories from more than 10 years ago and last but not least playing with baby Kesler. My own little nephew, Matthias, who is about 6 months old now is sure getting cuter everyday. The time has really gone by so fast and the next thing you know, they are already in their teens . Let's just say that I am getting older and all my nephews and nieces are growing up too fast. One of these days, I should get a picture of all of them :)

Geocaching on the Baden Powell

Well...what a rainy day to be out and about hiking and also doing geocaching this afternoon. Geocaching is an activity or a sport that Ray and I have picked up over the last couple years. It requires a GPS unit to direct you to the cache or "treasure hunt". First you have to sign up as a member at the official site of Geocaching to play this activity in all of Vancouver and the Lower Mainland. After you sign-up, you have to own a GPS unit to enter the coordinates of the caches that are hidden so your GPS can bring you to the caches.

This afternoon, we were at the Baden Powell trail of Deep Cove in North Vancouver. As we were hiking, we saw some markers along the trails that were left from the race this morning called "Summit 2 Shore". Although it was raining, we sure had fun hiking and finding caches at the same time. We did three caches today and the first two were definitely a difficulty of about 3 out of 5 for the terrain. Terrain is one thing but finding the caches could be hard too. We did have a couple of challenges finding one of them but listening to the 'hints' from the owner of the caches is definitely a must! Below is a picture that I took during treasure hunting today. If you are curious about how the treasure looks like, see my picture below. As you can see from the picture, I'm writing in the log book that we found the cache and also whether we are trading any items.

Vancouver Sun Run 10K

Another year has whizzed by just like that since the last time we did the Sun Run. This year, there were about 58,000 registered runners breaking last year's records. I think the weather plays a big part in making it successful. Couple days before the race, I was hoping and praying for a nice weather because of the surprising snowfall on Friday night. Well, it turned out sunny after all! Even though it was chilly this morning for the race, this is the ideal condition that you want to be running in. I enjoy doing this race because of the music and water stations that get me going throughout the whole course of the race. This year, Ray, Alexis (Ray's niece) and I did the race. My brother did the last two years and couldn't make it out this year due to a new addition to the family. Anyway, the results will be posted on the Vancouver Sun paper tomorrow and later on the Raceheadquarters website. Please check back here later. Below is a picture of the "Elites" on stage during the awards ceremony. The top male and female were from Kenya and Ethiopia respectively. The top male finished in a superfast time of 29:26mins!!
Update (Apr 21/2008): Here are the official results. Ray finished with a time of 38:53 mins and ranked at 275th/44160 overall, 245th/19294 for males and 40th/3017 in his age group. Great job Ray!! As for me, I am proud to tell you that I have shaved off more than 3 mins from my last Sun Run (56:08 mins). This year, I finished with a time of 52:56 mins!!! So proud of myself :) I came in 6064th/44160 overall, 1279th/24866 for females and 210th/3753 for my age group.

April Fool's Run (Gibsons to Sechelt Half Marathon)

Ray and I decided to do a race over on the Sunshine Coast at the last minute. I treated it as a little getaway even though we were there to do a half marathon relay from Gibsons to Sechelt. I have never been to the Sunshine Coast before and have heard good things about this place. The weather wasn't that bad after all. The sun was peeking through a little bit for me when I was running the first half of the race which was about 10.5km. It felt good to have a break from the rain but then it started to drizzle a little bit when Ray was running the last half of the race (10.5km). The runners don't seem to mind a little bit of rain because it keeps them cool. I had a lot of fun doing this race even though my calves are now screaming...hehe. I haven't done a 10K race for a while and it sure felt a lot better than the first time I ran my first 10K. Amazing how much improvement I can see through training and stuff over the last 2 years or so. My next race is the Sun Run on April 19th. Will keep you posted on that one.

Ray and I called ourselves "Team Geocachers" for this race. We got the name from doing 'Geocaching', a very fun activity that Ray and I have picked up over the last couple years. Basically, we used a GPS unit to help us find 'treasures' in all of Vancouver and lower mainland. Check it out at the Geocaching association.

Here are the official results for the team category: We came in 4th/25 overall and 1st/10 for Under 80 division (meaning combined age of Ray and mine) with a time of 1:39:35. I ran the first half in approximately 55:50mins and Ray did the second half with a speedy time of 43:30mins! Kudos to us!