8 Days and Counting

There are only 8 more working days for me. Of course, I'm a little worried that this baby will then be late (and even bigger), but I'm definitely feeling the need to rest. It feels like I've been go, go, go for last couple of months. This coming weekend is somewhat quieter than the past 6. I have my baby shower and a poker night, but that's it. I've taken Friday off from work and looking forward to a relaxing day.

I woke up this morning and was thinking that it didn't really seem that cool in my condo (considering how much lower my AC is set than years past). Hmmm, that doesn't appear correct. The temp is 10 degrees warmer than what the AC is set to. I am definitely feeling the heat more this summer than I have in the past, but I am really glad that I'm normally so cold or else I'd probably be dying with no-AC. I think my cats are not at all happy.

My dad is coming down to help me with a couple of things around the house this week so I suspect all of those other things will be put on hold so that he can check out the AC. Fingers crossed. I will probably want it working for after the baby is born.

This past weekend I headed up to Goderich do some 'camping' with friends. I say 'camping' because I actually slept at my Grandmother's each night. Everyone else was actually camping. It was really great to get back to a campsite. I have missed it. This was the first time we camped at Point Farms and I think we are planning to do it again next year because it was a fabulous site. The beach was excellent as well. We had 3 sites and there were about 17 of us (plus 3 dogs). The kids had a great time. The only issue: we didn't get our picture! Heidi, Cara, Teresa and I almost always try to get a picture of the four of us (and often times including others) when we get together. Of course, I didn't think of this until the next day and it was too late.

WestJet Sucks

Wow, whatever WestJet is doing is really bad. With the changes they are making they have deleted all old web profiles and yet the new system is really difficult for logging in. there is no way I'm going to remember an 8 digit login. I don't understand why it's not an email address. Weird and not impressive. Then when I tried to leave comments it wouldn't actually let you leave them (either that or I left them a couple of dozen times because I kept clicking on OK and nothing was happening).

Awesome Birthday

This past weekend was my birthday and I had the most amazing time! On Friday four of my friends took me out for dinner. The food was great and the company was excellent (Sue refused to be in the picture).
On Saturday a group of us travelled to Niagara Falls to really celebrate my birthday. I always like to do something crazy and fun for my birthday. This year it was a trip to the casino for some gambling. I used to work there, but wasn't able to check out the casino so I was excited to check it out.

Originally we were going to check out the Maid of the Mist as a touristy thing to do before the casino (since I've never really done anything touristy at the falls - on my grade 8 trip to the falls we went shopping). But, Sharon's friend Nick recommended that we head over to the American side and check out Goat Island and go to the Cave of Winds (http://www.niagarafallsstatepark.com/Activities_CaveOfTheWinds.aspx). It was the best suggestion. Cave of the Winds takes you into the Bridal Veil Falls (in between the Horseshoe and American falls). We were able to stand pretty much directly under the falls. It was wicked! I loved it. I highly recommend checking out if you are ever in the area. It was only $11 and worth every penny. We were soaking wet by the end. I could have stayed for hours (above: the group before and below, the group during).
After getting soaked, we walked around the falls area and it was pretty cool. It was an overcast, rainy day. It would be nice to go and check it out again when it's nice.

We then headed back to Canada and got cleaned up at the hotel. Off to find a place to eat. We ended up eating at the Shoeless Joe's at Fallsview. The food was quite good (surprisingly so) and the beer was nice and cold! Tim had worn jeans to the falls and they had to be dried out at the hotel, then at the end of dinner he spilled an entire glass of water on his jeans. Poor Tim.

The plan was to play craps at Fallsview, but the tables were a little out of our price range. So, we decided to head over to Casino Niagara. I had such a good time. Julia kicked some butt at throwing the nice; I once again learned that I should not touch the dice at a craps table. After a few hours of me losing money we decided to head out for some dancing (to me it's an awesome birthday if I get to dance).

After the bar we went back to the casino and ended up playing craps until they closed the table. Then I decided it would be a good idea to try some poker (at 4am). Not a good idea. But, I had an awesome time regardless of how much I lost at the casino (but, I only lost what I could afford to).

