Camping in the Rockies & a wedding

The first week of July we jumped in the car and headed off to the Rockies. It was a trip we'd wanted to do since before we left NZ, so it was about time! We decided to camp, so had the car fully laden with all our gear. We drove from Vancouver up to Jasper, for our first two nights. It's about a 10 hour trip, so it was a long day, with only a quick stop for gas and a drive-thru lunch stop. We set up camp, and then went into town to pick up something to cook for dinner. We did well - salmon & steamed vegies, not bad for a camping stove! The photo gives you an idea of how the campsites are here - heaps of space, you're not right next to another camper. Some also have a fire pit, which we had, and made use of every night!

Jasper was a town which obviously benefitted a lot from having tourists - it was very much geared towards them. I wouldn't say it had a lot of character, but the surrounding area was gorgeous. We went for a drive the next day to do some walks around this lake, and saw our first bear! We took far too many photos to be sane, but we were so happy to finally see one (from a safe distance, mind you!). It was a black bear, which we ended up seeing a few more of, but still haven't seen a grizzly.



The next morning when we woke up, it was raining. Not ideal when you're camping, but even less so when you have to take down the tent and pack everything up! Luckily it wasn't too heavy, so off we went down the Icefields Parkway, towards Banff. The rain was on and off for the first hour or so, but the best stuff was further south so we didn't mind too much. We did have to slam on the brakes at one stage for a bear to cross the road in front of us - bear number 2! We stopped at a waterfall, and a lake that was supposedly good for moose-spotting (fruitless as always), and a glacier. Some of the best bits though were the scenery along the way though. We did also see another bear, this time a Mumma bear and two tiny little cubs. So cute! They were just on the side of the road - some people got waaaaaay too close for comfort though. We got more photos!

We stopped at Peyto Lake, which was sunny at the carpark, and by the time we walked the 10 minutes up to the lookout, was hailing! You can see why they say alpine weather changes so quickly. So we got out of there pretty quickly, and the next stop was Lake Louise. My friend had been there a month before us and the lake was completely frozen over. When we were there it had thawed and there were people kayaking and swimming - so to compare our photos is quite funny given the time difference of only a month!


We carried on to Banff for the night, and set up camp for the following four nights. Luckily our stuff wasn't too wet, and by the next morning everything had dried out. Another great campsite - although we were a bit cautious when we pulled up and there were warning signs of cougars and coyotes that had been spotted in the campground........ I had been cautious about camping, due to the wildlife - it's a bit different than back home, where we don't have anything to harm you! As long as you pack away all food and cooking equipment into your car whenever you're not at the campsite, and at night, it's not really a problem though. You can see from our view from our campsite here that it was great to wake up to every morning!

Our time in Banff was spent going for some walks, exploring the extremely touristy town, and hanging out by the campfire reading and drinking. I had brought some home baking with us and we had our coffee plunger so we were quite the well of campers, really! We did treat ourselves to two lunches out, while we were in Banff. Other than that, we gave the camp stove a workout. We did also go to Calgary for the day, which was a bit of a non-event really. Whenever we asked a local what we should do for the day, they would suggest going to Banff, or a mall!

We did see lots of elk, but no moose. We were very happy with out bear haul though - 3 bears and 2 cubs! We did also see some bighorn sheep, which were pretty mangey looking. We both really enjoyed the camping, and we're hoping to get more camping in next summer, even if it's closer to home and just for weekends.

From there it was on to Christina Lake, about 9 hours drive, which is a tiny little place (smaller than Takaka!), for a friend's wedding. We arrived on Thursday and the wedding was on Saturday, so we had a day to relax and catch up with our friends. The wedding was gorgeous - lovely location, lucky with the weather. We even got an ice cream in between the ceremony and the reception! It was fantastic to celebrate such a lovely day with all our friends and dance the night away - lots of great memories!

It was a long drive back to Vancouver on Sunday, both of us a bit hungover, and it's about an eight hour drive. We stopped for a snack in Osoyoos, and picked up some fruit from a roadside stall, and then just kept on going - at that stage we just wanted to get home! Andrew had to go to work the next day, I at least had another few days off.

Finally Spring - the real deal

Finally spring seemed to arrive, and we got a bit of warm weather and sunshine! It was a long time coming this year. Vancouver is such a pretty city, it's nice to have the good weather to be able to see it and appreciate it!

In June we had a visit from Andrew's Mum, for a week or so, it was great to see her after almost two years. We couldn't take a lot of time off work, so we spent time in Vancouver, but also managed to get down to Seattle for the day, and over to Victoria as well.

