go time!

It's happening! The wedding is upon is. People are arriving today, and we're heading to the island tomorrow morning. We've had such a great time this week with friends and family and going for lunch and dinner and to little parties - it's the best! I guess it's not right to say that we should get married more often - pah! Maybe we should just get together and have parties more often, but we'd need to physically be in town for that to happen (for us at least) so on that note - I can't really comment. Here are a few pictures from goings-ons this past week or two... it's been a great two weeks!

at the Coldplay concert - it was awesome!!



Up at Thetis, a lone egg... sad but beautiful...

one of the many murals in Chemainus - such a cute town!

getting ready for a party!!

with Desj, one of my all-time best coaches - volleyball (not beer) that is...

a beer sampler at Park Royal's Steamhouse (or Taphouse?) - my favourite was Dead Guy Ale

fly fishing in the back yard...

blurb from the ferry

Questions: Why is the ferry from Nanaimo to Horseshoe Bay more expensive than the ferry from Horseshoe bay to Nanaimo? To state the obvious, it’s the same route (no?), but from the island to the mainland costs almost $25 more. BC Ferries… Next question: Why isn’t there a little beeper on your keychain/car-unlocker-thingy that beeps or buzzes or flashes when your car alarm goes off? How are you supposed to know that your car is either being broken into, or bothering sleepy, stay-in-their-cars ferry passengers? I’m sure there is such a thing, but I think that all car alarms, when they go off, should send a signal to the person that the car belongs to. (Do car alarms even work? Steve made a good point that they go off so often that most people ignore the noise... but don't ignore the jackass that comes to turn it off after 20 minutes of obnoxiously annoying squeals.) And that’s it, I think I’m done with questions for now.

We spent the past two days over on Thetis, mostly meeting with people (asking questions, answering questions), and ferrying wedding goods – beer, coke, water, beer, coke, booze. It is gorgeous over there, and I can’t even believe that we’re a week away – a WEEK! We are crossing things of the list though: we met with the DJ dude and gave him all of our playlists, we met with Devon the photographer (check out her blog and site – great photos), we met with Bob the marriage commissioner (went over the ceremony) and finally, we met with Arlene, our contact at Overbury Farm Resort, the place where we’re getting married. Even though the last two days have been busy, the levels of commotion and wedding madness to-do lists and errands and last minute things haven’t been so, well… crazy. Perhaps it’s not last minute enough yet for these last minute things, but I’m hoping that we’ve got most of it taken care of. Either that or we’re forgetting about a handful of schtuff… hmmm… Anyways, it was great over there and we are feeling ready. The weather was a bit cool in the mornings and evenings – and we checked out the weather for July 4th (the first time I did so), and Steve found a site that predicted sun for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd, rain for the 4th, and sun for the 5th, 6th and 7th. Clearly this information must be wrong – fingers are crossed for sun on the 4th!

a weekend of action...

Leaving Winnipeg - at Kenaston and McGillvray

Somewhere between Calgary and Vancouver - beautiful!

The last week has FLOWN by… it’s crazy. A week ago yesterday we left Winnipeg – and here we are in Vancouver wondering just exactly what we’ve done with the past eight days. Calgary was great – it was great seeing family and friends, and breaking up the drive was, well, essential. And Vancouver has just been aaaawesome. We got here Thursday night, and Friday was my birthday! Eeeeek I’m 31! Anyways, it didn’t totally feel like my birthday – there’s so much going on… but it was a perfect day. After a fabulous early swim in Kits pool with my mom, sister Claire and Lolis Brymer (fabulous in part because I didn’t end up on the bottom of the 137 metre spread), Steve, Sarah, Claire, Mom and I had a super yummy lunch (Savary Island bread is the best) chez nous. Steve and I did some errands in the afternoon and then – why is this all about food? – we came home to make pizza for a get-together with my cousin Mandy and her family. My mom totally duped me into thinking there was no cake, and … I won’t lie – I was slightly disappointed. Over coffee at Park Royal earlier in the afternoon I even contemplated (out loud) making my own cake; Steve disapproved and bought me a cookie instead. Sure, cookies are good/great but they are no substitute for cake. Anyways, he was in on the whole cake thing and knew all along that dessert wasn’t just strawberries, but a vanilla with chocolate icing double-layered torte as well… yum! After stuffing ourselves silly (or immobile), we made our way to Lighthouse Park for an after dinner stroll to THE ROCK, the lookout where Steve proposed two years ago. On our way back to the car after sunset we had to laugh – on the Friday night of my 31st birthday, we were slowly walking through a dark North Shore park, happy to be full and ready for bed – slighty different than birthday agendas of past years. I was thoroughly spoiled with gifts… yay for presents! Steve got me tickets to see Coldplay on Sunday night, and they were amazing! It was such a great show, and our seats were pretty sweet – at the edge of row 23 on the floor… !!! Sandwiched in between these two nights of fabulousness was yet another one – my friends organized a stagette for me, and we had a great time. Sister Sarah and MOH/best friend Linds orchestrated a dinner at Hapa Izakaya on Robson followed by a stint at Ginger, and then the night-finisher at Lola’s in Kits. There were twelve of us, and it was so fun to have all of my friends – all of us – together and having a great time… the wedding is going to be so fun! And I won’t have to wear a spiky wig. And that’s it for now – we’re heading over to Thetis tomorrow to do a Costco run and pick up the beer…. Only 11 days to go!!!
At Lighthouse Park on Friday


And then there was cake!

