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I really wanted to try riverboarding ever since I heard about it from Helenka and Natasha.

I actually didn’t research it that much… I thought we would spend the day travelling down the river on our riverboards, occasionally going through rapids… basically a slightly more extreme lazy river experience.

Wrong!!

Rosemarie couldn’t find any thermoses to bring their coffee, but you can definitely always find a jar in our old house. :D

Eating pre-riverboarding snacks and getting eaten alive by mosquitoes.

Starting to get more nervous because apparently “no Scott can’t switch to regular white water rafting because it’s all booked up” actually means “we’re pretty much shut down and there is actually no white water rafting happening at all and your group are the only people here”.

Ah well, let’s get ready to go. Helmets and wetsuits, check!

Make wraps in the owners kitchen who is not there for some reason, check!

After a little bit of instructions, in to the water! First we went down a medium rapid. Some water was inhaled. But we did ok. They ask if we want to go down the bigger rapids… sure. Much water inhaled! Much stress! Much flipping upside down! Much bumping into the things! Much tiring! Rosemarie and Scott were traumatized because they spent a lot of time under the water.

Then instead of continuing down the river we had to paddle furiously to the side, climb out, and walk back up through the trees and rocks, wearing flippers!!

None of us really enjoyed the big rapids that much so instead we tried to get onto the standing wave. A few of us managed it, but only with the help of our three guides. One guide would go out first and get settled on to the wave and ready to catch us, and another guide would paddle out beside us and show us the angle we needed to get to the right spot/push us into position. Then the first guide would literally yank us back onto the wave when we rushed over it. Then when we fell off the wave, the third guide would paddle after us and make sure we made it back to the shore.

Groundboarding?

Resting. Everything was super super super tiring. Thank goodness we had the guides to push and pull us places when energy levels were plummeting. Everyone tried a few times to get on to the wave, while the other people watched/rested. The guides took no breaks.

Sarah did not care for the rapids hahaha. Instead she went down the very gentle side a couple times.

We did all go down the big rapids one more time at the end of the day. We were slightly more successful but only because the guides were shoving us into position hahahaha. They seriously did so much work for us.

Done for the day.

Back at home nursing injuries. Rosemarie banged up both ankles, and Scott smashed his knee on a rock. He also hit his face on a tree branch while hiking because he was looking down at his flipper feet. GOOD TIMES. We all had sore abs the next day too.

Helenka had fun, but I’m not sure any of the rest of us would actually go riverboarding again. It was so hard!!!

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About a month ago I had a very bad case of analysis paralysis. As I often do, I frantically messaged Rosemarie.

She helped me solve all my little problems, and also figure out that in general I need to:

  1. Do more new and scary things.
  2. Meet some more people.
  3. Take more advantage of only working part time while it lasts.

Isn’t she wise.

So I did! I’ve got a few new things on the go at the moment.

First I signed up for a picture framing short course through Scott’s mum’s work. I thought it might be useful because all my cross stitch projects come out in random non-standard sizes, and as a result almost all of my finished stitches are rolled up in a box under my bed instead of displayed.

The first class we learned about materials and cut mat boards, second class we cut more mat board bevels, and foam core and mounted things together. This week we cut the wood for our frames and glued them together, and the last week we cut the glass and put everything together. It was fun! I finished two frames. The instructor is very knowledgeable and gave us a lot of info. The tools to do it on my own would be a bit of an investment though.

Have you ever seen 2.5 kg plates before?? Lol.

Second I joined an Olympic weightlifting club. It is very intense and scary there. Everyone is extremely strong. There are people training for the Commonwealth Games and stuff. The first night I went, THIS GUY was there!! He is so awesome. Anyway so now I have a coach who is teaching me snatch and clean and jerk from scratch. It’s very cheap and I can go as much as I want, which is pretty cool. And everyone I’ve met so far has been very friendly. I think it will be good for me to have some goals again, now that I don’t have skeleton in my life. Hopefully I can do some local competitions at some point.

I also thought maybe I could try and cook more elaborate meals? These were homemade pork and shrimp siu mai. They were yum. I got a library card too so I could get a bunch of fancy cookbooks for some new ideas. Any ideas for labour intensive but not cost intensive meals would be very welcomed! (Just typing that out makes me realize that I should make perogies v soon, especially since they don’t really exist here.) (brb crying)

So life is very busy these days. This is good.