The weather wasn't too bad while she was here, so it was nice to get out for some walks, and she kept herself busy while we worked as well. And, as a bonus, she also bought over lots of goodies from home for us too! Reduced cream and onion soup mix, Eskimos, Pineapple Lumps and more! Yay! Come back anytime, Mummy Giblin!

Also while she was here, the Stanley Cup final was on, which is the NHL grand finale. The final game was in Vancouver, against Boston, and Vancouver lost. And so began the riots..... a lot of damage done to the city, broken windows, cars set on fire etc. We could see from our balcony, the black smoke billowing up, and watch it on the news at the same time - quite surreal. We had to close our windows as there was tear gas coming in from the streets below. Even though we were watching all the coverage in the tv, we felt quite removed from it, it was all quite strange. And very sad to watch. The people that did it were mainly not hockey fans, and I feel that it could've happened regardless of whether the Canucks won or lost, some people just want to cause trouble.

Shopping, Victoria, and supposedly Spring

I've been working now for about two months - at first I did a bit of temp work for Flight Centre, helping out, and then picked up some office work for a different company. It's exactly what I wanted - Monday to Friday, daytime hours, close to home (actually right opposite Andrew's work!), and I can walk in and walk out - no stress to take home with me! Perfect. At the moment I'm the "helper" but as of the end of July, the main girl is leaving, so I'll be the main person from then on, which means full time (although currently I work at least 30 hours a week). It's nice to be earning some money again, and yet we still have the evenings and weekends together.

At the end of March we went to see Bon Jovi in concert - the tickets were too cheap not to go! We paid $45 each, and although the seats weren't close, the view was still good. Great concert, and reminded me of singing in my bedroom when I was a teenager!

Mid-April I went for a girly shopping weekend with Nic, down to Seattle. We left Friday morning and came back Sunday night - three days of solid shopping. We were exhausted by the end of it! We ended up being a lot busier than we expected, but still managed to find a great little wine bar, where I tried a Georgian red (liked it!), and had a tasty gorgonzola pasta. And, of course, my favourite, the Cheesecake Factory. It is my new rule that you cannot go to Seattle without going to the Cheesecake Factory. And it's not even about the cheesecake, as normally you're to full to have it anyway! I love shopping in the USA. SO much cheaper, and so much more variety.

Easter weekend, Andrew and I went to Vancouver Island, to Victoria, which is the capital of British Columbia. This was our first time to the island - it's about a 1 1/2 hour ferry ride to get there. It's a big island, too, about 500km top to bottom. So we centred our trip on one small part, as we only had two nights (BC doesn't have Easter Monday as a holiday). The photo is of the hotel we stayed at - very chateau-esque! We were lucky enough to have great weather - the first time I haven't worn a jacket outside in Canada since about the end of August! It was so nice to have some blue sky and sunshine. We found some great pubs, and just explored. It's a great city, much smaller than Vancouver at only about 75,000, and it was nice to see some shops that weren't chain stores as is the norm in Vancouver.

The government buildings are a great showpiece, and at night they're just as nice, as they are lit up with thousands of fairy lights to outline them. With the hotel and the government buildings right on the waterfront, it is the centre of Victoria and a great place to wander, especially in the sun. We both really enjoyed Victoria, and the suburbs really reminded us of NZ, much more than Vancouver ever has.

On the Sunday we drove up through the Cowichan Valley, where there are lots of wineries. We went to a cidery for something different - they make lots of different ciders, which we tasted, and they had hot cross buns too! Mmmmm. There are some cute little towns here too, but unfortunately we struck a bit of typical west coast weather, so it was raining. I can see the potential though!

Now, it is playoff season for the hockey, so it is playoff fever everywhere in Vancouver. The Vancouver team, the Canucks, finished top of the NHL and are currently in the 2nd round, so it's all very exciting and means that every second night our life is dominated by the game at the moment! We love it though.

Supposedly it's spring, but really the only reason you can tell is that the cherry blossoms are out. We don't even hit double digits every day yet, and tomorrow is May - ridiculous! This is the eternal winter. It snowed downtown on the 21st of April, and considering it's only snowed downtown maybe 5 times all winter, it's crazy! Fingers crossed the real spring (or even summer) hurries up - I'm ready for some sunshine, and have been for some time now!

About time for another update

I just realised I hadn't blogged since our Mexico trip, which was 2 months ago now! Not much has been going on, just general every day life!

Normally in winter we don't see blue sky except for a couple of days. This photo was in February on one of the rare sunny days - it was still about 0 degrees though! This is taken from downtown and looking over to the north shore. I love the view with the mountains in the background. If you look closely you can even see a float plane on the right hand side!