Happy Father's Day! Lunch together...

The girls on Saturday night - so fun!!

All sassed up on Saturday night - the wig came off between Ginger and Lola's

Ready to go!! We got some strange looks when we stopped for coffee at Park Royal...

long drives...

Ugh, what a long drive. It took us 12 hours plus to get from Winnipeg to Calgary, and even though it was sunny and beautiful, it was also monotonous - Sascratchandyawn proved, yet again, to be a bit of a bore. But, we arrived safe and mostly sound, and just in time for dinner chez Steve's sister and her husband, Erin and Fred. We've had two days to break up the two big drives, and are heading to Vancouver tomorrow morning bright and early. We haven't had too much going on here, which is a nice break from the busy-busy of the past week in Winnipeg, and of the madness that is yet to come. Steve and I went for a run yesterday morning, and I was super into getting moving and getting a good workout after sitting in a car for so long... and that's exactly what we got. We ran up the McHugh Bluff stairs twice, and up until just now I thought that was not so shabby - I mean, I felt extremely shabby sucking wind all the way up the things but after googling them it appears that two sets of stairs is just dinky. On a forum on beyond.ca (never been to this site - google led me there), there's a workout for 10 sets of stairs, TEN! Eek. Anyways, post two sets of stairs workout, we were wiped. We dragged ourselves out of the house to check out liquor prices; we thought it would be cheaper to buy here than in BC but it turns out we were wrong. We did some errands, cruised around and then met up with Erin back here before heading out to dinner, yum. After downing a super delish salad at the Cactus Club, we met up with my sister Claire, her boyfriend, and two friends for a drink or two and that was it! Now... it's grocery time. We decided on our way here that it's absolutely necessary to travel with sandwiches and/or buns - food is critical on long road trips... so it's time to stock up again for tomorrow. Only 17 days until the wedding!!!

on the move!

And we’re on the move. We are on our way our West to get marrrrried! We’ve been busy this past week, with packing, cleaning and decisions. We met with a realtor on Wednesday night to talk about the house – we know that we’ll move to Ottawa at some point in the next year, but haven’t been (and still aren’t) sure exactly when. This means selling the house we have in Winnipeg, and looking for something in Ottawa… eek. So, meeting with the realtor made it all real, especially because we decided to put the house on the market – eeeeek again! So we organized, cleaned, packed … we thought it would consume the final three days we had in the city, but it didn’t. Steve went golfing on Friday morning, and I played in another beach tourney on Saturday – and skipped out on the playoffs to meet friends for a bbq – so we’ve had time to enjoy our last weekend. But it’s been strange! Having to say goodbye to our house that we love… if we could pick it up and move it we would, and if we could stay here, stay in it – keep it – we would. However, because the men’s national team moved, we don’t really have much of a reason to stay in Winnipeg, so we’re won’t. And now we’re on our way to Calgary and Vancouver – less than three weeks to go!

i love sports!

There's just something about competing and goals and dreams and ultimate accomplishment in sport that I just love. We've been watching a lot of hockey, and there's a commercial that they're running that gives me the chills big time - I (wimp) could almost CRY watching it! Sheesh. I'm not the biggest hockey fan... but this - I love it.



What I do not like is flinging flanging Kobe Bryant. Okay, correction - I hate hate hate his attitude. That attitude in sport (or anything for that matter) is just so ugly to me. So, we're watching some basketball... but I can't handle watching him. He's good, just way way WAY too full of himself for me to handle. I wish we could be playing more basketball right now but it has been so ridiculously chilly here - sports outside are a no-go. It's supposed to get nice by the time the weekend rolls around again, and I'm hoping that it does - beach volleyball in 10 degree weather is the exact opposite of fun. Anyways...

Sooo we've been busy, but things are winding down a bit. We've been doing a fair bit of house stuff - taking down old supremo-ugly chandeliers and putting up new light fixtures, fixing the doorbell, painting things, finishing a bathroom etc. etc. Wedding stuff is steady but there's nothing major to do... at least I don't think there's anything major to do... eek. I hope we're not forgetting anything. We just can't believe that there are only 25 more sleeps until the big day! A slightly overwhelming factor that we're throwing into the mix of goings-ons is the impending move to Ottawa. We don't know when it's happening, we don't know where we're moving exactly... but we know that it's going to happen. I'm excited to move to Ottawa - I feel like we're always so all over the place that it doesn't really matter where our home base is but I know that we need it, that I want it... and that I want it for longer than a month. We've only really been here in our home, sleeping in our bed for one month - I don't want to leave! So, more stuff to figure out. Looking on MLS is fun though; it's fun to look at affordable places, really nice places and REALLY nice swank places. It has made us appreciate what we have here even more: an affordable house that we adore in a city that we've made our home. I definitely don't hate Winnipeg (heard that song - the I hate Winnipeg song ("One Great City") - this morning by the Weakerthans), but I'm excited for all that's coming up - moving, marriage... all of it!

wooooooow....

