Anthony Daws & Veronica Solimano

Veronica's parents are from Lima, Peru and moved to Chicago for her dad's training, where she was born. Shortly after they moved to Toronto, Canada and through her dad's business trips her parent's fell in love with Vancouver, BC and moved here when Veronica was 3. This was an amazing place to grow up for Veronica and her two brothers  (Diego and Rafael) and the family enjoyed many west coast outdoor activities such as summer camping trips, biking around the seawall, winter skiing, tobogganning, skating.

Veronica was a competative gymnast while growing up and hasn't quite gotten the acrobat out of her yet as she still enjoys any sport that involves flipping herself upside down. She currently teaches and practices pole dance fitness and has also gotten Tony involved in acro yoga. She loves spending time outdoors, taking part in most sports, hiking & camping,  kyaking, traveling whenever she can, and spending a relaxing evening watching a good movie with a glass of wine with good friends and family.

Veronica is a Physiotherapist and is currently working at BC Children's Hospital. She just started a full time Oncology and Neuro-oncology position  which she is excited about! Previously she was gaining experience in many areas and had been working mainly in the ICU where she did mostly chest care but also got to do some developmental work with the long term kids there which she loved. She also spent some time working with the neuro/neurosurgery and orthopedic kiddies which was a fun challenge!

Born and raised in Vancouver, BC, Tony has two sisters (Mary and Frances) and a brother (Ben). Tony's mom grew up in Tisbury, England and met Tony's dad here in Vancouver, where he grew up, when she was travelling and doing nanny work.

Tony and his family spent most of their summers growing up exploring the seashores of Denman and Hornby Islands (two of the Northern Gulf Islands off the coast of Vancouver Island). They currently have a summer place on Hornby Island which they try to visit as frequently as possible.

Tony is a choco-holic and has a very good sense of smell allowing him to find the hidden chocolate around the house but also enjoys keeping active and is currently an avid runner, enjoying his nightly runs while he listens to audio books. He enjoys spending time outdoors, hiking & camping, and traveling. Tony takes after his very artistic parents (his mom is a painter and his dad, apart from being a teacher, is a sculpter) as he is a talented photographer which he tries to do as much as possible in his spare time. He particularly enjoys macrophotography.

Tony is a software engineer and currently works 100+ hour weeks. His main client is Poket Kings Ltd, based in Dublin, UK, creators of Full Tilt Poker, a popular online poker company. He is currently the lead developer on their poker education site, the Full Tilt Poker Academy.

Tony and Veronica went to the same highschool for two years, both participating in the outdoor educational program TREK, where you spend half the year doing outdoor activities such as hiking, kayaking, rock climbing, cross country skiing and the other half of the year doing the grade 10 curriculum. They then graduated together in 1998. Although they were at the same highschool, they had different groups of friends and didn't really say much more to each other than a quick hello and "how are you" in the hallway as they passed each other on their way to classes. However, although Tony has a fuzzy memory of this, Veronica remembers in grade 12 Tony asking her to dance at the Halloween school dance!

After graduating , Veronica went away for her first couple years of university to Queen's in Ontario while Tony stayed and did his degree at UBC. When Veronica came back the first year for christmas she found that her really good friends from another highschool had become close with Tony and his group of friends. That summer she started to get to know Tony better and they really started to bond when Tony and his friend Mike lead a multi-day hike in the Stein Valley, a few hours north of Whistler. Veronica spent another year at Queen's before deciding to move back to Vancouver and finish up her undergraduate degree at UBC, but they kept in touch through email and phone.

Once back in Vancouver, Veronica and Tony started to spend more time together and developed a very close friendship for about 4-5 years. They decided to go traveling to South America in 2003 with friends/family and spent a total of 5 months there exploring mainly Peru but also seeing parts of Ecuador, Chile and Bolivia. During these 5 months they realized how much they enjoyed each others company and how well they got along... after all if they could last 5 months of travelling 24/7 with each other and not get on each others nerves this had to mean something right? When they got back to Vancouver they quickly got back into their daily routines but still got together with friends and on their own. Their particular favorite thing to do was grab some take-out sushi, take it down to Wreck Beach (a beautiful, more secluded beach where you often see seals and herons), have a drink and enjoy the sunset followed by staring up at stars and talking while keeping warm under the beach blankets they had brought with them.... and eventually started dating on March 21, 2004.

Tony and Veronica moved to Glasgow, Scotland in December 2005 for 2 years so that Veronica could do her Masters in Rehabilitation Science (Physiotherapy). They loved living there and miss it greatly. While there, they took the opportunity to travel whenever they got the chance as it was so cheap they could often find penny flights to various places in Europe. They travelled around Scotland, Ireland, England (having the chance to visit Tony's mom's family) and went into Europe to Amsterdam & around, Northern France, Southern Portugal, various trips to Spain, all over Italy, and Croatia. They also spent two weeks down in The Gambia and Senegal, Africa prior to moving back home.

Now that they are back home in Vancouver it has been a bit harder to travel around as flights are more expensive but they managed to escape to Cuba last year for their 5 year anniversary where Tony proposed (see story under "the proposal") and their "places to go" list keeps growing! But both are content with local trips around BC especially to Whistler and Hornby Island. Tony and Veronica are happy to be back in Vancouver and are excited about "settling down" and committing themselves to each other.