East Meets West... And All the Rest

After almost two years of casually bringing it up in conversation (and occasionally not-so-casually begging and pleading), we finally convinced Steph and Trevor to visit us in Vancouver!

The whole week before their arrival was spent tidying, laundering, booking, reserving and confirming. By Saturday we were ready! The funny thing is, I couldn’t even meet them at the airport because I was working that afternoon. Chris got to be the one who got to actually go to the airport and pick them up, and it was my job to scoot on down to the rental car place after work and pick up our wheels!


Yup, this beautiful Toyota Camry Hybrid was going to be ours for one whole week


Let the Vancouver vacation begin!

… by going to the Chinese mall. Oh, the spontaneity. Our plan was actually to just go home from the airport and have a fabulous BBQ dinner, but since we were sooo close already (and we had a CAR) we just had to swing by the Yaohan and T&T Supermarket. It was fun and a good welcome to Vancouver. In the words of Steph “Jen, I’m really questioning right now as to whether I’m still in Canada”.

Well, lucky for Steph, we eventually made it back to Canada safe and sound and did have a fabulous grilled salmon dinner courtesy of me, Chris and R2BQ II.

And thus begins our Vancouver vacation! I probably shouldn’t go into minute details about every part of our week-long adventure (however tempting that may be), so I’ll try to let the pictures do the talking… except for the first day… when Chris or I didn’t take any pictures.

So long story short, we took our two bikes, plus a couple of borrowed bikes, loaded all of it into the new Skytrain and headed out to Stanley Park for an excellent bike ride. Sound familiar? I did the same thing with Mom and Dad last December. http://chrisjenny.blogspot.com/2008_12_01_archive.html The scenery will be about the same, only it was summer so a heck of a lot warmer and more crowded. Maybe I can put up a few of Steph’s pictures later. That night we had Korean BBQ, which, again, we did not take pictures of but it would have looked pretty much exactly like it did the last time we were there:



Day 2 found us back in the car, bright and early, on our way to Whistler. Now, getting to Whistler entails driving up the Sea-to-Sky highway which is perhaps one of the most beautiful, frightening and car-sickness-inducing things that one can do. I think only Steph’s camera got pictures of the highway, but it’s hard to take pictures from the moving car anyway. You just have to imagine: mountain-cliff-highway-cliff-water… and on the other side of the water, more mountains.


I stole the front seat. How are you guys doing back there?

One very attractive pit-stop on this highway is Shannon Falls.


Steph was quite impressed


But how could you not be? Now let's play “Find the brother-in-law who snuck past the barrier and climbed up onto the actual waterfall”


Here Jen, this waterfall must be making you thirsty

Next, stop Whistler! This was our bed and breakfast. It was so cozy, tucked away in the woods with its pine beds, big comfy couches and a hot tub out on the patio. I can seriously imagine spending a wintery ski-weekend there, but having a summer getaway was pretty nice too.



After dropping off our bags, we headed straight for the mountain.


Up we go! And this is only gondola #1


Are we there yet? It was basically a long, hot ride in a scratched-up plastic bubble


Goodbye Whistler Village, see you later!


We made it! Welcome to Whistler Mountain


So pretty, and so high up!

But not high enough. We’ve got one more lift to go – then we hit the peak!


This was the best chairlift of all. No plastic bubble, riding up at an extremely steep angle, over top of real, actual glaciers to the peak of Whistler. Ask Chris how he felt when I started swinging my feet.


Hello, glacier!

At the peak of Whistler Mountain is where it starts to get really cool.



From up there, you can see for miles and miles around. We wandered for quite some time, and eventually found a little place to have our high-altitude picnic.


Greatest part of our picnic, the air-pressurized chip bag


We all found something to do up there. Trevor constructed rock-people…




While Steph and I played “mountain goats”. Yes, we are that cool.

And now, from Whistler to Blackcomb!

Blackcomb is the next giant mountain over, also part of the ski area, and just this summer they completed the “Peak 2 Peak”, a state-of-the-art enormous gondola that carries you from one mountain peak to the other.
You can see a live webcam of the mountain peaks here.
And also see its record-breaking technical stuff here.


Jump in everybody!


Here we go! Across a gigantic valley on tiny little wires…


It was such a gorgeous ride


Here we are on Blackcomb mountain!


Look at these two, seriously representing Altona

After sufficiently hiking around the peak of Blackcomb, did we go down? Oh no! We took the Peak 2 Peak back across to Whistler, then back again to Blackcomb. Why not? We had day passes :D Finally, as the mountain was threatening to close, we took a series of chairlifts back down the Blackcomb side. While riding down I was lucky enough at one point to see a ski jumper practicing by sliding down this big construction and landing in a big pool. Let us also take a moment to remember Steph’s yellow Loewen Insurance hat (as pictured above), which, while riding down, was carried away by a gust of mountain wind, never to be seen again.

Our mountain adventure was followed by dinner in Whistler Village, a comfy night in our B&B, then a superb gourmet breakfast.

Day 3 took us back down the Sea to Sky highway into Vancouver. I seem to recall that we made a spontaneous trip to White Rock that evening, and although we were planning on having Indian food in Vancouver, we ended up staying at White Rock for one of their always-beautiful sunsets and Greek dinner at Pelagos.


This was the view from our table


Steph and Trevor, digging in


This is the view from the beach afterwards, where we had coffee. Cellphone-wallpaper worthy if I do say so.