This is more a typical winters day - with the grey sky and the rain! The cables are for the electric buses that go around the city - there aren't many diesel ones around.

I was also lucky enough for Andrew to buy me a KitchenAid mixer in the boxing day sales! I've wanted a stand mixer ever since I left home - I grew up with Mum using hers a lot and always wanted one of my own. It was a crazy deal - $500 down to $200 - and has been getting good use!

Since I haven't been working, we haven't been going out quite as much for dinners as we used to. However we did go out for lunch one day, where Andrew ordered a burger.... and this is what arrived. It took a while for him to think about how to attack it!



We have also been lucky enough for our landlords to replace all our kitchen appliances - so we now have a stainless steel oven, dishwasher and fridge/freezer! Very nice.

I have picked up some temp work, which is good. Nice to get out and meet new people! And the money is nice of course.

It's not too long to go and we should be out of winter - coming up we're going to the Bon Jovi concert later this month, and last month I went to see Chelsea Handler, who I think is hilarious! She was so funny, I walked out with sore cheeks.

Mexican Honeymoon

Friday the 7th of January we had an early start to get to the airport - our alarm went off at 4am! We had plenty of time to kill in the airport as there were no line-ups at security, so it was time for a coffee and then waiting...... finally we got to board our flight to Cancun, Mexico! It's a five hour flight to Cancun, so we were there mid-afternoon, local time. We got our transfer to our resort, which was just over an hour south of the airport, in the Mayan Riviera.

The Mayan Riviera is a strip that runs south of Cancun, along the coast. Cancun and the Riviera are on the east coast of Mexico, on the Caribbean side. So the water is that gorgeous azure colour, and the sand is pale - lovely! The Riviera is all resorts along one side of the road. Driving along all you see are these huge gateways to them, all on one side of the road, and on the other side are just trees. Eventually we came to our resort, checked in and got to our room. A huge Junior Suite, with sitting area, balcony, jacuzzi bath, hydro-massage shower, king size beds, and towel animals! We also had a bottle of tequila and a bottle of champagne in our room since we were honeymooners. It's an all-inclusive resort, so all the food and drinks were all included in the price we'd already paid - so it made for a very cheap week away, I think we spent less than $100 while we were away!

The resort had a couple of pools, including one with a swim-up pool bar! It also had a "lazy river" (or "leasy river" according to the resort map. Awesome. It was a large resort, with the whole complex having around 1300 rooms or so. We did find the food to be quite greasy, with lots of oil and cheese and stuff. Apparently it's pretty typical of Mexican food, but who knows, really! Subsequently Andrew got sick on day 3, which involved getting the doctor in (it's not a vacation without an insurance claim for us, apparently). He quickly came right though but it did mean that we took it pretty easy all week and didn't actually leave the resort apart from one afternoon.

That afternoon we went to Playa Del Carmen, which is a town about half an hour north of our resort. We wanted to have a look around and do a bit of shopping. It's right by the beach (so was our resort), but whereas our resort is in a cove, Playa is on a long stretch of beach. As you can see, the weather wasn't the greatest that day! The rest of the week we had good weather, but this day was a good one to escape the resort since it was wet at times. Playa itself we found to be very touristy. A long strip of shops - mainly souvenir shops, cigar stores (Cuban ones - since Americans can't go to Cuba), money changers and pharmacies. As the drugs in Mexico aren't regulated, you can get all sorts of prescription only stuff over the counter (or in front of the counter). And it's cheap too! Lots of shopkeepers yelling at you to come into their shops. Cheap beers - 5 beers for $7. But our stomachs weren't up to it, and besides that, the alcohol was free back at the resort!

Speaking of food, each dish in the buffet restaurants had a sign above it so you knew what it was. These signs would be in Spanish, English, French and Italian. Well, the theory was that you were supposed to know what it was. When they translate it to "Tuna of a Mexican", or "Eggs of the vinaigrette", one begins to wonder...... My runner-up fave was "Gypsy arm of coconut" - very tasty - and the outstanding winner, "Popes with cracks and onions". Winner both in taste and translation. Anyone who knows me, knows I'm a big fan of Engrish, and this rung my bells. Every buffet I scanned the signs religiously, to see what other morsels could be found.

They also had shows on in the evening, and different things relating to the shows would be displayed in the lobby. Apart from, it would seem, New Zealand. Obviously, this puzzled us, but it was nothing that a cocktail couldn't make us feel better about. We did wonder if maybe there had been more earthquakes while we were gone, and maybe the country had sunk.

