Sunshine

Yard work has begun at our house. The sun is shining every now and then and we've tackled trimming our hedge and all our shrubs. Today Chris is starting the power washing and then it's onto repair (hopefully) our grass. On the Easter long weekend we trimmed our massive hedge, well Chris trimmed and I raked and bagged all the trimmings. I think we ended up with 25 bags or more so it was a big job but it was nice to  be out in the sun. I should've taken a before and after picture because it looks pretty good now. 

We've joined a two pitch softball team this year with our friends Denis and Andrea. So far we've played three games, two we lost by one and the last we won by over 10 points. It's been fun to get out and play even though 2 of the 3 games have been in wet conditions but here's hoping our Wednesdays will get sunnier. Chris is also in a basketball league that plays on Saturdays. It seems he is the minority in this league because it was originally formed by Filipino's in the area. They seem to take it pretty seriously, their very first game of the "season" took over 3 hours with the anthem and an opening ceremony for all the teams. He's been enjoying it but seems to come home with a new injury or soreness each time so we'll see what he has done to himself after his game today. 
Last weekend we hosted a co-ed baby shower for Ryan, Cheryl and their newest addition Rayna. It was fun to have everyone there, not just the girls like a normal shower. We started the evening off with a potluck and then played some shower bingo and 20 questions for Ryan and Cheryl to see if they could come up with the same answers. Supposedly, according to Ryan, babies start eating solids at 1 year. They did get 11 out of 20 questions the same so I'll give him some credit. After the games and dessert we watched the mounds of cute baby girl clothes appear and then we gave the boys freedom to go play ping pong while us girls talked in the living room. The week before the shower I also took some baby photos of Rayna. She wasn't the biggest fan of it but I'm glad the pictures I got show how cute she really is and make her at least look like she was having fun (she wasn't crying the whole time). 


Rayna
Tonight Ryan and Chris are attempting to make Cheryl and I a fancy lobster supper. We'll see how that goes, not sure how skilled they are in the cooking department, especially with live animals. Kay time to get out in the sunshine while it lasts!

Spring Breakin'

March has been an interesting and busy month that has flown by very quickly. At the start of March all BC teachers were on strike for 3 days so we went out in front of Chris' school those days and held our signs and walked along the sidewalk. The first day was pretty brutal with very cold temperatures and gusting wind and rain. I think it took me a good 30 minutes in the shower to get warmed up. The other two days were pretty good, one of them Chris and his co-worker Joel decided to make bacon, sausage and eggs to kill time. I think they were the ones who ended up eating most of it though. With basketball season wrapping up we decided to go watch some AAA provincial games with our friends Denis and Andrea and their newest addition Felix. It was a good night with some good games and good company.

Our March and Spring Break

Chris the Snowboarder

This month I went snowboarding more than I have in the past two years. First I went up to Whistler with Chris on his school trip at the beginning of the month. Having not snowboarded for over a year it took a while getting things adjusted and feeling right so I didn't last too long on the hill. Then we went to Hemlock with our friends Paul and Jen which was much more enjoyable on my part because my bindings were now on my board properly and I was on groomed runs instead of piles of powder that I had to carve around. The last trip was this past week on spring break. We had the chance to stay with some of Chris' friends from work in their condo up at Whistler. The day started out beautiful and after some adjustments my boots and bindings were feeling good. Chris and I decided to go off on our own so we went to the peak. Little did we know that the run we took was a narrow road all the way down that included a bunch of uphill parts. Not knowing when the uphill parts were coming and having little room to carve made the run very frustrating for me because I wouldn't get enough speed and would have to take off my board and then walk up the hills. After that, I was pretty much done but we did a couple more runs where I was more comfortable and then I headed back to the condo. The rest of our time at the condo was lots of fun though, we got to enjoy the hottub, play with some really cute kids and just relax.
We also headed down to the States for a day on our spring break and got a few things like a spring jacket, baby gifts, fancy basketball shoes for Chris and a few other items. Our last weekend of the break we had a date night and went and saw the Hunger Games which was very good and enjoyed some burgers and fries at Five Guys Burgers and Fries. Sunday I planned a baby shower for Andrea and Felix and decided to have a little fun and go with a sports theme. I made some baseball and basketball cupcakes, football strawberries and even a little banner with his name. I'd say that the shower was a success. During our break another exciting thing happened and that was the birth of Rayna, our close friends Ryan and Cheryl's daughter. She was born on St.Patrick's day so when we got her a green stuffed Turtle I thought it was suiting to name him Patrick.
It has been a good break, it went quick and it was busy but it was good. I'm glad I got an extra day today to relax before going back to work. The great thing about spring break is that after that the months go by so quick and then it's summer! Can't wait, time to start planning our next adventure...

2012 So Far

It has been very non-stop around here lately. Lots of things going on but now things are starting to slow down. The big event in January was my 30th birthday. My good friends came over and brought lots of great food and played some games with us. Let's not forget that Chris specially made me a New Kids on the Block playlist to bring me back to my younger days. We also had Rock Band set up in the basement and would every now and then hear Chris screeching underneath us. It was a great evening with great company and I even got presents, which I did not expect! Thanks for everyone that came. Another fun thing that happened was we had a really big snow fall in January that closed the schools for almost a week and let us take an unexpected breather which was great. The snow started melting just in time so we could enjoy a Canucks game with the tickets that my mom got Chris for Christmas. It was a good game and even better because the Canucks won.

Winter 2012
February was very busy with Chris' basketball games, him planning an outdoor program for next year, me teaching lots and other little things in between. Chris' team placed first in the District but lost their first game in the Fraser Valley's so that's as far as they got. It was a fun season for him I think but he's glad that he can focus more on his classes now. Last week Ryan and Randi came for a visit during their reading break. We made the most of our time by taking them up to Whistler to experience a real mountain. The boys went snowboarding and had a great time in the fresh powder. I think Chris wore Ryan down pretty good but now he knows what it's really like to snowboard. Us girls went cross-country skiing around Lost Lake, just beside Whistler Village. We got our workout too covering over 8 km in around 2 hours. It was a perfect day, fresh snow, no wind and beautiful views. We had quite a few hours to wait for the boys to be done snowboarding so we wandered the village, hung out in the lobby of the Westin and pretended we were staying there, then bought a scrabble card game and played that in Starbucks until it was time to meet the boys. We had some supper at The Old Spaghetti Factory with a waitress who must have been pretty new because instead of refilling our cup she would leave it empty on the table and bring a new full one so we had a nice stack of glasses piling up on our table. The next day we drove down to the Seattle Outlet Mall and spent the day finding some good deals, even though I didn't get what I was looking for the others got some good stuff so it was  a successful trip. We had to work the next day but that's okay because Ryan slept in until 11 anyways. Then we enjoyed the evening together playing some games. It was a short trip but a fun-filled one!