It was a phenomenal birthday and I am so thankful for all my awesome friends that made it so memorable!

Back

I feel I have been remiss in my blogging. I get home from work and really don't feel like doing anything on my computer. (My facebook games have suffered for this - as Sharon keeps reminding me.)

The job is good. I don't love it, I don't hate it. The drive isn't too bad and I've been able to listen to a ton of books on CD. I just finished 'The Sun Also Rises' by Ernest Hemingway. Definitely had me really hating bull fighting (and thinking back to Lisa's post about the bull ring they went to in Spain).

Trivia has started up again. I'm back with the Mods (yay). We won our first game, but I think I was sitting in the wrong spot because I knew more answers in different seats than my own (I still didn't know very much, though).

I just returned from a quick visit out to BC. I spent the weekend with my brother Jason and his wife Megan. She's expecting in October and she looks great. My brother has grown a beard and I almost didn't recognize him at the airport (pictures, hopefully, to be posted tonight). The weather was amazing (Jason even had a sunburn after Saturday). We hung out with Megan's brother and his wife and a couple of their friends for a barbeque on Sunday. It was a really great weekend. But, I am paying for the time difference today! I am so tired.

Habs Win

Editor's Note: I wrote this back on December 16, 2007, but it didn't get published until today.

Yesterday was my friend Julia's birthday. She's a huge fan of the Montreal Canadiens. The Leafs play against the Habs every 7 years on her birthday and this year the game was in Montreal. So, four of us hopped on a train and headed to Montreal for the night. Jana, Christine, Julia and I met up at Union station (I met Julia at her place and parked my car near High Park). After a very long wait in line (the train was 30 mins late), we finally boarded the train and actually scored a set of the group seats.

We arrived in Montreal around 5:30pm and headed to our hotel. Julia found us a great deal at the Fairmont Queen Elizabeth. The great thing about the hotel... it is directly above the train station. Very handy, especially for the morning after a night out in Montreal.

We didn't have much time at the hotel as we needed to head over to the Bell Centre. We didn't have tickets for the game so we needed to head over to the arena as soon as possible to try and buy some tickets. Not a problem (as we expected, but not what everyone else thought - a lot of people didn't think we would be able to get tickets). Our tickets were in the top section, which didn't matter because every seat is great there.

We had a great time at the game, except for the fight that broke out in the stands near us. There were some pretty drunk, obnoxious Montreal fans in front of us that were yelling at a group of Leaf fans. Around the second period (I can't remember for sure) one of the Leafs fans came back with a beer and tripped. One of the Habs fans took a swing, the Leafs fan threw his beer and then security had to be called. Security got it under control really quickly, but the Leaf fan's friends decided to get in on the action by jumping over the four of us. Christine was yelling at the guy, Julia and Jana were holding the guy back and I had a hold of the waist of his jeans trying to pull him off of us. The Habs won 4-1 and we had a great time.

After the game we headed over to the Winston Churchill pub for a drink and met a bunch of guys (it was quite nice that they all kept coming over to us).

The next morning we headed down from the hotel and got in line for the train. Now, this was the day back in December of the huge snow storm that hit Ontario and Quebec. We weren't sure the train was going to leave, but it did. Unfortunately, just outside of Toronto there was a problem with ice on the tracks and we were stuck for around 45 mins. I was a little worried about my car when we finally got back to Toronto. I had left it on the street near Julia's place and there was snow everywhere. I actually couldn't find my car at first it was completely covered (the plows had been past it at least twice and it's just a mini). Luckily Julia brought a shovel down and helped me uncover the car. It took us about 45 mins. All in all a great weekend in Montreal.

First Air Sucks

I know I haven't posted my blog about my trip to Nunavut (I'm trying, really), but I will have intermediate postings. So, we flew with First Air and it was really expensive ($2000 each). I also had a flight to Ottawa from Toronto and Liz and Michelle were going to drive. But, Liz found a seat sale and booked us all on flights from Toronto to Ottawa (and return). This would have been great except that our plane broke down in Pangirtung on our return date. Little did we know that because we hadn't booked the Toronto / Ottawa portion with First Air they would not cover the change costs when we missed this flight. So, it ended up costing each of us $240 more for our flight to Toronto.