Steph liked it too

Day 4 and we’re back on the road. This time to Vancouver Island. We had to delay our departure by a few hours thanks to a very ill timed employment skills test I had to write, but we shall not speak of that again.

It’s ferry time!

I always like the ferry. I mean, I’ve never been on a cruise ship like these other two but it feels pretty big, and it’s so cool that there’s shops and a restaurant inside. Of course, you can always tell who’s a tourist and not a commuter because they’re outside hanging over the railings, no matter what the weather.


I’m always a tourist


Not quite Mexico, but having fun!


Oh so windy! Steph is making fun of me because I can't keep my eyes open.


Pretty little islands and things

Before long, we were in Victoria, checking in to our hotel, tying (unsuccessfully) to get ahold of my friend Jessica for dinner, and eventually just googling fish and chips places in the harbour and coming across this:


Upon first glance, it may look like just another shipping container, but don’t be deceived! It’s a totally amazing fish and chips shop!

In our further wanderings around the inner harbour, we came across the usual pretty Victoria sights.


May I present her royal fancyness, The Empress


Her majestic cousin, the BC Parliament Buildings




A fancy old building


And another fancy old building. Teehee! I feel so fancy and old!

After getting back to our hotel that night, we finally got a hold of Jessica. She’d not been having a very good day and had been out of touch, so Chris and I left the young ones to go swimming at the hotel, while we went and visited Jessica in her new house. We helped her with her internet and chatted with her and her roommate for a bit. We were itching to get back to the pool, though, so before long we were back at the hotel, splashing away. Jessica came by a little later and hung out some more.

We finished swimming but the fun wasn’t over! There were bathrobes and face masks and chips and beer to be had!


Oh! Look whose eyes are shut now!

Day 5 found us waking up in our fancy hotel room to complimentary coffee and tea.


Me, just enjoying a spot of tea in Victoria, reflecting on the fun had thus far

That morning, I forced everyone to eat at my favorite fancy organic breakfast place. Seeing as it was mid-morning on a weekday, we got the best table in the house. I’m also pretty sure everyone enjoyed their food. I remember Steph taking a picture of her plate, and I do recall Trevor agreeing that the “Costa Rican Rocket Fuel” coffee was excellent.

All fueled up, we were ready for the rest of the day! We returned to the hotel, picked up the car and headed north to Cathedral Grove. You will recall that Chris and I had been here before during last year’s camping trip to Tofino. This time, we got to spend a little more time in the old growth coastal rainforest, really taking it, learning about the trees and exploring.


What’s it like, waaay up there?





Steph was really looking forward to coming here.
… I think she ended up quite enjoying herself.


My highlight was the aqua-blue glacial lake that we stumbled upon. This was part of the park that we didn’t see last time.

Returning to the Camry, we realized that we had two choices: a) we take an easy drive into Nanaimo, find someplace to eat dinner and catch the ferry at 7pm or so. Or b) we drive like absolute maniacs directly to the ferry terminal to catch the 5pm ferry and eat dinner in West Vancouver.

Which one did we choose (and I use the term “we” very loosely)?

Let’s just say Chris was very proud of himself as he parked the car outside his favorite pizza place in West Van.

I'll admit, it was nice to be on that ferry because we got to ride in the sunset.




Now there's a real cruise ship

Day 6 already??

Where did the time go?
Well, this was another Vancouver day. I seem to recall breakfast at home and then, keeping in the spirit of old fancyness, a little visit to Queen Elizabeth Park.


How delightful!

Next was one meal that I’d really been waiting for – sushi! No trip to Vancouver is complete without a little taste of the Japanese goodness. Did you know that I never actually ate the “raw” sushi when we lived in Japan? There was just so much other crazy stuff to try, plus I could never make heads or tails of the traditional Japanese menus. But in Vancouver, my friend, the menus are in English and the sushi is top-notch.

Unfortunately, the Janzes were not very impressed, or perhaps we can just assume that their taste for raw tuna and seaweed will take a bit longer than one afternoon to develop. For the record, they both did actually try the raw fish, and I believe Trevor even tackled more than one kind! You guys get “A” for affort.

Next, in keeping with our fish theme, but yet nowhere to be found on our little vacation itinerary, is our spontaneous and awesome trip to the Vancouver Aquarium! I’d actually been here once before, back in 1995 while on the music trip with school (and a little part of me dies inside when I think of how that was almost 15 years ago!)

Good times at the Aquarium.


We caught the dolphin show


Saw a parrot


We visited their new baby beluga whale


Here’s the baby playing with its mother and/or half sister. I don’t quite remember exactly how the mating went on, but it was a little wonky.


That’s right, it’s Nemo! How could you not make a movie out of this little guy?

Later that evening we finally ended up having Indian food, another Vancouver must-do. Bringing back memories of Ajanta as it always does (but never quite measuring up, of course) we had a delightful dinner scarfing down curry and naan, tandoori chicken and lassis. Steph and Trevor enjoyed this infinitely more than the sushi lunch.

That evening, with our bellies stuffed, we finally cruised down to our favorite beach for a little stroll as the sun went down. Oh, how I would love to do that every day. If only the houses in this part of the city weren’t gazillions of dollars.



Day 7 and our last day together. Must we part so soon?

