Sunday, December 11, 2005
Christmas is coming...Keira's getting Fat!
Time for more sappy pictures of me. Grandma bought me a Santa suit, and got out her digital camera. Click on the picture of me for more cheesy Santa shots.
Wednesday, November 23, 2005
The Streets of London...
I made it! Can't believe it, but it's already over. I jetted off to London to surprise Alastair (www.roundtheworldbybike.com) at his official homecoming just for the weekend, and we had a blast. I even managed to deviously arrange for him to pick me up at the airport without him even knowing it, and the look on his face when he saw me step out into Heathrow was priceless. We then drove for over an hour in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the M25 out to Kent, where Sarah's (his girlfriend) parents were hosting a big dinner party for him. We had a lovely meal and I met some fabulous people, then slept on the floor with pretty much everyone. The following morning we headed into London, where Alastair took me to the Royal Geographical Society to hob-nob with world explorers and researchers. Very interesting!
I then met up with Emily Brown (from Saudi) for lunch, and spent the rest of the afternoon watching a rugby match (England vs. the All Blacks) in a pub.
That evening was Alastair's official "End of the World" party, where I had far too much really bad wine, and met many more amazingly friendly and funny people.
The following morning, (which felt like night for me) was horribly, horribly painful-- and I awoke on Duncan's (another friend, who came to Canada last year) sofabed with a carpet in my mouth and what seemed to be a jackhammer in my head. Despite actually putting my bed away, showering, and dressing myself, I somehow managed to fall asleep on the couch again before breakfast. Classy.Alastair, Sarah and their friends Kate, Wil and Paul (I think...) took me out for the afternoon on a lovely tour of London. Alastair took full control of my camera and took some fun toursity shots, including one of me climbing on some sidewalk monument (see below). We spent a few hours in the Tate Museum, which was absolutely hilarious, and wandered down Fleet Street and saw St. Paul's. After ordering a pizza at another friend's flat, Sarah took Alastair and I out to her flat in Reading, where we spent my last night.
Suddenly it was morning (evening?!) again, and I was packing up to go to Heathrow while Al was climbing back onto his bike for the last short journey right home to Yorkshire.
I made it back to Vancouver on Monday evening and was working again Tuesday morning. Time for a weekend!
Al and me on my first night in England.
Emily and me out for lunch
Al and Sarah... back together after 4 years apart!
A fun afternoon wandering around London being tourists
The boys boosting me onto a monument in an attempt to get a cheesy tourist shot
Me not fitting onto the monument quite the way we'd envisioned...
A London sunset... it was bright and sunny all weekend!
I then met up with Emily Brown (from Saudi) for lunch, and spent the rest of the afternoon watching a rugby match (England vs. the All Blacks) in a pub.
That evening was Alastair's official "End of the World" party, where I had far too much really bad wine, and met many more amazingly friendly and funny people.
The following morning, (which felt like night for me) was horribly, horribly painful-- and I awoke on Duncan's (another friend, who came to Canada last year) sofabed with a carpet in my mouth and what seemed to be a jackhammer in my head. Despite actually putting my bed away, showering, and dressing myself, I somehow managed to fall asleep on the couch again before breakfast. Classy.Alastair, Sarah and their friends Kate, Wil and Paul (I think...) took me out for the afternoon on a lovely tour of London. Alastair took full control of my camera and took some fun toursity shots, including one of me climbing on some sidewalk monument (see below). We spent a few hours in the Tate Museum, which was absolutely hilarious, and wandered down Fleet Street and saw St. Paul's. After ordering a pizza at another friend's flat, Sarah took Alastair and I out to her flat in Reading, where we spent my last night.
Suddenly it was morning (evening?!) again, and I was packing up to go to Heathrow while Al was climbing back onto his bike for the last short journey right home to Yorkshire.
I made it back to Vancouver on Monday evening and was working again Tuesday morning. Time for a weekend!
Al and me on my first night in England.
Emily and me out for lunch
Al and Sarah... back together after 4 years apart!