We also became obsessed with towel animals. When we first checked in we had one in our room - a peacock. Then every day after that we'd get a new one. The second day was a jedi-type person, then it was another peacock (different style), then a bunny, and a dog. The best part was that they stopped taking them away at one point, and just kept adding to our collection, so we had a towel animal farm. Needless to say, we couldn't help but put them in all sorts of sexual positions. It seemed appropriate at the time. As this could be a children's show, I'll keep the photo G rated.

All in all we had a great week, nice and relaxing, lots of lazing by the pool with cocktails! I love the fact that alcohol was included and you never had to think about money when ordering a drink. However, the food doesn't come close to the quality you get on a cruise. Also, the area is so touristy that you don't get any insight to what life might be like in Mexico, or even see anything of the "real" Mexico. But we still enjoyed it and came back nice and relaxed!

Las Vegas & our wedding

We managed to get a great deal to Las Vegas, so decided to pop down for a weekend. We flew down on Saturday morning - it's only a 2 1/2 hour flight - so we were there by lunchtime. Time for a spot of shopping before we checked in to our hotel, the Excalibur, on the strip. Not a flash hotel, but the price was right! The Excalibur is done up like a castle, with turrets and things. I hunted out the Mr Cashman slot machine and promptly lost $5.

A couple of our friends actually booked the same weekend in Vegas, and they arrived Saturday night. We had a few drinks in our room, thanks to the cheap American alcohol (I may have mentioned that before?!) - a bottle of Jim Beam for $11.99, thanks very much! They came and met us and we went out to a fantastic piano bar in New York New York. There were two grand pianos set up, facing each other, and they took written requests. These guys could play anything! They were fantastic. We stayed there for a while and then headed over to the Irish pub, also in NYNY, where they had a great Irish band playing, and even a woman doing a jig! Andrew and I called it a night about 12.30 or so, as we'd been up since 6am that morning, and the others stayed out.

Sunday morning Andrew and I got up to get ready to get married! We only decided the week before to do it, it was a good opportunity since we were going to Vegas anyway. We wanted something really low stress, and this was it! It was just the two of us, so it was really nice and personal - we picked our own music, we had Lionel Richie "You Are" (you are the sun, you are the rain.....) at the beginning, and then Marvin Gaye "How Sweet It Is" at the end.

Afterwards we went and picked up the girls and went to the Las Vegas sign for some more photos - the quintessential Vegas wedding photo! Then Andrew and Kerri wanted to go on the rides at the top of the Stratosphere tower, so we drove up there, and Lindsey and I decided to grab a drink while we waited. I hadn't even had any water since we left the hotel at 11am - and now it was about 1.30pm. Parched, we walked up to the bar, me still in my wedding dress, and ask for two glasses of water, and Lindsey ordered a beer. Next thing you know, the bartender is refusing me a glass of water (after pouring it, made a big show of taking it back and tipping it out), as I don't have any ID on me! I know he was doing his job, but he didn't have to be a bastard. He could've still been polite, but chose to take the other route - not nice. Needless to say, I wanted to get out of there, but had to wait for the others to finish their rides.

By the time they met up with us I wanted out of my dress, so we went to the hotel, got changed, and then out for lunch - to one of my fave places, The Cheesecake Factory! It's the third time I've been (San Francisco & Seattle) and it's always good, and they have such a huge menu that it's easy to please everyone! We all had a great meal, with cheesecake to take out, and then relaxed back at the hotel for a bit before going to Mandalay Bay for the Lion King. I've seen it twice on the stage before, but none of the others had - it's so good! So well done, the make-up and costumes are amazing. Timon, Pumba and Za-Zu are fantastic - they're my faves! Afterwards we had a quick flutter at the Luxor before heading to bed.

Monday morning and it was time for a bit more shopping and then some people watching along the Strip - Vegas has the best people watching in the world I think! There are so many different types of people, it's fascinating. We met up with the others for an early dinner before heading to the airport - we went to T.I. for their buffet - it was pretty average and we didn't feel it was worth the money. There are much better buffets to be had in Vegas, so we'll remember that for next time! By the time we landed in Vancouver it was midnight, and we were welcomed by - you guessed it - rain. Ah, home again!

Whistler weekend

I'm having a bit of a change of pace - I finished up at my job on November 30th. It was definitely time for a change and to do something different. I don't have another job lined up, I'm just taking a break for a bit, and will start looking for something new and exciting early next year.

This means that I now have every weekend free! One of the reasons I quit was that I needed some balance in my life - Andrew and I were both sick of not having enough time together. And the first weekend in December we took off up to Whistler for the night. There was actually about 12 or so of us that went up. Saturday morning we stopped in Vancouver to rent snowshoes - it was a GORGEOUS day - perfect blue sky, and Vancouver was looking amazing with the snowy mountain backdrop. Then it was up the highway to the mountain. It's about a 2 hour drive from Vancouver, so it's not far.

We got up there and met up with some others for lunch, and then three of us went snowshoeing. It was our first time, so we stuck to groomed trails and it wasn't too bad! We ended up going right around Lost Lake, about 3km in total, not bad for a first effort. You have to lift your feet up higher than normal, so it's a good workout - imagine even more so if you're walking in more ungroomed trails. We had pretty crappy snowshoes, so it would be interesting to see how it would be if we had decent ones. We'll be giving it another go I'd say!

We checked into our hotel and relaxed for a bit - we were staying at the Fairmont Whistler Chateau - a real alpine style hotel right at the base of Blackcomb. We got upgraded to a slopeview room, which overlooked Blackcomb slopes and the pools and hot tubs - pretty cool! We'd bought some wine, and had complimentary chocolates waiting for us, so we were set for a while. You can see the view from our hotel room on the right here.

Our other friends had rented a couple of apartments, so we walked over there and hung out and had some drinks. Everyone was pretty tired, a lot of people had been boarding that day, but we had plenty of laughs. One of the Aussie girls leaves on Wednesday, so it was the last time we'll see her for a while, so it was nice to be all together.

The next morning was pretty leisurely, we checked out at 11am and wandered down to the Village in search of food, and then headed back home. The Vancouver Santa parade was on, so we got stuck in the street in our car not being able to get to our building! 20 minutes later it was OK though and we finally made it inside!

FIrst snowfall of Winter

This winter is supposed to be the worst in 55 years! Sounds like we're going to get the winter this year, that we could've done with last year when we had the Winter Olympics! So we're in for a cold one - it's not even offcially winter, and we got the first snowfall that stayed on the ground on November 25th!

We woke up to this view in the morning - we even had snow on our balcony! Last winter we only had a few snow flurries downtown, and then snow never settled on the ground, so for it to snow this early, this much - I think we're in for a cold one!

Walking to work, it was quite pretty - a lot of people didn't go to work that day if they had far to travel. I did feel that it must have been blatantly obvious that I was a foreigner though, as I clearly didn't have my snow legs - I was walking every gingerly! Getting home was interesting though, I took the bus, and half way up the hill the driver had to ask us all to move to the back half of the bus as he couldn't get enough traction to get up the hill! We got there in the end though!

We did have some cold temperatures over those few days, it was down to around -9 C at times, bbbbrrrrrrrrrrrr.......... and when we woke up the next day, the snow was pretty much all gone. Until the next time......

Disneyland & LA

Over Thanksgiving weekend in October I went down to Los Angeles with a couple of friends. We had 5 days in the sun - gorgeous weather, abnormally warm, it got up to about 34 degrees! Perfect. Being Thanksgiving weekend, the airport was crazy busy, and I managed to almost miss my flight, thanks to being singled out for a thorough check at security. Luckily I made it and we were on our way! A quick 2 1/2 hour flight had us arriving into LA and on our way to stay at Anaheim.

We got to the hotel a little before check-in, so dumped our bags and went off for lunch. The original plan was to spend the afternoon at Disneyland, but we decided to hold off and spend the day at the pool instead. It was so hot and we'd all had an early start, so what better way to spend the day! For dinner we went to a Mongolian grill place, which was nice, we sat outside on the patio and had drinks - lovely!

Saturday morning we headed off to Disneyland! All three of us had all been to Disneyland as young kids, so we remembered bits of it, so we were looking forward to seeing it as adults. We'd been lucky enough to get a free 3 day pass each thanks to great travel agent deals - they're normally over $200 each! We picked them up and headed into the park, walked along Main St and then saw the castle! All of us commented that we remembered it being a lot bigger, but then I guess we were a lot smaller back then too! The park was all done up for Halloween, lots of pumpkins and orange everywhere. Now, I'm not one for big rides, and Disneyland wasn't the main reason for me going on this trip, but the others went on lots of rides. I went on a couple, shat my pants at the fast ones (which weren't even fast by normal standards), and hit the shops while the others continued. They raved about a lot of the rides, there are plenty to please the adults as well as the kids! The line ups for a lot of them were long, but you can get fast passes, which means you get to come back at a certain time and skip the line, so you can work it out.

Then it was back to the hotel pool before dinner, we went back towards Disney for dinner, to Downtown Disney (just outside the park). We went to a fantastic place, with New Orleans style cuisine. It was a big typical Southern style building, with a big veranda, you really feel like you could be in the South! Our waitress was amazing - and we tipped heftily. The food was really good - great steak & jambalaya. The whole thing was a real experience. We had a few too many drinks and then went to another bar, where Lindsey finished off her bottle of wine she'd smuggled in from the other place...... we're classy girls.

