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AKA Cramming All My Favourite Things About Canada In To One Week

Our trip to Ottawa was so short that we literally had a spreadsheet to try and pack in everything we wanted to do/see/eat/buy. But it worked, we did well! The trip was super hectic but really fun.

✔ Bulk Barn. Zingy zaps! :D What a great store. I should open one in Melbourne, y/y?

✔ Nostalgic board games, such as Survive. We really wanted to play Disaster too, but couldn’t find it. :(

✔ Hang out with Grandma and Grandpa, and MEP and Paul. Grandpa was really good at Sushi Go Party!

✔ Costco poutine. Best value poutine in the whole country, imo.

✔ Lots and lots of Shouldice strawberries.

✔ Hanging out with the Monnon’s (including MJ!) and Laurie. We made burgers and an enormous salad for dinner. I hadn’t actually seen Bill and Suzanne since our wedding party at their house, which was way way way too long.

✔ Lots of sister time with Rosemarie (aka Tina Belcher).

✔ Cottage

✔ Crokinole

✔ Dozens of games of Seven Wonders, because Rosemarie couldn’t figure out how to win.

✔ Celebrating my non-birthday. Breakfast cake! Also squeezing in one last game of Seven Wonders before going out for Canada Day.

Other things non-pictured:

✔ Dimsum with Jane

✔ Wine with Mary

✔ Pho with Lauren and Sarah

✔ Shawarmas

✔ Taco Bell

✔ Bagels

✔ Shopping (omg I got so much cheap embroidery thread, and Scott got skates and a helmet)

✔ Riverboarding (post coming)

✔ #canada150 (post coming)

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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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Not dead, but yeah…

I’m just going to do a point form recap of the last couple months.

  • We went to Ballarat for an afternoon to hang out with Jono, and two fellow KJ’s, Kirsten and Kiera, who were visiting from Scotland. Was fun.
  • Jess and Michael and Ava came to visit. Twelve of us went to go see the Lego Batman movie. We took up an entire row and the movie was actually really funny.
  • Scott got his sleep apnea machine and now he doesn’t twitch every 30 seconds while sleeping.
  • Scott and I, and Jemma, Damien and April drove to Sydney for Easter weekend family shenanigans. We ate lots of delicious foods, did some touristing, lots of playing in parks, a bit of shopping. It was a fun long weekend.

A & A on the ferry to Manly.

This statue was actually burning hot.

  • Scott and I did a small chunk of the Bondi to Coogee coastal walk. We planned on doing more but forgot about things like sunset and darkness. At least we got some nice pictures in the magic light and the part we did walk was very nice.
  • I had a pretty good interview for a full time job at a different hospital but didn’t get it. :(

  • I babysat April while Scott, Damien and Jemma went to the rugby on Anzac Day. We played some games and read some books and watched videos on the iPad. I got her to go to bed but she didn’t sleep. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Still getting the glitter from her boots out of the couch hahaha.
  • We bought a BBQ.

  • Scott got us tickets to watch footy in a VIP box through work. It was awesome!!! I drank all the free ciders and we ate all the food. Dees won too, although apparently it was a terrible quality game (didn’t notice/care). A+ would VIP box again.

  • It was also one of those rare times you get to go out on the oval when the game is done for a kick to kick. There are footies flying everywhere and it’s hella scary. But you do what you gotta do for a selfie, right?
  • Scott had a couple interviews and got a new job!!! He is much happier now. And he gets free juice!
  • I hosted a Stitch and Bitch at our (tiny) apartment. It went well though. I made (pressure cooker) pulled pork, and mac and cheese for lunch, and finished a few more squares for our granny square blanket.
  • We went to my friends 30th birthday party and ate her amazing chocolate cake and hung out with my new friends.
  • Many many trivia nights.
  • Many many yoga classes.
  • Masterchef AU started again so that’s television sorted every night. It’s on five days a week this year, but each episode is like 1 to 1.5 hours!!!!! The team challenge episode that we went to was on the other night but I couldn’t see myself. :(

I have a few more recent things to talk about but this is getting long so I will leave it for another post. It’s already written though so it shouldn’t take two months to post this time. :D

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This place is very close to our house.

Jemma, Jess and I ALL ordered the zucchini, corn and halloumi fritters… and then found out they were not available. Le sigh. So here are our second choices…

Smashed avo for me, which I guess is the reason we still don’t own a house. :P With a poached egg. The avocado mixture was like 50% feta. Yum. Very lemony. Good sourdough as well, and we appreciated them giving us decent knives to cut through it.

Jess had the big breakfast that came with a cheesy croquette and mushrooms and stuff.

Jem had hotcakes with bacon and pecan and ice cream. They were very light and fluffy.

All decent. Disappointing that we didn’t get to try the fritters though. Maybe don’t go on a Monday morning.

Axil Coffee Roasters Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

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Eau De Vie is a cocktail bar hidden down one of Melbourne’s many alleyways. We actually had a pretty hard time finding the entrance. Typical Melbs, tbh. They serve very creative and unique cocktails.

Sgt Pepper. Vodka with honey, lime, orange and bell pepper jelly. It was super citrusy, perfectly sour but not too sour, with a lingering heat that was spicy but not too spicy. It was also super cold, and came with a dark chocolate dipped candied lemon. I loved it all. Seriously perfect cocktail.

Scott had some house ginger beer. It was very gingery/spicy and not too sweet. Again, very nice.

I also had a Ocean Side #2 but don’t have a non-blurry picture (it was super dark inside!!). It was made from gin, lime, apple, cucumber, white chocolate and fennel, and was okay but not as awesome as the Sgt Pepper. It also came in a very boring tall glass, unlike some of the other drinks we saw being served in shells, beakers, whale figurines, etc etc.

Overall, very cool place. I wish I was rich so I could go there all the time and try everything.

Eau De Vie Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato