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Check out my nails!! I am v. proud of myself, hehe.

I used a technique called water marbling. First you do a quick coat of white nail polish, then you mask off as much of your fingertip skin as possible with masking tape. Then you drip drops of nail polish on the surface of the water in a little tub and swirl it around with a toothpick until you see patterns that you like. Then you dunk a few fingers in and the nail polish sticks to your nails like magic. I could only do two at the same time. Then you pick up all the extra nail polish on the water with another toothpick before you take your fingers out. A quick youtube search for water marbling should bring up something useful. I finished off each nail with Seche Vite, which is also magic. Totally totally dry in 5 minutes.

They look even brighter and awesome in real life!

Edited to add: I have done up a water marbling tutorial. Check it out here!!

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Rosemarie here!

My dad, Kate and I decided to go to the cottage for the Victoria Day weekend. I spent a lot of time putting together a 1000 piece puzzle of Ottawa. So far we have put together the Museum of Nature, the Glebe community centre and part of the canal. It is pretty neat being able to put together things you recognize!

We also spent some time splitting logs. The effort required for this task has decreased from ‘lots of effort’ down to ‘almost no effort’ because of my Dad’s new purchase…THE LOG SPLITTER.

You put the log in, press the button, pull the lever and then the logs crack into pieces! It even works with logs that are more than a foot wide.

I am a few weeks into my summer job at StatsCan. My official title is (lots of big words coming) a Dissemination Officer in the Infrastructure section of the Service Industries Division. In other words, my supervisor assembles all the publications and writes all the press releases when they want to release the results of a survey our division did. I do things like making deadline schedules, contact lists,  preparing press releases templates and making PowerPoint presentations. My new best friend is Excel!

Not much else is new; I’ve been busy catching up with friends, visiting with family, visiting Bell and cooking. Cooking highlights include pork vindaloo (too spicy! makes my stomach lining hurt), coconut shrimp green curry (yum!!!!), sushi (tuna, crab and yam), creamy ham and tomato pasta (sodium overload!!), garlic and parsely hummus (MY-MOUTH-IS-ON-FIRE), tacos and waffles with peanut butter.

Kate made falafels on the weekend…I HAVE NEVER TASTED ANYTHING MORE DELICIOUS. Mmmmmm. Who needs lunch meat when you have falafels??!!!

Dylan and I also saw POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold which was pretty entertaining. It is a Morgan Spurlock documentary similar to Super Size Me, but about product placement in movies. Definitely worth a DVD watch!

Is anyone coming back from BC soon? My ambrosia apple supply is reaching critical levels. (I’m joking….sort of)

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Hello everyone! I’m Rosemarie (Katrina’s sister). If you don’t know me, I go to school at Simon Fraser University. Since I am at school for most of the year, I won’t be posting as often (studying is not very interesting to blog about).

I had been feeling antsy this year to see more BC nature, but had been finding myself so busy with school and other things to be able to do anything. When my friend Adam from SFU offered to let me stay at his place in Squamish for a week after exams, there was no way I could refuse.

Day 1: Mountain biking up to Alice Lake. This was the first time I’ve tried mountain biking…my verdict is that the uphill trek is definitely worth the ride downhill! It is kind of like playing MarioKart but in real life!

Day 2: The second day we hiked the Chief, which is a really big rock face that people normally rock climb on. We had amazing weather, but I’m not too sure about the whole ‘hiking mountains’ thing. Every time you think you see the top, and then you get there, I realize there is a another huge part that I have to go up to to get to the peak. Errrghhh. The top part was really cool though, they have ladders and chains set up to help you up the last part. Real-life high ropes course! (I AM SO LAZY)

Day 3: Wednesday was mostly reserved for letting my shaking calves recover (I am weak), but we still managed to go swimming at the public pool and go in the hot tub.

Day 4: Skiing at Whistler with Adam’s other friend and a few others. Even though it was almost May, the top half of the mountain was exactly the same as when I was there in February. We were lucky enough to have the whole mountain to ourself and be skiing through knee-deep powder! It was even snowing in the village.

Day 5: A quick trip to tour Quest University and what every good trip has to end with, SUSHI. Mmmmm. (FUN FACT: I turn on ‘face detection’ on my camera when I take gnome pictures… ahahaha it recognizes the gnome’s face.)

I’m looking forward to exploring even more of BC in the fall. My friend has invited me to visit her house on Salt Spring Island and I hope to try outdoor rock climbing with the Outdoors Club. I’m really looking forward to another study semester and then a co-op term in the spring.

I had a great year at SFU this year; I think this summer will be good as well. I’m going to be working this summer at Statistics Canada. I’m looking forward to BluesFest and riding the Aqualoop (!!!).

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I finally got around to getting a photostitch program (free and legal I LOVE LINUX) and made up a few panoramas from the past year or so. Check them out.

The MCG in Melbourne


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On the West coast of Australia


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From the lookout between Kailua and Honolulu, Hawaii


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A beach in the North part of Oahu, Hawaii


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We kept the festivities fairly minimal on Wednesday since a lot of people had to work the next day, and saved the partying for Saturday.

Saturday was a big big day.

We checked into our hotel in the morning (thanks Rhiannon!) and then headed out to Boronia for the family party. There was about 30 of Scott’s family there, mostly cousins and aunts and uncles. We ate party food and cakeS (so many). It was the first time that I’d met some of these people.

Favourite quote from the party: “When are we singing Happy Birthday??” -Noah (Scott’s nephew)

After the family party we took the train back into the city for our other party. We’d booked the upstairs area of a bar in Richmond for all our friends. I was a bit worried since we didn’t really plan much for this party besides the super cool cake that one of our friends made for us, but it turned out fun. A LOT of people showed up! I think there was about 60 at one point, in a pretty small area! It was really good having all our friends and workmates all there for us!

I don’t have many pictures from this night yet, but I think lots were taken so I’ll try to track these down. Along with the video Brett took of the actual ceremony! I’m on it!

Sunday was very relaxed. We didn’t do anything actually. I played Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 for a LONG LONG time. It is addictive.

Today has been quite productive though. Our visa paperwork is quite close to finished now, which is good. We can pick up the official marriage certificate this week and I want to send off the package right then.

We’ve got curling tonight. I’m extra excited because they finally got enough rocks for us all to play a proper game (we were only doing 4 rock ends before). It’s going to seem so crowded, I know it. But should be very fun.