Sunday morning was a slightly slow start with slightly sore heads, and then we went to the California Adventure Park, which is still part of Disney - the neighbouring park. It has a lot more of the bigger rides - including a big big rollercoaster than Nat went on. We did a few things around there, went for more swims at the hotel, and then in the evening we went for another good dinner at the Rainforest cafe, and then back to the Park again. We were going to see the World of Colour - it's a show they have on twice every evening. They have fountains going in time to music, which they colour. They'll also show pictures from Disney movies in the fountains - very impressive! They're like the Bellagio fountains in Las Vegas, but with colour.






The next morning we picked up our swanky black Dodge Charger and headed up towards Malibu. It took us a while to get up there, as LA traffic isn't the best! Most of the beaches there are private, so we couldn't do much, so turned around and drove back to Santa Monica for a nice lunch on a patio on 3rd St Promenade, and then a spot of shopping. Nat & Lindsey went down to the pier and the beach, but as I'd been there just in July last year I chose to shop instead! Next stop was Venice Beach, where we saw lots of great street performers, eccentric people, it's such a great spot for people watching! Also Muscle Beach, with the outdoor gym, and outdoor basketball courts a la White Men Can't Jump. Late afternoon we drove down to Newport Beach and Huntington Beach, in Orange County. By the time we got there it was getting dark, but we found a great place for dinner - a packed little bar with the BEST Mexican food I've ever had - and it was super cheap! It's definitely on my re-visit list for next time. I was proud of myself for driving everywhere - I drove more in LA than I ever have in Vancouver!

Tuesday was our last day - Hollywood, including lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe, then a drive around Beverly Hills. I love driving around Beverly Hills, all the flash houses and palm trees, it's like the intro to 90210 back in the day. We had a quick stop at the Beverly Center for a last minute shop, then it was time to drop the car off and head to the airport.

Everyone knows security at LA Airport is supposed to be top notch, so I was surprised to find 310ml bottle of sunblock in my handbag halfway through the flight home. Turns out security is pretty shit and you could probably get any old thing through! Comforting.

August & September catch up

In August I went to see Michael Buble in concert. I'd never been that big of a fan, but I actually like his take on old songs, and his new stuff too now. I think maybe it's partly to do with the fact that he is rammed down our throats on regular basis on the radio, as they try and get their Canadian music quota in. That, and I think he's quite good looking.

Anyhow, he put on a great show - he's quite the entertainer.

They're quite relaxed with smoking pot over here, and sure enough, there were people lighting up behind us - in an indoor arena!! Ridiculous - I'm not a fan.

I also went to see Crowded House with Nic, awesome concert - made us think of home lots! I think most of the crowd was from NZ or Oz! They performed so well and Neil Finn was quite the comedian and really interacted with the audience. They're SO good!

September brought what is fast becoming my favourite time of year here, autumn/fall. The colours are gorgeous! I love the leaves - and there is such a distinction between the seasons here that is lacking at home.

The leaves are beautiful on the trees, and when they fall it's just as spectacular. You have to relish it as it doesn't last long!

Road trip

In the long weekend at the beginning of September, we took the Friday off work and drove up to visit Adam & Jeanette (our landlords) in Prince George - still in BC, but nearly 800km north of Vancouver.

We left early in the morning so that we'd be there at a decent hour. There's not much in between - Prince George is the biggest city in Northern BC at about 70,000 people. Between Vancouver and PG there's only small towns, with not much going on, but enough facilities to get you through easily enough. We rolled into PG about 5pm, and were waiting at the traffic lights when the guy in front of us decided it would be a good idea to reverse. Straight into us. There was someone waiting behind us so we couldn't move, so got rammed! It was pouring rain, and his side mirror had got taken out earlier that day when he hit a moose. There wasn't really much damage, so we got $150 and went out for dinner the next night!!

We had a great night with Adam & Jeanette with the usual wine & whiskey, and the next day we went for a drive around town and had a bit of a lazy day - which was really nice after the long drive. On Sunday we headed out on the hunt for moose. We're still yet to see one and we've been here over a year - no moose or bear as of yet. I still think it's all a ploy by Canadian tourism. Adam took us out on the logging roads as he sees them all the time out there - we looked for over 2 hours, and NOTHING!!! Stupid moose. So that night we had moose roast. If you can't see 'em, eat 'em. We'd never had it before, it was a bit gamey and a coarser texture than beef, but pretty good!

Real estate is SO cheap in PG. You can get a nice, 10 year old 4 bedroom house for around $350k. So reasonable! But then you have to deal with the winters - a few months where it doesn't get above zero, endless snow, dark.......hhhmmmmmm......

