Being active over the holidays!

I traveled a fair bit over the Christmas holidays (narrowly avoiding what turned out to be an absolute disaster of travel later, as many airlines cancelled due to their staff getting Omicron… ) and it went well!

Outdoor skating! I was so bad at it

I wasn’t in a great headspace due to the issues mentioned earlier (colleague dying, being way understaffed at work, Oats lame with what turned out to be a months-long abscess journey- thankfully that was it though?!!) but I figured it’s better to be away from all of that nightmarish mess, isn’t it?

Actually yes!

I visited my family in Kelowna and it went completely fine. We had lots of activities and I enjoyed being in a winter wonderland for Christmas, we we don’t normally get snow here (and as I write, we have had the WORST weather in all the years I have lived here sooooo yeah we have a lot of snow here this winter?!).

Very Christmassy

We enjoyed skating outdoors in a beautiful little outdoor rink in downtown Kelowna, we went to Mission Hill winery for a truly fantastic little private tasting event, we went to see House of Gucci, we decorated gingerbread houses, I took my mom cross-country skiing to a hill near their place, and we went to a lovely and extremely pricey dinner at the Eldorado Hotel.

Mission Hill

It was a very nice experience and something I didn’t know I needed- to get away from my own life.

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Next up- actual Christmas in Courtenay at my in-laws house. And they had a ton more snow? Why/how is this winter weather chasing me?!

Wedding Week?!!

Yep, I was away for a week attending (and working at) my sister’s wedding! It was crazy!!

To add to the madness, it was in Nakusp, a tiny town roughly 7.5 hours away from Vancouver, located in the Kootenays. My family has a long history there, so it was nice to re-visit it, as it had been about 15 years or longer since I’d been back.

We left last Thursday, after I ran a pretty fun (and lucrative!) track race on Wednesday night. Headed out on the first ferry, picked my friend up from the skytrain, and we were OFF!

One very long drive later, two ferries, and we were in Nakusp. Only to immediately zip out again to check out these hotsprings (word to the wise: the road up to them is SO ROUGH and I do not advise taking a tiny Honda Fit there, at all. Yiiiiiiikes). Really nice though! Just so tough to drive up, and quite hazardous.

Won the draw prize! Sweet Frontrunners swag!!

Then, my friend and I went on a run Friday morning and that was it for our free time. It was wedding, wedding and oh, wedding from then onwards….

 

Setting up the hall with chairs, tables, tablecloths (had to wrangle more from their owner), napkin settings, drinking glasses, decorations, so many decorations, lights, the candy buffet- I owned that one, ha- chair coverings, tulle bows, more decorations, balloons, swag, things that hang from the ceiling, flowers…

So yep, that ate up all Friday, and then we hosted the family get-together BBQ at the house my husband rented for us. It was great! We took down the BBQ, and I woke up the next morning to my sister yelling at our window to get up, and move chairs to the beach for the ceremony that was happening at 3 p.m….

Backyard of the house we rented with a rainbow!

Chairs wrangled, and it looked really nice! Then it was off to get our hair & makeup done. That took FOREVER, ha. I was also working the phones for some real last-minute things (more wine, more lights, the ‘guest log’ that I literally pulled off the beach so people could sign it, needed a marker, helium balloons, etc etc).

Tiring but we made it to the ceremony and it was beautiful! And quick!

Then it was photos for oh, close to 3 hours…I was STARVING. Ian had to run and grab M&M’s and granola bars from the nearby grocery store. Luckily everything is close together in Nakusp! We wrapped up the photos in a boat (ha, boats boats boats!!!), just as a storm blew in and the wind was something fierce.

Boats boats boats!

We ran for cover in the nearby Leland Hotel, something of a dive but also the oldest hotel in B.C.! Grabbed beers and appies, and then I called my husband to drive us to the reception, haha. Once there, things smoothed out a bit, but there were a few funny moments…No wine glasses on the tables being one of them! The caterer forgot and had to rush back home to get them. Hahah!~ The DJ was also kind of a moron, and we couldn’t find him because he was wearing all black in a very dark hall. Jeesh! He also played a song OVER the slideshow my husband had made for the wedding, that HAD music. Stop the DJ, he’s out of control!!

Food was great, drinks were flowing, and the most important thing was that my sister had the best wedding of her dreams 🙂

On the way back home, we stayed for a few days in Penticton. The weather sucked, but we made do with 3 winery visits and 3 brewery visits in one day!

Okanagan Lake is drowning!

Biggest weekend recap ever: Jumping, massively sick, a bachlorette party?

Thursday I rode in my lesson (perhaps unwisely) as I had gotten turned away at work for showing up sick…I had a horrible sore throat that came on suddenly overnight and it was just awful. I couldn’t sleep all night, felt like knives stabbing my throat and I couldn’t swallow, my throat was so swollen.