Since they had a late afternoon flight, we managed to squeeze in one more Vancouver adventure before they left. IKEA! It came highly recommended by Mom and Dad, and seeing as Steph and Trevor had just purchased an adorable little house in adorable little Rosenfeld, we just had to go! Unfortunately there wasn’t much room in their luggage for furniture and shelving and things, but they picked up a few handy souvenirs, plus we were able to have a fantastically cheap and yummy lunch before they left.

And then… the time came. We piled into the car one last time and drove down to the airport. We topped off our Vancouver experience with some lattes from Starbucks and off Steph and Trevor went back to Winnipeg for what is sure to be a delightful winter ;)


Bye bye, we’ll miss you!


Next time we see each other, it might just be in Rosenfeld!

When It Rains...

... you get to play in the mud!

It was August long weekend, a huge heat wave had settled upon Vancouver and all the beautiful air-conditioning-less Vancouverites were flocking to the natural, sandy Pacific beaches. What did I do? Jump on a plane to flat, beach-less Winnipeg where it was 10 degrees, of course! To go camping… in a tent…

It was a great trip, actually. Reason for going was that that my cousin Aaron was getting married, and to the benefit of all of us sacrificing our long weekend for this wedding, he decided to have it at the lake! Yay! Can’t really blame him that it was freezing cold.

So I left straight away after work on the Thursday. Chris picked me up in a zipcar and chauffeured me directly to the airport. When I got to the gate, I squeezed into a chair in the midst of this big Filipino family with kids crawling all over the place. A few minutes later this guy in a nice suit comes in and squeezes into the spot next to me. I managed a sideways glance and briefly thought to myself, “hmmm this guy looks like a dark-skinned Gary Doer”, then went back to studying my boarding pass. A little later, a couple more important-acting-yet-Manitoba-type people roll their suitcases through the children and start chatting with my bench-mate about “premier’s meetings” and things and I realize that it must be Gary Doer after all! I guess he’d just got a lot of sun... (although I have my doubts that it was in Winnipeg!) Later on auntie Ev told me I should have said “Hey Doerksen!” but I didn’t ;)

The flight was quite nice, I watched X-men Origins on Air Canada’s luxurious seat-back entertainment system, and before I knew it, I was riding those little escalators down to the baggage claim to meet my sister and brother-in-law in the Winnipeg airport. They took me home (and little did I know that would be the last time I saw their apartment!) and we pretty much went straight to bed since it was midnight in Manitoba. The next day we loaded the car and headed out in the rain for Riding Mountain National Park!


Allow me to take my place in the back seat amongst the suitcases.


Hey Steph!


This is Trevor, demonstrating the skill required to navigate southern Manitoba with a GPS. See, he’s so good he can do it with his eyes closed!

Arriving at the lake, we found the family’s cluster of campsites and proceeded to set up our own little tent in the drizzle. Oh! Was it was cold! I even had to pull out my stinky old fleece-lined raincoat that I stuffed in the bottom of my backpack “just in case”.

The big plan was to have the wedding that evening on the shore of the lake, and then go back to the lodge and have drinks and snacks. It was a good plan! Unfortunately, the weather didn’t get the memo. And so, since it was raining and cold, we had a sort of makeshift ceremony in the reception room of the lodge, waited an hour or so, then the drinks and music got started.


This is the only shot I got of the wedding. The handsome one is the Giesbrecht, of course.

All in all, I just had fun sitting around with my family, catching up, drinking lemon water from the bar and playing with my ipod because the lodge had wi-fi. That’s one think I didn’t expect on my Manitoba camping trip!

Moving on to the rest of the weekend, we did a lot of cooking and eating – possibly the most important part of any camping trip.


Dad is very proud of his “camping kitchen”


Me and Dad in a tag team crepe-making venture


Steph, really enjoying my crepes


Of course, Grandma can’t help but take part in the cooking.


It It was so nice to see her again!


Camping’s a little different now than when we were kids, but just as fun :)
(This one’s for you, Harmony! Long live Oscar!)

Since it was too cold to swim or hang out by the lake, the between-meals activities for Steph and Trevor and Dad and I consisted of mountain biking all over the place! Clear Lake is pretty huge and over the course of the weekend, we biked quite far in either direction around the lake, found a lot of beautiful spots, and got sufficiently and wonderfully muddy in the process.


Hey, is that my hat!?


At one point, the bike trail narrowed into this little sandbar with water on both sides, and I just had to put my feet in! It was a highly technical process. Step 1: lay mom’s crappy bike down in the sand as close to the water as possible. Step 2: carefully take off shoes and socks and place them on the bike. Step 3: roll up pants and disturb some fishies!


Occasionally, we even got to bike and eat at the same time. Yay for saskatoons!


On one evening, Dad and I got to do some biking of the motorized variety. Thanks uncle Ken!


There weren't enough bikes for everyone so some of us simply hung out.

The chilly long weekend coming to a close, I had one more day before my flight back to Vancouver so I decided to squish myself into my parents’ truck and ride along home to Altona with them. It was nice to visit. I managed to find some books in my closet that I’d been searching for, play with my old telescope a bit, have lunch with my other Grandma, help Mom and Dad unpack the camping gear and go for a little bike ride around town to see what’s new.


“Helping” my ingenious dad unload his homemade camper from the truck


What’s new indeed! Turns out they’d built a new fountain and sculpture garden next to the park where the dilapidated mini-golf used to be. Yup, this place gets Jen’s stamp of approval.


Jen + sculptures = friends

And finally, some scenes you just don’t see in Vancouver:





I returned to Vancouver on Tuesday night and the heat wave was pretty much over. No time for the beach anyway, since I was back to work bright and early on Wednesday. I smell some more holidays coming up, though! Yup, soon I’m going to get to pick my sister up from the airport! Can’t wait!