Monday came and it was time to drive back - the time actually goes pretty quickly. Once you know the places to stop you take advantage of them as they are few and far between!

Alaska

The last weekend in July rolled around and it was time to head off on our cruise to Alaska! We were sailing out of Seattle, so drove down early that morning, stopping over the border to pick up a couple of cheap bottles of wine to take on board, and got to board the ship around 12.30pm - in time for some buffet lunch! We had really been looking forward to this trip - it was one of the things we had decided to do before we even left home. It was just a 7 night cruise, leaving and coming back to Seattle. This time we were on the Golden Princess.


The day after we boarded was a sea day, so we were on the ship all day. It was VERY foggy and quite chilly - the foghorn was sounding every half hour or so. We spent most of the day indoors, playing games and having cocktails. And eating, naturally. Not a bad way to spend it!

The next morning was an early start as before we got to Juneau it was announced we'd have a good chance of seeing humpback whales between 7am-9am. So we were up on deck early and were lucky enough to see LOADS.
They were spouting all over the place. We had a naturalist on board who commentated from the bridge throughout the cruise on any points of interest - wildlife, waterfalls, glaciers etc. Then at lunchtime we arrived in Juneau, the capital of Alaska. It's the only US State capital that is not accessible by road, you can only get to it by sea or air! It's a smaller town, about 30,000 people, but the biggest place we went in Alaska. The area that we went to was very touristy, lots of shops targeted at tourists, souvenirs etc. Apparently the "local" part of town is away from the cruise ports, guess they must be preserving themselves from the influx of tourists they get each summer. The Alaska cruise season only runs from May to September (the summer), so that is the only timeframe for them to make money in these small towns.

The next day we woke up in Skagway, which was the only place we had booked a tour. We jumped on a minibus to take us up the valley and into Canada. You climb up in elevation pretty quickly, and the scenery became very alpine. Still, there are a lot of trees and it's quite lush due to the rainfall, but due to the elevation the treeline isn't far above you, where nothing grows. The views were impressive, the mountains jagged. Skagway itself is a cool little town, which has been maintained/redone to be like it was in the goldrush era (this was the starting point for the Klondike goldrush). Lots of great looking buildings!
That evening as we were leaving Skagway we were sailing down the fjord, with more beautiful views - lots of glaciers which cause these waterfalls to come seemingly out of nowhere and plough through the trees to the ocean. Mountains climbing out of the sea, to massive heights, still snowcapped even at the height of summer. The sun was setting, creating amazing colours - with the depth of field we had with the mountains, creating fantastic colour blocks - gorgeous!



As per usual, the west coast sunsets are gorgeous. I've always appreciated a good sunset, but the west coast, by crikey, puts on a bloody good show. I don't know what it is that causes the colours here, but they're great. Every night.





The next morning was another early start as we were sailing in Tracy Arm Fjord in the morning - so we were up on deck at about 6.30am to see it all. It reminded me a lot of Milford Sound, with mountains rising straight up out of nowhere, and the ship getting so close to the shore that you could almost reach out and touch the trees. The other aim of going into Tracy Arm Fjord was seeing Sawyer Glacier. We did get to see it, but it was very hazy. There were a lot of forest fires going on at the time which caused the air quality/visibility not to be so flash, unfortunately. Still, you could see it and we got pretty close. There were loads of icebergs around, which compared to our 290m ship seemed small, but when you saw the little fishing boats next to them, they gave a bit of perspective!

The next day we were in Ketchikan just for the morning. Ketchikan is known for it's salmon and totem poles. We actually found out the next day that the ship picked up 900lbs (400kg) of salmon from Ketchikan, and 3 mealtimes later, it was gone! As we walked through the town and along by the river, you could see the river was full of salmon - they were everywhere! That afternoon it was lovely and warm so we got some sunbathing in and lazed on the deck, reading our books and sipping cocktails - bliss!

We also did a wine tasting session that afternoon, and got to try wine that was $180 a bottle, which was nice! More free cocktails later on, as that evening was the Captain's Circle cocktail party, which is for any repeat Princess travellers. I won a bottle of champagne, which was mixed blessings really - on the second to last night we ended up with a bottle and a half of red wine and a bottle of champagne to drink! We pushed through it though and managed to polish it off.


The last day we were supposed to dock in Victoria, BC for the evening - we were prepared for our 7pm docking with an early dinner (and had the champagne!), when it was announced at 6.30pm that we wouldn't be docking as it was too windy! Not too big of a deal for us as we can go over to Victoria any weekend, but I felt sorry for all the others on board that were from further afield and missed out! There seemed to be a lot of Texans on board, complete with giant belt buckles, cowboy boots, and cowboy hats - and that was at breakfast! There was also a lot of big family groups - exteneded family, grandparents, cousins etc, which was nice to see.

