We spent our anniversary dinner at Kobe Steakhouse in Vancouver. I got the steak, John got the steak, lobster and shrimp. I tried the shrimp and lobster and agreed seafood is delicious when it’s quality.
Watching them cook your food was all part of the experience, one that we both agreed was an excellent way to celebrate 4 years together.
Exactly four years ago I married a guy I really wanted but didn’t fully know how much I needed.
My best friend, my partner, the relationship in which I have learned the most about myself and been changed – usually the hard way. The way love looks and feels changes over time, even in four years, but as we’ve stuck with it through good, bad, fun and hard, we’re seeing it turn into something more than we could have anticipated.
I thank God for giving me someone with such a character of commitment and faithfulness – to me, to our family and to his faith in Jesus. I can think about anniversaries to come and raising our kids because I know we’re in this together.
Happy anniversary to my best friend for life.
We’ve had a string of house guests this Spring and Summer. Who am I kidding, we are Grand Central Station every year as friends, family and coworkers visit BC and take in the sites. That always means a few sure things: lots of food, good beer, Granville Island and a never-ending cycle of washing and putting out fresh sheets and towels.
Our last guests of the season left today (sounds like we run a bed and breakfast) and this will be our last hosting gig for awhile as we’re taking down the open sign to take care of babies (and ourselves, I cannot feel my feet I am so tired!). You heard it here first folks, better start buttering up some other people you know in the area for next year ’cause there is no more room in this inn.
A few sights, but mostly tastes, from this last visit.
Granville Island Market berries.
Market goodies.
Stand on your tip toes and you can see the ocean.
When you’re pregnant and everyone else is enjoying the seasonal raspberry beer… you get a cola. Sigh.
But then you find a cupcake store.
And buy a berry lemony delicious confection with a name like Raspberry Beret and things start to look up.
Vietnamese dessert drink with almond jelly, mango pudding and extra condensed milk at Richmond Night Market.
Sharing a plate of squid. I did not partake.
I turned 28 on Thursday. As you know from years past, it is becoming an annual tradition for John to be away at training the whole week of my birthday. This year he was again across town in a dorm room with a pile of people but was able to come home on Wednesday night, beautiful flowers in hand, so he could wake up and say happy birthday to me on The Day. Coming in a close second was an early morning text from my mommy!
Last week my in-laws were here and we went out to dinner as an early celebration – I picked Swiss Chalet. My family knows what I’m talkin about. Then we had ice cream cake. I saved the cards I got in the mail to open on my birthday, so thanks Grandma H and Grandma and Grandpa B.
It wasn’t as bad to have John away this year because circumstances aligned to make Thursday an incredibly busy day with work and I ended up having to go in to the office to pick up packages and to do a million last minute things for the this conference I am helping to organize. All this kept me nice and distracted from the fact that my birthday was whizzing by.
But then some people in the office found out it was my birthday and ran out and got a cake and my sister-in-law, brother-in-law and nephew stopped by with desserts. I was starting to feel quite spoiled on a day that is considered to be postponed and will likely be celebrated again when the dust of conferences settles.
All in all it was a very full day and a very good one. I wouldn’t say relaxing, but productive, which can have a similar affect. Not much time to reflect on another year gone by, maybe in August I can think like that!
Hey, if you’re interested, I did a charity: water campaign for my birthday like I did at Christmas, just an opportunity to give a gift to someone who really needs it instead of me who has too much stuff in my house already. The campaign is still open for awhile longer so please consider helping me reach my goal of $280, clean water for 14 people. You’ve heard me go on and on about charity: water before but they’re good people, and 100% of your donation will go directly to the projects.
And don’t feel bad for me not getting gifts. My husband is buying me an iPhone 4.
These pictures are really low quality because our scanner crapped out and I literally had to hold up the ultrasound photos to my webcam because they needed to get to my mom and dad as fast as possible.
On Friday we got to see the babies again at an extremely long ultrasound for which my husband had to sit in the waiting room for about an hour. One baby wouldn’t roll over for a good shot of the spine and heart and the other just generally would not stay still. It’s standard procedure, no dads while they take all the dozens of medically necessary images and measurements and then they can come in for the fun stuff like that’s a hand and that’s a heart and yes your kid’s head is suppose to be that big.
But the big news is, our kids are either not very modest or were caught off-guard by 7:30am appointment and gave us great gender confirmation. No you cannot tell in these pictures, we didn’t ask for those ones!
A whopping 12 of you can pat yourselves on the back for guessing right in the poll.
Here is our healthy little boy.
And his beautiful sister.
A lot of people who read my blog already know this information. BUT in case you haven’t heard I am going ahead and telling because it’s starting to leak from other people!
Please comment here and not over on Facebook until you have seen me post about it there.
As some of you may know, I’ve wanted to be a mom for a long time, but it just wasn’t happening. Until recently!
We were thrilled to find out that we’re going to be parents! But the excitement didn’t stop there: Just about three weeks ago we received the news from our doctor that we’re having TWINS! Continue reading
I was going to write three. But it seems life has picked up where it left off before I took an Olympic timeout, and has even sped up a bit maybe.
I’m not saying I have a super busy life, I don’t, it’s just that things are moving along and new stuff is happening and I can’t be two weeks behind on blog posting or I’ll never catch up.
All that being said, let’s do one last post about my Olympic experience and move on. If I posted about more I’d just end up rehashing everything you already read elsewhere and blabbing on about identity and national pride and the like.
However, for a really beautiful description of an Olympic experience, by a self-described non-sports fan (my friend Claire) this is a must-read. Reading her short post made me live it all over again. Go there just to see the picture if nothing else.
As for what else I have left to say about the Olympics, it’s really about the extracurriculars. Continue reading
There is just so much I would love to post about when it comes to the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games, if I hadn’t been so busy soaking up every minute of it I might have been smart about it and posted throughout the two weeks.
But I didn’t.
I let it all collect in my brain and now I have to sort it out and decide what’s worth telling, how to even describe it and make sure it’s not just a rehash of what you already read on ctvolympics.ca. Or nbc.com if you’re in the States. Continue reading
Today was Valentines Day as well as Chinese New Year and Day 3 of the Olympics. Poor Vancouver, walking through the mall I can tell the stores are having complete marketing overload. Good thing red is the colour of all three events.
We celebrated with John’s sister Janna, sister Adrianne, her husband Gordie and our nephew with some Chinese food from Mr. Ho’s at our place. Add a bowl full of chocolates, some egg tarts and Chinese tea and I think we had the holidays covered.
John took care of ordering and picking up the Chinese food. He also gave me a hilarious card, the orchids you see below and helped clean up the house. What more could a girl ask for on Valentines Day?
Maybe a gold medal. Continue reading
There’s a new album out by an artist I love, Matisyahu. If you’ve never heard of him he’s “an American Hasidic Jewish reggae superstar” who writes songs about his passion for his faith and for God. Yep.
He sings from the Psalms a lot, or (and I might get the spelling wrong so blame Wikipedia) Tehillim, תְהִלִּים, or “praises”. I like to imagine that if King David was born today his songs might have sounded like this. Don’t say no right away, just think about it.
This is what Matisyahu says about King David at once of his concerts before he sang the Tehillim, Refuge. Continue reading