I Will Have My Day Trip

Moving right along with summer, let’s take a trip to White Rock.

It happened a little later than expected, actually. You see, Chris had this big plan to pick a day that we both had off, (preferably the solstice) rent a little car and make a trip down to White Rock where we would spend the day cruising around, shopping, drinking coffee, and most importantly spending the exceptionally long summer evening strolling down the beach and watching the sunset.

Unfortunately on the solstice it rained, and it was cloudy and retardedly chilly for the next couple of weeks, and we worked a lot, and well, it was just starting to get annoying in general. So at one point we just picked a day off and said rain or shine, we’re having our day trip!

It wasn’t the greatest weather in the world, but fine for driving and shopping and drinking coffee. In the evening when we got to the pier for our little walk, the sun was starting to peek out in the west!


Hello pier!


Hello sky!

Aside: I don't know if anyone remembers, but this is the very same pier that we happened to see in a Bollywood movie that time we were having dinner at our favorite Indian resturant, in none other than Kyoto, Japan!

By far the most fantastic part of our day was dinner. After our bit of pier-walking and train-viewing at White Rock Beach, we hopped into our little Pontiac and drove along to Crescent Beach, most notably to Pelagos, which we have officially named “Greek Restaurant with Best Real Estate Ever”.

Probably due to the drippy weather, and it being a weekday, the outdoor, beachside patio at Pelagos was virtually empty. The thing is, it never quite rained at all, the furniture was totally dry, and they even had those patio-heating lampstands between each table. Fine by us, let’s get a seat with a view!


Yes, and this was the view from our table.

Allow me to point out that there isn’t even a road between the restaurant and the beach. Just an unpaved walkway. Oh so peaceful.



Seeing as it was apparently still raining somewhere in the sky, but the sun was setting a healthy orange and red in the west, we were also treated to a rainbow in the east! What a treat!


And last but not least, let’s put up a picture of my attractive date.

We would have taken a picture of the massive platter of Greek food that we’d ordered, but it was gone before the cameras even had a chance – sorry!

After dinner, taking advantage of the still-relatively-long day, we took one more stroll, watching every bit of the sunset as we walked from one end of the beach and back again.




Pretty handy with a cell phone camera, huh?

Grill, Feast and be Merry

Long live summer! Oh, how I wish I were still a school kid and had the whole summer off! … but not be quite as bored… and maybe have more money… and a car…

Hmmm. Become a teacher, you say? Well, my career path is still a work in progress, but we won’t get into that right now.
At present, let's just like to continue with summertime stories. So, beginning where the last blog entry left off, with May long weekend just being over and my mid-week birthday passing quickly by, we come to the weekend yet again, this one we’ll refer to as May long weekend II: the first camping trip of the season.

In our attempt to relive the fabulous May long weekend of 2008, Harmony and I thought we return to the ever so quaint and rustic Cat Lake. And seeing as Chris happened not to be in Europe this year, he came along too! Well…. actually, since I had to work Saturday morning, we pretty much just cajoled him into going with Harmony on Friday so she could get a site without being alone with the bears. I took the Greyhound after work (and arrived fully intact) to join them for the remainder of the fantastically hot lake-floating, dock-sitting, steak-grilling, smore-devouring weekend. Don’t think we got any pictures this time, sorry. But Cat Lake still looks the same.

OK, now let’s just skip over June which involved a lot of work and crappy weather... which takes us to Canada Day!
This Canada day was sweet, right up there with the time we actually went to Ottawa and hung out on Parliament Hill. The first order of the day (or any holiday or weekend at our place for that matter) was, of course, sleeping in followed by a large and absurdly good breakfast. Then to the bus, and we were off to the far reaches of Richmond BC, more specifically to Steveston Village, for their annual Salmon Festival. I won’t get into the obvious chaos of trying to travel that far - to such a large event - on buses - on a stat holiday - but suffice it to say at some point between lunch and dinner we found ourselves at the charming fishing village of Steveston, and waiting in line for salmon grilled on a jynormous barbecue.


Ok here we are! Excuse me, has anyone seen a huge salmon barbecue? Anyone?


Smile, Schatz! Happy Canada Day… wait.. What’s that behind you? I think it might be…


The salmon barbecue! Yay!

I guess they were just using wood to cook the salmon. These guys just kept throwing logs on the fire.


As we were waiting in line we got to watch these handsome guys doing the cooking.


And finally, after getting our plates and picking out a sunny spot on the grass, it was time to enjoy.

After lunch we wandered around the festival some more.


I had a candy apple in front of a large inflatable native-art-fish.


I also tried to break into a Bank of Canada safe in an old post office. Good times.

As we were wandering near the belt-sander races, I believe, Chris got a call from one of our friends who happens to work for Vancouver’s annual Bard on the Beach Shakespeare festival. She had free tickets for us for tonight’s show! Right on! And yes, even if you’re in Steveston and the show is in Vanier Park and it’s a holiday and you have to take the bus and you have to stop at the mall and buy new pants on the way there because the show is outdoors at night and you have no time to stop at home and when you get there you have to send your Schatz to wait in the rush seating line while you go and pick up hamburgers for dinner and scarf them down in the 10 minutes before the show starts, you don’t turn down free tickets :)


Lights out in the courtyard of the Bard tents after the show.