So I've got a couple of "wows" for you. First of all, yesterday's high (temp) was apparently a record low of NINE DEGREES. And we saw people basically putting their plants to bed - covering them with sheets - because of the frost warning due to an overnight low of minus two. Can weeds freeze and die? Probably not, so we're all good. It just sounds wrong to say "at least it's not snowing" - it's June! I want summer. Or any other season that winter (or fall).

The second wow is this: for the past two days we've seen pelicans - pelicans! - in our back yard. Crazy! On Thursday we saw a group of four of them, dipping down at the same time, big beaks and wide wings and all, and yesterday saw a group of TEN of them (!!) cruising around the pond behind our house. They are so beautiful and so huge... a really neat thing to see.




I'm applying the last wow factor to the movie we saw last night - Up, in 3D. I'm pretty sure that Pixar animated films are my new favourite genre... it was amazing! Again, not a kids movie - there were definitely some scary parts - and not one for the faint of heart either... I'm pretty sure that I cried about three times. It was incredibly sweet and imaginative and reminded me of several different kids books (in one way or another), such as James and the Giant Peach and The Little House. Since there weren't any sports on TV, and because we've had a busy week (and busy day), we decided to opt for dinner and a movie instead of working on our to-do lists. But, today we're back at it - I'm just not so sure how much work I want to be doing outside... it's cold!!

30 days!

One more month! AK! There's so much to do and so much that we aren't doing. Well... we're busy, but somehow just not getting everything that needs to get done done - is this life? C'est la vie? We've both spent some time on the golf course this week - so, er... we can check that off the list - Steve had a tee off time of 7:30am on Tuesday (groan), and I volunteered for Variety at a tourney on Tuesday and again yesterday. They were both pretty long days, full of schmoozing and the Variety schpeal. Tuesday I worked the hole-in-one contest: "You could win this faaabulous refrigerator!" This line was almost undoubtedly followed by a chucklechuckle, guffawguffaw followed by "Does it come full of beer?" chuckleguffaw. We had no winners. Yesterday I started at the beer hole - yes, we were popular girls giving away free beer - and then was moved to the slightly more low-key WATER hole. Man, was it ever boring! The highlight of my day (post beer hole) was when I was coerced into driving a ball and actually got the sucker all the way down the fairway! I am NOT a golfer and only know this golf lingo from a few summers of volunteering... but wow! It was exciting. Perhaps not so exciting as to rope me into spending hours and weekends on a golf course but ??

Anyways, I have to share this oh-so-typical conversation that I was having with the only other volunteers that stayed for dinner, Maureen and Kristen. There was this big piece of meat prime rib fanciness for dinner, and while we were waiting for dessert we got to talking desserts - typical, right? So we're sitting there, kind of waiting and wondering what it will be when Kristen says something to this effect: "I hope it's good. It better be good - if it's not I'm for SURE stopping at Sweet Tops." I had no idea what Sweet Tops was, but got the low-down: it sounds like the BEST ice cream ever (possibly the most caloric ever) - waffle cone full of the ice cream of your choice, rolled in peanuts, dipped in chocolate sauce and covered in caramel. Wow. Anyways, so that conversation set the dessert bar pretty high, and Kristen said, with a roll of the eyes and a heavy sigh (and seriously too), "It better not be cake." Me: "Ooh I looove cake!" Kristen: "Ya, but sometimes the icing you know, you never know - the icing can really ruin the cake." Me: "Yup, you're right, there's a lot of bad icing out there." This is the point at which we actually heard ourselves - and realized how intently and intensely we were talking about the ever so serious ever so important issue of dessert. Is it any surprise that the only man at the table was on the phone? It reminds me of a small misunderstanding a group of us had houseboating a few years ago in the Shuswap.

A group of ten of us - ten girlfriends - rented a houseboat and took to the waters with the sole intention of having a great time together. There were magazines, blankets, hot and cold drinks, hot and cold alcoholic beverages, and we were set for a great time - rain or shine. We were NOT interested in meeting guys (most of us were taken), or hanging out with guys or even seeing guys - this was a girls weekend and we were there to enjoy time together. SO! When Rae the Captain got a radio message from a group of dudes - university guys - asking if they could approach and tie up with our vessel, we all said NO! No thank you please leave us alone. The conversation continued as static to most of us until their captain said, "We've got cake." Well... done and done you are welcome to approach us with your cake - I'm not even kidding that this is what happened - and they were on our boat within five minutes. And within those first 10 seconds most of us - who were up on deck awaiting the cake - had asked about it and... the answer was this: "Cake? We don't have any cake - we have a keg." Talk about the ultimate disappoinment... And that was it. We were infiltrated and there was no cake. The moral of the story is that cake seriously trumps a keg... and women love cake. YUM!

And to finish on a complete tangent, if you haven't seen this commercial (none of these guys brought cake)... check it out. It's hilarious...