A fun afternoon wandering around London being tourists
The boys boosting me onto a monument in an attempt to get a cheesy tourist shot
Me not fitting onto the monument quite the way we'd envisioned...
A London sunset... it was bright and sunny all weekend!
Tuesday, November 15, 2005
Memorial Day
At the beginning I found all this marching around, and funny movements all rather...obsurd and stupid. However after 9 hours of training one weekend in drill and marching, I have developed quite a lot of respect for those regiments you see that do everything perfectly in sinc and on time. And it feels so good when the company pulls of a perfect 'HALT!' and you hear the BANG BANG! of everyone's boots hitting the ground at the same time! Anyway, here's my regiment at the memorial day parade saluting the officers, and marching. It went really well...unfortunately though I wasn't issued my no. 2 dress, that comes in April. Those who are are the senior members, from Rhine and Yeves Company...I'm in Waterloo Company. Unfortunately I don't have many pictures especially any good ones, Laura was taking the pictures and she arrived late...but hopefully i'll have some of xmas camp, and especially of my passing out parade in April when I'll be in full no. 2's and doing rifle drill.
Monday, October 31, 2005
Monday, October 17, 2005
The Big Nasty Strike
For any of you who are unaware out there, the BC teachers have been on strike now for over a week. Basically we are wanting to negotiate a contract in which a variety of issues are addressed: namely class sizes, support for ESL and special needs students, increased funding for resources and books, and a salary increase. The government and the BCTF (BC Teachers' Federation) have been arguing about this for 18 months. Finally after the government addressed the issue with a "No, no and no" response, the BCTF arranged a strike and our premier (Gordon Campbell, unfortunately) decided to impose a law the night before the arranged strike that re-imposed an old contract from 2 years ago stating that teachers are an "Essential Service" and are therefore not legally allowed to strike. Well, we had an emergency vote and of those of us who voted, 90.5% of us voted in favour of holding an "illegal" wildcat strike.
Today there was a HUGE rally in Victoria. We have had tremendous support from parents, students, and other unions. It was estimated that there were up to 11,000 people marching from Centennial Square to the parliament buildings. Many other unions who supported us gave the government a taste of what a general strike would do to to the province... the city transit stopped for most of the day, even PCL coaches were off, Safeway and Save-On-Foods were closed, the libraries were closed, and many of the services at UVic and Camosun were down because the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) went on strike in support of us. We were marching with nurses, construction workers, children and engineers. It was amazing. Here are a few pics...
This is me on my first day of striking.
This is a view overlooking Centennial Square from a parkade-- it catches about a quarter of the people I could see from there.
This shot is terrible because the weather sucked and I don't have a great zoom lens... but look beyond the guy walking there, and you'll see a stream of people marching down Government Street. This went on for at *least* another 20 minutes after I'd arrived, and had probably been going on for 20 minutes before I got there. The turnout was amazing.
Around this there were 2 people walking with giant rat-heads on, wearing signs that said that the children of BC are Gordon Campbell's "lab rats". Will be interesting to see what happens next...
Today there was a HUGE rally in Victoria. We have had tremendous support from parents, students, and other unions. It was estimated that there were up to 11,000 people marching from Centennial Square to the parliament buildings. Many other unions who supported us gave the government a taste of what a general strike would do to to the province... the city transit stopped for most of the day, even PCL coaches were off, Safeway and Save-On-Foods were closed, the libraries were closed, and many of the services at UVic and Camosun were down because the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) went on strike in support of us. We were marching with nurses, construction workers, children and engineers. It was amazing. Here are a few pics...
This is me on my first day of striking.
This is a view overlooking Centennial Square from a parkade-- it catches about a quarter of the people I could see from there.
This shot is terrible because the weather sucked and I don't have a great zoom lens... but look beyond the guy walking there, and you'll see a stream of people marching down Government Street. This went on for at *least* another 20 minutes after I'd arrived, and had probably been going on for 20 minutes before I got there. The turnout was amazing.
