Creating Memories with My Family Every Day
We are in middle of the summer here in the USA, and this past week my family and I went on another mini vacation to Northern California to visit my brother. We went up there to hang out so that my son Ethan could play with his cousins.
Boy or Girl?!
But before we went on our vacation…. We discovered the gender of our upcoming baby.
I was extremely nervous.
Three weeks ago, we could have known whether we would have a boy or a girl when we had our ultrasound the day after I came back from Australia.
However, my wife Kelly wanted to wait and make it a surprise.
I wanted to find out right away, but I let Kelly call the shots on these things and went along with the plan.
So when we had our ultrasound, Kelly intentionally told the doctor NOT to tell us. Instead, we were going to find out from a cake!
Yes… a cake!
How the Cake and Gender Reveal Works
Kelly printed out a letter and gave it to the doctor in the hospital. If the ultrasound showed that it was going to be a boy, the doctor would circle “Boy” on the letter and vice versa. Then the doctor sealed the letter in an enclosed envelope, and Kelly gave that letter to Torrance Bakery. Inside the letter, there were special instructions to the baker to either bake a cake with blue filling inside if the doctor had circled “boy” or pink filling if it was a “girl.”
And then we waited for the baker to make the cake.
Talk about suspense!
On the day we picked up the cake, I was nervous. I guess I was nervous because I wanted another boy. I’ve always felt that boys are easier and more fun to deal with. (Sorry, ladies, for being biased.)
In many ways I didn’t want a girl because I knew I would have to be the protective dad and worry about all the guys that want to do “certain things to girls” when they reach puberty. 🙂
Anyway, we decided to eat our dinner before we cut open the cake, and I couldn’t even enjoy my dinner. I just wanted to get it over with and cut the cake.
So after dinner finished, we had to wait even longer. We had to get the tripod, camcorder and cameras set up. (We recorded a video and took photos to send to our families.)
Looking back, it was only maybe 15 minutes of setup after dinner, but it seemed like an eternity.
And then finally… the time came. We made it a family event as we had Obi, Ethan and Kelly together, and I cut the cake with the first slice.
When I lifted the knife out, the filling didn’t stick so still no news!
Then I made my second slice and this time, something stuck when I pulled out the knife, but it was the white frosting on top!
By now, I didn’t care if the cake was going to stay looking nice or be “stabbed;” I just wanted to open it up to see whether it was blue or pink!
Finally I stuck the knife in there to lift the cake out, and it turned out to be blue filling!
It’s a boy!
I breathed a sigh of relief.
I’m not sure why I prefer boys to girls so much, but I was more than happy and relieved; I was ecstatic! 🙂
Memories Appreciate Over Time and Get More Valuable
So that was the drama and exciting news this past week.
It is another memory that I will never forget, and that is what life is about. It is about creating memories.
I think that’s why my motivation to succeed in business was never the money nor materialistic gains.
Money comes and goes.
The cars and toys come and go.
The house depreciates and you move out.
But the memories… they are the opposite. They get better and more precious as they age.
Yesterday, my brother and I were out in Los Altos. We had a great dinner catching up with Keith, who is one of my close friends that I went to university with at Columbia. The guys hung out as the wives talked and the kids (kind of) played together.
We talked about new challenges and also reminisced about old memories. I had a great time, and I realized that, as we get older, our memories become more and more precious.
Creating memories is what makes life worth living.
Having the money and the time to create more memories is what motivates me to do what I do everyday.
Creating More Memories
Weekly Trips to Disneyland
We’ve spent the last week creating more memories.
We took Ethan to Disneyland again, and this time we went to Treasure Island and went on exploring there.
I really love Disneyland now and every time I take Ethan there, it is special.
Cherry Picking with My Son
On a super hot Saturday (100 degrees, or 38C), we took Ethan to pick cherries. It was also my first time doing it. It was fun.
I’ve always had a fascination about picking fruits, and I still remember the only two times I’ve picked fruit. One time was when I was like eight years old, and my dad took my brother and me to pick apples in upstate New York. The other time was when Kelly and I just started dating; we went to pick strawberries in Napa Valley.
Cherry picking was fun. Ethan was a little out of control running around the orchard so we had to put him in the stroller. By the way, the B.O.B. jogging stroller is awesome! It’s like the SUV of strollers and can go anywhere!
We stuck him inside the stroller, but he was still able to pick the low hanging cherries and had a good time.
Hanging Out with the Cousins
We went to my brother’s house in San Ramon (near San Francisco), and Ethan got to play with his cousins Jacob and Josh.
Throughout most of the time, I recorded a lot of the moments with my digital camera on a tripod. The memories are priceless, and one day, I may make a personal movie for my kids.
What Motivates You?
Lots of lifelong memories were created this past week.
Creating memories is what motivates me everyday.
In the network marketing profession, we often talk about the importance of your “Why” and what motivates you to do the extra work so that you can be successful.
Having the time and money to create memories is what motivates me.
And thanks to my MLM business, I can create a lot more memories than most dads can.
Having to Pay the Price
A few years ago, I had to pay a huge price to become successful.
I had to make BIG sacrifices, like giving up watching TV, doing prospecting calls even when I didn’t feel like it, going to Conventions even when I didn’t have the money to go, etc.
The reality is that I often didn’t want to make those sacrifices, but the point is that I still did.
I’m glad that I paid the price back then so that I can do the things I want with my son today.
I wasn’t the smartest distributor or the quickest to make it to the top. However, the beautiful part of life is that as long as you are consistent, you can be the turtle and make it.
Thanks to those sacrifices and to the patience of my wife, today, I’ve been able to create a lot more memories with my family.
For that I am grateful.
So creating memories is what motivates me to do the things that it takes to be successful.
What motivates you?
Sincerely,
Simon Chan
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