Introducing our second…

Well as many of you may already know, we have a new baby girl now in our family!

Sienna Elizabeth Hall was born on Saturday, October 16th, 2010 at 8:35 pm. The birth could not have gone any more differently from our last with Hadrian and the day went as follows.

At around noon we met up with our friends Timir and Sue Yee and their son Jian and went for our usual brunch. We brunch together quite often but usually it’s on a Sunday, however this day they wanted to see us on a Saturday in case Debby would have the baby by Sunday. After brunch, we went with them to Central Park in Burnaby and played with the kids there for a little while. Then we returned home and put Hadrian down for his afternoon nap. Nothing out of the ordinary so far! Debby decided to lie down for a bit of a nap as well, as it is quite exhausting being 9 months pregnant! Shortly after though, she started feeling some discomfort in her abdomen, however we initially thought nothing of it since she had previously been feeling lots of discomfort from a few weeks prior. Slowly the pain began to grow and come more and more frequently, until it seemed to coming every few minutes. By now it was nearly 6 pm and our doula told Debby over the phone that we should head in to the hospital now. We were fortunate to have a neighbor that could look after Hadrian until Debby’s mom could arrive at our place to babysit.

So off to the hospital we went, and when we arrived and got Debby checked out, she was already 5 to 6 cm dilated. Things progressed very quickly and by about 7:00 to 7:30 pm she was ready to push. Next thing you know, I’m helping to catch this beautiful little baby girl! It took me a few moments to actually realize it was a girl; we were kind of shocked because all along we both thought that we would end up with another boy. Of course we were very happily surprised that we were wrong! She weighed just a hair under 7 lbs and was 50 cm long. For weight that is about average, but for length she is well above (just like Hadrian was), so perhaps there is hope that our kids will outgrow us!

Things have been great since her birth, we left the hospital after less than 24 hours and things have gone pretty smoothly since then. Of course, that’s not to say we aren’t having sleepless nights and lack of sleep anymore, but overall she is very good. We did have a bit of a scare early on though. The next day after leaving the hospital a community nurse visited us to check up on Debby and the baby. When she weighed Sienna, we found out that she had lost just over 10% of her birth weight. 10% is the threshold where they start to get concerned. We monitored her closely the next few days and luckily she did start regaining weight. Actually, from about the next day onward she’s been gaining tons of weight and now has the chubby cheeks and a little belly!

Hadrian’s taken the new addition very well too. We tried to prepare him as much as we could prior to having the baby so that he would not be totally surprised. We kept telling him that there was a little baby inside mama’s belly and that he was going to have a little brother or sister. So far he’s been great with Sienna. He’s very protective of her and tells people that she is his! He always wants to see and hold and kiss her, which is very sweet, and he hasn’t shown any jealousy towards her at all. The only issue we had is that he’s been a little sick, so keeping him away from her has been a bit of a challenge.

Well that’s it for now, I’ll be sure to update you all some more soon! And be sure to read our P.S. below for some interesting facts about Sienna’s name and other fun stuff!

But for now, on to the good stuff, the part you’ve all been waiting for, the first photos of our little Sienna! Please enjoy!

Danny, Debby, Hadrian & Sienna :) !

P.S. Now on to her name and some other fun facts!

First of all, no she was not named after any Roman Empress or historical figure! Well actually there is no real deep meaning behind Sienna’s name or any special reason why we named her that. Mostly we just liked the sound of the name. However, you know I’m going to give you a little more than that!

Sienna is of Latin origin (so technically it can be considered Roman!) and means “from Siena”, which is the name of a city in Tuscany, Italy renowned for its art. The city has a long history dating back as far as the Etruscans (c. 900-400 BC), who predate the Romans, when it was inhabited by a tribe called the Saina. According to Roman mythology the name was derived from Senius, son or Remus, who is said to have founded the city. Remus, of course, was the twin brother of Romulus, the legendary founder of Rome, and for that reason the city of Siena today is abundant with statues and artwork of the twin brothers suckling from a she-wolf as infants. The town itself progressed over time, but reached its height in the medieval period. Today the city’s most impressive architecture and buildings date from this time.

Sienna’s middle name, Elizabeth, is for my grandmother (father’s mother) who was named Marie Elizabeth Taylor Hall. She commonly went by the name Bettie, derived from her middle name Elizabeth. It’s kind of an interesting fact that both she and her husband Rad used their middle names over their given names, and now both our kids have those name names as their middle names (Hadrian’s middle name is Radway, after my grandfather).

As with Hadrian, we also have a Chinese name for Sienna that has the basic meaning of virtuous and kind-hearted. That also goes well in-hand with her astrological signs, as she is a Libra and also is born in the Year of the Tiger. Libras are all about harmony, fairness and balance, whereas the Tigers are considered brave, valiant and tolerant. Moreover, a female Tiger is said to be intelligent, faithful and virtuous, which ties us back to Sienna’s Chinese name!

Well that’s enough for now, but stay tuned for future blogs when I’ll reveal more fun facts about our newest addition!

Catching up, pt. 2

Hey again! So as promised, here’s the continuation of our latest adventures!


The month of August has been very busy for us so far. It started with a visit from Debby’s cousin Floris and her boyfriend Jon, from Toronto. They stayed a week with us and it was a week of eating out at restaurants for the most part. One of Debby’s family members after the other were fighting to take them out to eat, they must have eaten enough to not want to eat for an entire week after getting back home!

After that, my sister and her family visited us. Actually, I picked them up from the airport as I was dropping off Floris and Jon, so that worked quite well although a bit hectic. The time we spent with Laura, Charles, Eva, and little baby Chloe was great! Our house was as busy as it’s ever been since we moved in, but we really enjoyed it and are grateful for them having visited. Hadrian had a blast with his little cousin Eva; the two them were constantly running around the house, getting into trouble, fighting with each other, and then two seconds later back to playing as though nothing had ever happened! Hadrian even learned to jump with two feet now from the two of them jumping on the bed in the guest room! It was really cute to watch and I’m sure he misses her a lot now. Little Chloe (1 month old during their visit) was so sweet. It was also nice for us to be around a new born baby again, giving us some good practice for when our new one arrives! Soon Laura, Charles and the kids will be back in Africa (Ghana), but hopefully we’ll get to see them again soon, maybe for a big family vacation!

Now we have a few weeks break and then my parents will be visiting in mid-September! We’re really looking forward to their visit and having Hadrian see his grandma and grandpa again. Actually, just before that, on the weekend of September 11-12, we’re going on a getaway to Seattle for our 5 year anniversary! Hard to imagine it’s been almost 5 years already since getting married, can’t wait for the next 5!!

What else… I’m going to an NBA basketball pre-season game here in Vancouver to see the Toronto Raptors against Steve Nash and the Phoenix Suns in early October! It’s going to be one week before Debby’s due date, so hopefully I won’t get a panicked call some time during the game!!!

Well, I think I’ve updated you all on most of our recent events. Here are some more recent photos, including Hadrian’s B-Day. So until our next blog update, we’ll write again soon (maybe by then we’ll have a new addition to introduce!)

Danny, Debby (+1) and Hadrian.

P.S. We’re still thinking of names and Tiberius Maximus (or Tiberia Maxima for a girl) is still in the running!!!

Catching up, pt. 1

Hey all!


OK, once again I’ve neglected to update this blog for a very long time, so I thought it would be a good time now to let you all know how we have been doing. Since we do have so much to cover, I thought it best to break this blog update into 2 parts!

Well summer is well underway and the weather has been great! Debby and the new baby to be are doing well, she’s past 7 months now and feeling big as a bus! Actually, she mentioned that she feels smaller this time around than with Hadrian. This baby moves like crazy though, he or she must be a gymnast doing back flips inside her belly!!!

Debby’s feeling a lot better now than in her 1st trimester, but she’s still been having a more difficult time of it than in her first pregnancy. Hopefully difficult pregnancy = easy baby!!! We are very excited though and just started to prepare the new baby’s room, along with making some changes to Hadrian’s room. He’s been very eager to receive his new “big boy” bed. We’ve decided to move him out of his crib and into a bed before the new baby arrives, so that he doesn’t think we’re booting him out of the crib in favor of the new little one! So far the transition has been good, he doesn’t seem to miss the crib that much and has only fallen out of bed twice to date! Those were actually kind of scary, hearing a loud thud and crying in the middle of the night, but he quickly got over it. Even though we installed a baby gate which is supposed to prevent him from falling out, he still managed to do it! So now we placed a few pillow on the ground to hopefully soften the blow!!!

Speaking of the little guy, Hadrian’s doing very well. He is speaking up a storm in both English and Cantonese and he’s comprehension is really impressive! He recently started the “why” phase, constantly asking us what’s this and why’s that. He’s also kind of started his terrible twos, although we really can’t complain because he’s actually quite good. But he is starting to push his boundaries and trying to be more defiant at times. We also just celebrated his 2 year birthday on July 20th. Hard to believe it’s already been 2 years! I remember just like yesterday starting up this blog before Hadrian was even born. How time flies!! But things with him are great and we’re very proud of him. He also seems to be very excited about having a baby brother or sister, although I don’t think he quite understands what to expect yet!

