There have been a lot of amazing things happening in my life lately but this post is devoted to the best one of all.  My newest daughter, Brylee Drew, was born Tuesday April 27 at 5:45am.


Janelle was given the due date of May 1 but for the four days previous to Brylee's arrival, Janelle had been having a lot of contractions on and off.  Sunday night was looking quite likely as they started to become quite regular.  She called me and told me to come home, I was at the school studying for a final exam the next morning.  I came home and for the next few hours the contractions continued and then all of a sudden they stopped.  I was bagged, and due to the lack of sleep and loss of study time I was in no shape to right a final exam Monday morning.  Luckily my prof was very understanding and he let me post-pone my writing until Thursday.


On Monday Janelle felt no movement from the baby all day which was quite unusual for Brylee who liked to kick a lot.  She called the midwife at about 4pm and she was told to head to the hospital for an assessment.  It turned out everything was fine which was a major relief.  We explained to the midwife that we would really like her to induce labor.  This typically would never happen before a due date unless there was some medical reason but Janelle's family is known for quick labors and Kaylen was pretty fast and there was some concern about having a baby in the car.  There was also the issue of final exams; I already had one postponed, and I really didn't want to postpone any more, not to mention all the study time I had been missing.  To shorten the story they decided to break Janelle's water at about 10:30pm Monday night and then we were to wait.  By 2 nothing had happened so they gave Janelle Oxytocin and at 3:15am she started having contractions.  They woke me up from off the floor at 3:45 as things were getting going.  And at 5:45 Brylee came out.  2.5 hour labor with only 4 minutes of pushing, not bad.


Brylee was 7lb 10oz, blue eyes, brown hair, 20in long and healthy.


She is the most adorable little baby, I realize I'm biased but she is really cute and we are all really excited to have her.


The labor went great and both Brylee and Janelle were able to come home from the hospital that afternoon which was a good sign.

Me with Brylee a few minutes after she was born

Kaylen loving being a big sister

Our newest family photo

On her way out of the hospital

It didn't Janelle long to start putting bows in her hair

Our cute little girl

Happy mommy with her baby

Eyes wide open

Today we went to do a 3D ultrasound.  In our previous ultrasound the technician didn't get a very good look at the gender and said she was about 60% sure it was a girl.  That was not good enough for us so we went for a private ultrasound, done in 3D to find out.

About 30 seconds in we got a very clear shot and there is no doubt that our next child will be a girl.  Janelle and I are very excited.  We already have a ton of girl's clothes from Kaylen so there's a financial benefit there.  Plus girls are really cute, too cute in fact.  That reminds me, I need to get my hunting licence.

Now we need to decide on a name.  We had a few boy's names that we both really liked but we can't seem to agree on any girl's names.  Feel free to comment with some suggestions.

I've included some photos from our ultrasound for your viewing pleasure.

I love the big yawn on this last one.

It's sweet holidays like Halloween that make being a dad so much fun. My girl Kaylen did me proud today. I thought we would knock on a few doors and she would get tired and want to go home, I mean seriously, the girl's got the attention span of a puppy - but no. After about an hour, her Halloween basket already over flowing, I ask her, "do you want to go home or do you want to get more candy?" Stupid question apparently because the response was, "more candy. I want more candy!" She went from 5:30 to 7:00, not bad for a two year old.

Earlier in the day we did the traditional pumpkin carving. Kaylen was quite proud of her pumpkin. I of course carved it but she picked out the design. She wasn't too fond of the guts though.

At 5:30 a couple of Kaylen's friends came over and we headed out trick-or-treating. It was not planned at all, but the three of them went out as bugs: a butterfly, bee, and lady bug.

The night was going well until we saw some kids with freaky looking masks and Kaylen panicked. She was pretty scared but when one of them waved and said hello she realized that they were happy monsters and she was alright.

UBC housing is a great place for trick-or-treating. Tons of families, and no cars. When trick-or-treating time was about to be begin we saw cars rolling up and parking in visitor's spots. The place is a gold mine and the locals know it. It's very chaotic and fun. During the one hour that Janelle was home handing out candy, she counted 397 kids; that's a kid every nine seconds! There is really no point in closing your door and waiting for kids to knock because they don't stop.

Question for parents: how many of you steal your kid's candy when he/she's asleep?

Our pumpkins:

Janelle's on the left, Kaylen's in the middle, and mine on the right.

Happy Halloween everyone!

Here's a couple short videos of Kaylen gutting her pumpkin, she starts out pretty dainty but then gets into it, sort of.

Due date April 21st. Need I say more?

This is the first blog post of my life.

I'll start with a brief summary of my summer:

If you know me, you'll know that I'm obsessed with racing - not Nascar, but triathlons and running. I was very pleased this summer with the races I was able to do, and the results I was able to achieve. First was a fantastic 10km race called "The Longest Day" located at UBC. It's a race around campus which celebrates the longest day of the year, although not necessarily held on that day. It was the first evening race I had ever done. I had set a goal to run a sub-40 minute 10k before the end of the season and I was hoping this would be it. I'm very happy to report I finished with a time of 39:55.8, 4 seconds to spare. I give a lot of credit to the UBC Tri Club, particularly our student running coach Vincent Lavallee, for pushing me to my limits as my previous best was 46:59. I recommend this race to everyone. Not only was the route awesome, the race is followed by the feast of all feasts. Never have I seen such a plethora of food following a race.

Next was a Half Ironman I completed in June in Victoria, centered around Elk Lake. It was my first Half Ironman and I was nervous about how it was going to go. I had never done a group open water swim and I had heard horror stories. Someone showed me this hilarious Clif Bar Commercial that helped me to know what to prepare for:

It was all that and more. People were swimming all over each other, getting kicked in the face, and fighting for any available inch of unoccupied water. It was so fun. Adding to the nerves was a build up of about 4 months of smack talk between me and a fellow UBC Tri Club member, Winston Guo. With my pride on the line I was forced to give it everything I had and ended up finishing in under 5 hours, which was about 20 minutes faster than I was expecting. I was very happy.

The last race I did was in early August in Nelson, the Cyswog 'n' fun. This was a 1/4 Ironman and it followed an intense heat wave in Vancouver the week before. Thanks to the 30-39 degree weather here, the otherwise hot interior BC climate would have been more of an issue. It was a great road trip with Winston and Scott that was full of smack talk. It became a matter of Scott's stellar swimming skills vs my superior running. Normally I wouldn't brag but Scott talked so much smack I need to inform everyone that I smacked his rear end as I ran past him in the cycle to run transition. Sorry Scott, but next time you want to run your mouth like that, you might want to start running your legs instead.

As for employment: with the poor economy, student summer jobs in engineering were scarce and I was very pleased to be fortunate enough to land a job with a structural engineering firm here in Vancouver called Fast+Epp. It was a great experience, highlighted by a major role I played in the design of a health care centre in a little town called Lower Post, BC.

The last holiday of the summer was spent with my wife at the Walnut Beach Resort in Osoyoos for our 5 year anniversary. Janelle's parents were kind enough to fly over to Vancouver to watch our daughter for a few days. We had a great time jetskiing in Osoyoos Lake and tubing down the Penticton canal.

Now I'm back at school. The UBC Tri Club has a new race series that will be starting up in a couple of weeks that will include a multitude of events designed to level the playing field. There will be time trials, underwater swimming distance, flat tire changing, and more. See the UBC Triathlon Club Blog to follow the results.