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WORK/SCHOOL – My summer has pretty much revolved around this. I feel like the majority of my summer has been working, commuting, studying or sleeping (and going to the gym). I’m two weeks away from finishing clinical though so it’s all good. After clinical ends we have a couple weeks to study our butts off and then we write the national certification exam on September 17th.

HOME – We still really like this apartment. Our neighbour situation at the moment is pretty ideal too now. We used to have really loud neighbours to the right. They did things like leave their alarm clock beeping from 10PM to 5AM straight, or have loud arguments on the balcony at 10PM, or have loud parties on Wednesday nights. Then a while ago we noticed we hadn’t heard anything from there for several days. We peeked around the divider to look and all their stuff was still there, but it seemed like there was no one in the apartment for a whole month. Then mysteriously one day all their furniture was packed up and gone, except for a few knicknacks here and there. THEN we noticed that the patio door has been wide open for at least a week now. WHAT HAPPENED???!!! Did they die in there and now they are airing it out?? I don’t get it. (ps I hope no one actually died)

FOOD/DRINK – New favourite drink: strawberry lime cider. Six for $11?? Love this province and their ridiculously cheap cider. Today I baked cheesy garlic bread… FROM SCRATCH. There’s more than one baker in this house!!! It was delicious.

FRIENDS/FAMILY – I’ve been enjoying bubble tea dates and game nights and chatty lunches and hanging out on the patio. We should have another party asap. Friends: just come over any time!! Also I miss Rosemarie a lot and am counting down the days till she comes “home”. At least it seems like she is doing really well in New Zealand (office work weekdays and outdoors for the whole weekend, the usual).

FITNESS – I’ve still been going to the gym 2-4 times a week. Still doing mainly weightlifting but today I did my first attempt at HIIT. I like that HIIT only takes like 15 minutes. I bought a bikram yoga Groupon last week too. Thought yoga might help with my core which will help with skeleton. It would have made my mom SO happy if I had told her I decided to finally try yoga, haha. I’m also thinking about getting back into swimming. I’ve been meaning to write a big post about my foray into fitness so that’s all I’m going to say about exercise for now. New post coming soon.

HOBBIES – What’s a hobby?

 

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Julie and I went to Gehringer Brothers when Scott and Steve were golfing (told you this was a nice holiday!!). It’s a good place to go if you like white wine because they aren’t stingy with the samples. We tried every single wine they had! I bought a Riesling and a Chardonnay.

The next day Scott and I went to Silver Sage. It was highly recommended to us by several people and did not disappoint. Their wines are very fruity and delicious. I thought they were quite unique. Usually I have a hard time tasting the fruits that wines are supposed to taste like but these were like WHOA GREEN APPLE or WHOAAAAA SPICY CHILI!! The lady giving out the samples was funny and had tons of recipes of foods and drinks to make with the wine. Plus they had cheese and pretzels to munch on.

We bought a whole bunch of wines from Silver Sage. A couple green apple-y ones, a berry one that we are supposed to freeze and then make slushies with vodka, and a couple other ones. Yum yum. We really enjoyed Silver Sage.

We stopped by Hester Creek and tried a few wines but didn’t stay long. Then we headed to Tinhorn Creek. We tasted a few wines and looked at the educational displays they had about wineries.

Then we went for a luxurious lunch at Miradoro at Tinhorn Creek out on the patio. It was lovely and incredibly delicious. We ordered sangria (one white, one red), a fancy grilled cheese (kootenay alpine nostrala on focaccia with stonefruit mostarda and crispy onions), and a pizza pancetta (Italian bacon, confit garlic, smoked mozzarella).

Everything was REALLY DELICIOUS. The flavours were so good and the view of the Okanagan valley was spectacular. The food we ordered was really rich, and filling. We took some leftovers home. Mmm I am drooling just reminiscing about that lunch.

Miradoro at Tinhorn Creek Winery Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

After lunch we played bocce out on the grass by the restaurant. I lost. :(

In case you are wondering about winery logistics…. time and food helped. We didn’t rush from place to place. A lot of the wineries are close together too. Plus Scott didn’t try every wine.

Like I said before, I never knew that the Okanagan had so many wineries!! The Okanagan is just as good as those famous wine areas in Australia and such! I look forward to exploring more of them next time.

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This summer has been amazing. Still grilling all the time and eating salads all the time. It feels like forever since I’ve cooked something on the stove.