Before I go further, I forgot to give you some details of our family vacation to Hawaii back in May. Debby, Hadrian and I, along Debby’s parents all went together and we had a great time! We started by flying to the island of Oahu and stayed in a hotel in Waikiki (Honolulu) for 4 days. Waikiki was awesome, I really enjoyed the atmosphere of the city. It’s a bit more busy and city-like than some of the other Hawaiian destinations, but we really enjoyed it. We did some shopping (hit the local Walmart!), ate some good food, visited some local sites, it was fun! We also visited the Polynesian Cultural Center and joined in a Lu’au there which was really cool. The place is like a cultural experience blended with a theme park, kind of a weird concept but it was actually very cool!! We also went to the awesome Hanauma Bay, where they have world-class snorkeling and a beautiful beach.

Then we embarked on a 10-day cruise which toured through the Hawaiian Islands before sailing back to Vancouver. That was a very nice experience too! We’ve been on several cruises before, and this was not the best in terms of the ship itself or the food, but it was still a lot of fun, especially since it was Hadrian’s first! He had a blast!! He was probably the most popular little guy there, with all the female staff fawning over him. During one of the formal evenings, he even started dancing in the middle of the atrium dance floor in front of a couple hundred people and received a huge ovation for it!!! That’s my boy, stardom is in his future! It was great for us too, very relaxing and it was nice to have Debby’s parents there to help take Hadrian some of the time so we could go off and do stuff or rest up a bit.

The first stop the cruise made was on the island of Maui, where we actually docked overnight so we had almost two full days there. Maui was beautiful, the beaches and the scenery there were terrific. It is much more laid back than Honolulu and has a smaller town feeling to it. We arrived in Lahaina, then we went on a tour and visited Iao Valley, with spectacular views of the tropical mountainside. We visited a farm with everything from pineapple to avocado to sugar cane to tropical flowers. It was pretty cool. The next day we went to fantastic beach with nice size waves near all the resort hotels and we went to the old whalers’ village. After that, the next two days were spent at the Big Island at the cities of Kailua-Kona and Hilo, on opposite sides of the island. Kailua-Kona is on the sunny, dry side of the island and Hilo on the wet, tropical side. Apparently it only rains about 10 inches per year in Kailua… and we showed up on a day it was pouring rain!! So what did we do, we went to Walmart!!! Actually that was the cheapest place to find souvenirs, especially the world famous Kona coffee (which I gotta say is awesome!) In Hilo we rented a car and drove to the Volcano National Park. We also went to a black sand beach which was interesting (kind of looks like dirty sand!)

So after all that, we got to relax on the ship for 6 days as it sailed all the way back to Vancouver. It was kind of weird, because every other day we had to put our watched ahead an hour and every day it got colder and rainier outside. I have to say, 6 days straight at sea was a bit too much, by the last couple of days we didn’t have much left to do (except for eating!) But it was still nice and we were glad to have experienced it. One absolutely spectacular moment was the evening before our last island visit, sailing around the Big Island toward Hilo. At around 11 pm that night we sailed by the active volcano and saw the lava flows. It was amazing, especially at night, the lava was bright orange-red and the ship actually went within a few hundred feet of the flow. That was definitely a sight worth seeing!

So wrapping up, here are some photos of Hawaii for your enjoyment and we’ll see you again shortly for part 2!

Danny, Debby (+1) and Hadrian.

Spreading the news!

Hello everyone!

I know it’s been a long time since my last blog entry. Well this time we have some special news to share with you all… we’re expecting again!!! We had our 13 week ultrasound and Debby is doing great. Well actually, she’s been suffering quite a bit, but the baby seems to be doing well!

Speaking of which, poor Debby has had to put up with relentless nausea and headaches and an overall feeling of being unwell for most of those 13 weeks. We’re hoping that those symptoms will soon subside since we’re now into the 2nd trimester. What a difference from one pregnancy to another! With Hadrian, Debby felt great and loved to eat lots of healthy food (especially cheese!) But this time, besides feeling like crap, she’s also been having constant cravings for junk food! McDonald’s and chips and anything deep fried and butter... you name it! She’s even given up her staple morning breakfast cereal in favor of toast. Her only saving grace is that she’s also craving lots of fresh fruit, especially oranges. I hope this kid doesn’t end up being a junk food addict because of this!!!

So we’re thinking of keeping the baby’s gender a surprise this time. Partly because regardless of what the baby ends up being, he or she is going to be wearing Hadrian’s old baby clothes anyway!! We also found out that the baby’s due date is October 8th, 2010, but who knows we might end up with a 10-10-10 baby!