Yay…

So I went home and lay around the house after work kicked me out. It was so boring that I was desperate to do something, so I dragged myself out of the house and went, drowsily, to my lesson. Where we jumped 2’9” hahah.

I know eh? But hey, it went fine! Scared the bejeezus out of me but he did it great every time! More times than I wanted to jump even! We just kept doing it. The other jumps weren’t…so good. He had some issues with a short distance into a line and kept slamming on the brakes? WTF? He is not a horse that stops, and it was NOT high, haha. It was almost like he was getting spooked by it? Weird. We did that one over and over again until it was fine with no issues.

Silly pony. 2’9” oxer no prob, but 2’3” black and yellow? Nuh huh!

I felt very spacey and dizzy after. Ugh. Just in time for my sister’s bachlorette party in Kelowna, which I was flying out to on Friday. Whoop! *cough* cough* sneeze repeatedly, cough some more…My sinuses hurt…

The view from Arrowleaf winery. Sigh…

But yes, Kelowna. Despite being pretty sick, I had a really fun time! We rented a condo in a golf course area, and we had a blast! We visited the Kangaroo farm on Saturday, and then found a beach that wasn’t completely flooded out to chill out on and eat some junk food picnic, drink some booze, and float around on the lake!

We wrapped up that day by more drinks around the pool at the condo, and then a BBQ (that turned out to be a total shenanigan…we had no propane tank?) meaning we had to make friends with a football team staying at the golf course to borrow their propane tank…It didn’t work so we had to get them over to fix it…I then put temporary tattoos on them like ‘Cheers Bitches’ and ‘Team Bride’ and ‘Miss to Mrs.”…fun times!

I’m a natural (wallaby) mother!

I drank a touch too much but also I blame the heat (28 deg and unused to it) + junk food+ cold medication so yeah, ended up feeling quite rough the next morning. I got my run gear on, went to tie up my shoes, immediately felt like puking, ran to the bathroom, threw up, and then went back to try the shoes again (success!) and went on a wimpy, hot, weirdly sweaty run.

Got back, still felt queasy and ick, showered and ate a bagel and then we were off to wine tours! The tours were great, we went to these wineries and they all had really neat and different venues with lots to offer.

• The Blind Tiger
• Arrowleaf Winery
• Parallel 50
• Grey Monk- we had lunch here and it is PRICEY. The food was not included in the wine tour, so the tour was $150, and lunch at the winery ran about $45/per person. Ouch!
• Intrigue Winery

All in all, a great but quite expensive day.

What’s a bachlorette party without hunks?

Then we were back to the pool & hot tub, and I swam for a bit in the pool. Really enjoyed it! I wast totally sacked though, so I prepared dinner for the gang (all 7 of us) from our grocery leftovers and did a pretty good job if I do say so myself, and then went to bed and didn’t sleep at all. Sigh! My flight out was at 8:45am on Monday and I felt so sad to leave. It was so hot, it felt like summer was finally here.

A good weekend all around, and I even got back to ride Oats on Monday, get a sunburn on my shoulders and still continue being sick back at work today. That part sucks!

Tempest

So, you know how on Friday I was like, wow, this week was crazy?

The weekend was even crazier!!

Family visiting= insane. But, mostly in a good way right now. Friday evening, we bought tickets to Beer Week’s ‘Beer and Fish’ event night at the Victoria Public Market.

A snapshot of our weekend- NOT me in the wedding dress!

For $40, you got 8 beer sample tickets and 2 food tickets. My only complaint about the night was that it was very beer-heavy and light on the food. Oh well! We had a really nice time regardless. Food options included seafood chowder, fish’n’ chips, candied salmon pieces, and oysters. We opted for the fish’n’chips and the oysters, and my sister got my dad’s food ticket and shared the candied salmon with us. YUM!

It was a LOT of beer though. I had a mega headache the next day. Oy…

Then we’re rolling into Saturday, where I took my sister riding on good ol’ Oats, and he was a great pony. I hopped on to warm him up, he’s been fairly hoppy anticipating the canter recently, so I just cruised him for a bit and worked over a small cross-rail. So far, so good! My sister got on and he was golden with her. It was lovely! They even trotted over the cross-rail a few times.

Then, my husband, sister and I headed to Witty’s Lagoon to go check out the beach and sea life. We were NOT disappointed! It was a veritable crab fest! Every rock we knocked over or picked up was boiling with crabs, some pretty big ones for the little guys. It was awesome.

We capped off our crabfest evening with buying the biggest, most expensive crabs I have ever had in my lifetime. ($42 EACH!). Ouch! But, they were sooooo good and it was the most crab I have ever eaten. Dinner that night took us 1.5 hours!

