I'm Back!

Did you miss me? I had a wonderful vacation for the past couple of weeks and it was hard to come back to work this week. Ryan and I flew into Tucson, Arizona, where his parents live during the winter, on April 5th. We drove to Portland, Maine on Friday the 4th of April, flew out of Portland to Washington Dulles Airport and then connected on to Tucson International Airport.

Our first day in Tucson we went to church with Ryan's parents and then to the Tanque Verde swap meet, which was interesting, lol. On Monday the 7th, I had to go the hospital. My throat had been sore for a couple of days and I felt like I was developing strept throat. It turns out it wasn't strept throat, I was diagnosed with allergic rhianitis and was given a prescription which cleared me up in a couple of days. We joked and said my diagnosis of allergic rhianitis meant that I was allergic to Ryan, lol. We went to the Casino Del Sol Casino later that evening.

On Tuesday the 8th we went to Old Tucson Studios, where numerous old western movies and tv shows such as Little House On The Prairie were filmed. It was quite the place and we spent all day there.

On Wednesday the 9th, we got up early and hit the road for San Diego, California to visit Angela and Darren. We got into San Diego at around 3:30 and Angela and Darren prepared us a wonderful dinner. We relaxed that evening with a few beverages.

On Thursday the 10th we went to the World Famous San Diego Zoo. That place was awesome! I had a fantastic time walking the grounds and seeing all the animals. After the zoo we went to Balboa Park, which was beautiful. That evening Angela and Darren took us to Rubio's for dinner for a big feed of fish tacos. They sound disgusting, but they were delicious! After supper we drove to La Jolla and saw a bunch of seals beached on the shore and then watched the most beautiful sunset.

Friday the 11th we hiked Torrey Pines Park for a couple of hours and then spent the afternoon at the beach. I tried boogie boarding for the first time, which was super fun! I also saw two dolphins swimming in a wave about 50 feet in front of us - it was spectacular. That evening was our last night in California. We took the trolley downtown and had supper at Henry's Pub. It was a great evening!

On Saturday the 12th we hit the highway, back to Tucson. We stopped in Gila (pronounced Heal-a) Bend, AZ for supper and gas and we spied a beautiful clay outdoor fireplace which we bought for Ryan's parents as a gift.

Sunday the 13th was Ryan's 30th birthday. He started off the day with a round of golf with his dad and his dad's friend Eric. Eric's wife and Ryan's mother and I went to the St. Xavier Mission Church while the boys golfed. St. Xavier Mission was built in the 1700's and it's absolutely stunning. We had a big ham dinner that evening and then cake, ice cream and gifts.

On Monday the 14th we went to the Biosphere. I found this place extremely boring, lol. While I can appreciate what they're doing there, I'm not the least bit interested in science. We stopped at the Tucson Mall for an hour and then drove to an area known as Gates Pass and watched the sunset there.

On Tuesday the 15th we went to Sabino Canyon. This place was nice, but the numerous postings about the high level of mountain lion sightings in the canyon made me a little timid in that area. After Sabino Canyon we drove up to the top of Mt. Lemmon. This was beautiful and we even saw some snow on the top of the mountain, being that we were 8,000 feet above sea level. We didn't get to go to the Grand Canyon while in Arizona, but Ryan's parents said that Mt. Lemmon was just as nice as the Grand Canyon and I believe them, as it really was spectacular. The Grand Canyon is also 8,000 feet above sea level, just like Mt. Lemmon.

On Wednesday the 16th we went to Nogales, Mexico for the day. We got there in the morning, had lunch and did some bartering with the locals. I got two beautiful paintings for my living room for $23, and some decorative clay pots for outside and a silver bracelet for $20 from another vendor. Ryan got a Corono jacket for $10 and a litre of tequilla (which he sampled and deemed was good, lol) for $7. Nogales was quite the experience for me as I'd never witnessed such poverty before in my life. It was difficult to see the numerous children, flithy and begging for money on the streets. It was even harder when you'd see some mothers pushing these children out to you to beg as you walked by. There were blind men begging on the corners, a man with no legs in a wheelchair, etc. It was tragic to see this and also to see the shacks that these people live in, nestled up in the hills. It's make one very thankful to be a Canadian when in a third world country.