Aside from the baby news, we have much more to catch up with. The Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics have come and gone, and they were awesome! My parents were in town visiting during most of the Olympics and we had a great time. We ended up seeing one event (pairs figure skating short program) and went to one of the nightly Victory Ceremonies (with a performance from Barenaked Ladies). I know, figure skating wasn’t my first choice, but it was still fun to attend an actual Olympic event and support our Canadian athletes.

We also visited quite a few of the free venues and houses with Olympic related activities. There was such a fantastic atmosphere; the city was vibrant and alive with Olympic cheer and everybody was happy and friendly. We saw several provincial ‘houses’ (Quebec, Ontario, Saskatchewan, etc.), we visited the Russian Sochi house (Science World) which was pretty cool, we went to the LiveCity Yaletown venue and also downtown to multiple venues. As mentioned, it was great! It’s a rare opportunity to witness an Olympics in your home town, so this one was definitely special.

The weather was great too, maybe even a bit too good! It was beautiful and sunny with temperatures around 15 to 18 C. That made it a bit challenging for some of the skiing events but it all worked out well in the end. And on top of all that, Canada did unbelievably too! The most gold medals ever for a Winter Olympics and the most total medals ever for any winter host country. It didn’t even affect our commuting to work that much. Actually, if anything it was easier to drive to work during that time because everyone was avoiding the roads!

What else has happened… well Debby and I each celebrated a birthday. We kept them pretty low key this year, plus our big gift to each other is our upcoming vacation. We’re heading to Hawaii and we actually leave today! Neither of us has ever been to Hawaii, so it’ll be a great new experience. We’ll be staying in Honolulu for 4 days and then taking a 10-day cruise around the Hawaiian Islands and back to Vancouver. It should be awesome; we’ve been waiting a long time to go on a vacation like this. And we love cruises so it should be perfect! We’re bringing Hadrian along (of course) and even Debby’s parents will be joining us. That means we’ll have built-in babysitting!!! So in the evenings if want to see a show or go to the casino or even just get a bite to eat at the midnight buffet, there will always be someone around to watch him.

Speaking of the little guy, he’s continuing to grow and mature so quickly. He speaks so much now and can say short sentences. He’s starting to understand what some words are in both English and Cantonese and he’s constantly surprising us with new words. He really likes to sing too; perhaps there’s a future performer among us! That being said, he’s also starting to talk back quite a bit and he knows how to push our buttons when he decides to misbehave! But overall he’s a great kid and we feel so blessed to have him and also to have another little one on the way. We think he’s going to make a great older brother and Debby’s already been telling him that there a baby in her tummy and that a little baby brother or sister will be joining our family!

Well, I think I’ve updated you all on most of our recent events. We’ll continue to keep you posted after our vacation. I haven’t had a chance to upload our recent photos, so for now here’s a scan of the little baby’s ultrasound. It’s not very good, but you can kind of make out the shape! I’ll be sure to post more photos at our next blog update and we’ll write again soon!

Danny, Debby (+1) and Hadrian.
P.S. Time to start thinking of names again. Hmmm… Tiberius Maximus has a nice ring to it!!!

The new year is here!

Happy New Year everyone!

New year, new blog entry! We hope 2010 brings joy and happiness to each and every one of you. Our Christmas holidays were very nice this year, if not a little more quite and low key than previous years. Hadrian had a great time though. Big change this time from his first Christmas last year though! He had a blast opening all his gifts and he really enjoyed the presents he received this year. It was a great time, but now it’s back to the grind again!

The weather in Vancouver has been pretty good this winter. It only snowed for 1 day, and very little at that. It was all gone by the next day. It’s nice for us living here, however hopefully it won’t have a negative impact for the Olympics. Speaking of which, we are only a few weeks away now from the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games. It should be lots of fun! I’m sure the city will be buzzing for those 2 weeks and the atmosphere in town will be great. I just hope it doesn’t make our work commuting a nightmare for that time! We are looking forward to it though; it’s not often that someone can experience an Olympics in their home town. We are going to one of the events: pair’s figure skating. Not my first choice, but at least we’ll get to see an Olympic event!

The house is coming along too. We’re pretty settled now, just have to finish unpacking a few boxes and making some final adjustments. Hadrian seems to really like his new home! He’s been sleeping much better now and is even starting to sleep in more regularly. It’s nice because we don’t have to wake up 6 am on weekends anymore! His hair is still growing like a weed, he’s actually due for another haircut because it’s getting into his eyes again! He’s becoming very expressive now and says a ton of words and short sentences (still in both English and Cantonese). And his likes and dislikes are becoming very pronounced now too. He likes watching basketball on TV (just like his old man!) and he also love music (especially hip hop!) He has been getting pickier on food though and it’s sometimes a battle to get him to finish a meal. But he still eats a good amount.

Well, that’s all for now! Please enjoy some more recent photos.

Danny, Debby and Hadrian.