My husband and I then jetted off to put an offer on a duplex we liked (wasn’t accepted, oh well!) and my sister and mom went to try on wedding dresses. A big, crazy, long day, but a good one!

Stay tuned tomorrow for Sunday’s recap. Hint: it includes lambs!

Throwback Thursday, Ontario edition: C’est la Vie

Growing up, I never owned my own pony or horse, but I was lucky enough to lease quite a few and experience a ton of different horses.

I rode at so many stables, now in so many provinces and cities, it’s almost hard to remember them all now!

Started at a now-defunct stable- can’t for the life of me remember what it was called now, but I rode a tiny pony called ‘Pags’ and my sister rode a little white pony called ‘Spirit’.

We liked that barn, but moved on to another- Greenbelt, which wasn’t the greatest. From Greenbelt, we moved to the Nepean National Equestrian Park, and spent quite a few years there. I learned so much from them, and only moved on when I wanted to horse show- something they didn’t do there, despite having fantastic grounds that they rented out to large horse show managers.

I then moved on to Wynbrook, which was a decent experience and a very high-quality program, but a bit too heavy on the $$$ side for our liking. During the move around from these stables, I leased horses on and off for years at smaller private barns.

When we moved on from Wynbrook, we leased a lovely black Appendix mare named ‘Hope’ and her show name was C’est la Vie. She was such a darling, we rode together in a show and did super well there. Great jumper, very forgiving. I only remember her stopping at fences when they got to around 2’9 or 3′.

Hope showing at Huntleigh

She passed away from colic about 7 years ago, maybe more. She had bouts of it on and off over the years, and was sensitive.

Miss that girl, she was lovely!

Hope’s owner also owned an adorable small pony named ‘Bubblegum’ at one point, so my sister and I both rode Bubbles too! We normally rode her bareback- and sometimes w/o a bridle either, eek- because there was only the 1 saddle to fit Hope. We made do, and she was SO FUN to ride/jump bareback.

Bubblegum in the Ottawa Valley- I wasn’t kidding about the bareback/bridle-less

Loved mucking around, nothing in particular to train for haha and we still managed to do really well. Funny that the more training I do, the more struggles I seem to have. How does that happen??

A ‘hare-y’ tale

Love this story- about a man and his Irish hare. A hare is not like a rabbit!

Lovely and heartfelt, thanks to my sister for sharing it with me:

A hare about the house, by Cecil S. Webb

Adorable!

Here is my rabbit a few years ago, exploring in the snow in Whitehorse, YT.

Buster exploring in the snow

I have long had an affinity for rabbits…Grew up with a pretty wild dwarf rabbit named Nitchka, who had a guinea pig friend named Earl. They were pretty hilarious those two!

Buster digs deep

We had several other rabbits, but none lived as long as Nitchka, who was 10 years old when we put him to sleep- as he was declining rapidly, and blind.

Coming up for air

Now I have a surly little dwarf named Buster Bunny, who is not a very friendly rabbit and kind of a jerk to strangers and my husband- but he likes me, and will eat Goldfish crackers out of my hand when I’m holding him!

He likes to hop around the house, he sometimes gets chased around by Gidget, our little dog, but he likes to sniff Gidget and will sometimes see if she wants to play too! We do have to watch them closely, as Buster is older than Gidget and gets tired easily. He needs his downtime more than she does.

Buster is like my hare about the house, though he would chew the house to splinters if he was allowed to live free-range in it!

Guest blog by Sister: The Alberta Dream (or, a wedding story) Part 1:

Everyone loves a wedding story, but it’s even better if it’s a disaster.

No disaster but nearing the edge? Even better!

The wedding was between my significant other’s cousin and his longtime high school girlfriend. Being at the ripe old ages of 22 and 21 respectively, with few individual life experiences, they naturally decided to get married. This appears to be the prevailing ideology of rural Alberta, one does not want to be an old spinster! Best to trap and marry your man while you’re young 14 years old and still have your looks!  

After a standard engagement period (like a cool 9-12 months) it was time for the big event.

The day dawned rainy and a little cool for May.

We had traveled from Calgary on Friday night and that night I bought a cute (frugal fashions for the win!) dress from Forever 21–let’s face it, a rural Alberta wedding isn’t exactly Calvin Klein material.

The Saturday, after some last minute scrambling around to Sobey’s nearby for a wedding card and pen, I was ready to go with my SO’s parents, sister, boyfriend and friend. My SO was already there (as the best man and all). After some dithering, we head to the church and take a seat….And that’s when it really takes a turn for the worse…

My sister’s rabbit- meet Daphne

Proof that rabbit loving runs in our family…I’m sure Buster Bunny would love to meet Daphne. She is quite a bit bigger than him though!

Here is Daphne cuddled up in a towel after some outdoors time. I hear from my sister that Daphne is very good about being outside and not running away. Buster could learn a thing or two from her!