On Thursday the 17th we drove to Benson, AZ to the Kartchner Caverns, which we amazing! We weren't allowed to take photos of the caverns due to their fragile state. I highly recommend you check out their website. After the caverns we drove to Tombstone, AZ. This is the town where the famous gunfight at the OK Corral was held and the real Wyatt Earp was the sheriff. That evening Ryan's aunt Bernie and Uncle Dick (who also winter in Arizona) had us over for supper.

Friday the 18th was our last full day in Tucson. We did a bit more shopping and had lunch and then played a round of golf in the afternoon with Ryan's parents. Ryan's parents then took us out to the Olive Garden for a fantastic supper.

Saturday the 19th we were flying back the same route, Tucson to Washington Dulles and then on to Portland, Maine. Our flight to Maine was delayed for 3 hours, so we had to kill three hours in Washington, which wasn't that bad as it's a huge airport with lots to see and do. We didn't get into Maine until late evening and we were exhausted from travelling all day. We drove on to Fredericton the next morning (we did park and fly with a local hotel and left our car there while we were away). We stopped in Houlton before crossing back into New Brunswick and I was on my doorstep at around 7:30 Sunday night. It was a long weekend of travelling.

We had a fantastic trip and would love to do it again sometime, as there is so much to see and do there!

Seven

"All Seven and we'll watch them fall". HAHA, sorry, when I typed the title of this entry, I instantly thought of Prince's song Seven. If you're not familiar with that one, that's the first line of the song that I typed in quotations.

I suck at blogging now. I know this. I've been blog-hopping lately and a lot of people have been posting the "7 weird things about me" meme, so that's what I've decided to do for today's entry. Here goes.

1) I hate (most) condiments. I have been - and think I always will be, a picky eater. This is not limited to just food (mainly vegetables is who I have a bad relationship with) but also condiments. When I order a burger, the only thing I'll eat on it is cheese/bacon/BBQ sauce. That's it. NEVER any ketchup, mustard, relish, BLECH! Same goes for a hotdog. I will eat ketchup on french fries however. You'll never see me eat mayonnaise either.

2) I lock my car atleast twice after I've got home and parked it for the night. Ryan's car got broken into once in my driveway, so ever since then, I've been worried someone will get into mine too. I (usually) lock my car with the key faub as I'm walking up my steps to go into the house, but later on in the night, I am hit with the "did I lock my car" question and will hit the button on my key faub again, just to be sure. Hey, better safe than sorry right?

3) I love 80's music. People close to me know this as I've subjected them to it for countless hours, lol. If I never heard a newly released song again, I would be completely fine with that. Now that I think about it, I don't think I've heard a "new" song in many, many months. But yah, the big hair, cheesier 80's music, the better!

4) I don't have internet at home. Yup. I think I'm about the only one left on the planet without internet at home. I have a computer at my house (my parent's old one) but no internet. I'm poor, so all my surfing is done on my work computer, my parent's computer or my brother's computer.

5) I first drove a car when I was 14. It was my Aunt's and it was a manual transmission. I love driving manuals and both cars I've owned have been manuals.

6) I'm addicted to lip balm. You will never not see me caring lip balm. I've been addicted to the stuff for about 15 years. I can't stand the feeling of dry lips, so mine are always coated in balm, lol.

7) I used to hate the color red. It doesn't bother me as badly now, but I still don't think I'll ever own a red car. To be honest, red clothing actually looks pretty good on me, lol. Go figure.

Springing?

When people keep saying "It'll all be over soon (meaning winter)...Spring is on its way" I roll my eyes and look at them with that "Yah bull$hit" expression on my face. That was until yesterday. No, the massive piles of snow haven't disappeared and no it's not magically 20 degrees outside now. What's making me believe that spring is on its way you ask? Yesterday when I got home from work, I was sticking my key in the lock to go inside the house. I just happened to glance down at my flower bed and saw some flecks of color peaking out from the snow. My tulips are starting to come up! I couldn't believe it! Spring has got to be on its way!

Carrie and Brayden have now gone back home to Ontario. It was so nice to have them home for two weeks and I eagerly await their return in a few months.