Around this there were 2 people walking with giant rat-heads on, wearing signs that said that the children of BC are Gordon Campbell's "lab rats". Will be interesting to see what happens next...
Sunday, October 16, 2005
Friday, September 30, 2005
Skiing in SF
Check this out:
Fillmore St Ski Jump
Yes that is a cable car at the bottom of the ski jump. Full article here if you are interested
Fillmore St Ski Jump
Yes that is a cable car at the bottom of the ski jump. Full article here if you are interested
Monday, September 26, 2005
Saturday, September 24, 2005
Gran's Birthday!
Mom or Gran is going to fill this in with all the news by editing it. I'm just putting up the pictures
Monday, September 19, 2005
Monday, July 18, 2005
Cape Scott
After a long weekend of long drives, mud, and mosquitoes I made it back from another trip to Cape Scott. I went over to the Island on Thursday and picked up my friend Jeff in Victoria. We carried on up the east coast for 8 hours, then took a logging road left past Port Hardy and ended up in Cape Scott provincial park on the farthest Northwest Corner of the Island at about 8:45pm. We started hiking then and made pretty good time to our first campsite at Eric Lake, 3km in. We had the place all to ourselves-- except for the thousands of mosquitoes that are thriving in all of the mud up there. On Friday we hiked another 14km through the ruins of the Danish settlement attempts to Nels Bight-- a beautiful long, sandy beach where we set up camp and stayed for 2 nights. On Saturday we did a day trip to the Cape Scott lighthouse, where we had a lovely encounter with a large black bear. Jeff and I had been sitting at a picnic table at the lighthouse comparing mosquito bites and aching bones, and finally decided to stretch out and face the 5km hike through mud back to our campsite. As we tottered down the trail at the lighthouse, I said "Is that a bear? That's a bear."
Jeff said, "That's a bear."
Not 20 metres ahead of us was a large, shiny black bear staring right at us. We backed away and went back up to the lighthouse-keepers' lawn to have a safer view. The lighthouse keepers came out and realized that they had forgotten to close the door to their compost, so the bear was enjoying a large, healthy snack. We watched him for about 15 minutes before one of the keepers shooed him off and he waddled back into the forest. Jeff and I carried on our way, whistling and talking loudly.
Yesterday we were up early to break camp and hike the 17km back to the parking lot. We made great time, and even took a few minutes toward the end to have a swim and bath in Eric Lake. It felt wonderful! We then hopped into my car and after demolishing an entire pizza in Port McNeill we drove all the way to Victoria last night, getting in just before midnight.
Here are some pics:
This is the Shoe-Tree (also apparently called the "Sole Tree") which is on the logging road just past Port Hardy. No idea whose shoes they are, but some of them are really old.
This is another quirk of the crazy logging road... the first time I saw this I was with Janet Porter, whose car had just had a break-down followed by a flat tire and missing muffler. She rounded the bend, saw this and yelled, "Now ya tell me!"
View of Eric Lake
The mud was endless, but made great sounds when we walked through it.
Nels Bight, where we camped for 2 nights.
We did a wee bit o' illegal fishing and greatly enjoyed mussels for dinner one night.
The black bear at the lighthouse
This is a narrow neck of land that attaches the Cape to the Island. From the top of the meadow we could see ocean on either side.
Jeff said, "That's a bear."
Not 20 metres ahead of us was a large, shiny black bear staring right at us. We backed away and went back up to the lighthouse-keepers' lawn to have a safer view. The lighthouse keepers came out and realized that they had forgotten to close the door to their compost, so the bear was enjoying a large, healthy snack. We watched him for about 15 minutes before one of the keepers shooed him off and he waddled back into the forest. Jeff and I carried on our way, whistling and talking loudly.
Yesterday we were up early to break camp and hike the 17km back to the parking lot. We made great time, and even took a few minutes toward the end to have a swim and bath in Eric Lake. It felt wonderful! We then hopped into my car and after demolishing an entire pizza in Port McNeill we drove all the way to Victoria last night, getting in just before midnight.