Next weekend I’m going to Adelaide for Cassia’s baby shower. I don’t think they actually expected me to accept the invitation but flights were only $33!!! So… YOLO, I’m going.

And then a couple days after that we go to Ottawa!!! We are very excited to escape the cold here and get some quality family/friends/cottage/Canada time in.

PS fish and chip shop deep fried Mars bars are amazing. We shared a few at work the other day. :D

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It’s been a while since I’ve done a life update. I guess because we’ve settled into a bit of a routine now.

WORK: Mine is going well. It’s been a bit challenging trying to learn everything when I’m only there a couple days a week, and with everyone sharing the work, but it’s coming together. Scott’s is… going. :/

HOUSE: We moved! We upgraded to a two bedroom apartment a bit more central to work and family. The apartment is small, but nice, and I love the neighbourhood.

EXERCISE: I joined a new gym near our new house and it’s GREAT. They have an epic gym area, swimming pool, and lots of classes, so I’ve been able to add yoga and swimming back into my exercise plan (in addition to weights). Scott started biking to work (10km each way!), and still plays basketball and the occasional extra game of soccer or more basketball.

CRAFTS: My latest project is creating cross stitch patterns that I am trying to sell on Etsy. It’s hard though!! I have to make the patterns, test stitch it, photograph it, list it, and then advertise it. I’ve got two patterns in my shop but I still have SO much more work to do.

I also taught Scott how to crochet, so we’ve been making granny squares to eventually turn into a blanket. The biggest challenge is getting our tension to match each other.

FRIENDS: I’ve still been going to trivia most weeks with my internet friends. They are great. I also get together with a sub-group of them to Stitch n Bitch every month, which is fun. We usually eat lunch, and then crochet/cross stitch.

We used to go to a different trivia night with some of Scott’s friends but the pub changed the night so that is off until we find a good replacement.

We had Jemma and Damien over for a games night the other weekend. We played Wasabi and Carcassonne. I think we are getting close to teaching them Agricola!!!

VISITORS: Cassia and Pablo came to visit Melbourne with two of their Spanish friends. We went to Chin Chin for dinner the first night (1.5 hour wait!!! but really tasty), and then did a mega tourist day the next day at Brighton Beach, Fitzroy, and the CBD. I hope Silvi tags me in her pictures because I didn’t take any. :/

Natasha has arrived in Australia as well. She’s in Sydney at the moment, but we expect to see her in the next couple weeks. I can’t wait! We’ve got the guest bedroom all set up ready to go. :D

SUMMER: One really hot day we drove out to Sorrento back beach to play in the tidepools. It was lovely but Scott severely sunburned his feet which was SO GROSS. It wasn’t that hot of a summer, but it is lingering a bit. It’s still been above 30°C most days, but thankfully it gets cool overnight, so it’s been okay.

SKELETON: My FOMO about not sliding this season hasn’t actually been that bad because 1. I still get timesheets from Whistler to analyze, 2. the World Cup races are on at very convenient times here so I’ve been able to watch most of them live. 3. Instagram stories make me feel like I’m right there, and 4. My old coach Rob has been keeping a daily vlog. So yeah, that’s cool. The final race of the season is next weekend, in Korea on the future Olympic track! Should be interesting.

OK I can’t think of anything else at the moment, so… hasta luego.

 

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I just realized that I never actually posted my 2016 video on here. I spammed it everywhere else, but not on the ol’ blog. So… here it is! What an epic year it was.

My favourite clips are Feb 29th, May 12th, and May 21st. :D

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It’s been an incredibly busy fall. I’ve been working almost full time, weightlifting at Terminal City Training twice a week, training on my own, push training at the Richmond Oval about once a week, walking home from work when I can, working on a really complicated project, meeting up with tons of visitors, and more! OMG.

Everything is going really well though. I am not complaining about being busy at all.

It’s actually the one year mark of me joining Al’s weightlifting gym. I’ve added about 30 lbs to my press and benchpress, and 60 lbs to my deadlift and squat!! Sweet sweet noob gains. Group training is the highlight of my week, tbh.