I had a nice Easter weekend last week. It started out with some of us heading to Cannon's Cross for some of their famous nachos. After that Ryan and I headed over to Shane and Val's for a little bash they were having. It took us an hour of waiting and calling two different cab companies before we arrived home at 5 a.m.! Needless to say, Saturday was pretty much reserved for sleeping, lol. Sunday Carrie and Brayden came over and we said our farewells. From there we had a big Easter dinner at my parent's place.

Not too sure what's going on this weekend. I'll more than likely be getting things together for our big trip!

Short Week

Yeah, the work week is almost over! I luckily don't have to work tomorrow for Good Friday. Now if I were only able to get Monday off too, like our government workers are blessed with, lol.

Raclette night last weekend went great! Lots of good food, beverages and the company was great! I hadn't seen those old friends for almost a year, so it was really nice. You can certainly tell that we're getting older though, as the party was over shortly before midnight, lol.

Tonight a few of us are going out for a few beverages and some eats at a local pub. Not much else planned, other than Easter dinner at my parent's house. Ryan has ski patrol that day and has to work until 6, so he'll be motoring it back from the hill to make it for dinner.

Raclette

I'm hosting another raclette dinner at my place. Tomorrow night in honor of Carrie being home, Ryan and I are having seven friends over for a raclette dinner and chocolate fondue for dessert. I'm looking forward to it very much! It's a lot of work buying and preparing all the food, not to mention getting the house prepped for people coming over, but I think I'll be ready as I'm pretty organized when it comes to that stuff. I did all of the food shopping last night, started prepping some of the stuff that had to be precooked early this morning before coming to work, tonight I'll do all of the chopping of the veggies and fruit and the slicing of all the meat into small pieces. That work is tedious, but it's all worth it in the end.

So yah, Carrie and Brayden arrived safely on Tuesday. Her husband Chris didn't come home with them this trip as he's attending a construction convention in Las Vegas this weekend with his work. I couldn't believe the change in Brayden in only a month! He's so much bigger now and his face is alot fuller. It's amazing how quickly they grow!

Still Here

Yah, yah I'm still here. I just don't feel like blogging much lately. The weather is so crappy and I'm so done with winter. I hurt my back last week shovelling after the snow then rain down pour. Started feeling better and then blam - we got hit again last weekend. Started feeling bad again after shovelling on the weekend. Then started feeling better again. Then blam again yesterday and my back is back to being sore again from shovelling this morning. I've been shovelling "properly" by bending with my knees, but when you're lifting shovel-full after shovel-full of soggy, wet bricks of snow, it takes its tole on you. Will the BS of winter ever end here? I'm seriously having my doubts. The snowbanks are taller than people! It's freakin' ridiculous. I feel like I'm constantly stuck in a snow maze. I cannot remember ever a winter as bad as this one. If global warming is what was giving us the shorter, warmer winters we've been experiencing the past few years, I'm about ready to start throwing more stuff in the trash and not the recycling bin, LOL.

Carrie and Brayden come home next week! I'm super excited! We're having a dinner party at my place that following weekend with some close friends, should be a great time :).

I'm Ba-ack

Well I suppose it's time that I updated this thing, lol. It's been a while since I've updated here and honestly, I really haven't felt like updating. I'm just not feeling up to blogging lately. Maybe that will change once we start to get rid of the ton of frigging snow we have here. Apparantly I picked a good week to be away, with Fredericton getting two bad storms while I was gone.

So I left for Carrie's place on Friday, February 8th. I had no problems getting there, despite the amazingly boring three hour wait in Montreal for my connecting flight. The first weekend we didn't do a whole lot because the weather was so windy that you couldn't even see your hand in front of your face, with the blowing snow. They don't have a lot of snow up that way, just a light dusting, which really surprised me.

The first of the week I accompanied Carrie to her doctor's appointment and took care of Brayden while she was in the doctor's office. We went out for lunch, went to the candle factory and the peanut factory - yum! We also went to Brantford to do a little shopping at Walmart and for lunch.