The show was great. I ended up seeing one of the comedies again this year, Comedy of Errors, and of course it was oh so funny. After the show and it being Canada Day, we were hoping to catch some fireworks in the bay, but without luck. Turns out this year they were doing the Canada Day fireworks on the other side of downtown, that is, on the other side of all those tall buildings we were looking at. We couldn’t see a thing. We heard the fireworks, anyway, but it’s not quite the same. Chris was a little disappointed. You’d think you could shoot fireworks a little higher than an office building, but who knows?
Moving right along now with our beach theme, only a couple of days later Chris and I managed to arrange a little get together with my lifelong best cousin Rachel and her charming husband Grant, who live oh so close yet so far away in Abbotsford. The deal was that that they would drive their car all the way up here to the city and Chris and I would prepare a delicious little beach barbecue dinner for them in return. A little bit of Frisbee, wading in the water, some hummus, a couple of shishkebabs and to top it off, gelato at a completely different but just as gorgeous beach; these are the ingredients of an awesome evening.

And this is where I would paste the adorable picture of Rachel wearing her lawn char-with-backpack-straps. It was the only picture I managed to take that evening, but alas it seems to have been the victim of one of my recent cell phone memory clearing parties.

But do not fear. I have plenty of other summer pictures and stories just waiting for their turn on the blog, so check back soon!

Sun, Snow and Serenity

Let me first say that I am having quite a difficult time at the moment, sitting here and writing in this blog. You see, it’s 11am, it’s sunny, 23 degrees and rising, it’s my day off and there are 3 different beaches within an hour’s bus ride that are calling my name. Oh, summertime how I love you.

But I promised my mommy that I would write a few stories in here and put up a few pictures so I’m going to do what I can before noon….

Firstly, let us welcome summer in Vancouver! To kick off the occasion, my old buddy Erin came up from the depths of the Lower Mainland to spend the long-weekend Sunday with us, hiking the afternoon away on the very-warm-yet-somehow-very-snow-covered north shore, then replenishing all those calories by settling in for some massive Korean barbecue, and to top it off, going down to the beach with our desserts and watching the sunset.

Erin was the one with the camera that day, so all the good pictures of the valley, the food and the beach ended up on her blog, so check it out.

I managed to capture a few moments on my cell phone, though:


Let’s take the “experienced hikers only” route! Or maybe not…


A “cool” experience, hiking on mountain snow when it’s 20+ degrees out.


Remnants of the old growth forests. Do you think the people were giant back then too?


Oh, I think I see one!

After the long weekend, we all begrudgingly returned to work and school, but there was another little bit of fun stored up for us, because Chris’ brother was coming up from Florida for a visit! He’d actually been in the country for a couple of weeks already, staying with friends and such, but now it was our turn to have him :) And of course Chris was more excited than anyone. I was mostly working but got to hang out with them in the evenings, watching movies, shopping, going out to eat and all sorts of things. Oh man, and when those two get together – watch out! I mean, Chris is normally a pretty subdued guy, but I don’t think he used his “inside voice” for the entire 4 days ;)

Then, of course, to add to the excitement, the very day Kenny left town, my birthday snuck up with no warning at all! Upon this realization I quickly went and booked the afternoon off, took myself out for lunch, went shopping and hung out at the beach until dinnertime.


The birthday babe!


The tide was out so far that afternoon that people were playing football way out into the bay.


Say hello to my 27-year-old feet. Yikes.

And seeing as I have the best Schatz that ever lived and breathed, of course there was a mountain of carefully wrapped presents on the table and when I got home that night.


Including but not limited to a Roots bag and the Firefly DVD set,


A hilarious card…


… that he claims he did *not* steal,


and a bouquet of lilies, my favoritest-ever flowers.

Oh! And how could I forget? He took me here for dinner. This place is so popular and amazing but it doesn’t take reservations, so it ended up being a whole-evening affair and altogether great fun.
So aside from the fact that I’m now one step higher on the dreaded staircase to the big 3-0, it was as nice a birthday as I could ask for!

More summertime stories to follow, but for now I'm heading out!

Just 'Cuz

Today is a very special girl's birthday, someone I literally grew up with and made a fool of myself with all along the way (and continue to do so, occasionally!) I just couldn't find the right e-card for her, so she gets her very own blog entry instead!



HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Journey to the Land of Red, White and Cheesecake

Just to bring you up to speed, Chris left for Europe on Sept 9th, 2008 for Europe to do a series of internships, and came home on March 7th, 2009. It was a long six months, and both of us have done plenty of exciting things in the meantime that could probably have been blogged about. I had a roommate, I got a new job, and as for Europe… well, it’s just full of adventures, but I’m going to have to save those details for another time.

Upon Chris’ return, I took a week off work, got a rental car and we went on a little vacation down south to do some major relaxing in Seattle and Portland! Neither of us had been down there before and Portland came highly recommended.


Here we go! This is on the highway to Seattle. Despite being March already, it decided to snow AGAIN that morning here on the west coast. Luckily it stopped by the time we left and the roads were clear.


America, here we come!


Here we are in Seattle.


Our hotel was really cool, an old place that’s been redone in art deco style. I especially liked the super-deep bathtub.

That evening we strolled around Seattle downtown trying to figure out dinner, when we stumbled across none other than the Cheesecake Factory! Now, for some of you who may not know of a certain favorite TV show of ours, this may not be significant, but anyway we were excited and it was a really cool place.