Push training is also pretty fun. It’s a flat track with a metal skeleton sled on wheels and an emergency crash pad at the end. It’s fairly realistic, although the sled is quite heavy, and there is no chance of popping the groove. We can run as far as we want basically and then you drag your toes to slow down. Running bent over, while trying to accelerate a sled without actually putting much weight on it is very difficult!! I don’t think I will ever be a very fast starter but hopefully it’s still helping me get BETTER.

The Whistler skeleton season starts November 4th, by the way.

Scott walks home from work almost every day now. It takes him about an hour. It’s saving us a lot of money, and he gets his daily exercise. Win win! I walk sometimes, but definitely not as often as Scott. I did walk home from UBC once though, haha. It suddenly started taking 5ever to get home on the bus when the university students went back to school so out of frustration I decided to just walk home. It took 3 hours and it was quite boring and my knees hurt. But I will probably do it again if I’m at UBC again on a Friday.

We’ve been super lucky to have lots of visitors lately!

  • I met up for bubble tea with Anna, one of the German girls I camped with in Bowen, Australia while we packed corn and beans. She had been living in rural Saskatchewan trying to get her Canadian PR but the restaurant laid her off and she had to go home. What a bummer. She came through Vancouver on her farewell Canada tour and it was really nice to catch up after 6 years.

  • My friend Chris, from Halifax stopped through Vancouver too, on his way to his next WWOOFing place. I hadn’t seen him since 2007!! We went to the Richmond Night Market and ate takoyaki and fish sticks and deep fried cheesecake that made our teeth hurt. I was too scared to sit on the Throne of Rotato.
  • Leslie visited from Victoria (so nice that we at least live in the same province again!) for Thanksgiving. She helped document the whole spatchcocking the turkey project (more about that later), and get ready for our potluck Friendsgiving Thanksgiving dinner. We made tons of food and delicious cocktails (hello Automnal Cinnamon Apple Whiskey Sour!!) and had a really nice dinner. I love hanging out with old Ace Gang members.
  • And last night I met up with Catty and Samir who were in town for a conference. Again, I hadn’t seen her in years too! We went out and watched the Blue Jays game with Scott and then went out for ramen with Rosemarie and Lauren. All was good except for the Jays losing, and a super long hair in Samir’s ramen… blech.

Rosemarie is doing her last semester of uni now so she’s very busy these days, but we still try to squeeze in as much hanging out time as possible. We spent one afternoon making 9000 dumplings: some pork and some shrimp. We’re not very good at being able to seal them when the dough is thin so they ended up pretty pudgy… but very very very tasty.

We also went bouldering for free at The Hive, because we voted. They were supposed to offer more free days too but apparently it’s again election law, ha oops. I struggled because my hands are in such bad shape (dry and cracking… gross and painful), but Scott climbed A LOT!

How about that election eh? I watched the election results like Scott would watch the rugby world cup final, hahaha. So relieved we have a non-conservative government again. Scott was pretty happy about being able to vote in Canada for the first time too!

What else what else…

GE randomly threw a free nuclear medicine conference, which a bunch of us from VGH went to. They had a wine and hors d’oeuvres and we… had fun. Closed down the bar. The talks to the next day were pretty entertaining, and I learned a few new things too. It was fun to see a lot of techs from other hospitals that I hadn’t seen since being a student as well.

Scott won tickets to a Canucks pre-season game from work. We actually got to sit pretty close to the ice for once! They Canucks lost and the security people confiscated my bag of cherry blasters I tried to bring in. :/

We had another games day with Marjorie, Latif and Phil. We played King of Tokyo, For Sale (a super simple real estate card game), Galaxy Truckers, and an epic long game of Lords of Waterdeep with both expansions, which I won by 1 point. :D That’s my favourite game lately.

I got a haircut. It’s nice to not have so much hair. It took the girl 2 hours and 20 minutes hahahaha. Fun times at the Aveda Institute. At least is only cost $21.

Oh and like other years, we watched the AFL Grand Final at Moose’s Down Under. We had 20 people this year! Mmm those parmas were delicious. The game was not super exciting, but it was still fun, as usual.

Alright! I think I’m caught up. Until next time my friends!