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Today is the first day of summer, which seems like a very appropriate time to make a list of SUMMER GOALS.

  1. Finally paint the cheapo wooden drawers we got from IKEA.
  2. Make delicious popsicles in my new popsicle mold.
  3. Go swimming in the ocean for the first time in Vancouver.
  4. Ride the rides at the PNE.
  5. Watch fireworks.
  6. Finish my Settlers paintings.
  7. Sell a pair of shoes or a shirt or a painting.
  8. Go to one of the night markets in Richmond. already done!
  9. Regularly visit the farmers market on Saturday mornings.
  10. Read some books while I actually have the time.
  11. Make a nicer looking menu planning board.
  12. Find a new person to play board games with.
  13. Try a new fruit.
  14. Do a successful venipuncture on a real patient.
  15. Make a new blog header.
  16. Take more pictures.

Summer lasts until September 22, so I’ve got until then to complete my list. We’ll see how I go!

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We had a nice Easter dinner with Rosemarie and Rob on Monday night. Rosemarie came over in the afternoon so we could have some sister-time while Scott was at work. Gotta squeeze in as much sister-time before she leaves!! By the way, have I mentioned that she’s going to FIJI FOR A WHOLE YEAR ON EXCHANGE???????!!!! SO jealous, although hopefully Scott and I will be able to visit her at some point so that is pretty exciting. She has started up her own blog so check that out: http://threepiece.wordpress.com/

Anyway back to last Monday.

Rosemarie and I made a tourtiere (French Canadian meat pie). It was actually extremely simple to make, and very tasty. Pie dinners are so tasty.

We also had salad, mashed potatoes, peas and gravvvvvy. Om nom nom.

Rob made us a nice fruity dessert. I liked the strawberry sauce a lot.

We played some Dominion, but that game kind of annoys me. Why are the rules so vague?? I always have this feeling like we are not playing the game correctly. We also played a couple games of cribbage with my new crib board that I found in the mail room. Scott thinks I’m gross for taking it, but I think it’s ok!!!

I had a big midterm yesterday and had a lot of work due this week so I’ve been studying all week. Very boring. We have today off though because BCIT is having an Open House. I have to go in tomorrow for two hours to help out. I plan on getting a big chunk on one of my papers that is due in a couple weeks today, but so far I’ve just been procrastinating. Oops.

I got volunteered to make a poster for the Open House about nuclear medicine heart imaging. I didn’t have a lot of time to spend on it due to midterm, so I just kept it extremely extremely basic. Does the poster explain anything new to you? Scott coloured in the letters for me while watching hockey.

Speaking of hockey, my dream of a Canucks-Senators final is not off to a great start. :/ I will continue to believe it could actually happen though, until one of the teams gets knocked out.

Ok really I should do something productive now. This is a busy busy weekend so I should not be wasting precious time.

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On Friday night we watched The Descendants, last night In Time, and tonight we will go see Hunger Games!

The Descendants was SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO SAD. I cried A LOT. That did not help the swollen eyes situation. I miss my mom. To counteract the sob-fest we chose a dumb movie for yesterday, and yeah… it was dumb. I’m very excited for the Hunger Games movie tonight though!

We’ve seen a lot of Rosemarie lately. It’s so nice. Yesterday she came over to pick up her sushi helmet and her and Scott went to play basketball for a bit and then they played the NHL game while I worked on some homework and rubbed my eyes.

I like seeing them doing stuff together without me. :’)

We also played a game of Carcassonne and ate the dinner that Scott made (slow cooker potato soup and olive bread).

I’m feeling a bit better today. I’m well stocked with Halls and Claritin and anti-histamines and eye drops, plus I’ve been putting a damp wash cloth over my eyes when I would usually rub them and that feels really good. We’ll see how tomorrow goes– the forecasted alder pollen count is THREE HUNDRED (>85 is considered HIGH)!!!

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My second day of skeleton was really awesome. I woke up pumped and ready for another session. My first four runs I got 99.72, 99.58, 98.99, 99.42 km/hr. Frustrating. That 98.99 km/hr run was when my coach pushed me straight into the wall at the very top. I heard him yell ‘OH NO!!’ as I disappeared around the first corner. I recovered from the bump though, luckily. Sometimes in skeleton you hit an edge near the beginning of the run and end up bashing back and forth the whole way down. They usually get a speed in the 80’s or low 90’s at the speed trap. Luckily I have not had a run like that yet!