Guess what they serve here?


Little do you know, Cheesecake Factory, we’ll see you again soon...

And moving right along, since Portland was actually our goal, we jumped into our little Ford Focus once again the next morning and headed out. Not before taking advantage of the sunny morning to visit the space needle and surroundings.


Who’s that old man next to my car?


The space needle is surrounded by all these massive modern pieces of art.


Find Jen!


There are also a Science Fiction museum AND a History of Rock and Roll museum down there, which I was sooo tempted to go to, but we had a driving schedule to adhere to. Next time, Seattle!

We arrived in Portland with daylight to spare and firstly checked into the most interesting hotel ever.


What? A school? ...Yes, a school!

It’s actually an old elementary school that has been renovated into a hotel. The classrooms are hotel rooms, the cafeteria is a restaurant, the offices are bars, the auditorium is a movie theatre and the teacher’s lounge is one giant hot tub!


Plus, there’s weird artwork everywhere, and a lot of pictures of how the school used to be. This is in the main entrance, next to the front desk. Gong!


Our room was just down here, in one of the classrooms that overlooked the ‘girls playcourt’.

Each room has huge windows and original heating vents, hanging lamps and ceiling fans, hardwood floors, and even a chalkboards that you can write on :)


Another cool hallway with skylights, this one led to the parking lot.


The cafeteria/restaurant where I had the best steak sandwich and salad with blue cheese dressing of my life. Apparently Oregon is big on micro brewed beer as well, and our little school/hotel was no exception either, they brewed their own somewhere on site, a whole bunch of different kinds too, and we tried most of them ;)

Most of our time in Portland was just spent exploring the downtown. And everyone was right, it’s a really cool city! The next full day (after sleeping in and having giant omelets for breakfast, of course) we simply drove downtown, parked and strolled around the entire day. A big chunk of our time was spent at Powell’s Books, the largest independent bookstore in the world. The place is just full of new and used books in every category under the sun. I must have bought 4 or 5 books there, it was really fun. Sorry, I didn’t take any pictures. I have no idea what time it was when we were done strolling and shopping gallivanting around Portland, but it was certainly past dinner time and we were pooped, so we just grabbed some food at the "cafeteria" (which is open until 1am!) and returned to our classroom for the night.

Oregon day 2 consisted of another ridiculously awesome breakfast at this French bakery near our hotel, and from there we took the 90-minute drive to the coast to visit the town of Seaside.


*Yay!* I’m on the beach in the middle of March! So what if I need my jacket and scarf, it’s SUNNY!

The town of Seaside is basically just this little collection of resorts and cottages interspersed with seafood restaurants, souvenir stands and ice-cream shops, all along this amazingly huge beach on the wide-open Pacific.









It was a really great, sunny day. We were only wearing sweaters and light jackets, and even took our jackets off in the afternoon. We just walked along the beach for who-knows-how-long picking up sand dollars and watching the huge waves, then we walked back again and had some world-famous clam chowder and fish and chips, and then massive ice-cream cones at this shop with a cow bench.


Yes! A cow bench!

The drive back to Portland was nice, and we even accomplished our goal of being here:


… by 8pm when they closed. Yes, despite being full of fish and chips and famous clam chowder, we simply had to eat here. We just didn’t believe it when we saw this place advertized in a local magazine and so we had to see for ourselves. The Döners were quite authentic, to be sure, although a little light on the yogurt sauce and overpriced. But we actually got to chat with the owner in German! So worth it.

Then, after our last night at the Kennedy School, it was time to hit the road again and go home. On the way, though, we made sure to pay a visit to the Mount St. Helens visitor’s center. It’s quite far from the actual mountain, but there’s a great view of it from the balcony. We could have driven another 1.5 hours to the outlook that gives you a view of the crater and everything but that would have been a little far out of the way. Inside there was a short movie and a nice little museum. We learned a lot!


A nice couple from Texas offered to take our picture with the mountain (well, it ended up being a nice picture of “us” anyway)


Here’s a shot of the snow-covered mountain.

Continuing on our way home, we had great views of the rest of Washington as well. This is Mount Rainer, which was staring at me through the passenger window most of the afternoon.



Passing through Seattle once again, it was time for dinner and we decided to stop in another section of the city called Bellevue, went to this really nice shopping center in search of food, and what did we find but another Cheesecake Factory! Well, why not? Let’s go for the real American experience while we’re here :)

Since we took our time on the trip home, we ended up arriving pretty late, and of course, having to unpack the car in the rain. Oh well, it just made sleeping in my own bed again all the better.

The next day we had to say farewell to the car *sniff sniff*, but Vancouver has plenty to offer, if not sunny weather, and we made the most of our last few days off before heading back to work again and normal, boring life. On the bright side, my Schatz is home again, and I'm still super happy about that :)

While I'm At It

Hey again!
Christmas being over, I went back to work for a whole three days but then New Year's just snuck up on me! Now I'm home again and a little bored, just playing on the computer, and I thought, why not write another special holiday blog entry?

I really just want to share with you where I went and what I did on Tuesday:


Yay the new Olympic speed skating oval!

Now, I was already there for the grand opening way back on December 13th, at which time I got to skate for a whole 10 minutes before they kicked us off the ice. But my camera wasn't working that day anyway, so I took the 45 minute bus ride after work on Tuesday and went back there (and paid the $8 admission!) to skate for a good two hours.