Oh I noticed that Feedly doesn’t show the captions of pictures? How annoying. So if you’re reading in Feedly and want to read the picture descriptions you’ll have to click over to my actual blog.

july 28th, 2013 – salad with Trader Joe’s cilantro salad dressing

july 29th, 2013 – corn tortillas with roasted pork, avocado, serrano salsa

july 30th, 2013 – grilled stuff (pork, mushrooms, peppers, zucchini)

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Last time I posted we were on the way to Osoyoos for the weekend. Well we’re back (for a week…. oops), and we had an amazing time.

The weekend was full of sun, sitting outside, visiting wineries, drinking wine, hanging out on the party island (a big inflatable raft that can seat 8 people), eating peaches, and other good stuff.

It looked like this a lot of the way to Osoyoos, until it gradually turned into a desert-y type landscape. There really isn’t much between Hope and Princeton. To avoid highly stressful situations, I really suggest filling up your tank in Hope because it’s pretty much straight uphill for 100 km and you can burn up half a tank real quick.

Julie and Steve have a little house in a caravan park right by the lake. It was small but really nice and can sleep up to 8 people no problem. When the private beach is right across the road and the weather is awesome every day you don’t really spend much time indoors anyway.


Scott’s been awesome at posing for pictures lately.

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We had ice cream at 10:00AM at Rattlesnake Canyon. I had NANAIMO BAR flavour. How amazing is that??!!!

The peaches were incredible. Julie got that whole crate of slightly squishy peaches for $5!! We peeled them all and she made Osoyoos bellinis. OM NOM NOM. We bought some more peaches on the way home too. I have really enjoyed my picnic lunches outside this past week with peach juice dripping down my arm. I regret every August in my life that I wasn’t eating dozens of peaches. But they’re all gone now… I peeled and froze up all the rest of them for smoothies. I’m thinking strawberry-peach-yogurt-unflavoured protein powder-orange juice smoothies.

Beautiful views from the lookout just outside Osoyoos on the way home. I never knew the Okanagan looked like this!! I knew that fruit and wine came from there but I didn’t know there was like 100’s of orchards and wineries. Amazing! I can’t wait to go back.

I’m going to leave the food and wine part of our trip for another post.

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We went to Washington on Sunday to do a little shopping. I got new running shoes for work and unflavoured protein powder and approximately 20 different types of cheese products. I REALLY LOVE CHEESE, OK?? Let’s count the number of cheeses I talk about in this post.

It took us a long time to cross the border so by the time we got to Bellingham it was lunchtime. I saw Sonic on the highway exit sign and made the executive decision that we would eat there. Probably no one knows this except my dad and Rosemarie(?) but I have been wanting to go to Sonic Drive-In for like… my entire life. For some reason even though mom and dad were willing to take me there (I think??) we were never in the right spot at the right time.

They are known for their waitresses on rollerskates and customizable limeaids. You drive in and park and then order through an intercom and then they bring you your food in your car. I thought they would have things to hook on your car door like on the Flinstones but actually they just gave us our food in a bag, ha.


I had a cheesy bacon pretzel dog (1) and chilli cheese tots (2), and Scott got a chicken burger and onion rings and we split a strawberry limeade. Everything was fairly good. The onion rings were oddly sweet though, like dessert onion rings. The strawberry limeaid was DELICIOUS. If I ever go back to Sonic I’m going to order and XXXXXXXL drink. It had chunks of real strawberry and a half a lime at the bottom. Mmmm it was tasty.

I’m glad that I finally got Sonic checked off my bucket list.

After lunch and the mall we went to Trader Joe’s. We seriously stocked up. It’s easy to go overboard in Trader Joe’s. We got heaps of strawberry lemonade, three types of cheese (gruyere (3), jalapeno monterey jack (4), brie (5)), frozen gorgonzola gnocchi (6), fancy salad dressings (cilantro, and cranberry walnut gorgonzola (7)), lots of white chocolate pistachio cookies, lacey cookies, and more.

Yet again they didn’t have any cookie butter. Apparently there is an actual shortage right now. I am seriously cursed… how many times have I been to Trader Joe’s and STILL no cookie butter for me??!! It is beyond ridiculous now. Please can someone mail me some?? I will pay you back.


Finally we stopped by a regular grocery store to get yet more cheese (900 grams of cheddar (8) for $5.49??? O_O) and jalapeno Cheetos (9). Mmmmm cheese.

Cheese #10: Cheetos macaron??? AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA I WANT TO TRY THIS. This is incredible. Time to go to NYC!!