Here are some pics:
This is the Shoe-Tree (also apparently called the "Sole Tree") which is on the logging road just past Port Hardy. No idea whose shoes they are, but some of them are really old.
This is another quirk of the crazy logging road... the first time I saw this I was with Janet Porter, whose car had just had a break-down followed by a flat tire and missing muffler. She rounded the bend, saw this and yelled, "Now ya tell me!"
View of Eric Lake
The mud was endless, but made great sounds when we walked through it.
Nels Bight, where we camped for 2 nights.
We did a wee bit o' illegal fishing and greatly enjoyed mussels for dinner one night.
The black bear at the lighthouse
This is a narrow neck of land that attaches the Cape to the Island. From the top of the meadow we could see ocean on either side.
Monday, July 4, 2005
Happy 4th!
Hey all.
Happy 4th of July. Not doing much celebrating around this household, although it does mean that Dave gets a day off of work. We had a busy day yesterday. Started off as per usual with a bottle for the kid, but early morning feedings have become far more bearable these days as both Dad and Mom are interested in watching the Tour De France, and since live coverage starts each morning at 5:30 AM, we're not so reluctant to crawl out of bed.
The past two days haven't been too exciting (except of course the last couple of minutes of the race) but the first day was absolutely stunning. Most of the attention has been focused on Lance of course, but big kudos to Dave Zabriskie who actually won the stage. He maintained an average speed of 54.68 km an hour. This is absolutely amazing. My fastest average speed doing my little sprint into work has been about 36 km an hour, and even on the straight aways where I can top out, I can only hit a max of about 45 km an hour. He also did this very early on, and set the bar for everyone else. No one even came close except for Sir Lancelot, who still missed the mark by 2 seconds.
Jen, Mollie and I actually got to watch Dave Z in action up close and personal, as he raced here earlier this year in the Morgan Hill Grand Prix (winning it handily). I also like Dave (and his team CSC) because they ride on Cervelos like yours truly...but of course they ride them much faster.
After watching the tour, we headed out for a quick hike up in the hills. As it turned out, we really didn't get to hike very far due to time, but at least we got out into the wilderness, and proved that we could do it with child in tow (and breastpump, and diapers, and backpack, and extra clothes and....).
We then headed down to Half Moon Bay, and met up with my buddy Bruce McKinnon, and his friend Jesse. Bruce was in San Francisco for the weekend, and was playing a couple of gigs. Unfortunately we didn't get to go up and see him actually play, but we had a great dinner at the Half Moon Bay Brewing Co.
Pictorial goodness is here!
I also finally posted the pictures of Mollie's visit to meet Keira.
Pics of Keira with her Gran
Happy 4th of July. Not doing much celebrating around this household, although it does mean that Dave gets a day off of work. We had a busy day yesterday. Started off as per usual with a bottle for the kid, but early morning feedings have become far more bearable these days as both Dad and Mom are interested in watching the Tour De France, and since live coverage starts each morning at 5:30 AM, we're not so reluctant to crawl out of bed.
The past two days haven't been too exciting (except of course the last couple of minutes of the race) but the first day was absolutely stunning. Most of the attention has been focused on Lance of course, but big kudos to Dave Zabriskie who actually won the stage. He maintained an average speed of 54.68 km an hour. This is absolutely amazing. My fastest average speed doing my little sprint into work has been about 36 km an hour, and even on the straight aways where I can top out, I can only hit a max of about 45 km an hour. He also did this very early on, and set the bar for everyone else. No one even came close except for Sir Lancelot, who still missed the mark by 2 seconds.
Jen, Mollie and I actually got to watch Dave Z in action up close and personal, as he raced here earlier this year in the Morgan Hill Grand Prix (winning it handily). I also like Dave (and his team CSC) because they ride on Cervelos like yours truly...but of course they ride them much faster.
After watching the tour, we headed out for a quick hike up in the hills. As it turned out, we really didn't get to hike very far due to time, but at least we got out into the wilderness, and proved that we could do it with child in tow (and breastpump, and diapers, and backpack, and extra clothes and....).
