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After the party everyone left but Scott and I got to stay at the Monnon’s overnight. We watched the video my dad made (which we forgot to get a copy of… oops!!) again and looked at some of the pictures from the day. Then we crawled to our guest suite, aka the Monnon’s enormous campervan that is actually 100 square feet BIGGER THAN OUR APARTMENT. IT HAS A KING SIZE BED! Unfortunately it took me about 5 hours to fall asleep from all the adrenaline of the big day, and possibly the chocolate cake.

The next day was warm and sunny so (after a quick couple games of Settlers) we headed out into the water for boating, tubing, kneeboarding, and jetskiing. It was awesome. They even let me drive the jetski!

Life jacket issues

Calm

Medium

EXTREME!

Out on the boat

Chillin'

Then we came home, ate party leftovers for dinner, and played games with Rosemarie.

Up to Tuesday now. We did some typical tourist things during the day. Picnic lunch by the river, War Museum, market, Lois N’ Frima’s. I’d never been to the museum before, so that was neat. I learned some things that I don’t think I caught in Mr. Couturier’s grade 10 histoire class. I have to say thought that after finishing the WWII section I was quite war-ed out and was ready to leave. So we caught the bus to the market and scarfed down some ice cream before it melted down our arms (semi successfully). It was really hot out.

View from Mackenzie King bridge on a muggy Ottawa day

What a great look for Scott

Then bused over for dinner at my aunt and uncles’ house with my cousin as well. Lots of chatting and quite delicious veggie burgers (Costco brand!). I’m not sold on those weird thin buns for burgers though. :D

Since Rose didn’t have to work the next day we stayed up quite late playing the new game she gave us, Carcasonne. I like it so far, but we’re all still getting the hang of it. It’s not as complicated as some of the others ones though, although we did have to do some Googling for tile clarification!

Playing Carcasonne

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The main reason for our Ottawa trip was the ‘wedding-ish’ party. Scott and I were married almost a year ago in Australia, but because of the distance and last minute-ness, a lot of people didn’t get to be there. So we decided to have one final party in Ottawa where we would renew our vows and all my family and friends could finally be included. It took us a long time to finally be able to make the trip but I think it was worth the wait because the party was amazing.

So many great people came together to help make the party a super success. The Monnon’s, Kate, Jane, the Dafoe’s, Rosemarie, dad, MEP and Paul, and more, all helped out so much I am incredibly grateful. Also it was super fun to see everyone again and I loved all the speeches and how much fun everyone seemed to be having. Overall, great success!!!

Oh quickly before I forget. Our Friday overnight flight to Ottawa the day before was ok. We had a lot of turbulence but both managed to get a few hours sleep. We arrive at 9:00 am on Saturday and immediately had to shop for the food we were to prepare. We cooked our dishes on adrenaline and then my grandparents came over to finally meet Scott. We had shishkabobs (sp?), including delicious squeaky haloumi cheese, and Kate’s homemade ice cream, then passed out. Sunday morning we quickly got ready to head over to the Monnon’s for the part-ay.

After the party everyone went home, except Scott and I slept over (in a motor home that is ACTUALLY bigger than our apartment (by ~100 sq feet!!)) and then went boating and jet skiing and stuff, which I will post about later.

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What a rough night last night. I’m sure you’ve all seen it already on the news.

I think I knew the game was over after the first goal.

Then this was the view from Brian’s balcony. For hours. We could see the riot police pushing people off Granville St. The tear gas wafted upwards and stung my eyes and nose way up on the 21st floor. They cancelled all the buses and closed the bridges downtown.

I was pretty worried about getting home. Luckily the Skytrain was still running outbound. It was strangely quiet. I found out today that was because they were having problems at all the other Skytrain stations downtown except the one we went to. Lucky!

On the streets (with zoom and cropping)

People are so stupid. People who brag about their vandalism on Facebook are even more stupid. I hope they actually fine people.

I find the train of thought of the general public/media kind of funny though.

  • Before the game: ‘People won’t riot’
  • Right after the game: ‘Vancouver fans sure are sore losers’
  • This morning: ‘They would have rioted win or lose’
  • This afternoon: ‘They were anarchists from out of town’

Yes I agree that many of the people who started things probably didn’t even care whatsoever about the hockey game, but I think it’s surely a bit of a stretch to say that they were all ‘anarchists disguised as hockey fans’ causing the trouble. Not sure Vancouverites should get off the hook that easily…

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Blossoms on our street.

Another week gone by, nothing from NAIT.

Nothing from BCIT either yet, but since I did the bio challenge and finished the first half of physics (I got an A) I should hear from them any day now.

We just want to make some plans!!!

Ah Canucks in the Stanley Cup finals! We watched the last game downtown. It was nutso, as soon as they won people started screaming and honking their horns everywhere downtown. It was crazy noisy! We all rushed down to Granville Street where everyone was singing and cheering and high fiving each other. Apparently 20,000 people flooded Granville Street! That wasn’t even the finals!!

 

We took some videos too. Maybe Scott will post one on his blog IF HE EVER WRITES AGAIN.

Work has become very very very boring. I’ve mastered all the different documents so nothing is challenging any more. I could do it with my eyes closed. Well not really, but almost. I’ll obviously keep at it for the next couple months but I will admit I have been dreaming about my last day for a while now.

Well time to do something productive now… so I’m off!

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Last Friday Scott and I had plans to go do our first yoga class in the early evening. We had bought vouchers for 20 classes for $20, but unfortunately I guess it was actually a scam because the company went out of business. I sent Dealfind an angry email and they are refunding us, which is good, but… I still want to try yoga!!

Anyway we had planned to finally try La Taqueria as a reward after the class… but even though there was no yoga we still had tacos. Guilty.

The tacos were really good, but small. Scott had one of each of the veggie options (mushrooms, tofu, beans, corn). He liked the Tinga de Hongos – sauteed fresh mushrooms in spicy chipotle sauce the most. I had fish, pork cheeks, pork and mole, and liked the Carnitas – pork confit with pickled red onion the most. I did not like the mole but am glad I tried it. We ate them in the park since it was still light and nice out.

We also finally checked out Canada Place.

Here’s Scott with the Olympic torch, hehe.

And here’s me blending into a geometric orca.

The weather has been nice in Vancouver lately. Very sunny and warm! (About 18ºC). Unfortunately it’s not supposed to be nice over this long weekend. We debated for a bit about renting a car and going to Seattle or Bellingham or Harrison Hot Springs or something, but ended up deciding nah because it was too last minute. We definitely plan on taking a weekend trip very soon, but it will probably be better to search out a good hotel deal and do some research beforehand since we’d be on a tight budget.