Apparently you can fit 3 hockey rinks inside the ice track, so just to give you an idea of how huge this place is, I thought I would tape myself skating just one lap so you can see how long it takes. And I'm not going slowly! (I even think it only ended up being 3/4 of a lap...)


Weeee!! I feel like such an Olympian!


This is a much less blurry shot of the building. The roof is some kind of fancy wood pattern and the one wall is totally glass. It's very cool.


And last but not least, this is the women's bathroom. That's all rubber skate-friendly flooring. Also check out the fancy modern sinks!

Getting there from downtown was easy, but getting home on the bus (at night in the freezing rain) was a little tiresome and complicated, so I don't know how often I'll be making the trip across the river to play on the frozen Olympic goodness, however it's pretty awesome so I don't think it would take too much convincing.

Now... I wonder when they'll be opening the new Olympic bobsled track? ;)

It's Nicer Out There in Summer Anyway

Hello! Jennifer here!

Since I’m not coming home for Christmas this year, I thought I’d at least try and update the old blog and let you know how things have been going out here in Vancouver.

It’s sure been a while since May long weekend, hasn’t it? Let’s see… my 26th birthday must have come shortly after that. (26?? When did that happen??) . I don’t recall doing anything really special since Chris was in Europe at the time, although we did have a kind of tailgate barbecue lunch in the parking lot at work! That was pretty fun.

Now fast forward to Canada Day weekend and another very amazing camping trip to Pacific Rim National Park. That’s on the west side of Vancouver Island, where you camp right in the rainforest on the edge of an enormous beach overlooking the wide open Pacific. It was just breathtaking. We stayed for 5 days and it never rained once! Apparently that’s pretty amazing for a place that gets double the rain per year than Vancouver.


Here we go on the ferry from Horseshoe Bay!


This is Cathedral Grove on the island. Apparently this is where they filmed the Ewok Village in Star Wars.


This beach was endless. I guess that's why it's called "Long Beach".


Chris didn’t want a sunburn, so he constructed himself a very nice Japanese-style homeless shelter.


Let me at that wood!


I claim this land Giesbrechtoria!

It was such a great trip.
I think it also really helped me to deal with all the employment chaos that followed!

So here’s the story: For the last few weeks in June I’d been looking for a new job, I really liked my old job at Musicfolder.com but with Chris coming and going, I needed something with a little higher pay and better benefits. Then, at the end of June I received an offer! It was a bookkeeping job at a contracting company. I’d done a bunch of bookkeeping at my old job with the same program so I guess they thought I was a good choice. And it was within biking distance! Although I was sad to leave the great people at my old job, I was excited for the new opportunity, and as soon as we got back from our camping trip, I started as their junior bookkeeper. … I lasted 3 weeks.

I can’t say the work was too hard, but the office and the company was much smaller than I’d thought and I basically ended up sharing a tiny reception desk in an empty office with only this one woman who was not only my supervisor, but one of the meanest, most discouraging and evil people I’ve ever met. I kept a positive attitude most of the time, but at the end of the day I would end up being so terribly depressed that I would come home to Chris or call my friends and just cry.
After 3 weeks of that I decided to go and ask for my old job back, and my wonderful boss said yes of course! We’ve really missed you! Come in on Monday afternoon to sign a new contract…

But guess what happened on Monday morning?
I got another call. This time from none other than Service Canada, offering me a position I’d applied for a whole year earlier. Making 30% more than even the new bookkeeping job, not to mention government benefits. What a great surprise! … And then I came back down to Earth again. Oh no. Now I have to tell Musicfolder I can’t come back after all… well I technically could go back, but only for a month. Would they take me back for just a month? Would that be asking too much? I didn’t think my boss would go for that… but he was fine with it! I was so happy I promised to still come in and help out on one of my days off.

So... now you’re looking at one of the newest members of the team at Vancouver’s Employment Insurance Call Center! Officially I’m a “Citizen Service Officer” but really just an EI Call Center agent. It took about 2 months of training, and it’s pretty challenging but a good job and, thank goodness, the people there are all really nice.


This is my building (the tall one with the round thing on top), right downtown at the edge of the harbour.


How thoughtful! I like these people already.


These binders are what taught me to do my job. Did I mention 2 months of training…


… just to be able to say “I’m sorry sir, this is the Employment Insurance Information line, if you have a question about your taxes, you’ll have to call Canada Revenue. Here’s the number…”

Just a week after I started working there is when Chris left for Europe again. Wasn’t he just there, you ask? Yes, he was there for 3 weeks in May on a study tour. He spent the summer here at home and now he’s doing an actual internship at the European Union. He’s been in Brussels since September working for the EU’s Environmental Agency doing all kinds of fancy political things. It was pretty hard for me at first to have him gone, and I sure still miss him, but I’ve made myself nice and busy with work and friends, we also email constantly and webcam every week or two, so it’s kind of become normal now and I’m doing fine. Chris and I talked about visiting at Christmas but decided it was too expensive and there wasn’t enough time, so he’ll be going to his grandfather’s in Germany for the holidays, then he’s moving to Berlin for 2 more months to do a second internship at the German Parliament. The way it looks right now, he’ll be home at the beginning of March. I know it’s a long time but, like I said I’m doing fine and working a lot. I’m also really proud of him! As soon as he actually gets paid to do this stuff (and not just do free internships) I’ll be right there with him, working or teaching English or something in this or that exciting foreign country. Right now, though, I just gotta pay the rent here at home, and Vancouver’s pretty nice too.