I just received the response from First Air and they are giving us $160 vouchers for flight with them over the next year. Did you see my note above where our flight cost $2000? You can go one way from Iqaluit to Pang for $135. Where (and why) would I go anywhere they fly again? I've been up north I don't plan to go again.

They suck. I do not recommend every flying with them because if their planes break down (which didn't seem to surprise anyone up there) they don't cover shit. They gave us each $25 for dinner for a restaurant where the cheapest meal was $45. Nice.

Rehearsal Camping

Only three more weeks until the trip to Nunavut. Which means we needed to have a 'rehearsal'. Liz gave me a call last week to see if I was free to camp this past weekend. Unfortunately, I did have plans on Saturday that I ended up cancelling (missing a BBQ at my cousin Darlene's and my friend Dorie's 35th Bday party).


After a couple of different choices for where to go hiking, Liz decided on Bon Echo provincial park (east of Peterborough). We headed out on Friday night and stopped at Ferris provincial park for a night of car camping. Really nice spot, out of the way, nice sized campsites and well spaced out.


The first test was of my new sleeping pad, Big Agnes. Hopes were high that this would be a great sleeping pad. It is so compact when uninflated and super think when inflated. Unfortunately, it was not for me. It was really slippery and my new sleeping bag doesn't have a strap to go around the sleeping pad so most of the night I was sliding all over the place. Also, I found it to be really uncomfortable. I had such a pain in my lower back the next morning. First off, very happy for the rehearsal camping as it would not have been good to find that out on the first night in Nunavut. The Big Agnes is going back to MEC and I will find myself a perfectly good thermarest.


At 5:00 am we got up and packed up our gear and hit the road for Bon Echo. I think we were on the trail by 9am, but I can't remember.

The trail was very nice, very green (I love my new eyes). We were making good time and actually enjoyed a couple of breaks along the water. The pack wasn't too bad (of course, it didn't have all the food and clothes that I'll be carrying in Nunavut). We saw a beaver swimming in the lake, boy they can move. We were scared by a partridge (sounded like a chainsaw starting up) and Liz came across a number of garter snakes. So, not alot for the wildlife journal. We did spend a good hour or so on some rocks (after getting to our campsite) watching the fish watching the tadpoles. We all fell asleep in the sun on the rocks. It was so nice.

Up again at 5:30, we took our time getting the gear packed away and had an awesome breakfast of egg burritos. We were back on the trail at 7:45 and out of the trail at around 10am. On our way we passed the other campsites. At one, the campers had hoisted their food directly over their tent. We kind of hoped a bear would try to get at their food and fall out of the tree landing on them. Then we came across the poacher. There was a tent on the trail that was not a designated campsite. We only saw the guy in the tent for a second as he scurried back in when he saw us. His clothes were strewn all over the rocks along with a 40 of rum and some pepsi. We were mighty tempted to stomp on his clothes.

Overall, though, the hike and camping was good and I can't wait for Nunavut. I have some more shopping to do at MEC this weekend and then I should be ready to go. Our hike this weekend was 17.1 kms and we didn't do too badly for time.

Nunavut, Here I Come

Yesterday, I met up with Liz and Michelle at the Outdoor Adventure show. We checked out some companies that have adventure tours, as well as some booths for the different provinces. There weren't a lot of companies with stuff to buy. But, I did locate a sleeping bag for the Nunavut trip. Since I am so short I was able to buy a kids sleeping bag. It will keep me all nice and toasty up near the artic (apparently we will get to step into the artic circle on the trip - how cool is that?).

We also hit MEC to check out what they have. I bought a new sleeping mat. It used to be all about the thermarest, but now it is all about the Big Agnes. It folds up so small! I'm very excited, but boy is my bank account unhappy with me after yesterday.

It was great to get to hang out with Michelle and Liz again. It had been way too long. It sounds like I will be hitting Blue Mountain this summer to do some mountain biking. I am a little scared (okay, more than little) to ride a bike down the same slopes I would normally snowboard down.