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Things have been pretty routine lately, over here.

I’m still only working two days a week (plus occasional on call). I’m hoping I get full time, at least temporarily, early next year. Cross your fingers for me, because I really do like the hospital.

I’m still training at Phoenix weightlifting club three days a week. Things are starting to feel slightly less awkward (but still terribly awkward). My best snatch so far is 31 kg, and best clean and jerk is 40 kg. It’s so hard though, like one time I decided to count up every single thing I thought about or checked in one skeleton run, which is about 60 seconds long.. and it was like 180 things or some ridiculously high number like that. But now each lift is like 2 seconds long and there are DOZENS and DOZENS of things to think about!! I guess I just have to keep doing it and doing it until most of the things become ingrained. Luckily that’s easier to do than with skeleton.

And I’m still making the occasional sale in my Etsy shop. Those are my favourite emails to get ever.

Exciting things coming soon though…

I’m going on a spontaneous trip to Queensland this weekend to visit Natasha, which is going to be SO FUN. We’ve got an XXXXXXXXTREME adventure organized, and the weather is looking fantastic. I hope to spend a significant part of the trip submerged in water. Fingers crossed we don’t spend too much time submerged in sand in our 4WD.

And Scott and I finally bought our flights to Korea for the Olympics! We are going for two weeks in February. We’ve got tickets to mens and womens skeleton, and mens super G so far, and are hoping to watch hockey and curling as well. The rest of the time we’ll stay in Seoul, and explore (/eat) from there. Rosemarie is planning on popping over for a visit as well, which will be super cool.

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I found jian bing outside of China again! This time it was at Mr Kitchen, in Melbourne CBD. It was extremely authentic and brought me right back to the streets of Beijing (except for the price). Jian bing really make such a great breakfast.

How to make jian bing: make a very big thin mung bean pancake. Crack an egg over it and break the yolk and push it around so it cooks in a thin layer over the whole thing. Sprinkle with black sesame seeds, cilantro, and green onion. Flip it over. Paint on some sauces, including a nice spicy one. Place a crispy fried wonton wrapper type thing on top, then fold it all up. Done!

Delicious.

Mr Kitchen also has that donut option instead of the crispy option, which must be from another region of China. They also had that noodle, meat, cucumber dish that I used to eat all.da.time in Beijing, but we were just after a small snack on the way to the footy game.

Mr. Kitchen Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

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This was a couple months ago but it was so delicious I still want to share it.

Cassia took me to Ebeneezer Place, a cute little side street in the Adelaide CBD with a lot of little cafes. We checked out every option and then decided on Afghan for lunch.

Neither of us could decide anything because every single thing on the menu sounded nice, so with the help of the very patient waitress we both got mixed plates where you can choose three items. Cassia picked Morgh Degee (chicken marinated in yogurt and Afghan spices), Banjan Borani (eggplant simmered in tomato, with yogurt sauce), and one of the dumpling options (sorry, can’t remember which).

I picked the eggplant, dumplings, and Lamb Qormah (lamb curry).

Both plates came with rice and a little side salad.

It was all so good!!! The eggplant was delicious, the chicken and dumplings were great, but the real highlight was the lamb curry. It was tender and meaty and super yum. I also liked the casual relaxed vibe of the place and how all the dishes were mismatched pieces. Very cute.

Kutchi Deli Parwana Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

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Me and Ava reading Rudie Nudie. MAN, she loves that book. Also Ava is very cute.

Cristoforo’s sweet ute and house that he is renovating in Adelaide. He’s pretty much gutting the entire place, it’s crazy. Lots and lots of work to do still.

7 Wonders, all the time.

Me with the birthday treats from the flight attendants on our flight back to Australia. We got champagne, cheese, ice cream, pastries, chocolate etc. Pretty nice!

Most of our haul from Canada. Yeah….. we did a lot of shopping. But all of these things are either not available in Australia or significantly cheaper in Canada. Example: embroidery thread is $1.29/skein here, and with a coupon I got them for $0.50/skein at Michael’s. Another example: a hockey helmet that fits Scott’s giant head… not easy to find here.

Jemma did a really nice job on the cake and decor for Vicky’s 60th birthday party. I really like the icing succulents!

I stole this picture from Facebook. The finalists from the Carcassonne tournament that Scott and I competed in. We were very confident going in, but didn’t end up doing that well. I beat Scott though, so all is well. It was so so so intense, my heart rate was probably 150+ for the entire day. We will be much better prepared for next year, and ready to get aggressive on turn #1.