You don't see mountain-ocean sunsets like this just anywhere.


These are just couple of my friends around here!

On Thanksgiving I was invited to my friend Jessica’s in Victoria. She loves cooking too and we went all out on dinner!


No pain, no gain.


Voila!

I also ended up getting someone to come and take the spare room and split the rent for the past four months, a really sweet girl named Elizabeth from Ontario who was doing an internship in Vancouver for the fall semester. She actually just moved out last weekend and went back home, but not before decorating my kitchen with the biggest, gaudiest, most awesome Christmas decorations. Yeah we had good times together as roommates and I hope we keep in touch.


She’s also a champion Christmas present wrapper-and-giver.

Speaking of people moving away, Chris’ family have officially made their way to Florida. They’d been living here in Vancouver for about 5 years, so the US government decided that it was time for their dad to get another transfer. The family submitted a list of 5 choices and I think Florida was #5 but that’s the one they got. Before we knew it, the time came at the end of November to load all of their things onto moving trucks and set off across the continent. I think they’re in a hotel at the moment while still trying to sell their house out here (it’s really nice, let me know if you’re interested!), but sooner or later they’ll be settled in down south and I foresee a visit to Cape Canaveral… umm… I mean…the Stockmans’ new house in the near future.


One thing’s for sure, they won’t have any of this out there! But hey, we’re not supposed to have it here either, so who knows!

And that brings me to MY parents, you know, the ones who will never, ever move away. Turns out they will go on vacation, though! While I’m sure Dad is still brimming with stories of his unguided tours of the slums of Mexico, allow me to say a little about their final shore excursion – visiting me in Vancouver!

I met them at the airport after work on the Saturday, and they stayed at my little place here until Tuesday night. I got to cook them dinner, we went to church, visited IKEA, ate sushi (well, not Mom), I got to see their pictures from the cruise, I gave them their Christmas presents, it was a really nice time! Most fun of all was renting bikes and touring around Stanley Park on a beautiful, freezing cold day.








Thanks for visiting, you guys! Come back anytime! And bring my sister!

What are my plans for Christmas, you ask? Well, I’ll be working on the 24th, and in the evening one of my friends said she'd come hang out with me after her gathering. Then comes Christmas Day, and have no fear, I’ve already been to Blockbuster and made my picks. I’m going to sleep in, maybe go to church, but really just relax and watch movies! I didn’t think I would, but I’m actually looking forward to it! Then, on Boxing Day another friend is coming over and we’re going to do a bit of cooking and shopping and celebrating together. I might also go skating again on the newly finished Olympic speed-skating oval.

I’ll still be thinking of everyone out there in Altona, though! I hope you all enjoy the gatherings with all the family, food and presents, and I want to wish everyone lots of joy, peace, health and happiness as you celebrate the birth of Christ, and as you start another brand new year!

Love,
Jennifer

Geniuses at Play

Welcome to summer in Vancouver. On your left, you’ll find the writhing, blue ocean. On your right, you’ll see a range of hazy, snow-speckled mountain peaks, and directly above is the brilliant warm-but-not-hot sun, adorning a perfectly cloudless sky.

Yes, after all of my Vancouver-bashing this past year, this July has brought me to the point where I can admit that it’s pretty darn nice here. And what a month it’s been! Not to mention June… and May…

It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Yes, well allow me to pick up around May long weekend when I went camping for the first time in years. I went with my new good friend Harmony, just the two of us, for a fabulous 3 days away at a tiny lake in the middle of the mountains. Considering the weather was fabulous, there was a big demand on campsites that weekend. Fortunately, BC has some kind of policy where a campground can only reserve ½ of its sites and the others fill up on a first come, first served basis. Being as awesome and spontaneous as we are, of course, we didn’t have a reservation. This meant that we’d need to somehow beat the crowd on Friday afternoon, but how? Then, as we pondered this, Harmony had the most amazing brainwave: drive the 1.5 hours to the campground BEFORE work on Friday, book a site at 7am when the gates open, and drive back down to work at 9. Genius!

So that’s what the genius did :)

Well, pretty much. She got to the campsite all right, but had to wait in line at the gate for 10 minutes. When she finally got to the campground office, she was told that the last site had been taken by the guy in front of her. And it was only 7:10am!

As luck would have it, though, the ranger directed her to a few other smaller walk-in campgrounds in the area, and thevery next one she tried she got the best site in the place. She made it back to work almost* on time, and that same afternoon she picked me up and we drove right back there with plenty of time to set up and settle in. The weather that weekend was indeed fabulous. So much so that we did absolutely nothing but sit on the dock. Just sit. And sit. Jump in the lake. Sit some more. There were a couple other dock inhabitants there that we chatted with, which was nice, and of course when the sun went down we had our campfire and s’mores… uhumm… I mean dinner.

These were some falls stopped at on the way up. That’s BC for ya - amazing waterfalls just randomly as you drive down the highway…

Another spectacular sight; also known as the view from the scary, lonesome logging road that lead to our campground.

Home sweet lakeview home!

Can you identify the muscular Giesbrecht legs?

What winter?

Ah yes. May long weekend. Only the beginning of many more lakes, hikes, beaches and sunsets that I've been soaking in the past few weeks. I promise I will write about them all too! Not to mention what I am now referring to as "my employment upheaval fiasco". Another time, however. The revelations must happen in stages. At present I must bask in my blogging accomplishments by watching TV.