When we docked in Seattle we umped in the car and went shopping - as we'd been away for a week we had full customs quota to take back to Canada so it was all on! Had a good day shopping and got back home in the evening. Alaska was really pretty, but I'd like to see more. I'd like to get up to Denali and see more inland, but we didn't have enough time. Maybe next time?!

July's exploits

This photo was taken as we were ready to go out to the Flight Centre annual ball - this is my team, we were going for the cheesy "family in front of the fireplace" look - I think we pulled it off! We had a great night, in a huge place big enough to fit all 800 or so of us, and hot enough to melt everyone's makeup.

July was the month of "waiting for our visas - and waiting some more". We applied in February, and after much chasing up, finally heard back in the last week of July that we'd been approved for another two years. It was a loooong wait, but worth it in the end! So we're here for a bit longer, staying in the same apartment and jobs as well. It's a relief to be able to plan more than a month in advance!

We did try and make the most of the nice weather we got and saw a few sunsets - they're just gorgeous here, they get a deep red or bright pink colour, so different than at home. There was also a fireworks festival on, which had four displays in a two week period - there was a barge set up in English Bay and they let them off there, the weather was great so it was pretty cool.

Andrew's brother Aden and his girlfriend Kristin also came to visit for a few days. Kristin is from Calgary so they were over visiting her family and stopped in for a few days on their way back. Was great to see faces from home and catch up. We went up to Whistler for the day (it's so different in the summer!), watched the fireworks, had a nice leisurely lunch in the sun by False Creek, it was great.

Shopping in Seattle

Friday after work we drove on down to Seattle. American immigration officers get a bit of a bad rap worldwide about being strict and staunch - all the times we've crossed the border we've always found them to be reasonably relaxed and friendly and quick with a joke. It's the Canadian ones that are serious and don't show any personality! On previous trips they've told us that they've had the immigration froms translated into Kiwi. This time on the way down the Americans are asking the usual - where are we going, for how long, how much cash do we have in the car.... and then he says "Alright guys, give it to me straight.................. (our hearts pound, what have we done wrong??!!)......... which is better, vegemite or marmite??" We laugh, shout our answers and he gives us back our passports and we're on our way!

We stayed at the Sheraton that night - we had a free night to use, thanks to travel agent discounts - and when we arrived they had a little plate with meats, crackers, buffalo mozzarella............ lovely. We were lucky enough to get a corner suite, so the windows went right around and gave us a great view. After a relaxing night we headed out for a spot of shopping. This weekend was supposed to be about sightseeing, but all we did was see the inside of shops - but what great shops they are! I hardly ever go shopping in Canada, I save it all for the USA - much more variety and it's cheaper. Win win! Andrew was amazingly patient with all the shopping.

5 new pairs of shoes later and we went out for a great dinner - to the Cheesecake Factory. They do have a lot more than just cheesecake, but booooooooooy is their cheesecake amazing. They have a full cheesecake menu with about 30 different flavours. We were so full after out meal that we had to get the cheesecake to go - and had it for breakfast! We picked up a bottle of wine - one that we normally buy in Vancouver for $13.99 we got in Seattle for $4.99. I say it again - God Bless America. That night we stayed at the Fairmont Hotel in Seattle.

After a tad more shopping the next day (no more shoes, just clothes and alcohol this time), we trundled back across the border and were home in time for dinner. Productive weekend!

Vancouver's Lighthouse Park

It's the middle of June, and we're still waiting for summer here. The temperature I'm ok with - around 18-20 degrees. But some blimmin sun and blue sky would be nice, Canada. We did get a day that was beautiful - so decided to make the most of it and go exploring. We drove over to Lighthouse Park, which is over in West Vancouver, about 20 minues from our place. To get there you drive through the swanky suburbs and straight away it feels like you're away from the city. I do love that about Vancouver - it's so easy to get out! As we're still waiting to hear on whether our visas have been granted so we can stay another year, we're trying to make the most of it at the moment in case we don't get to stay. Lighthouse Park was beautiful, and so close to the city, and yet you feel like it's a world away. Lot of different trails to choose from so there doesn't seem to be a lot of people around either. One thing we did find really odd, was that in NZ if you meet people while you're tramping, you always say "Hi" or at least smile and make eye contact. Oh no, not in Vancouver. It became a bit of a game to us - we'd say "Hi" and smile and watch them try and hide and avoid eye contact at all costs!