Anyway after the fourth run we were told that the next one would be our last. I told myself ‘OK Katrina, you really need to focus and have a perfect run’. The run right before that I thought was pretty good too but I still didn’t get that 100 km/hr that I wanted. I got the other people to help smooth down the back of my sweater, tuck my gloves into my sleeves and I smoothed down my tights on my legs. Coach Ivo gave me a slightly bigger push than before. He really wanted to see me get 100 km/hr too but often giving a bigger push at our level means less control on the way down and a slower speed and time. I relaxed as fully as I could and concentrated on keeping my chin out and my shoulders down and my toes pointed and I made sure to lean into the one corner I sometimes bumped on the way down.

It felt like an awesome smooth run and when they announced my speed at the bottom we all cheered. I was so happy!! 100.60 km/hr and a finish time of less than 30 seconds. A perfect way to end the session.

Dang Brian beat me by 0.09 s on my perfect run, so I actually still only came in second. Achieving my personal goal feels really really good though.

That’s the view from the finishing area. When we do skeleton we only get about half way up and then the crew helps pick up your sled and pass it to you.

Later that day Dylan, Brian and I also got a chance to do a bobsled run! Sometimes you really do just need to ask. Tourists pay a lot of money to do one bobsled run but we got to do it for free. Woohoo.

Bobsled was freaking bumpy. My head bounced around all over the place and I couldn’t even hold it up in the last corner. So much force. It was just like a really rough rollercoaster. I like skeleton better.

I don’t have any pictures of me doing bobsled because I went at a different time than Dylan and Brian. But I tried to take pictures for them…. and failed. That is the best picture I got, and that’s with Rosemarie’s camera! They were going about 125 km/hr.

Dylan and Brian after bobsled. The guy on the far left is the one that took me down as well. I guess he’s always trying to get more track hours so he has room to take other sliding association members down before and after tourist sessions.


Oh and here is a creepy picture of me in a hotel robe playing Settlers in between hot tub sessions. What a life.

I sure wish I was going again this weekend. Instead I’m going to be studying… a lot! We have three midterms next week again. Then holy cow it’s already March Break. Insane. We have to put in our top three choices for hospital placements this week and soon that will be decided as well. First year… coming along!

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I had a really awesome weekend. I said that already.

We all met at Rosemarie’s house. She fed us homemade sushi. It was snowing a bit so we were a little concerned about the drive up to Whistler, but it ended up being totally fine, we just drove a little slower than usual. We arrived at our first hotel and were pleasantly surprised at the size of the room, and the free extra parking spot. We ate and drank and played Wits and Wagers. An excellent way to get to know new people! Rosemarie was the only one who had met everyone else before.

I can’t even remember who won. Doesn’t matter, it was fun!

Next morning was a bit frantic. The Facebook page had said that our skeleton session was from 9:00 AM to 10:30 AM. At 8:30 AM I got a text from the organizer saying ‘WHERE ARE YOUUUUU’ and ‘YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE HERE AN HOUR EARLY!’ which was pretty annoying. I don’t know how we were supposed to know that. Also the session was actually until 11:00 AM. Anyway we rushed rushed rushed and got up to the sliding centre where we quickly filled out paperwork, grabbed our helmets and sleds, and got driven up to the start.

I don’t have any pictures of the actual skeleton session this time because Tink was taking about 9 million pictures of each of us, so I left it up to her. Hopefully she posts some soon!!


I didn’t do my best on the first day, but I still had lots of fun. My speeds were between 98.40 km/hr and 99.42 km/hr. I REALLY wanted to get more than 100 km/hr but it didn’t happen that day. We swapped sleds around a lot to try them out. Each sled is really quite different than the next, in responsiveness and weight etc etc. Actually I placed first in that 98.40 km/hr run so I’m not sure what was happening there.

Brian (Scott’s friend!) did awesome both days of sliding. He’s a natural! The coach really liked him a lot. Brian had many runs over 100 km/hr. He is now addicted, which is good, because this ‘club’ really needs all the members it can get.

After skeleton I went snowboarding. The conditions were great (TONS O’ POWDER) but I suck at snowboarding. Really I have been snowboarding since middle school and I have not improved much. I found it extremely tiring and actually not that much fun. I am seriously considering switching back to skiing or snowblading because I miss being able to explore more of a mountain. Plus at the moment I don’t have a snowboard or boots so it’s a pretty good time to switch.


Anyway I did a few runs with Rob and then one really long one with David, and then the day was over. We moved into our next hotel (Westin!!) and spent many hours in the hot tub, playing Settlers, and eating dinner. Then back to the hot tub. Good times!

OK I’m going to leave day 2 for another entry.

Scott is home! He is sleeping on the couch. He made tea, put on a tv show, then fell asleep. I turned off the show because I was doing school work, then he woke up, drank some tea, turned the TV on again, and he is now asleep. Yeesh.