We then headed down to Half Moon Bay, and met up with my buddy Bruce McKinnon, and his friend Jesse. Bruce was in San Francisco for the weekend, and was playing a couple of gigs. Unfortunately we didn't get to go up and see him actually play, but we had a great dinner at the Half Moon Bay Brewing Co.
Pictorial goodness is here!
I also finally posted the pictures of Mollie's visit to meet Keira.
Pics of Keira with her Gran
Saturday, July 2, 2005
Monday, June 20, 2005
Dave's new toy
Arrived on Friday and it's a sweet little ride. Certainly a different riding style than I'm used to on my StumpJumper.
Saturday, June 11, 2005
Figure this one out
Take your time and follow the instructions.
1) Go to the link below. After reading each window click on the boy in
the lower right corner of the picture
2) In the last window type in your answer in the white box using the
keyboard (there is NO cursor). You will be amazed....and no, I don't
know
how it's done .
Click here: http://digicc.com/fido/
1) Go to the link below. After reading each window click on the boy in
the lower right corner of the picture
2) In the last window type in your answer in the white box using the
keyboard (there is NO cursor). You will be amazed....and no, I don't
know
how it's done .
Click here: http://digicc.com/fido/
Tuesday, June 7, 2005
Aunty Shannon Shots
Posted some new Keira photos that Aunty Shannon took. There are some really cool close ups.
Click Here!
Click Here!
Monday, June 6, 2005
WAHOO!!
Dave and I just received our green cards in the mail this evening...finally! It only took 4.5 years, but we are officially perminant residents of the USA.
Saturday, June 4, 2005
Canadian Girl is Sad No Longer
I made it back from California in one piece. In 6 days I managed to meet my new niece, buy a new wardrobe with my Mom, drive to L.A. and Anaheim and back, and go for a couple of walks with Dave and Jen and Taita. Thanks to Chris for taking me to Disneyland and Universal Studios! We had a whirlwind trip through the Happiest Place on Earth and exhausted ourselves with 2 very long days at 2 very busy amusement parks-- but it was awesome. Here are some pics:
It's a Small World-- my theme song!
A moose-bush. I love it.
The one Canadian symbol on the ride... blink and you'll miss it!
Yay Goofy!
Toon-Town... home of the day's longest lineup. (But it was a pretty cool ride).
Universal Studios is even cooler than I remembered it to be.
Chris just about got eaten by Jaws... but luckily I saved him right after I snapped this shot.
Plane crash scene from an upcoming Tom Cruise movie.
I tried to go undercover, but they found me anyway. There's just no avoiding the paparazzi these days. (I'll bet no one in the family was aware of Sandi Lee's new job...)
It's a Small World-- my theme song!
A moose-bush. I love it.
The one Canadian symbol on the ride... blink and you'll miss it!
Yay Goofy!
Toon-Town... home of the day's longest lineup. (But it was a pretty cool ride).
Universal Studios is even cooler than I remembered it to be.
Chris just about got eaten by Jaws... but luckily I saved him right after I snapped this shot.
Plane crash scene from an upcoming Tom Cruise movie.
I tried to go undercover, but they found me anyway. There's just no avoiding the paparazzi these days. (I'll bet no one in the family was aware of Sandi Lee's new job...)
My New Place
Hi Guys,
Since no one has managed to come visit yet, I thought you might be interested in seeing some pics of my new place (and roommate) in Kits. It's so much cooler than my last place! :)
Shannon
Half of my bedroom
Other half of my bedroom
Stairs going up to my room
The Livingroom
The Kitchen
My roommate, Chad
Since no one has managed to come visit yet, I thought you might be interested in seeing some pics of my new place (and roommate) in Kits. It's so much cooler than my last place! :)
Shannon
Half of my bedroom
Other half of my bedroom
Stairs going up to my room
The Livingroom
The Kitchen
My roommate, Chad
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