Scott got me this cup and supplies to make Moscow Mules for our copper anniversary. What a delicious drink.

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Our whole trip was planned around being home for Canada Day. Since it was the big century-and-a-half, we thought it was going to be an especially good party. We were basically in Ottawa visiting everyone and the cottage the week before, downtown all day for Canada Day, and then flew out early on July 2nd. Quick trip! Anyway the actual day ended up being very different than I expected, but super fun.

Kate got the cutest cookies.

We did a bit of touristy stuff downtown a few days before Canada Day, without all the crowds. Rose and Lauren went to the art gallery and Scott and I walked across the bridge to Quebec and back (Scott thought this was cool), watched some boats go up the locks, walked up and down Sparks Street (way more dead than I remembered), and had a drink at a pub to avoid yet another thunderstorm.

OK now actual Canada Day!

We started the day with pre-birthday cake, 7 Wonders, and waiting for the torrential rain to stop. Man it was damp.

Once it cleared up a bit we headed to Monica’s for BBQ #1. I hadn’t seen her in ages, so it was great to catch up. David got dropped off by Virginia and Peter, so I got to see all of them too! They were heading downtown as well so we actually got to get a ride downtown, which worked out very well.

Next stop was Joe’s Corner. Joseph (unpictured) had a great idea of declaring he would be in a certain spot downtown at a certain time on Canada Day, and anyone could come and meet him there and say Hi. So smart. And then to make it even better, Helenka realized that this would be a great place to meet up with us too, and it worked out perfectly.

OK we all knew that getting through security was going to make getting on to Parliament Hill more difficult than usual, but we did not expect THIS. Somewhere in the above picture is a line. It was chaos!! We also tried walking down to the other entrance, which did have a more distinct line, but it didn’t seem to be moving AT ALL, and we were hearing people say that the line was FIVE HOURS LONG.

Um nope.

At this point we gave up on trying to have a typical Canada Day consisting of lounging on a blanket on Parliament Hill listening to free concerts.

Instead we walked down to Sandy Hill for BBQ #2! We accidentally went the long way, but at least we got to see the Snowbirds fly over so it was mostly forgiven. Chris’s brothers’ friends were having a pig roast! There was free beer, snacks, pork, dessert… it was epic.

After gorging on pig we decided to accept Brenda’s invitation and pop in to see them at BBQ #3, also in Sandy Hill. I hadn’t seen her in yonks either. Joe was there too, and one of Helenka’s long lost friends from elementary school!

It looked like it was about to start raining again so we decided to leave before seriously overstaying our welcome and find a pub to take refuge for a while. Luckily there was a bar right around the corner that miraculously had space for all of us! It started raining pretty hard almost as soon as we sat down inside. Amazing. Even better, the bar was a student bar and extremely cheap. We had a few cheap drinks and a few snacks and watched the television recaps of the day so far while we waited for the rain to pass.

When it started to dry up we decided it was time to find our fireworks viewing place. We thought we’d walk towards Majors Hill Park, and just stop once it started to get too crowded. Maybe the rain had cleared everyone out, because we ended up walking straight into the park and found (we thought!) a pretty decent place to watch the fireworks, and only a short walk from where Mother Mother would perform.

We took turns watching the concert, getting poutine, and saving our fireworks spot. The area in front of the stage had turned into a complete mud pit, it was so messy. Everyone was walking around like zombies, trying (and failing) to keep their feet dry and not fall down. It was amusing. I got to see Mother Mother perform my favourite song (The Stand) and all was good.

Finally fireworks time! We thought we had the perfect view. Yes there were two trees off to the sides but we had a wide open space of sky right in front of us. Then the show started. And of course ALL OF THE FIREWORKS WERE BEHIND THE TWO TREES. I wasn’t even mad, it was HILARIOUS. I was crying with laughter hahahhaa.

After three minutes we decided to screw it and run back to the muddy field and watch from there. My shoes got soaked with mud but at least we got to see the fireworks, and they were great.

After the show ended we conga lined out of the park, in a very civilized manner (not sarcastic, it was actually so calm) and walked Helenka back to the buses and the rest of us back to Chinatown where dad and Kate had left her van. We got home, showered, and slept for a couple hours before getting up and heading to the airport for our long journey home. What a day.