I spent Valentine's Day with my sweet little nephew Brayden. Carrie and Chris went to the spa to get pedicures together for Valentine's Day and I watched Brayden for them. It was their first outing alone, just the two of them since they became parents, so it was even more romantic that it happened on Valentine's Day. I was missing Ryan quite a bit on Valentine's Day, not that I hadn't any other time that week, but just extra missing him on Valentine's Day. We talked on the phone for a bit that night, but it wasn't the same as being with him. I booked my trip up to Carrie's before Christmas and failed to realize that I booked it over Valentine's Day until after the fact.

On Saturday I got up early to head to the airport. After a teary farewell, I headed for security to board my first flight for Montreal. When they issued my two boarding passes originally, the one they gave me for the Montreal to Fredericton flight didn't have a seat number on it and had the initals CDX on it. They agent in Hamilton who took my luggage told me that I'd have to stop at customer service when I got to Montreal to get a seat number. I asked her why and she said she didn't know. I had a suspicion that they had bumped me off that flight as I knew it was full, having checked it the day before I left.

I head through security and they took my lip balm out of my purse on me. I've flown a fair number of times and this is the first time I've ever had an issue with lip balm. Whatever. Anyway, I made it through the metal dectector (obviously). My jacket and purse come through after being screened and I see my carry-on bag start to come out of the machine. I then see it getting backed up and going back in the machine for screening. Then the woman operating the machine instructed another officer to do a "swab" on that bag. I was all "Huh, what's going on"? The officer took my boarding pass, asked permission to go through my bag, which of course I gave. (Anyone who knows me well is laughing right now because you know how cautious I am about things, so anything that I could get away with in my carry-on, but have hesitation about, I put in my checked luggage).

The officer has this black plastic wand thing that he puts a piece of tissue paper in and runs it all through my bag. He then puts the "swabbed" tissue in a machine and processes it. It's fine and he gives me my boarding pass and bag back and doesn't say a word to me. I said "Excuse me, may I ask what that was all about"? He said "What"? I said "You doing that to my bag". He said "It checks for chemicals". I bit my tongue from saying anything further, for fear that I wouldn't get on the flight, lol.

So I arrive in Montreal with an hour to spare before the connecting flight to Fredericton. Good thing I knew where I was going from landing previously in Montreal. I found the customer service desk and they said they couldn't give me a seat number because the flight was over sold and that I would have to go down to the gate and they would call my name if a seat became available. I was so pi$$ed off at this point. I've heard of getting bumped on a flight, but never getting bumped mid connection. I could understand if they bumped me originally in Hamilton and I had to stay an extra day or something, but bumping someone mid connection is ridiculous. I was angry too because I had a boarding pass in my hand that was useless.

I went down to the gate area and talked to an airline agent by my gate and asked her if she could give me a seat number. She said no, not until they took the flight off sale. I said "Off sale? That flight is sold out - that's why I'm talking to you right now. I have a reservation on that flight, a boarding pass in my hand and you won't give me a seat. You're telling me you're still selling that flight?!?" The woman looked at me as if she's never been told this before. I tell you, it's flipping ridiculous what the airlines do. So I go and sit down at the gate as instructed and wait to see if my name will get called. I'm thinking in my head "This is wonderful, I have no cellphone to call and tell Ryan to not come to the airport, I'll have to foot the bill for a hotel room and cabs two and from the airport....".

Luckily the crazy lady who I was talking to (the one who was still selling the flight) called my name. I go up to the counter and she's all polite to me now and asks if I would like a window or an aisle seat. In my head I think to myself "Why should there be a choice, obviously someone didn't show up who they gave a seat assignment to, so I should be getting their seat, unless they just like to cause undue stress to people and tell them they may or may not get back home". I said"window" disgruntled and took my new "official" boarding pass as she tore my first one up in front of me.

I finally arrive in Fredericton after all that rigamarole and Ryan is there to greet me. We go home and relax for a bit and then go out to dinner, since we missed Valentine's Day together. We went to the new Jungle Jim's. It was really good, but very slow - which is to be expected with a new restaurant.

It's good to be home (although it was hard to come back to work yesterday after being off) but I miss Carrie, Chris and Brayden already. Luckily, Carrie is coming home with Brayden for Easter in a couple of weeks.