Oh deer...

I hope you all had a great halloween weekend. I was really sick and Topaz and I spent most of the weekend like this.


I got to watch Aidan's soccer for a bit, which was great, but it's cooolllllddd when you're standing there not moving.




So...a new employee came into the office the other day and I asked how he was liking victoria (he'd just moved from alberta) and he said that it was great but he was upset because he'd hit a deer the day before-- apparently he got out of the car and called the RCMP and sat down beside the deer--- the poor deer was pretty badly injured, but he lifted up his head, looked Jake in the eye and lay his head in his lap...that's how the RCMP officer found them-- he said he'd never seen anything like it before-- usually if they're alive enough to move they don't stick around. But we do work hard to hire friendly, approachable people, so I guess bambi felt comfortable with him. Unfortunately, the RCMP guy had to shoot him later, but I thought it was a nice story.
On an unrelated note, there was an amazing sunrise this morning- I caught it though a willow tree. Also unrelated, that's great about Obama, eh? It will be interesting to see what the next few years hold- I think the world is ready for a change. Okay time for bed, tonight's swim workout wore me out. xoxo C

With Grandma

I love this picture of Mariah with her Grandma, Madeline (Nicky's mum!). SO cute!

A weekend in photos

In no particular order--- my "roommate", Topaz; dinner with Celeste and Sarah; Nicky, Dave and I having Korean BBQ for lunch (with a funny menu picture) and Nicky's little niece, Mariah :)

(Yes, I know I'm wearing the same shirt, but I don't have that many clothes here, and I washed it in between wearings.. honest!)

Fall...

The weekend already- that was fast- actually I can't beleive how quickly this year is going! Fall in Victoria is such a nice time of year so I'm glad I'm still here!
Anyway.........we had a bake sale yesterday to raise money for the United Way; Kate and I baked some of our world-famous M&M cupcakes. Dad helped with a little "quality control". They were a huge hit. Obviously.

























I'm house/dog sitting again for the next few weeks- my new roommate, Topaz, is an adorable yellow lab- I'll see if I can get her to sit still long enough for a picture later.
Lately, I've been trying to be more disciplined about exercise, I ran a few times this week I made it to 2 swim practices- next week I'm shooting for all three! It feels great to be back in the pool again, even if John says my backstroke has regressed. (I hate backstroke anyway, John! ;) SO THERE!

Hope you're all having a great weekend. Hugs from me and licks from Topaz :)

How have I never had photoshop before?

Till now, I have been using picasa for photo-editing- which is okay for what it is (a free program from Google), but I discovered yesterday that my parents have photoshop on their computer! It's a little complicated at first and has a lot of features that I don't understand and probably will never use, but I've been using a few self-tutorial videos online and have been able to scratch the surface a little-- here are a couple of pics of Aidan and Caley at the park yesterday- (as you can see, right now I'm in my "partial black and white period")- also, here's one of dad at Thanksgiving, looking sketchy! (okay and one of the Bard & Banker - not edited using PS)

a thousand words...

So I've been posting a lot of pictures but not writing much lately-- I think I told you I got a new camera a few weeks ago, so I guess I've been a little snap happy (wow, did I really use that word) and thought most of the pictures spoke for themselves..but I guess maybe I should give a bit of an update too...

Where to start? Wellll, I'm still in BC- which meant I was here for Thanksgiving which is one of my favourite holidays! As usual, we had lots of friends for dinner- but with the added excitement this year of a power outage just as the turkey was coming out of the oven- the whole south island was out for about an hour and a half - the veggies and gravy had to be finished on the BBQ!! Since everyone was in the same boat, it made for some interesting watercooler chats on Tuesday.

On the weekend, Kate and I ran the 8K- I was about 6 min slower than last year, but it was still fun- I was particularly happy to see Nicky cheering about 800m from the finish line (thanks Nick!!)

I can't remember if I said that I've been going to physio to fix my hip... I was a little skeptical at first when they hooked me up to suction cups with an electrical current running through them, but after about 2 weeks of that, as well as some exercise, I'm really noticing an improvement...hopefully it keeps getting better :)

That's pretty much all from me... I have to post at least one picture, so here's one of Arthur (Cole and Kristina's dog and my roommate this week)- I caught him checking his email on my laptop yesterday...

Okay, gotta go, it's a new Grey's Anatomy tonight... hope you're all doing well!

xo C

The other thing that happens when the power goes out...

Bri, Steph, Michael and I somehow started taking pictures for our 'album cover' and the dust jacket shots for our 'books'. These are some of my personal favs: (especially the 'totally unimpressed rock band' shot.... as well as the creepy ones of mike!) I hope you had as much fun at your dinners as we did! :)